Category: low-footprint living

Bottled water — it’s everywhere. It’s actually work sometimes to avoid the stuff, as people are constantly offering it and hardly anyone questions the huge volume of plastic trash.

Some people might wonder why I am so hard-core about refusing bottled water. If you ever see me drinking a bottle of plastic water, it probably means I’m having a medical emergency, or am severely dehydrated and there is no drinking fountain or faucet nearby.

Part of it is because I’m thrifty. Why should I pay for water in a bottle? Also the stuff is heavy to carry home from the store, and meanwhile there’s faucet water in my house that I already pay for.

But another part of that is that I just grew up not having all this plastic junk, and have never gotten used to it, and never want to get used to it.

Anyway! My own personal bias aside … Here’s a great video which might be helpful to people who are concerned about the environmental impact of bottled water:

The Story of Bottled Water, by Annie Leonard. Ms Leonard is author/narrator of the Story of Stuff video, and that whole “Story of” series of videos — which you can find on her YouTube channel.

In closing, a quote from Ms. Leonard: “There is no such thing as ‘away’. When we throw something away, it must go somewhere.”

When I first heard the title of this song Rich Men North of Richmond, I was expecting it to be a diatribe against the real fatcats. The politicians; the oligarchs who are holding the power; the greedy landlords; the exploitive employers.

People who have four and five and six houses that sit empty, while so many are struggling to just have one roof over their heads.

Are the types of people/behaviors I expected to hear called out.

Instead, the song takes a swipe at people who are members of our same general class. We all have more in common with each other than we have with the real fat cats at the top.

Regarding the fat shaming — that is so loaded with wrongness. Let’s start with how people are in a constant scramble just to earn a living, so they don’t necessarily have the time & money, don’t end up eating right.

Or, how about the fact that our standard of what constitutes a healthy body is very Anglocentric and frankly skinny.

And then there’s also the fact that snack foods are designed to be addictive.

Not that this lets any of us off the hook from trying our best to eat right & exercise for our health, but the addictive nature of snack foods combined with the fact that they are one of the few affordable pleasures … is a thing.

Plus yeah – what if it’s plain and simply a treat for the kids?

Whether housed or unhoused, earning just below the poverty line or just above it, we all need to stick together in solidarity and not take potshots at each other. The upper echelons, ruling classes, owner classes, count on us fighting with each other, shaming people one economic rung below us, and always striving to move up to the next economic rung. They like that because it keeps us working for them on the treadmill.

It’s funny how some people like to say “tree-hugger” as an insult, as if people who care about trees have some bizarre sentimental affliction.

And people love to put down environmentalists as being sappy or stupid. They point out to us that the planet has survived everything so far.

Has it never occurred to these people that environmentalists are not sentimental, not “trying to save the planet” — but rather, we actually cherish being able to LIVE on the planet.

Duh, of COURSE earth can survive without humans! But some of us love living here. And we won’t be able to live here if we insist on killing the BIOSPHERE that is our life-support system!

Speaking of trees, my friend Chris Searles issued a tree-watering challenge. Strategic watering, he calls it. Chris is founder/director of the ecological nonprofit org Biointegrity.

Chris is based in Austin TX USA but explains this will work anywhere there are deciduous trees, and heat. With Austin in extended heat and drought, Chris challenged people “to water the biggest deciduous tree or trees you can this weekend.” (He explains how and why in this video “BioIntegrity’s Cool Austin Challenge.“)

A few days later, Chris reported “We got rain in Central TX on Tuesday! This was not in the forecast for Austin.”

Chris asserts that he has “been able to make rain” with strategic watering.

Hmmm, that sounds crazy, doesn’t it? But check out Chris’s video “The Biotic Pump: How Forests Create Rain.” And try it yourself!

I have done “rain experiments” myself on many occasions, and it might be wishful thinking but I swear it works …

“When a complex system is far from equilibrium, small islands of coherence in a sea of chaos have the capacity to shift the entire system to a higher order.” — Ilya Prigogine, quoted in samim.io

The above quote was posted on a friend’s Facebook timeline; I really liked it so I got curious and googled Prigogine.

Also check out Prigogine, Chaos, and Contemporary Science Fiction, paper by David Porush. “SF often registers and extrapolates the consequences of new scientific knowledge even before science does. This relationship between science and SF has become especially intriguing in the case of the new science of deterministic chaos. This new paradigm — which explains how complex, apparently chaotic systems leap into new orders of complexity — has implications not only for the technology of the future, but for our understanding of the cosmic role of intelligence and of the narratives it spins. …”

The quote from Prigogine reminded me a bit of that famous quote attributed to Margaret Mead. The one that says small groups of people can in fact make a difference, and moreover, are the only thing that ever has made a difference.

So I googled Margaret Mead to get the exact wording of the quote, and as a bonus, I found this very interesting blog post, “About that Margaret Mead quotation.” The writer actually refutes the idea that small groups of people can make a difference. He says that in fact only people in their millions can make a difference.

He gives as examples the independence movements in various African countries in the 1950s and 60s; and the civil rights movement in the USA.

At first I wanted to argue, and also felt a bit deflated because I have often quoted that Margaret Mead quote and taken courage and inspiration from it.

But then I realized both are true! This guy is right, and Margaret Mead is still right. What often happens is that one person or a small group of people get an idea and get committed to making it happen. Then they somehow contact or activate much larger numbers of people who have had the idea or been working quietly for the thing. And then, once large numbers of people have been catalyzed or activated, the thing ends up coming to fruition.

My takeaway from this is: Find your people. No matter how fringe you think your idea or aspiration is, there will be a certain number of people who totally are into it and might already be working for it. Once you find your little cluster of a few dedicated citizens, that little cluster might then go on to activate millions of people who have been wanting the same thing but have been needing some kind of spark to get fully activated.

