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Informed Hope

Someone who really knows what he’s talking about — believes there is still HOPE. The earth is in a death spiral, and radical action is required — but we can do it.

Article by George Monbiot, the climate activist whose book HEAT: How To Stop the Planet from Burning inspired the Riot for Austerity movement and planted the seed for my book DEEP GREEN.

The way humanity got itself into this deadly predicament is that we allowed waste, greed, denial to become baked-in to our way of living. Now, we can make a turnaround so that what’s baked-in to our culture is thrift, sharing, modesty, humility, intolerance of waste.

Also: Humanitarian innovativeness. Compassion. Empathy. Care of all species. A cultural shift so these qualities become infused in every action, no matter how seemingly small. Day in and day out, like the “home front” mobilization of World War II, except that this shift needs to be self-imposed at the grassroots because the higher-ups lack the political will.

Deep-green troops, mobilize! Everything good you do adds up.

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A Match Made in Heaven

In my recent post Why Stuff Goes Bad, I pointed out that nothing ever sits around unused for long. Nature won’t allow it. Nature doesn’t hoard; and nothing in nature is trash.

We humans try to stockpile stuff in “nature-proof” containers, and that’ll work for a time but not forever. Prime example: Paint cans rust. The lids can even rust right through! And once the lids get rusty you have to be super careful opening the cans because rust-flakes fall into the paint. A little bit is no big deal but it’s not something I would want much of.

In my garage are a number of cans of paint left by the previous owners. Most are just small cans of the house colors, for touch-up painting. But yesterday I discovered I also had THREE GALLONS of white paint. Three full cans. And since it had been sitting around for awhile, the lids were rusty.

What prompted me to inventory my garage paint-shelf yesterday was that a friend who’s fixing up her storm-damaged house needed white paint. I expected to find maybe a gallon if I was lucky. Three gallons will probably be enough for her whole project.

It’s a match made in heaven! Two thrifty gals, both passionate about reuse and recycling, help each other out. The one with three full cans of unused paint (which are on the verge of “going bad” due to rusting lids) gets to clear space in her garage; the one working hard to fix up her home on a shoestring budget gets free paint.

Yep, a match made in heaven! Though it may seem like a small thing, both sides are thrilled. It would have been heartbreaking if all that paint had ended up getting ruined without ever being used.

(Not to mention, the disposal would have required special care, probably a trip to the dump or household chemicals drop-off station or something.)

How about you, have you had a “match made in heaven” lately, or noticed one in the world around you?

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Weaning Ourselves Off Of Lawn Chemicals

Eliminating the use of lawn fertilizers near waterways should be a no-brainer. Fertilizers are a prime contributor to algal blooms, including red tide, which are deadly to wildlife and dangerous to humans. For the same reason, it should be a no-brainer that people would want to stop using pesticides and herbicides for residential lawns. As much as some people like their manicured green lawns, does the use of chemicals justify the mass die-offs of fish, birds, and other wildlife; and the pollution of our precious water supply?

The thing is, people who love their lawns can still have them! But, for the good of our rivers and lakes and oceans, we need to make some changes. We can choose more hardy, drought-tolerant grass species, and quit using chemicals for vanity agriculture. It would help if we’d let go of the culturally indoctrinated compulsion for the “perfect” uniformly green lawn, which I see as the green-colored equivalent of Snow White’s beautiful but poisonous red apple. We also really need to tackle the various regulations (municipal regulations, HOA rules, etc.) that pretty much FORCE people to have lawns in many parts of the USA.

Besides laying off the chemicals, lawn-lovers can also help our wildlife and waterways by planting a “filtration strip” of vegetation along the edges of their yards. This buffer of vegetation helps retain silt, water, and nutrients on property rather than let them run off into the storm-drain systems and bodies of water. Besides being good for the environment, a border of vegetation looks nicer than a plain flat grass edge, and it can reduce or eliminate the need for fussy edging and blowing.

