Do As I Say Not as I Do

I have very few beefs with very few people. I like to think that I can see both sides of argument while not backing down.

However, there is one person who raises my hackles like no one else. And that is David Owen, author of Green Metropolis: Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less are the Keys to Sustainability. Owen's book's premise is actually quite good and he gave me a lot to think about. See my review of his concepts in my other blog, http://futureurbanplanner.blogspot.com

Where my blood pressure starts to rise is when he says that he doesn't live in some New York high-rise, like the ones that he espouses. He lives in suburban Connecticut. In a single family home. And drives a car. This flies in the face of his thesis who says that New Yorkers are technically the greenest citizens in the USA, as they live in high-density housing, which requires less energy, they consume less as they have smaller living spaces, and often don't own cars.

I was livid as I continued to slog through his words and waited, gnashing my teeth, to find out his rationalization to live in the suburban countryside. Finally, he revealed that if he (and his wife) moved (back) to New York (they had lived there as newlyweds in the 1970s but moved when they had their firstborn) then some Hummer-driving, energy-sucking, lights on all the time people would move in to their former home. That was lame.

Owen gets on his high horse about why we should live in the cities. But he fails to take into consideration that we are socially conditioned to "want" to live in the suburbs. It's subliminal messaging of an epic scale, that has been going on for years. Even the chic urban living lifestyle catalogs like Crate and Barrel aren't espousing the merits of the city, they're parading a lifestyle and wanting you to literally buy into it.

In contrast, Metroburbia USA by Paul L. Knox chronicles the American aspiration to live in bigger and bigger homes and the cultural norms and messages that tell us that a house in the burbs is the ultimate achievement. There are whole industries whose sole purpose is to get us to buy a house in the suburbs and fill it with useless stuff, somehow thinking that these new shiny things will make us happy. And they do. But it is only temporarily. And the cycle repeats itself.

I don't mind pathochuli smelling, Birkenstock wearing, tie dye enthusiasts telling me that I kill a polar bear every time I turn on the ignition. Because if they live 100% by their beliefs, composting their poo and living lightly on the land I should be slapped on the wrist for going into Target to buy tape and coming out with an armload of plastic crap.

But I am for moderation in all things and yelling at people doesn't help especially when they see the world totally different than you.

Education, not lecturing, is the way to go if we want people to listen to what we have to say.

We've Got No Trouble When We're Livin in the Bubble

I've discussed the concept of eco anxiety, especially as a symptom of environmental information overload. But how far can you go reducing your output, especially when all you've ever known is a conventional mindset?

Although I've been environmentally minded since I was small, I have been pretty conventional in my thinking. Recycling is good. Not recycling bad. Buy second-hand or eco-friendly products when it suits your needs. Eat organic. I thought that I was taking a drastic step by deliberately giving up ownership of a car for the past three years.

But then I read No Impact Man: the Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet, and the Discoveries He Makes About Himself and Our Way of Life in the Process by: Colin Beavan and rethought how extreme could I be in reducing my waste output? Colin Beavan

took drastic measures to cut his carbon footprint to the point of seeing if he could reduce his waste output all the way down to zero. This includes no toilet paper. No elevators. Extreme measures.

I had a very conventional childhood- single family home, big front lawn, driven around in cars, etc., I never thought about how spraying chemicals on a lawn to keep it that pristine shade of green would get rinsed off and dribble down into the sewers or down into the water table. I didn't think how every time I got in a car it would generate greenhouse gas emissions or those cool rainbow colored puddles that you see after a rainfall on the asphalt parking lot (my favorite!) is bad because it's runoff from cars that stay on impermeable surfacing before eventually joining the pesticides and other chemicals that went off our lawns. That's just how things are.

And a lot of America feels the same way and live their lives the way I did. But what if we broke out of our conventional mindset? What if we all carried not only our own renewable bags, but cloth napkins, instead of taking handfuls of paper napkins and throwing them away five minutes later. What if we only ever bought second-hand clothes, books, appliances, etc.,? What if? ...

