Author: jennynazak

Recently I made a post summarizing the advantages of cutting out the following: clothes-dryer, dishwasher, car, air-conditioner, water-heater. It might seem unthinkable to choose to live without these conveniences, especially if you have been heavily steeped in USA American mainstream culture. But, there are great advantages both personal and planetary. And you can read about them here: “Cutting out the Big 5”; May 23, 2024.

It struck me that one of the items, car, is not something within the house. (Unless someone drives a car into your house by crashing through your window, which I hope never happens to you, but has been known to happen to people and businesses on occasion.)

This morning, I thought of something within the typical USA American house that would be good to include in the big five. So here I’m doing a “within-the-house” version of the “big five” post.

The replacement item #5 is … wide-screen TV + cable service.

Now, to be clear, I am not judging anybody for liking wide-screen TV and cable. To tell you the truth, I enjoy watching shows and could easily get hooked on them if I had a TV and cable service in my house. When I visit my family, I totally enjoy watching TV with them. Also, I periodically go to a friend’s house and we watch movies together on Netflix etc.

In my ideal fantasy universe, maybe we would have one “entertainment center” on each block or something, like the TV in the village in India where everyone gathers around and watches together.

That probably isn’t going to happen, so usually I just content myself with watching TV in bars or restaurants, or at the homes of family or friends. And it is a very occasional treat.

I don’t think that the footprint is very large in terms of electricity. I mean, yes, it uses electricity.

The bigger problem I have with it is that it’s expensive! Not only the monthly bill, but also the repair service and so on when something goes down. And, the same as the other four of the big five, it always seems like a terrible urgent disaster when it goes down.

Where I see the largest footprint of TV and cable, though, is encouraging consumerism. There are products and services, fashion looks and things, that I had no clue about and then when I see them on TV I can suddenly understand why people want to buy so much stuff! Very very tempting.

Another problem that I see is that it keeps us indoors and not connecting with neighbors in the public sphere.

Having TV and cable in each residence can also foster a reduced concern for budgets for things like the small independent cinema, film showings at the public library, and other public amenities.

I’m sure there are other advantages as well to giving up cable and TV. And again, I emphasize that when I have a TV in front of me it can be very very enticing. In fact, I get more into the shows since I don’t have the option to just watch them anytime. So when the show is on, I really want to pay attention to it and get irritated with friends who constantly flip channels.

And then I start to wonder if I am putting TV ahead of an actual person who is right next to me!

I think what sums up my attitude toward TV + cable is that it’s very enticing when it’s in front of me, but when it’s not in front of me all the time I don’t miss it. I really don’t even think about it except inasmuch as it is a way to hang out with loved ones.

One advantage I get from not having TV and cable is that I have tons of time for reading, watching informational videos on YouTube, and taking online classes. And taking walks. Walks take lots of time!

Speaking of walks, having an entertainment bonanza at our fingertips inside of our living rooms can end up discouraging us from enjoying the outdoor space. We can end up consuming more fossil fuels for heat, air conditioning, and so on.

On the social media pages of fellow liberals of various stripes, there have naturally been a lot of discussions about the upcoming presidential election.

Some say we need to vote for the “blue” mainstream candidate, because otherwise we will be wasting our vote and the “red” will win.

Others are fed up with the two mainstream parties and insist that we have just got to choose different even if it means taking a risk.

I have tended to side in the latter camp more and more, although I certainly understand why people want to play it safe. And in fact, in the past two elections, I have “voted blue” just to be “safe.” (In years-past elections where I voted for an alternative third candidate, we liberals ended up getting the presidents we really didn’t want.)

And really, Biden is not a bad candidate; he means well and he has accomplished some good things.

But, we need to really push to dismantle the persistent belief that war is necessary or helpful in any way.

What I see as the task of grassroots citizens is to keep pushing all of our political leaders to stop seeing war as an option. Dropping bombs on “enemies” only enriches the pockets of the defense contractors, who often supply both sides.

Even the apparent “victors” of war, their lands and societies are left in ruins. It’s a dead-end path.

I have often felt that USA society suffers from collective PTSD as a result of waging war.