Further Reading:

• Local Laws Ban Front-Yard Food Gardens: “Zoning, supporters contend, is intended to prevent conflicts and nuisances from arising. … But sometimes, as in the case of the prohibitions on edible gardens … zoning itself becomes the nuisance and the source of conflict. …Estimates of water savings vary, but most sources agree that fruit and vegetable gardens use less water than would a lawn in a comparable space. Those who want to live more sustainably often choose to grow some of their own food and find ways both to reduce their reliance on commercially bought food and lower their water use. Swapping out a lawn for an edible garden can help achieve both goals.”

• Eco-friendly lawn alternatives: “On a gallon-for-gallon basis, power mowers are far more polluting than cars. …[L]awn-mower engines, per gallon of gas, contribute 93 times more smog-forming emissions than 2006 cars. Water runoff pollution is another downside: To keep turf perma-green and weedfree requires a cocktail of fertilizers, pesticides and fungicides applied regularly via the irrigation system. …Every region and every ecology in this country has its own regionally native sods, which, with very little mowing or cutting, grow naturally as a turf.”

• Doing a search for “eco-friendly lawns,” I found this company that offers a “No-Mow Lawn Grass Seed”, which looks to be waterwise and not need chemicals.

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The Miraculous Power of Self-Interest

I’m a huge fan of self-interest — when it’s harnessed in the service of the greater good. Even when self-discipline falters, when moral principles give in to fear or greed, and when government mandates fail, self-interest moves mountains. Self-interest is the Trojan horse I’m using to get people on board the low-footprint lifestyle movement.

And it’s looking like self-interest may finally win the day in the struggle to expand the supply of affordably priced urban housing. Young adults are having trouble finding affordable places to live near where the jobs are, and it’s partly because affluent baby boomers in urban areas are opposing efforts to create density and build new apartments near their single-family homes.

However, it turns out that self-interest may win out over this NIMBYism, as the older generations are discovering to their dismay that their kids and grandkids can’t afford to live near them.

Another common concern that’s bridging the divide is the environment: “As people of all ages work for environmental sustainability, they understand that we need to get people out of cars, and this means getting as many people as possible to live in or close to cities and use public transport. And that means making those areas more affordable.” (From When Millennials Battle Boomers Over Housing, article by Mimi Kirk on citylab.com — great site to bookmark if you’re passionate about urban sustainability).

Hooray for self-interest, when it fuels the greater good.

Further Reading:

• Minneapolis YIMBYs Go To the Mat for Zoning Changes. I love the use of the wrestler video to tell a compelling story. And the Canadian anti-sprawl poster, a takeoff on the old Smokey the Bear posters, is a winner!

• Neighbors For More Neighbors, on Twitter: a movement to promote the legalization (or re-legalization) of fourplexes. One user commented that “replacing a single-family home with a fourplex has a bigger climate impact than solar panels.” I’m not sure of the figure, but there’s no doubt that sharing walls and a yard and other resources is one of the best ways to reduce footprint while cutting costs.

• And a couple of good books I’ve read recently: Unlocking Home: Three Keys to Affordable Communities, by Alan Durning (takeaway: allow more density). And (the cautionary flipside of revitalizing blighted downtowns) How To Kill a City: Gentrification, Inequality, and the Fight for the Neighborhood, by Peter Moskowitz.

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Tips, Encouragement, and Community

Tips
I find it very helpful to see the specifics of how other people are implementing a low-footprint lifestyle. And it’s fun to share such specifics! Today’s photo shows me rinsing off the grater after grating carrots and ginger to add to a spicy vegetable smoothie. I catch the food particles and rinse-water in one of those thick waxy plastic bags that are used to line cereal boxes nowadays. (I’ve used this bag over and over for months, mainly as a shopping bag for hot peppers or other small veggies from the farmer’s market). Once the grater is clean, I dump the contents of the bag outside to water and feed the yard. In this way the food particles and water become a resource, rather than a mess that needs to be washed down the drain (and quite probably clog the drain, since I have no garbage disposal nor do I want one — garbage disposals invite people to treat fruit peelings and other resources as waste).