I'll be the first to admit that I love driving a car. I don't like being stuck in rush hour traffic. But I relish the opportunity to get into a vehicle that will take me wherever I want to go, to go zooming down the highway with nothing but a clear stretch of asphalt before me (and not a cop in sight)! I love paper napkins. I love toilet paper and escalators and the other modern conveniences of life. I don't like thinking about the trees that were cut down, the chemicals that were dumped into the tree pulp to soften it and mold it into a product that is soft enough to wipe away the ketchup smudge on my cheek. I don't like to think about all of the chemicals that were mixed to make the plastic heart bracelet that I love and wear four days out of the week on my wrist, next to my skin, its bright colors making me happy.

To change we have to take a good long look at the real impact even our most mundane daily choices have on our health, our time, our planet- all of which are irreplaceable. What do we throw away, what do we drive, how many appliances do we have running at a given time, etc.,

I'll be the first to admit that it's hard to break out one mindset, especially when you don't see anything inherently wrong with it. But when you see how big an impact even a small action, like leaving the water running while you brush your teeth and how many gallons of water it wastes over a week, a month, a year, it may spur you to take a different course.

Keep Calm and Carry On, Now Panic and Freak Out

My 3-14-2011 post entitled, "Eco-anxiety" discussed the subject of the same name.

When one starts to delve into the research of what is really wrong with the planet it's very, very easy to get overwhelmed fast.

This was highlighted, or spoofed, depending on your point of view, in Modern Family's second season episode called, "Our Children, Ourselves," in which the type A middle child Alex shouted at her parents in disbelief, "there are birds that are falling out of the sky for no reason!" She later announced, "Cows are dying and no one knows why!" She was stunned that they weren't as alarmed as she was.

Sometimes it feels like being educated and concerned about the environment one is an "End is Near" prophet and no one is listening. Other times one may have good intentions and want to convert people, but one comes off as a fascist or holier-than-thou. But neither of these prompts permanent action in others.

The question remains, how to spur action in others without yelling or coming off as crazy.

That is the focus of this blog. Feedback is always welcome.

Super Nerd

I'm an unabashed zoning nerd in the planning world. I get excited reading about other cities' municipal codes and how they approach parking, special zones, watersheds, etc.,

But now I've morphed into a whole new kind of nerd, solid waste management nerd.

No, not poo. Garbage. Garbage of all kinds. And does all waste have to go to waste?

My interest started reading William "Bill" McDonough's book, Cradle to Cradle. McDonough proposes a world where we don't do less bad, but we do more good. Shoes wouldn't get thrown away, they'd be sent back to the manufacturer who would reuse all of the materials. Couches could be re-cycled, not downcycled or upcycled, but literally re-cycled.

My nerd flag grew bigger when a representative from the EPA came to visit my school and talked about anaerobic digestors- taking food waste and turning it into energy. Even taking dairy waste (OK this time, poo, or cow farts/methane and harnessing the inherent energy) The wheels in my head began spinning furiously with possibilities.

Some day, hopefully, maybe in Utopia, we can have a zero waste world.

I was stupid excited when I discovered that LA is making advances in solid waste alternative technology. If you're as nerdy as I am, feel free to read on-

http://planning.lacity.org/Code_Studies/SWAT.pdf

Eco-Anxiety

There's a new affliction that's being passed around and it's unclear how contagious it is. Thank God it's not anthrax, SARS, or bird flu (remember them?!)

This one is called "eco-anxiety"

I admit that I was a little miffed when I Google searched it and someone had already taken the concept as the title for their own blog (http://eco-anxiety.blogspot.com) I'd thought that I'd cleverly come up with this new concept. But alas, no.

