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My thoughts in response to one of the memes going around, saying we should plant fruit trees in public spaces. In this meme, it gave a popular objection, “But what if people steal the fruit?” And the meme rejoinder was, “Why should taking fruit off a public tree be stealing?”

My thoughts:

Yes and we need to not accept the thought-terminating clichés like “but rats” and “but liability” lol.

Regarding rats, anyone who has ever lived in a city knows that rats survive and thrive everywhere whether or not there are any fruit trees.

And the biggest “LIABILITY” is OURSELVES being undernourished, broke, and pharmaceutically dependent. And overheated and flooded because of not enough trees and shade.

The powers-that-be (with just a few exceptions) don’t care (they actually have many incentives for not caring), WE the ordinary people are the ones who have to care and make it happen. <long row of fruit and veggie emoticons>

And:

And while we’re at it, we need public restrooms and benches everywhere. And we need to not accept the thought-terminating clichés like “but homeless people will use them.” (Yeah, and ????)

I’m not trying to be selfish but I’m in my 60s, and even though I’m in pretty good shape for a person in her 60s, I still really need to go to the bathroom, and take a sit down break on a bench, more than I used to when I was young and skinny lol.

I am obviously not the only old person in Volusia county, none of us are getting any younger! We need shade, benches, public restrooms, and yes plenty of fruits and vegetables and medicine growing everywhere.

And (in response to a friend who commented that it’s government ptb, as opposed to public attitude, that is driving the “liability” response):

In [my country,] the USA, “liability” is used as a thought-terminating cliché by BOTH everyday citizens and public officials. Government attitude and everyday public attitude often overlap on this topic.

Granted, it may be that the citizens parroting this are just parroting the public official line in order to terminate discussions. And their underlying motive might be more NIMBY.

Re liability — Cities have legal departments for this kind of thing. My city included. If a city’s insurance company or whatever is threatening something, then we have to push back against it.

There is also a NIMBY component that citizens have. Can’t have that in my neighborhood etc. Don’t want that it will bring down property values etc.

And [friend commenting] or anyone reading this, feel free to share if your city has found some helpful responses and solutions that have helped overcome the knee-jerk “liability” response. My intuition tells me that the cities that have overcome it are simply the ones who have stood their MORAL ground. Moral ground is powerful in helping people and orgs push through legal/financial fears.

Moral ground also powerful and pushing through NIMBYism. It may be the only thing that gets through the dense defensive barrier of fear regarding property values, the presence of “strangers” and “the other,” etc.

BTW anyone reading this, if you notice yourself harboring a lot of fear about strangers, the other, etc., I highly recommend doing shadow work! And especially recommend it in the context of decolonization and anti-racism study & practice.

Neighbors don’t have to be friends.

This might sound strange coming from someone who is constantly talking about the power of community. The importance of knowing one’s neighbors.

But, cordial working neighborly relations are not the same thing as friendship.

Now, if you happen to meet someone in your neighborhood who turns out to be a friend, that’s an extra bonus. But it’s not necessary.

Knowing each other’s faces, passing the time of day, having each other’s backs isn’t the same as friendship.

I’m saying this because sometimes people’s feelings can get hurt if a neighbor turns out to not want to be a social friend.

Also saying this because we have become so unused to living in real community — largely because prosperity has allowed us to buy ourselves out of it — That our expectations have become unrealistic.

So when people talk about forming an eco village or whatever they get all these romantic expectations of a bunch of people who are best buddies and on the exact same wavelength.

I’m not a very big believer in forming new “intentional communities.” It’s great if it works out but often it doesn’t. I am more a believer in working with where we are. It’s a lot easier and less resource intensive.

Sometimes in a neighborhood there can be sort of a mismatch between people who just want the practical aspects, and people who think they want to be a social friend with this or that neighbor. But that’s life. It happened in school; it happens in activism; and yes it happens in neighborhoods.

People aren’t always gonna want to hang out with you socially. And that’s not only OK; it doesn’t even have to be lonely. Working with neighbors on projects of common concern goes a long way.

One example in my neighborhood right now is us working together on trap neuter release of the feral cats.

Also, existing in reciprocity goes a long way. Someone who might not socialize with you, or who you might not want to socialize with, can still help you with tasks and you help them with a task in return.

And, block parties are an option! Socializing with people you might only socialize with at the block party.

I have been very fortunate to have some close friends in each neighborhood where I have lived. But I don’t take it for granted that that will always be the case.

And I think we sometimes forget that there is a continuum from stranger to acquaintance to friend to close friend. And that continuum can be very very gradual and lengthy in time. It can even spiral or seem to go backwards but that doesn’t have to be a negative thing.

Enjoy your neighbors! It’s actually kind of a cool, low-pressure relationship in a lot of ways. Some of my neighbors, most of our relationship consists of saying hi in passing when they’re out walking their dogs, or they pass by my yard and ask questions about plants.