The question inevitably comes up, what are we supposed to do when another country invades one of our ally countries. For example, what were we supposed to do when Russia invaded Ukraine.

Well, we can’t invent a time machine, but it would be great if we could go back to when Russia threatened to invade Ukraine if NATO expanded. We could’ve listened, and not admitted any more new members.

And, we needed to tune in to Russia’s motive, which is/was likely fear-based. (Same with Israel, in regard to Palestine.)

Since we didn’t do it back then, we have to start now. We could start by stopping the flow of weaponry. Stop feeding the war. Knowing that it doesn’t work.

If we decide that war isn’t an option, people have to stay at the table and talk. Even if they can’t talk directly to each other, they need to get intermediaries. And also to get alternative perspectives from other nations, various organizations.

One organization we should all follow and support is Veterans for Peace.

Recently I have become a life member of Veterans for Peace (I am a civilian but civilians can join too.) The group is a great source of strength and inspiration for advocating the stance that war is not an option. It won’t happen overnight, but it is a very worthy and necessary task. If we pull together, we can help our leaders muster the political will to stop making war an option.

Almost all of the politicians, even the so-called left-wing ones, are too entrenched in the military industrial complex. It’s not that they are bad people, it’s just that that’s how politics goes. I think the only way to get out of this war trap is very strong grassroots pressure. We can talk about how expensive war is; we can talk about how bad it is for the environment; we can talk about how it destroys the fabric of community.

We just have to keep harping on all of these unacceptable factors.

One of the best ways to be an eco activist is to push our politicians to make war not an option. I really love that Veterans for Peace focuses so strongly on the relationship between climate change and militarism.

Suggested action step: Become a member of Veterans for Peace.

In this blog, I have always had a mix of tones. Some of the posts are what I would call salty or spicy. Recently, though, I have been reconsidering my approach. The fact is that most people care about the environment, and harsh words are not going to help.

A lot of our consumption is emotionally motivated, and that merits kindness and understanding rather than a judgmental tone. So I will probably be going back and, over time, tempering the salty posts as they occur to me.

In the meantime, if you encounter a post that feels harsh or otherwise unhelpful, you are always welcome to get in touch with me and I will provide you with a more user-friendly nugget of advice, assistance, and/or encouragement.

It’s a given that we all care about the environment here. And I am here to help. The fact is that it can be very very hard to make ethical choices in a hyper-consumerist industrial society.

It can also be hard to voluntarily choose to do without something, if you have the money to obtain that thing, and the thing is satisfying some deep emotional need. Having multiple houses; flying a lot — it’s easy for me to judge, but the fact is that circumstances in this society have played out in such a manner that, for example, people live a long distance away from their families. And if they have the money to fly across the continent to a brunch or a graduation ceremony, or to own multiple houses in multiple countries, they are not likely to forgo that unless they have a better way to meet the underlying emotional need. I’m here to help people (including myself) identify our root emotional needs, and find gentler and more sustainable ways to meet them.

And of course, there are physical needs too. For example, if I’m away from home and I need to drink some water or get something to eat, and the only options available are packaged and single-use plastic. Or, if I need to get from point A to point B, and the built environment and transportation infrastructure are hostile to pedestrians or anyone else not in a car.

If you’re like most of us, being berated isn’t going to help; we’re already beating ourselves up over it, and I suspect I’m not the only one who has at least on occasion skipped a meal or done without water rather than taking on single-use plastic.

But, if somebody points out that there’s a nearby shop that sells sandwiches wrapped in paper; or tells you that the minimart over there allows you to refill your own reusable cup, then that is going to help!

Same with transportation options. Maybe there’s a nicely tree-shaded street parallel to the pedestrian-hostile one I’m trying to walk on. Or maybe there is a trolley or bus route I didn’t know about.

(Note: When I say “people” here, I am referring to fellow eco-minded citizens. This blog, and my book, are not attempting to change the mind-sets and behaviors of people who are not concerned about biospheric collapse.)

As I’ve mentioned earlier, choosing a low-footprint life is a strictly voluntary task — no one can force it on you — and a lot of it involves internal “marketing” within ourselves. Behavioral economics!