A friend asked me when I mentioned I’m going out to the county council meeting this evening. The county seat is about 25 miles from where I live.

You got me thinking!
Options for getting to Deland
(Wow it actually turned into 11 choices):

• taxi (convenient but expensive, also taxis not super available)
• Uber (same advantages & disadvantages as taxi)
• Pay my friend who’s a single mom who could use the cash – she drives for DoorDash etc.
  Less expensive and also I’m supporting a person I know.
• My former regular taxi driver used to give me rides for super cheap because I hired him on a steady basis. (However he disappears suddenly, it is now in one of his disappearance phases and you never know when he’ll be back in town.) Very inexpensive for a taxi, and also I’m supporting a person I know.
• Catch a ride out there with my friend who commutes there for work. I need to be ready early because of her schedule, but hanging out in Deland for the morning and early afternoon til it’s time for the county meeting would be fun. The meeting would probably not be over by the time she was headed home, so this would involve an overnight stay in Deland and then catch a ride home with her the next day afternoon.
• Bicycle (2-1/2 hrs each way, boring ride; but cheap & good exercise)
• Hitchhike (Cheap and sometimes fun but sometimes sketchy, and I mostly no longer do it, plus hitchhiking is illegal in Florida)
• Craigslist ride wanted page (CL has gotten flaky, with a lot of people basically hiring themselves out as taxi services, so the cheap rideshare element and fun community element is gone, but sometimes once in a while one will still pop up)
• Walk (Cheap, sometimes fun, good exercise; but very time consuming one to two days walk each way). Could turn it into a blog post or magazine article reviewing a lightweight summer tent/bivy sack or pair of walking shoes etc. Probably would not do because it’s kind of a boring walk and times being what they are, might not want to be caught out between towns overnight.
• Votran bus (Very cheap, relatively quick because it’s an express route; Can bring bicycle and put it on the rack on the bus for faster time door to door)
• Rent a car (expensive, and I would not do in this case unless I were combining multiple errands on this excursion)

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For any of the above options, depending on the time of the engagement in Deland, a single day round-trip could be an option. But if overnight stay is required, stay with Wendy or other pal in Deland, or have a fun little staycation at a hotel in Deland.

These unusual by USA standards transportation arrangements have a way of turning a short intercity trip into a multiflavored unique adventure with lots of learning and human connection.

PS. The answer to my friend’s question today was that I’m catching a ride out there with a friend in my neigborhood who decided she wants to go out there, and texted me inviting me to go with her. I might not have tried to go otherwise, because I’ve been busy with other stuff and might not have been in the mood to ponder transportation logistics.

This list serves as an illustration that people who don’t own cars often have more transportation options at the ready than people who do own cars. When a car owner’s car breaks down, that usually induces the person to cancel their plans. They often don’t think to use alternative transportation options. Whereas a person like me, who doesn’t own a car, just makes a transportation plan from among the many available options.

A friend was posting about how she had a falling out with an acquaintance over 30 for claiming she’s “still 29.” My friend was trying to point out to this person that this attitude toward aging is very harmful to ourselves as well as to others.

It’s especially harmful when a person who has set themself up in a position of influence says this. This person is a kind of spiritual teacher or coach.

Personally I love love love being 60!!! What a fun milestone. I started celebrating when I was 59.

I long ago embraced cronehood, and I frequently refer to myself as old and a senior citizen. To me it’s a great honor. I hope to have the privilege of getting many many years older.

BTW speaking of aging, last year I had to have cataract surgery in one eye.

Also speaking of aging, one of my knees is not doing so great. I attribute it to an overuse injury from an eating disorder which I had from teenhood into my early 30s, and one of the aspects of the disorder was overexercising.

Still loving getting older!!! I have so much more love and respect for my body now than I have ever had in my entire life.

My friend also shared a great article (linked below). It makes a lot of really good points. One of which is that we don’t necessarily become less mentally capable as we get older.

I have noticed the phenomenon of growing more creative as I get older. It’s super cool and fun hanging out in my brain.

And: The depression and anxiety that dominated my life when I was younger I have now become more easy to navigate and manage. As I have added more tools to the toolkit.

Also, I have noticed that I don’t have to give up my manual labor occupations; I just need to work more intelligently and mindfully, and sometimes a bit more slowly, to avoid injury.

In the words of my friend, regarding aging: “Recognize ageism for the insidious tool of patriarchy and capitalism that it is. Every time someone over 30 claims they’re ‘still 29’, you lose a little more integrity with yourself and give more ammunition to ageism.”

Further exploration:

• “Ageism is one of the last socially acceptable prejudices. Psychologists are working to change that” (Kirsten Weir; APA magazine online).

I am compiling an ongoing list of compelling reasons not to fly.

• Airline Close Calls Happen Far More Often Than Previously Known.

• The seats are incredibly unpleasant. I am an average-sized person and I still find the legroom incredibly tight and the seats incredibly narrow. Ouch!!

• Security checkpoint etc. What a complete hassle! Not being able to bring any beverages in; having bottles of lotion and things confiscated — because <cue B-movie villain voice> “With this tiny 2-ounce bottle of lotion or non-TSA-compliant size of toothpaste tube, I shall rule the WORLD!” Geez! Taking the bus or train is such a breeze compared to this. It always feels to me like the extra hours needed to travel by land are worth it in exchange for eliminating airport hassle and check-in time.

• Extreme Karen culture pervades airports and airplanes. The atmosphere on buses and trains seems a bit more human. Not that no one ever complains or starts stuff on Amtrak or the ‘Hound, but overall the atmosphere is a lot more basic plain decent human, we’re-all-in-this-together.

• List in progress — If you have a favorite item, feel free to send it my way! And let’s depopularize compulsive flying.