Even if you've never heard of it, don't fret. Someone you know may soon be diagnosed with it as it's even gaining traction within the field of psychology. (http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/eco-anxiety.htm)

While you wait for someone within your close circle to fall victim, you can read some highly entertaining books (all of which I've read and highly recommend) about people who've tried to make the planet a little greener (and yes also made a little profit off their sometimes ill-advised but sincere exploits). These include in no particular order: Farewell My Subaru: an Epic Adventure in Local Living by Doug Fine, Almost Green: How I Saved 1/16th of a Billionth of the Planet by: James Glave, and No Impact Man: the Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet and the Discoveries He Makes About Himself and Our Way of Life,

Mom Will This Chicken Give Me Man Boobs?My Confused, Guilt-Ridden and Stressful Struggle to Raise a Green Family by: Robyn Harding, Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally by: Alisa Smith and J.B. Mackinnon, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: a Year of Food Life by: Barbara Kingsolver, Camille Kingsolver, and Steven L. Hopp and Farm City: the Education of an Urban Farmer by: Novella Carpenter

Eco anxiety doesn't have a true clinical definition, but suffice to say, it's the feeling that no matter what you do for the planet- from changing all of your conventional light bulbs to CFLs (compact fluorescent lights) to living in a rammed earth house completely off the grid- it's never enough.

This is a shame that we live in a society that short of being dead we think that (to paraphrase the Police) every breath we take, every move we make will have a devastating impact upon the planet. And being dead isn't better- there were carbon emissions raising the wood that made your coffin, fumes emitted sealing. And it's not like cremation's much better- all that smoke that comes up and out, not much better. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

While I don't think that there is any magic solution for our carbon footprints, we can shrink the size of our individual footprint, and collectively, through our purchasing power and demanding of our elected bodies, we can mandate that industry does the same.

As Walt Kelly, creator of the cartoon character Pogo may have observed, "We have met the enemy and he is us" -fittingly for an Earth Day poster in 1970 But that doesn't mean it has to stay that way. http://www.igopogo.com/we_have_met.htm

For People Who Care But Don't Have a Lot of Time

This blog has been a long time in the making.

I've been interested in the environment ever since second grade when the well-meaning Mrs. Flanagan introduced us to the concept of Earth Day and how we too could save the planet.

This was also the era of Captain Planet and Louie the Lightbulb and with my affinity for animated characters who would regulate my moral choices (this is what happens when you also grow up in the age of animated Sunday School characters) I was a sucker for the quick sell.

As a slightly sanctimonious budding environmentalist I would follow my mom around the house turning off light bulbs as soon as her foot would reach the doorframe. Never mind that the rest of her would still be in the room. "I'm coming right back," she'd gently comment. "Doesn't matter!" I'd harp. "Every little bit counts!" Meanwhile, I would beg and plead for every new Barbie that would hit the shelves of our local big box store.

I was also pre-Goth (that was an ill-advised phase that stretched from high school well into college). But my angst over that which could and could not be recycled could match any Cure or Smiths song hands down. In the Midwest we could only recycle #1 and #2 plastics. Any #5 or worse, #6 would send me in a spiral of despair as I mournfully committed it to the trash.

***My dad was far from absent in my upbringing, but his work often occurred at the same time as my save the whales campaigning.***

Now I am full fledged adult and while my rabid tree hugger nature has calmed down, my eco-anxiety has gone up. Carbon footprints, cap and trade, BPA-free plastics!? All of these words would only have produced quizzical stares fifteen, even ten years ago. Now middle schoolers converse fluently about such topics while I kick my middle school self wishing it had done more than moon over Uncle Jesse from Full House during my formative years.

I can't totally fault myself. The aforementioned advances are relatively recent, even the word "sustainability" wasn't embraced until after the new millennium. But new technologies and concepts pop up every day. And what's worse is that we live in an age of information overload and an ever surmounting pile of demands- from the mundane like making sure that one has clean underwear for tomorrow to taking care of one's own retirement as the age of pensions is long gone.

Surveying even the most basic Barnes and Noble's "green" section can cause vertigo. If I barely have time to pick up my kids from school, make dinner, and get everyone's laundry done while taking the dog for a walk how can I possibly squeeze in time to read that tome on saving the earth!? (this is a hypothetical person as I have neither children nor a dog. But it does describe a lot of people)

Google provides awesome searches and there are some extremely useful books out there as well as really good blogs. But this is my small part. I hope to provide succinct summaries of various "sustainable" topics and that it may be of service to you.

To paraphrase Peter Barnes, in his dedication from Climate Solutions: What Works, What Doesn't and Why, "this [blog] is dedicated to fellow owners of our one sky.