basilbias.com

“It is not a lack of energy consumption that makes [us] unhappy.”

-Arne Naess

To ask an American to give something up is a delicate proposition. Our sense of entitlement runs deep, rooted as it is in our conception of freedom, and is constantly force-fed by commercial interests to whom unchecked economic expansion is the only viable existence. To be forced to consume less seems a violation of our individual rights; to choose to consume less, contrary to our de facto value system.

Obviously, there is a great divide between the (overt) values we are taught as children and the goals we grow up to embody. [1] We fool ourselves into thinking that we’ve already taken clichéd lessons like ‘love is more important than money’ to heart, but at the back of our minds the thought that we’d be happy if only we could afford that trip to Europe taunts us. Our materialistic goals survive because no one but the most crudely out of touch (like the former Enron execs) has the audacity to articulate them.

I once read about a study[2] that found that no matter their income level, Americans always seem to think that they could be happy with about twenty percent more money than they have. What does that say about our national character? Not only are we under the illusion that money buys happiness, but even when we do eventually move into a higher income bracket and find ourselves as unhappy as ever, our thinking doesn’t change: we still believe that just a little bit more would do the trick. We are an upwardly delusional nation.

It’s no wonder then that Americans generally ignore pleas to reign in spending and reduce carbon emissions. [3] Not only is the observable disconnect between our ideals and our actions encouraged by our consumerist culture, the pursuit of happiness (however misguided or superficial) is a fundamental right in this country, after all.

But I’m going to come out with a harsh moral statement anyway: we do not have the right to take anywhere near as much as we do. Our over-consumption is destroying the planet, and endangering all of the life forms (present and future, us included) that inhabit it. And our insatiable resource depletion is not even making us happy.

All of the focus recently on the energy crisis, and on the various technological innovations that will supposedly get us out of it, entirely misses the point. As Arne Naess, a Norwegian philosopher, says “We can see that instead of an energy crisis, we have a crisis of consumption- we have more than enough energy. In countries like the United States, the crisis is rather one of lifestyle, of our traditions of thoughtlessness and confusion, of our inability to see what is and is not worthwhile in life.”

Really think for a minute about what makes you happy. I doubt any of the daily conveniences that we refer to as our “lifestyle” because we are so afraid to give them up (as if automobiles and clothes dryers could constitute a life) appears on your list. If they do, go get an oil change or clean out your lint filter or something. Because it’s high time we recognize that many aspects of our so-called lifestyle are not only harmful to our environment, but also to our own well-being and happiness. For instance, think how much more habitable and community-oriented (not to mention healthy) a town could be if it were designed not for cars, but for people. Although the prospect of living without the luxuries we’re accustomed to is scary at first, have we really thought this all the way through?

I really believe that if we dig a little bit deeper, beneath all our materialistic fantasies and preoccupations, we’ll find the wisdom and the desire to change.

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[1] Obviously, fairy tales and Disney movies are incredibly problematic and much more reflective of our culture than they purport to be. For instance, during the course of the story, they usually require the hero(ine) to learn that one must follow one’s heart, even if it means rebelling and/or risking poverty. However, in the end, that lesson is undermined by the fact that the hero(ine)’s heart-following almost invariably leads to great riches, which pleases the authority figures the hero(ine) was rebelling against in the first place.

[2] I can’t find the original article, but here’s one my mom found supporting my point. It states

Over the life cyle [...] as income increases and levels off, happiness remains unchanged, contradicting the inference that income and well-being go together [...] Material aspirations increase commensurately with income, and, as a result, one gets no nearer to or farther away from the attainment of one’s material goals, and well-being is unchanged.

Thanks Mom!

[3]Americans are the greatest consumers of energy per capita in the world, but inhabitants of other industrialized nations also consume way more than their fair share.

My dad has long been a proponent of the demise of the incandescent bulb. He bought the first compact-in-name-only fluorescents that came out, but the rest of my family banished them to the basement when we discovered them sticking unattractively out of the ceiling fixtures. For years after that, my dad contented himself with maintaining strict surveillance of our lighting habits, swooping in to turn off the offending light (and usually to castigate our appalling waste of resources) the minute we left a room. I don’t know about the rest of my family, but I grew defiant, refusing to care about the lights I increasingly left on. To my dad’s dismay, I even stopped listening to his enumerations of the virtues of the LED (of which it has many, apparently, though the technology seems to be perpetually a few years off.)