Encouragement
Although I enjoy sharing these kinds of tips (and hearing other people’s), you may have noticed that my posts aren’t focused all that much on “how-to”. Rather, I put more emphasis on mindset. There are two reasons for this:

1) People’s living circumstances, backgrounds, and priorities are many and varied. Rather than share an endless disjointed list of tips that may not be relevant to you, it’s more effective for me to convey a “low-footprint mindset” and encourage you to implement that mindset in your own unique way. You will then, just by being yourself, go on to exert a beneficial influence on people of similar background and circumstances to yours, who I would never be able to reach if I were merely sharing a laundry list of my own green lifestyle tips.

2) I firmly believe that the best asset is a positive attitude. (I’m not talking about phony “positive thinking”; I’m talking about a positive attitude that’s firmly rooted in practical reality.) To help you cultivate a positive attitude, I offer a lot of encouragement. After extended observation I’ve come to believe that encouragement is really the main thing most people need. Most people I talk with nowadays are attempting to live their own version of a green lifestyle already, and they just need some emotional support to keep going. Although “green” is a hot buzzword these days, low-footprint living is still counterculture, especially in the USA. And choosing a lifestyle outside the mainstream, even for noble reasons, takes a lot of stamina and courage. Thus I offer you steady doses of encouragement.

Community
Besides tips and encouragement, people need a tribe; a community of likeminded people. This goes double for people choosing a path outside the mainstream. I’m attempting to create a community around my book and blog. But I also want to be sure you all know about the Riot for Austerity community online. We have two main channels right now:

• The Riot for Austerity group on Facebook has been our main channel for the past few years.

• Recently, one of our longtime members pointed out that Facebook is rather high-bandwidth and therefore high-footprint. And so we’ve reactivated our email group, the 90 Percent Reduction Yahoo Group. This group started back around 2007 but went dormant after our Facebook group was launched. As of last week, our Yahoo group is active again!

Join either or both of these groups to connect with a wide variety of people from all over the world who are practicing the 90 Percent Reduction lifestyle (also known as the Riot for Austerity). You’ll get far more information and inspiration than I alone can provide. You’ll find good company and get a feel for just how committed our little grassroots movement is.

One of the longtime members of the Riot movement started a Self-Introduction thread on the rekindled Yahoo group as a practical icebreaker. So far in this thread, I’ve seen low-footprint pointers on home insulation, water savings, bandwidth conservation, weddings, and more. (A couple of different members each shared their own version of how they were able to have the wedding of their dreams for $100!) It’s lovely to hear personal stories and get a feel for the many and varied versions of a low-footprint life.

See you in the community! And thanks so much for allowing me, and this website, to be a part of your resource base for low-footprint living.

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Why Stuff Goes Bad

Did you ever think about why stuff goes bad? Food rots in the fridge; clothes mildew; houses left unoccupied collapse in on themselves.

The truth is, stuff doesn’t really “go bad”; that’s just a limited human viewpoint. Stuff “goes bad” because nature makes no waste. Nature makes no waste, and nature allows no waste. Something that appears (through human eyes) to be going bad, is actually not going bad; it’s being used by something, whether animal, plant, or microbe. Resources don’t sit around; they get consumed.

Which is one more great reason to right-size your living space; and to avoid hoarding excess food, clothing, houses, land, and other things that nature (including “pests” and “weeds”) will find a use for if you leave them sitting around too long. I once had a beautiful leather jacket go moldy in the back of my closet, ruined beyond repair because I literally forgot about it. Fortunately, Mother Nature is far more careful and reverent of “stuff” than are many of us, her thoughtless human children. Something(s) ended up getting plenty of use out of that leather jacket.

It occurred to me just now that knowledge and experience can also “go bad” if not used. Find a way to share your knowledge and experience, or it withers inside of you and dies with you.

How many examples of this can you find in your home, neighborhood, workplace, or just out and about?

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Introductions

My name is Jenny Nazak. I’m a self-employed writer, artist, and permaculture designer living on the Atlantic coast of Florida, in Daytona Beach. I moved here in summer 2010 from Austin, Texas, where I lived for 15 years. Before that I lived in central Tokyo for 5 years. And, I grew up in a Navy family so we moved every couple of years in my childhood. I’ve been doing the RIOT since about 2007.