It’s a whole net we are weaving when we build community. And to expect it to consist entirely of close friendship is unrealistic, and anyway that would be a monoculture. As we learn in Permaculture class, monocultures are not resilient or healthy. Whether on the physical landscape, or in the realm of invisible structures.

A fellow eco activist (who is known for her deep scientific expertise as well as her public service in our county and bioregion) shared this article on her page. (She shared it on her personal page, and it was only shared with friends, so I’m just posting the gist of her comment.)

The article, by Dinah Pulver in USA today, reports that we are seeing record highs in carbon dioxide emissions. “For the first time, the May average exceeded 430 parts per million, reported scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Mauna Loa Observatory and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego.”

And in response to this news, my friend posted, in a nutshell: How do we deal with the reality of increasingly extreme weather? Rather than finger-pointing, how do our communities adapt; and also, what state & local policy changes do we need?

In addition to being a matter for policy change, and for community adaptation, it will also need to be a matter of behavioral economics. And emotional processing; emotional regulation.

How do we go about de de-normalizing, de-popularizing the robber-baron lifestyle that is trashing and overheating the planet? And I’m not talking about billionaires here. I’m talking about the basic, mainstream, “comfortably off” middle-class USA lifestyle.

We may be beyond the ability to reverse things, if we ever were able. But recent years have shown that things can at the very least be slowed down more radically than expected. I’m talking about the environmental improvements we saw during the Covid shutdowns, when transportation (especially air travel + private automobile driving) and manufacturing were radically curtailed.

The middle-class lifestyle as we currently practice it is not sustainable, plainly put.

But social norms of what is “desirable” and “respectable” and “admirable” are very deeply rooted, so changing them involves a bit of effort. Madison Avenue + corporations have been able to make rapacious consumerism very very attractive, much against people & planet’s interest.

So how do we make non-consumerism, and the concept of “enough,” more attractive to a wider segment of the population?

We are going up against so many unprocessed emotions. It’s not hopeless though.

That’s one of what I consider my main self-appointed tasks as a sustainability educator. To get people to see the joy in backing down from the frenetic consumerist rush rush lifestyle. Even fellow environmentalists get caught up in this toxic lifestyle.

One of the things we have to show people is that we can live an extremely comfortable life at a much lower footprint then we are doing now. That’s what I’ve been trying to do for a while, and many others are out there showing it as well.

BTW the above-cited article’s author, Dinah Pulver, used to be the environmental writer for our local paper but is now an environment/climate researcher and writer on the national level.

PS. No, carbon dioxide is not the only index of planetary health. The other main greenhouse gases are nitrous oxide and methane. But it does serve as a fairly practical serviceable yardstick.

In recent times I have unlocked a whole new level of lazy. I always say if something is both lazy and good for the planet, you’ve got a DEEP GREEN win!

What sparked this post: Recently going for my morning dips in the ocean and never having to change out of my swim clothes because I stay outdoors and have coffee on my little garden bench and then do landscaping tasks and then before I know it suddenly my shorts + top that I went swimming in are dry and don’t have to be changed!

#ofrabjousday #slacktivistlife

PS. Later: A friend posted on her personal page about her yard being a workout.

That can be a good thing, wholesome exercise and being outdoors and meeting one’s neighbors and having fun gardening.

But if it ever becomes tiresome drudge instead of a good thing, one can take it as a sign to choose to back off and let nature manage a bigger part of the yard.

And If the immediate thing that comes to your mind is, “but then I’ll get in trouble with code enforcement or my HOA,” then you’ve got your logical next front for activity.

A logical next front for activity in this case would be trying to influence the HOA and your local government, as opposed to wearing yourself out trying to beat back vegetation.

Or, perhaps one of the other members of your household might be willing to help with the yard. Or, perhaps a neighbor might be willing. Trading skills and labor.

Got any “green + lazy” wins? If so, please share them rampantly, on your pages and on my public page. Every share helps shift the norms in a more slackerly joyful direction. I like to think that Mother Earth is cheering us on!

I made this Facebook post about a company called City Bonfires for multiple reasons!

— One, great example of being economically resilient as the old-economy livelihoods vanish. (They started this company after losing their jobs during the pandemic shutdowns.) “When we lost our jobs during the COVID pandemic, we spent a lot of time at home outside with our kids. We realized that we were spending more time keeping our kids away from the fire pit, instead of enjoying it. So, we invented City Bonfires, the world’s first mini portable fire pits that are safer and easy to light and extinguish!”

(Special note for my fellow elders, please stop steering your kids & grandkids into old-economy livelihoods that are supposedly “safe” — and instead start supporting them in their pursuit of meaningful, resilient, transformative livelihoods. Which are probably their best chance not only of happiness and fulfillment, but of mere survival on this planet as we have made things worse and worse for them.)

— Two, great example of promoting outdoor time, family time, community bonding. Every moment we spend outdoors is an opportunity for quality family time, community-building time. This has a safety and security component as well as the enjoyment aspect.

— Three, modeling cozy contentment and simple pleasures.

— Four, I want to remember this page because some of my geographically distant loved ones might need some cute gifts from me

I’ve been mentioning on my blog for a while the concept of a candle as a portable mini urban campfire. Totally love this!