After years of trying to forget that the lights I left on were connected through a series of wires and coal-burning power plants to global warming, I learned that the electric grid is constantly bringing power stations on and offline to meet the exact demand for electricity. For some reason the image of my turning on a light and one more power plant being fired up to supply it with energy hit me, and I went out and bought enough compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs) to replace every incandescent in my apartment.

For about six months, I felt practically angelic with all my halos of fluorescence. I turned them off religiously every time I left a room, even if for only a few minutes. Finally, illumination my dad could be proud of.

Then the first one burnt out. I figured it was just defective. Then a few more went, and I learned that they contained mercury and I couldn’t just throw them in the trash. I was disgusted. About half of the bulbs I bought had burned out within one year. The package had promised ten.

The Energy Star website states

If every American home replaced just one light bulb with an ENERGY STAR qualified bulb, we would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year, more than $600 million in annual energy costs, and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of more than 800,000 cars.

I was thoroughly convinced that consumer adoption of CFLs must play a role in combating climate change. But how could their astonishing energy efficiency be worth it if they didn’t even last as long as normal bulbs?

It turns out that many factors contribute to premature deaths of CFLs. First off is the quality of the bulb: in general, the cheaper the brand, the lower the quality (funny how we Americans just can’t seem to grasp that correlation) and the less likely the light will last as long as it says it will.[1] Secondly, turning the lights on and off a lot tends to shorten their lifespan.[2] Lastly, installing CFLs in enclosed and/or upside-down fixtures, where the heat gets trapped, can be harmful to their internal electronics.

Armed with this knowledge, and the knowledge that the amount of mercury they contain is equivalent to that of a watch battery and can be recycled, I’m now resolved to give them a second try.[3] Stay tuned for riveting updates on my new light bulbs!

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[1] The bulbs I bought were MaxLites and Greenlites that were Energy Star approved. They were relatively cheap, but they were also PG&E subsidized. For the record, we left the remaining CFLs in our old apartment when we moved out, so I don’t know how much longer they lasted. And we do have two that still work: a Greenlite in a desk lamp that is generally used once a day for 2-3 hours, and a MaxLite that’s rarely used at all.

[2] According to Wikipedia, “The life of a CFL is significantly shorter if it is only turned on for a few minutes at a time: In the case of a 5-minute on/off cycle the lifespan of a CFL can be up to 85% shorter, reducing its lifespan to the level of an incandescent lamp. The US Energy Star program says to leave them on at least 15 minutes at a time to mitigate this problem.”

[3] By the year 2020, barring unforseen breakthroughs in lighting technology, we’ll have to use CFLs anyway, since less-efficient bulbs will have been phased out by The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. In my opinion, 13 years is an awful lot of time to replace a few light bulbs, but at least we’re headed in the right direction.

It’s pretty evident by now how bad plastic water bottles are for the environment (and your health.)[1] But it seems to have escaped many eco-minded people that disposable water filters aren’t much better, since they’re thrown out too. Thanks to a little bit of online pressuring, and their newly-found desire to appear green, Oakland-based Clorox, the owner of the North American  division of Brita, has finally agreed to collect their filters for recycling. You can now deposit your used Brita filters at Whole Foods (but try to avoid shopping there- just because they sell natural food doesn’t mean they should take over the country.)

By the way, if you live in the East Bay, there is no need to use water filters unless you have lead pipes, because we have some of the best drinking water in the country.

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[1] Besides the most obvious fact that disposable water bottles are a huge waste of plastic, they also deplete natural springs (which harms ecosystems), take vast amounts of energy to be transported, and are ending up in the Texas-sized Pacific Garbage Patch (truly disturbing.) Furthermore, the water they contain is unregulated quality-wise and can even harbor chemicals from the bottle itself (no wonder it tastes like plastic…)

While the stimulus bill (that just passed in the House) falls short of the aid our country desperately needs in many respects, there is some good news:

“It’s rare for a compromise to make a bill better, but that’s what happened yesterday,” said Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters. “Tens of billions of dollars for clean energy, energy efficiency, public transportation, scientific research and a smart energy grid remain. Tens of billions set to be wasted on coal and other outdated energy sources were removed.”

