Truffula Tuft

Eco To-Go: Start Where You Are

Treehugger posted a couple of ideas from EcoAgents for all you take-out fans - next time you pick up your Thai food/pizza/cinnamon roll - refuse the extra packaging (napkins, forks, chopsticks, plastic bag, ketchup packets). Ask for "Just the food please" and then use your own reusable bag, cloth napkin or fork if needed. The next step is to aquire (and then remember to bring) your own food container. Refuse the styrofoam - it takes 400 years to biodegrade! Tiffin boxes are stackable lidded stainless steel food containers. Reusable Bags sells one along with sustainable bamboo utensils in a cool little pouch/napkin. Tupperware would work too.

And a word of advice from Casaubons Book - Start where you are:

Like everyone who comes to the peak oil and climate change movement, I have a past. Perhaps all of those reading this blog have a perfectly ethical one - you've lived your whole life in a one-room cabin lighted by your own hand-dipped beeswax candles. But I don't. I flew. I bought groceries from the supermarket. I had Barbies when I was a kid, - I'm pretty sure the plastic from will outlive my grandkids - and I didn't always fully understand the implications of population. And so I start writing from a post-lapsarian, fallen position, in which I have consumed more than my share, done environmental harm, and contributed to quite a few problems - including overpopulation. I admire those of you who come to this from a different perspective - who have never harmed the environment, and have always made wise choices. I have no difficulty at all admitting that you are better people than I am.

For the rest of us, we start from where we are. If you worked in the defense industry, or you had more than a just share of children, you bought designer clothes made by slaves, you burned oil that warmed the planet and that nigerian peasants were murdered for - the only thing we can do is to go forward from where we are. The thing is, if the only people who are allowed to speak are the ones who have always done the right thing, and always lived the right life, it will be a very quiet place. Me, I'm for having everyone speak. It isn't that I'm suggesting absolution - each of us has to deal with our prior impact in our own way. But angst about what is done is an indulgence I don't think we have time for - there's simply too much useful work to be done.

peace,
Jennifer

World Water Day

It's World Water Day 2007, an annual, international day of recognition of the world's most precious resource, established by the UN after the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. The theme this year is "Coping with Water Scarcity."

To help tune into water issues, take this quick quiz from the BBC. How much do you appreciate the finer points of the liquid that sustains life?

Here's a good list of water conservation tips comes from the Mono Lake committee.

A couple of them:
-- If you're taking a shower, don't waste cold water while waiting for hot water to reach the shower head. Catch that water in a container to use on your outside plants or to flush your toilet. Saves 200 to 300 gallons a month.
-- Don't let the faucet run while you clean vegetables. Rinse them in a filled sink or pan. Saves 150 to 250 gallons a month.

This site has a beautiful concept: to provide "resources for living in the gentle power of gratefulness, which restores courage, reconciles relationships, and heals our Earth". They have a section called "Gratefulness for Water" which is where I found the quiz above. In it you can find 4 simple steps to encourage gratitude and action on behalf of life-giving water.

Last but not least, WorldChanging has a great list of organizations and current projects dedicated to clean water, water conservation and related ideas here

drip drip drip
peace,
Jennifer

Spring #4 of this Bloody & Illegal War

Our little apple tree has burst into beautiful white flowers for the first time. The Fig has got baby leaves on it. Spring is here in So. Cal. This is the 4th Spring since our country, under false pretenses, attacked Iraq. It's cost 3,210 US lives, 258 Coalition lives, and 64,729 Iraqi lives so far. It's cost $408,890,275,315 dollars so far.

Michael McPhearson, father of a soldier in Iraq, put the situation very well. He wrote about his first act of civil disobedience, taken last month to protest the war:

We are at a critical moment. Congress will soon vote for a $90 billion appropriation that could fund the war until the end of President Bush’s term. After this vote, Congress will have little power to end the war. We need to flood Congress with letters, phone calls, emails and faxes demanding they end funding. We must show up at their door in force. If enough of us sit in, they will end the war. If we don’t, they won’t. Maintaining a majority and a gaining the presidency is the priority of the Democrats. Ours is ending the war.