My seaside Florida neighborhood is historic, and is made up of narrowish streets laid out on a grid. I’m about three short blocks from the ocean. The houses in our neighborhood are of modest size (600-1,200 square feet mostly) and on small lots. In March 2018, after having been a renter for almost all of my adult life, I bought a house, which is 988 square feet.

I’m legally a household of one, though I have seasonal and temporary roommates. (I had one young man who stayed here for the summer to work.) I’m now aspiring to get either 1) longterm RIOT roommates who truly love the lifestyle and want to build community together; and/or 2) temporary roommates who are willing to do the RIOT lifestyle at least on a trial basis because it saves a ton of money and is a great way to stay healthy and free up headspace for creative endeavors.

TRANSPORTATION
Transportation is a big challenge area for me. Day-to-day is not the issue. I can walk or cycle to 95% of my errands and events; the rest I can generally get to by bus or rideshare. For me, living in a walkable place with close-by neighbors is essential to my happiness and sense of security.

My pitfall is long-distance travel. For the past few years, I had been limiting my trips to 1-2 a year, to see family and friends. Since I always traveled by train or bus, I generally came in at around 50 to 100 gallons of gasoline, which is 10% to 20% of the US average 500 gallons.

However, this past year (2017), with my Mom’s illness and passing, and associated family matters, I ended up taking three airline trips and two solo car journeys adding up to several thousand miles. Air travel isn’t even included in the RIOT, but using calculations I found online for miles per gallon of jet travel, I computed my footprint to be nowhere near the RIOT target, but still under the US average. Maybe 70% of the US average.

FOOD
Even our farmer’s market is pretty scarce in local produce. I get 95% of my groceries from the farmer’s market but a lot of them come from far away. For example, tomatoes from Tennessee. I’m working on growing at least some of my own food, but since I’m not a great gardener, I focus more on foraging for wild edibles such as prickly pear, bidens alba, spiderwort, chickweed, and other locally plentiful “weeds.” I’ve also had luck growing sweet-potato greens, which are delicious and grow well even if the tubers don’t ever appear. Long-term, I’m planning to get at least one Tower Garden, which grows a couple dozen veggie plants in a tall tiny footprint of about 3 cubic feet.

I eat more processed food than ideal still, but most of it is freegan. (Food that’s being thrown away; food that friends/neighbors bought too much of and are giving away.) My sweet tooth has gotten better as I’ve gotten older, so my “sugar footprint” has gone down as a whole. When I crave candy, I try 1) eating fruit; and 2) walking down to the candy store where it’s sold in bulk and I can bring my own little bag to fill it with just what I plan to consume that day.

I’m omnivore but limit my meat intake, particularly beef.

Local protein aspirations:

I’ve partaken of insect potlucks, and find bugs to be quite tasty! I’m looking into finding edible bugs right around here. Alas our fattest, most plentiful grasshoppers are said to be poisonous.

A neighbor is an avid fisherman, and I traded him some used fishing equipment I found in my garage, and a used SUP board I bought for myself but never ended up using because it was too unwieldy for me to carry to the beach, for pretty much a lifetime supply of fresh fish when I want it.

WATER
I use about 15 gallons a day, most of it for toilet flushing. (For cooking and drinking and washing-up, I find it pretty easy to stay at 5 or so.) I conserve water by not flushing for a pee. My house came with a well, and it works nicely. I use it instead of city water as much as possible, so my city water consumption last month was 130 gallons for the month! I still try to track my water usage. The well is hand-pumped (I took out the electric pump and have been thrilled with the hand pump.)

My bathroom sink drains into a bucket, which I use to water the yard. I’m working on transitioning my yard to shrubs, wild plants, coastal grasses that need little or no water.

BTW it rains about 49 inches a year here, which is staggering to me, as I’ve lived in so many places with much less. It’s amazing to me how few people here collect rainwater, and also how folks limit the water-holding capacity of the soil by scalping the grass and other vegetation. Not me. I collect some rainwater in barrels, and also make little trenches etc as well as adding mulch to increase the water-holding capacity of the ground at my place.