In total, the bill provides about 62.2 billion in “direct spending on green initiatives.” Read the full article from grist.org here.

A thought-provoking and totally inspiring talk on cradle-to-cradle design[1] by William McDonough (co-author of Cradle to Cradle):

If you really don’t have 20 minutes to expand your worldview, then you can watch the condensed version, which is pretty chopped up, but leaves most of the main points intact:

Here it is, my proposal for post-guilt environmental rhetoric: the hard-line inspirational environmental challenge. The script would go something like this:

We are the dominant species on the planet. We are so powerful that we are altering our planet’s chemical composition without even trying. In just fifty years, we went from being excited about the invention of white out[1] to being unimpressed by the ability to publish novels instantaneously from our cell phones. Our behavior evolves more rapidly than that of any other life form on Earth. Our intelligence can be shortsighted because it is so quick that we often make major decisions before all the data is in. But now that the data on climate change is indisputable, it is ridiculous to think that we are not capable of engineering a way out.

So take your apathy and shove it, because this is no time for playing the victim card. There have been doomsayers in every generation, but we are still here. Yes, Al Gore’s graph is scary.[2] But it just goes to show the sheer speed with which humans can change. Let’s get off our asses and postpone the apocalypse one more time!

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[1] Some related but useless trivia: the inventor’s son was a member of the Monkees.

[2] Here is the only image of the graph I could find, oddly enough. (I thought it was a pretty dramatic moment in the movie, but I guess no one else was impressed enough to put it online.) Ignore the scientific-sounding critique of Gore’s interpretation of the graph that accompanies it. Instead, see ‘Climate Myths, Half-truths and Misconceptions’ in The Hot Topic by Gabrielle Walker and Sir David King for a clear explanation of the correlation of CO2 levels in ice-core samples and global temperature.

In the introduction to his book, Heat, George Monbiot jokes that if his book doesn’t serve its intended purpose of energizing people to fight global warming, then at the very least he hopes “that [he] might make people so depressed about the state of the planet that they stay in bed all day, thereby reducing their consumption of fossil fuels.” Unfortunately, not bothering to get out of bed often seems like the logical conclusion of the guilt-tripping that is presented to us as environmental education. Implicit in messages such as ‘conserve water,’ ’save energy,’ ’stop driving,’ and ‘buy nothing,’ is ’stop living: you’re wasting precious resources.’ Progress is not being made by harping on the idea that we should confess and repent our every carbon-releasing action.

As Catholics well know (or should have figured out by now), guilt doesn’t work so well in preventing sin. You don’t feel guilty before you do something. You may feel a little twinge as you contemplate doing it, or when you realize, yeah, you are gonna go through with it anyway. You may feel a pang or two in the pit of your stomach as you’re doing it if you’re sensitive (and if whatever you’re doing isn’t as enjoyable as you thought it would be.) The full-on confrontation with your guilty conscience, however, doesn’t occur until after it’s much too late to do anything but confess your sins (if you believe god is the ultimate judge) or deal with the consequences (if you live in the real world.)

I would liken the effectiveness of guilt to the effectiveness of a newt’s poison. A newt has no teeth, and no claws. It is completely defenseless, except for the fact that it is poisonous when ingested. But causing its predator stomach pains[1] after it’s been eaten doesn’t do much for the poor newt. If its predator learns its lesson and never eats a newt again, other newts will have been spared. But the one who was eaten is still dead. Likewise, the experience of guilt after you’ve done something you knew was wrong can be instrumental in modifying your future behavior. The only problem with employing guilt in environmental rhetoric then, is that, in the case of global warming, we have only one newt. By the time the full weight of remorse settles on the collective shoulders of the human race, by the time we’re actually feeling the consequences, the planet will be too far gone for any behavior modification to do much good at all.

Emphasizing our culpability in raising the global temperature served its purpose when we were still neck-to-neck with nut jobs claiming it was due to natural causes. But no one at all credible is denying that humans are responsible for climate change now. So we’ve got to stop twisting the knife, and move on to the next tactic.[2] No more comparing American babies’ resource consumption to that of any other nationality of baby. No more referring to the projected increase in global population in any time period as another China or India, or putting the size of another fallen arctic ice shelf in terms of the size of any US state.[3] We are (mostly) all painfully aware of these statistics; they’ve lost their shock value. Now they’re just depressing, and they’re driving us to bed.