Here's an easy way to do just that: send an one-click letter to Congress saying NO MORE MONEY for this war! Next week the House will finally vote on this bill. Despite some good things in it, it would still give the President $90 Billion to keep sending troops. Tell your member of Congress "Sorry, when we say end the war, we mean end the war. Please vote against the Iraq war funding bill next week."
c/o True Majority

And we have to go to the protests AGAIN! Starhawk, one of my faves, wrote a moving letter just today about why:

I’ve got a garden to plant, and a thousand things I’d rather do, but once again this spring, I’m gearing up for action. The peace marches have become boring, strident and predictable. To be absolutely honest, I hate marching around in the street chanting the same slogans I’ve been chanting for forty years. I’m going, anyway. I’m so tired of die-ins and sit-ins and predictable speeches shouted over bullhorns that I could scream if I weren’t hearing in my ears the far more bitter screams of the dying. I’m even tired of trying to drum and sing and make the protest into a creative act of magic. It’s not creative—it’s a damn protest, and I have real creative work to do: books to write, courses to teach, and rituals to plan. Nonetheless, Sunday will find me trudging along on the peace march and Monday will find me lying down on Market Street in some picturesque fashion with a group of friends and our requisite banners.

Why? So I can look myself in the mirror without flinching, and answer to those hundred thousand ghosts. But more than that, because it’s time, friends. Public opinion has turned—now we must make it mean something real. It’s time to send the Democrats back to their committee meetings saying, “Hell, I can’t even get into my office—the halls are blocked and the streets are choked with people angry about this war.” Time to send the Republicans off to their caucuses murmuring quietly “If we continue to support this disaster we’re going to lose every semblance of power or popular support we once possessed.” Time to let the rest of the world know that dissent is alive and well here in the U.S.A. Time to regenerate a movement as nature regenerates life in the spring, with the rising energy that alone can turn our interminable trudging into a dance of defiance.

So I'm asking you all again, please go to your local peace march, vigil, sit-in, rally. There is a big one in LA on Saturday:

ALL OUT: March 17 Mass Anti-War Protest in LA
Live Music by Ozomatli, Ben Harper & Jackson Browne
Stop the War on Iraq! Fund People's Needs, Not War!
Saturday, March 17, 12 noon
Gather Hollywood and Vine
March to Hollywood and Highland
find others around the country here

MoveOn is also helping organize over 1000 vigils on Monday night, the actual anniversary of the start of the war. There's one within walking distance of our house. We'll be there:
19 Mar at 6:30 PM
Candlelight Vigil
Veterans Memorial
Figueroa Ave. and York Bl.
Find one near you, or host one yourself, here

I'll finish with another quote from Starhawk:

Act because hundreds of thousands who are now alive are marked for death if this war goes on or expands into Iran. Act because every perfumed flower and every bud that breaks into leaf this calls to us to cherish and safeguard life.

peace,
Jennifer

Eco Period

Here's a shocking statistic: 14 billion feminine hygiene pads, tampons and applicators go into North American landfills every year. Here's another : Over 170,000 tampon applicators were collected along U.S. coastal areas between 1998 and 1999. (Center for Marine Conservation)

Damn! That's a lot of mostly plastic trash. Many of my friends have made the committment to using washable diapers on their babies for environmental reasons. One baby in disposable diapers will contribute at least 1 ton of waste to the local landfill. But what about the mommies' disposables?

According to Wikipedia:
Kotex lists the materials used in their Maxi and Regular disposable pads as being made "mostly of wood cellulose fibers", with the "outer cover and the moisture-proof shields are made with a moisture-proof plastic such as polypropylene or polyethylene". Their tampons are made from a blend of "natural cotton and synthetic rayon, with a polypropylene cover."

Reusable cloth pads have a much lighter footprint in raw materials and energy used. I've been (mostly) using them for years. I invite the menstruating females amongst you, if you don't already, to take another step in taking better care of the earth - buy or make some reusable sanitary pads and try them out. I personally think they are softer and more comfortable.