ELECTRICITY
I find it pretty easy, when living solo, to keep my electricity at 7 to 10 percent of the US average. Last month I used 70kWh; the month before was 65. If not for the fridge, about the only electric I’d need would be for laptop computer, cellphone, and internet, plus the bit of lighting I use. Having walls painted a light color, which my past several places have been, makes it pretty easy to do with only a modest amount of artificial lighting even at night. (Oh, and it helps that the streetlights are rather bright. One DOWNSIDE of urbanish living. I would rather not have streetlights — would love it if we had a “Dark Skies Ordinance” as some cities do — but I make lemonade from lemons by utilizing the streetlight for reading and writing.)

Space cooling: I just do without a/c. Yeah it gets hot here, and sleeping has its challenges, but for the most part my body is well-acclimated to heat. And I do find that I can almost always be cool, even get a bit chilly even in the dead of summer, by sleeping outdoors, either on the beach or in my yard.

Space heating: I don’t use heat. We get maybe a few nights a year under freezing. Quilts are more than adequate. And during the day, for the few cold days, getting up and briskly moving around works wonders. As do sweaters.

NATURAL GAS, HOME HEATING OIL
I use zero of either of these. I do use about a quart or two of lamp-oil a year, for my Dietz lantern.

INSULATION/AIR SEALING
I have no idea. This house has a bit of insulation in the attic but otherwise I don’t know. It’s made of block and has a conventional asphalt-shingled roof. The roof is new and I chose a very light color because, FLORIDA!

WATER HEATING
The water heater in this house is electric. I don’t use it. I haven’t used a water heater in I can’t remember how long. I’m able to heat the water I need in a kettle.

My “bath” is the ocean, plus a little fresh water from the watering-can and washcloth to wash any excess salt/sand after I get home from the beach. I feel super clean from the salt water. Back in Austin, my “bath” was Barton Springs. 68 degrees year-round!

COOKING
Similar to Debi: electric stove, solar ovens (which work fine year-round here). I also do haybox cooking (retained-heat cooking), which is boiling for a short time on the stove and then putting the pot in an insulated bag or cooler and the food finishes cooking by itself.

In the summer I eat a lot of raw veggies, fruits, smoothies. I can go days without using any fossil fuel for cooking. I do plan to make a Rocket Stove, have had them at previous places where I lived. They let you cook a meal with a handful of deadwood twigs.

CONSUMER GOODS
I mostly just don’t want stuff, so it’s easy to keep this category down, except this year was a spike because I had to get a new roof for my house. That was about $7,000, which still puts me at under the US average.

HOUSEHOLD WASTE
I generate about a pound or two of trash per week. Most of the weight savings is from composting. I also recycle, of course. BUT, since we don’t know for sure where recycling ends up, I strive to minimize my purchase of plastic containers and others that need recycling. One of my challenges is beer. I drink 2 to 4 cans a week. I’m looking into getting a refillable “Growler” from my local brewpub.

What’s important to note, is that my approach to doing the RIOT feels fun and natural and stripped-down in a good way, as in liberating, rather than feeling like deprivation (as some mainstream folks might imagine, if they just read about my practices without knowing me).

That’s all for the moment! By the way, I have a blog www.jennynazak.com where I set out to encourage other people to join the RIOT and live lighter. My latest post has photos of my “virtual tiny house” which I have just created within my house! Basically I turned my 7 x 8 foot studio/office (which used to be a laundry room til I got rid of the washer/dryer because I prefer to wash by hand and line-dry) into my whole living quarters. I did this the other day, because I realized I was nostalgic for the feeling of living in an RV or “roomette”. You can read about it here http://www.jennynazak.com/2018/11/07/midterm-elections-and-creative-living/

Cheers everyone! I’m so excited about the use of the written word as a medium. Low-bandwidth, high-efficiency transmission for all! Feel free to write me and introduce yourself. And if you need any advice or encouragement, just ask! That’s what I’m here for.

jenny