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[1] Actually, at least one type of newt produces enough toxins to kill an adult human if swallowed, but for the sake of the metaphor, let’s just say the predator doesn’t die.

[2] My ideas on the next tactic coming soon! I promise to always follow up any ranting or criticizing with constructive ideas for solutions (unless I was talking about Dick Cheney.)

[3] Though, I have to admit I kinda love the awful jolt of reading statistics like this for the first time. Figures, in their conciseness, pack a uniquely powerful punch, even when you’re certain there’s more to it than they let on (and of course there always is…)

Parts two and three of the list of things I do to live more sustainably.  See my numerous caveats in the intro to part one below.

Part 2: Eating like you Belong to your Ecosystem

1. Buy local organic produce[1]

2. Cook with in-season vegetables

3. Save inedible vegetable scraps in a container in the freezer to make soup stock[2]

4. When you cook, make extra to feed your roommates and friends and to eat for lunch the next day

5. Compost[3]

Part 3: Wasting not

1. Wash your clothes in cold water and air-dry them

2. Shower only when you have to, and time your showers

3. Don’t flush every time[4]

4. Don’t let the water run while scrubbing dishes or brushing your teeth[5]. Use a high efficiency dishwasher if you have one (after you’ve filled it up all the way)

5. Sweep hard floors and shake out area rugs outside rather than vacuuming them

6. Rather than throwing perfectly useful things away, donate them or find someone who could use them[6]

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[1] Or local OR organic, if those are your only options. If I have to choose between the two, I tend to go for local, but that’s debatable.

[2] To make soup stock: save scraps of onions, shallots, garlic, leeks, chives and scallions, parsnips, carrots, burdock and turnips, mushrooms, celery, fennel, squash and tomatoes in the freezer. Avoid cruciferous vegetables like cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and greens. When you have a good 5 or 6 cups of scraps, sauté them in a little oil for a few minutes, and then add the water. Boil for an hour or so. Strain into a second pot, mashing the vegetables to get all the juices out. Et voila! (Thanks to Peter Berley.)

[3] The city of Oakland makes this easy for me, since they collect food scraps and yard waste, and all I have to do is put them in the right bin. I do wonder about toxins from things like milk cartons and pizza boxes that you’re also allowed to throw in, though.

[4] Not actually gross, I swear!

[5] This video changed my life, at the age of 5.

[6] Free stuff on craigslist gets positively gobbled up, in my experience.

It’s depressingly clear that we are not going to simply reduce, reuse and recycle ourselves out of this mess, that some much more fundamental and widespread changes are going to have to be instituted (by government regulation, not just voluntarily) to make a real difference. But taking small, everyday steps towards a less wasteful lifestyle is not futile. Even if all the little things you do to save resources are effectively canceled out by stepping on a plane and flying halfway across the country once a year (as I do)[1], there is still great value in broadening the scope of your everyday considerations.

Lists of little creative ways of “going green,” will not save the world on their own. In fact, all the books popping up with bubbly titles like “It’s Easy Being Green,” “Green Chic” and “Go Green, Live Rich” may have the opposite of their intended effect if they distract people from the need for a massive environmental overhaul of our civilization with fun and practical eco-tips.

However, I like to think that when I make small changes in my daily behavior, I am methodically unlearning the dangerous view of resources as something to be exploited and of human actions as disconnected from the natural world. To start a revolution, we have to start living as if our actions matter.

So here is the first part of my list, of things I actually do, not of things that would be good to do in theory. Ignore the prescriptive tense (which seemed like the most natural way to phrase it); I really wrote this to share ideas and generate thought.

Part 1: Eschewing Disposables

1. Don’t replace your cell phone just because you’re eligible for a free upgrade. Likewise, use all electronics as long as possible, even when they become embarrassingly retro[2]

2. Use cloth napkins & cloth shopping bags

3. Cut old worn-out shirts into rags and use them instead of paper towels

4. Save plastic bread and produce bags and use them instead of buying Ziplocs and sandwich bags

5. Use a menstrual cup and washable cloth pads

6. Use loose tea leaves and a tea ball rather than disposable tea bags; use a reusable coffee filter

7. Save and reuse envelopes, cardboard boxes, packing peanuts, glass jars and plastic containers