PS. I truly have a deep abiding love for snarky humor. But I’ve realized it needs to be channeled in a way that is aligned with a higher purpose. Fortunately, in addition to being a sustainability educator, I am also a fiction writer (under a pseudonym). So I allow some of my fiction characters to be snarky. The only catch is that the characters have to evolve by the end of the story, and become more sensitive and empathetic.

Question on my social feed: How can you easily divert grey water from your place to your plants? Maybe catch the water coming out of your clothes washer hose in a container and put it into jugs to carry outside?

We don’t have a clothes washer at the house. (There was one here when I bought the house, and a dryer too, but I got rid of both to make an additional sleeping room.)

I hand-wash clothes outdoors in a bucket or small tub, and then distribute the water to shrubs and mulch piles and such.

(I have extensive experience living/training in arid environments, and also in camping/festival settings, so I know how to economize on water, so it is only ever very small quantities of water we are talking about here. A gallon or two a week at most usually.)

My current housemates use a laundromat.

Previous housemates have sometimes used a laundry service.

We wash our dishes outdoors, and distribute that small amount of water onto shrubs and mulch piles and so on.

I have experimented with washing indoors, saving the greywater and then transporting it outdoors. It worked OK, but the greywater tends to get nasty very quickly so it’s best to carry the jug/bucket outdoors and distribute it as soon as possible after washing.

I still prefer to wash outdoors, because it eliminates the extra labor of having to haul the jug or bucket through the door(s) from indoors to the outside.

Brad Lancaster, author of the bestselling “Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands” books, has mentioned (when I heard him give a talk some years back) that he has an outlet hose leading from his washing machine to his yard. He rotates the hose among multiple fruit trees.

In my immediate previous post, titled “Memorial Day,” I shared with you some of my favorite speakings-out against militarism and war.

I see a lot of us Boomers who identify somewhere along the “liberal” spectrum ranting and meming on their social-media pages about how awful the “red” politicians are. And stating or implying that the “blue” ones are going to save us.

I don’t feel represented by so-called “liberal” candidates who continue to promote and feed war. And feel dismayed when fellow liberal Boomers seemingly are not acknowledging this aspect of the “blue” mainstream.

It’s like we forgot that we really are anti-war. It’s like we forgot that being truly, deeply, adamantly anti-war is very much an option. And a necessity, for the environment as well as for people.

I cringe when I hear fellow “Woodstock Boomers” say that they have grown up since their idealistic days of the 60s. As if being absolutely anti-war were immature, idealistic, impractical.

Just about every mainstream Democrat I can think of who has run for office in recent times, are far too entrenched in the war complex. Hearing that President Biden spoke to the graduating class of West Point, with some verbiage of the “protecting our freedom” sort, was just one recent cringe.

And yet, recognizing the gravity of the situation, I still mostly suck it up and vote for these types of so-called liberals, just to avoid the even worse alternative. It’s a tricky thing though, and I see both sides of the vote argument.

But, just when I risk going totally down the rabbit hole of “oh well, nothing I can do,” last year I somehow started getting emails from Veterans for Peace. And found out that civilians can join. And so last year I joined, as a life member. VFP are a breath of fresh air, a lifeline, a reminder that it is indeed valid and realistic to be absolutely anti-war. They help me hold my center so I can more clearly see the militaristic gaslighting of even the “blue” politicians.

The red politicians, you can see them coming. The blue ones are much less obvious and thus potentially much more dangerous.

On this national holiday weekend, which honors U.S. military personnel who died while serving in the U.S. armed forces — and which marks the unofficial beginning of summer — (thanks Wikipedia), I would like to share with you some of my favorite writings/speeches about the problems with militarism and war.