Still have doubts? This is a great link - 8 myths about washable menstrual pads

Get 'em here:
Gladrags
Lunapads (the picture above is one of theirs)
Make your own (pattern) I've heard that making them out of hemp fabric is the best, least bulky, most absorbent. Haven't tried it though.

For an interesting side trip, check out the Museum of Menstruation.

And now for an action alert: 7th Generation is sending organic cotton tampons and chlorine-free pads to women's shelters for a donation. While it would be better if they were sending reusables, it must be tough enough to be in a women's shelter without worrying about finding a place to wash out and dry your pads. Those are the times it makes sense to use disposables, and at least the 7th Generation ones are not plastic. Send them a couple bucks if you can.

Jennifer

>>>>>>>>>>
thanks to Anna, via her friend Peggy for sending this:

Women’s shelters in the U.S. go through thousands of tampons and pads monthly, and, while agencies generally assist with everyday necessities such as toilet paper, diapers, and clothing, this most
basic need is often overlooked. You and I may take our monthly trips down the feminine care aisle for granted, but, for women in shelters, a box of tampons is five dollars they can’t spare. Here’s some good news: you can help us contribute to rectifying this situation by making a virtual donation below! For each virtual donation, Seventh Generation will send a pack of organic cotton tampons or chlorine-free pads to a shelter in your
state.

The Theory of Anyway

"We must always ask the question - Is this contributing to the repair of the world, or its destruction?"

I feel a lot less crazy after reading Sharon Astyk's blog Casaubonsbook and I'm grateful to her. She's the one that wrote that piece about Slow Clothing. She had a wonderful bit about the Theory of Anyway last month that I wanted to share. It addresses the feelings of anxiety I have which come from the relentless question - should I spend a lot of time, energy and resources preparing my family (potentially even wrenching them from their happy home) for the myriad of crisis I see coming our way (take your pick - peak oil, global warming, pandemics, encroaching police state...) or maybe it's all bullshit. Or maybe technology WILL save us. Or maybe whatever I do won't be enough or it will be the wrong thing, or ....

Her point is, that

95% of what is needed to resolve the coming crisis in energy depletion, or climate change, or whatever is what we should do anyway, and when in doubt about how to change, we should change our lives to reflect what we should be doing "Anyway." Living more simply, more frugally, using less, leaving reserves for others, reconnecting with our food and our community, these are things we should be doing because they are the right thing to do on many levels. That they also have the potential to save our lives is merely a side benefit (a big one, though).

She got this Theory of Anyway idea from her friend Pat Meadows

She goes on to say

This is, I think, a deeply powerful way of thinking because it is a deeply moral way of thinking - we would like to think of ourselves as moral people, but we tend to think of moral questions as the obvious ones "should I steal or pay?" "Should I hit or talk?" But the real and most essential moral questions of our lives are the questions we rarely ask of the things we do every day, "Should I eat this?" "Where should I live and how?" "What should I wear?" "How should I keep warm/cool?" We think of these questions as foregone conclusions - I should keep warm X way because that's the kind of furnace I have, or I should eat this because that's what's in the grocery store. Pat's Theory of Anyway turns this around, and points out that what we do, the way we live, must pass ethical muster first - we must always ask the question "Is this contributing to the repair of the world, or its destruction."

Pat Meadows' blog post has this wonderful quote, taking as it's premise that we are all selfish, the issue is whether we are wise or unwise selfish people:

His Holiness, the Dalai Lama describes two kinds of selfish people: the unwise and the wise. Unwise selfish people think only of themselves, and the result is confusion and pain. Wise selfish people know that the best thing they can do for themselves is to be there for others. As a result, they experience joy. (When Things Fall Apart, Pema Chodron, Shambhala Publishing, Boston, 1997, p. 88).

Which reminds me to look at the tattered piece of paper taped over my desk, with the poem by Rabindranath Tagore:

I slept and I dreamt that life was joy.
I awoke and I saw that life was service.
I acted and I beheld that service was joy.

peace,
Jennifer