Here is their website. https://citybonfires.com/pages/about-city-bonfires

Upcycled a surplus koozie into a new sleeve for my coffee jar. (The large glass mason jar gets hot to the touch when filled with coffee. I make my coffee by pouring hot water from the kettle through a reusable filter basket placed on top of the big glass mason jar.) (Photos here on my Deep Green Facebook page.)

The final photo shows a previous koozie upcycle project: the custom sleeve that I made awhile back for my enameled metal coffee mug. I made that one from a surplus/landfill diversion koozie as well.

The bottom of the coffee mug’s sleeve, which you can’t see in the photo, is a circle cut out from the material of the original koozie. I then crocheted a few rows of double crochet to attach the circle to the main body.

BTW this morning my coffee water was not quite hot enough for my tastes. I don’t boil it all the way; I stop just short of boiling.

Both the electric kettle and the stovetop kettle have certain distinctive sounds they make as water is on the way to boiling, and with both methods, I can hear when the water has reached just the right degree for my taste. (It doesn’t take very long to learn this. Maybe you have had a similar experience.)

But, with the little outdoor butane campstove I’ve been using lately, I hadn’t yet learned to determine either with my eyes or ears when the water is exactly hot enough for me. This morning’s ended up stopping a little bit short. The coffee was still rich and tasty but it didn’t stay hot as long as I like it to.

I got curious and searched for an article about the stages of boiling water. This is a really cool, detailed description. And written in a very entertaining style. It’s from a blog called Serious Eats.

Based on this article, I will be able to tell when the water is just hot enough.

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know (Plus More!) About Boiling Water https://www.seriouseats.com/how-to-boil-water-faster-simmer-temperatures
How often have you wondered about the hidden complexities of what happens when a pot of water comes to a boil? Here’s the answer. BY J. KENJI LÓPEZ-ALT

By the way, speaking of cooking and fuel, I learned back in 2006 during my intensive studies about solar cooking and renewable energy that cooking fuel can constitute a huge percentage of a household’s budget, or labor typically women’s labor, or both. There is a surprisingly large differential of fuel between water that’s about 180° and water that’s boiling.

Some people really have to have literally boiling coffee or tea, but a lot of us don’t feel we need it. So learning how to identify when our preferred temp has been reached can be a useful way to save fuel when fuel becomes scarce. For now, of course, I have the luxury of being able to do this as an experiment. I’ve been practicing this for years and it’s very satisfying.

If you are interested in this aspect of home economics, you might enjoy checking out the highly informative website of the Kerr-Cole Sustainable Living Center in Snowflake, Arizona. https://solarcooking.fandom.com/wiki/Kerr-Cole_Sustainable_Living_Center

I see they also have a Facebook page. By the same name.

I read or heard somewhere that a couple who lived there had made a small propane tank last like a year and a half by adding solar cooking and haybox cooking method to their cooking repertoire.

Haybox cooking is extremely easy, it’s a useful tool to add to your sustainable cooking toolkit, and I have written about it on my blog elsewhere.

Another fantastic resource for detailed learning about solar cooking, haybox cooking, twig-fired Rocket stoves etc is Aprovecho Research Center.

https://aprovecho.org

Aprovecho’s “Capturing Heat” publications teach how to build five simple appliances for solar and biomass cooking and heating.

“We’re Witnessing the Fall of Public Health… and Your Best Tool is a Mask” (Excellent article from Disabled Ginger)

“Measles in Texas, bird flu in Louisiana, tuberculosis in Kansas and Covid everywhere. Public health has been dying a slow death for years, we can’t count on it anymore. What can we count on? A mask!”

It can be hard to afford masks on an ongoing basis. Also, some of us worry about the planetary impacts of all those disposable masks. Good news on both counts: It turns out that masks are reusable to an extent. Pointers include keeping six or seven N95s in rotation.

I mostly am able to avoid confined indoor spaces but sometimes can’t avoid.

It’s a bit surreal seeing a room full of my fellow “senior liberals” not feeling the need to mask up in an indoor confined space. And being the only person masked up, and having some people walk up to me and ask if I’m sick. Really??? No, I’m not self-important enough to go out when I’m sick. <eye roll>

I wonder if people are just tired of thinking about it. That’s what one friend of mine said. That she was “tired of thinking about it.”

Maybe sort of like people are tired of thinking about climate change.

And with Covid, maybe the people who have good healthcare access feel like that will protect them. It has protected (some) people for a long time.

And of course some people feel protected by the vaccine. Some people have had five or more boosters. But the vaccine isn’t free to everybody, as it was during the height of the shutdowns. Last time I checked it was almost $200 for people without insurance.

My favorite tips are, as always: Avoid indoor settings except when absolutely necessary; wear a mask inside a confined indoor setting. And I do believe in the power of vitamin D from sunshine and other sources to boost the immune system.

But the best tip is to simply care about other people who are more vulnerable than ourselves. And prioritize our activities accordingly.