• “Supporting Our Troops While Condemning the Systems That Exploit Them” (Desireé B. Stephens, 2024):
“Memorial Day is a time for heartfelt remembrance, a day to honor the valor and dedication of those who have laid down their lives. Yet, it is also a time to confront the uncomfortable truths about how our government often exploits the very individuals we seek to commemorate. … Our government, through policies and practices, has historically leveraged military service as a pathway for those with limited options, creating a system where the most vulnerable are funneled into the line of fire. This exploitation is compounded by the nature of the conflicts in which our troops are engaged. Wars waged under the banner of national security often mask deeper geopolitical and economic interests. These conflicts inflict immense harm not only on our service members but also on innocent civilians around the world. … On this Memorial Day, let us extend our support to the families and communities of the fallen. Their grief is immeasurable, their loss irreplaceable. Let us also stand in solidarity with our veterans, many of whom bear physical and emotional scars long after the battles have ended. Our respect and gratitude for their service must translate into tangible support—accessible healthcare, mental health services, and robust reintegration programs. At the same time, let us raise our voices against the systemic exploitation of our troops. We must demand policies that prioritize diplomatic solutions over military interventions, that invest in our communities rather than in the machinery of war. Our commitment to peace must be as strong as our commitment to honoring those who serve.” (From Let’s Have the Conversation, newsletter by Desireé B. Stephens; subscribe here to read the entire article and a variety of her other deeply insightful writings on decolonization, community-building and more.)

• “War Is a Racket” (Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler, 1935): “WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small “inside” group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes. In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows. How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle? Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few — the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill. And what is this bill? This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations. For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it. Now that I see the international war clouds gathering, as they are today, I must face it and speak out. Again they are choosing sides. …” Read the piece in its entirety here at ratical.org

Described below is a rural setting that sounds very livable. It has real community, and culture. I personally will always prefer cities, and actually real cities are collections of villages. Which maybe explains why this description of remote villages in Romania sounds like a rural life that I could live with.

The reason I’m bringing this up is because a lot of people in the doomer / prepper groups are saying that everyone has to move out to the country and live with just one or two or a few people on a big piece of land. Truly that is the opposite of sustainability. Not only does the math not add up with 8 billion people on the planet, but also, most people cannot survive, let alone thrive, without sharing labor and ideas and BEING WITH EACH OTHER.

“Weary hooves scuffed up clouds of dust as the herd trudged up Viscri’s dirt-road high street, stopping to gulp water from a trough beneath a gnarled walnut tree. Routine kicked in, and they peeled away through arched gateways and into their own cobbled courtyards, where they’d be milked and fed for the night.

“This was the evening procession of cows, when residents gather outside their pastel-coloured Saxon homes to watch the herds return from pasture – a daily ritual that’s been signalling the end of the working day in Viscri, Criț, Biertan and the other medieval villages of south-eastern Transylvania’s Târnava Mare region for hundreds of years. …

“… the area has a fascinating barely-changed-in-centuries feel to it; horse-drawn carts are the main method of transport and residents eke out a sustainable existence from smallholdings or shepherding. …

“Storerooms were fashioned out of the thick walls, and when Viscri was under attack, its villagers would retreat with their livestock into the church and sit out the siege. The rest of the time, the rooms were used to keep dried hams and bacon fat; the church’s so-called “Lard Tower” was opened every Sunday so that each household could take a single piece of fat or ham to last them the week, a tradition that only ended in the early 1990s.

“On the laneways running down from the church and in the surrounding streets, I came across little stalls outside some of the houses, each one draped with woollen socks and gloves and colourful slippers, the fruits of an initiative that helps local women earn an income. Cristina Vasilche, who has been making two pairs of slippers a day for the last 10 years, showed me the process, scrubbing each alternate layer of wool and linen mesh with soap and water until the supple shoes took shape. …

“Liviu Damian, the man chosen to look after the village flock this season, was spending the entire summer at the sheepfold here, his only company a couple of local shepherds and the fierce sheep dogs that (mostly) keep the area’s wolves and bears at bay. His temporary home was a bare-floored shack, where he cooks, eats, sleeps and – in the room next door – makes cheeses using an assortment of wooden troughs and trays. There were about 180 sheep under his watch, which his shepherds milked by hand each evening; most households own between 10 and 20 sheep, and they all receive a few kilograms of cheese from Damian each week.”

“Europe’s remote, lost-in-time villages” (Keith Drew; bbc.com)

Interestingly, the feeling I get from this description of a small rural village region in Romanoa has more in common with my experience living in one of the most densely settled areas of central Tokyo than it does with my experience of modern rural areas in the USA. Community, traditional culture underlying everything, stacks of beneficial interactions and relationships.