Mar 26 2008
heritage: 1. good intentions: 0.
Today I went to a presentation by the author of The Better World Handbook which is all about ways that one can improve the world (environmentally, politically, socially) by simple actions, such as shopping locally and banking responsibly and so on.
It wasn’t a bad talk and it’s certainly not a bad set of principles to live by, and the book itself looked interesting and well put-together, but the whole thing had the slight sheen of liberal yuppie self-righteousness that I tend to find abhorrent in similar good-natured publications that tell you 50 Simple Things You Can Do To Save The Earth! and so on. All you have to do, such books proclaim, is Recycle and the world will Be Better! I have always found this faintly ridiculous, but Northern California after all seems to have invented this particular strain of thinking, or at least it is endemic here, and every once in a while I feel my foreignness acutely and have flashbacks to driving a pickup truck everywhere and saying y’all and eating at drive-ins with gusto. You can take the girl out of the rural south but apparently you cannot take the hick out of the girl. Or something. At any rate, well-meaning yuppies make me uncomfortable.
I don’t think the author of the Better World Handbook was really like that; he was really a very well-spoken and sensible-seeming sociology professor, who had intelligent things to say about the power of quiet collective action (enough people recycling means that suddenly it is commonplace everywhere, or at least that the market for recycled aluminum is glutted, becomes cheaper, and so manufacturies start using it instead of new metal). But I am saying I have a certain bias against such simplistic guides to living a better life and building a better world, even though I am, in fact, one of those people that Shops Locally and Obsessively Recycles and is Mostly Vegetarian Most of the Time and so on.
These inner arguments must have stirred up my rebellious red-blooded Americanism, though, because now all I want to do is take a roadtrip — just for the sake and joy of driving — and eat fast food.
35 responses so far
because now all I want to do is take a roadtrip
What with gas going toward $4/gallon, I’m thinking it’s time to take that road trip soon, before it’s financially unfeasible. I’ve read a lot more people lately talking seriously about why people shouldn’t fly, take long trips, etc., because of the damage it causes the environment. Huh. However will ALA survive if jet travel goes away?
This so very much feeds into something I’ve been wanting to post about, and haven’t in my overwhelmed-preparing-for-next-week: I feel like I’ve already made the easy choices about greening up my life; as you say: Shops Locally and Obsessively Recycles and is Mostly Vegetarian Most of the Time (though that last gives way to “shops locally” some — if you want to shop locally in Ohio in the winter, it’s mostly meat! But still I mostly eat meat in below-standard-US quantities (and above-standard-US-quality).
Having made that first batch of “easy” choices (and by “easy” I probably mean “you and I have figured out how to make them routine features of our lives”), how do we do better than that. Cuz I, for one, am still using a dozen-or-so planets worth of resources. The choices ahead seem harder: travel less, buy less stuff, insulate better (do you have to insulate well in CA?) Not even sure what all else — I’ve been wanting to do a more thorough examination for a while.
But one of those things is going to be “really interrogate the companies with which I do business”. When I found the Better World Handbook, I thought it was going to be my salvation. And it’s moderately handy — but it’s also pre-digested crap that doesn’t let us think for ourselves. I was very sad to find out how little information they provide about how they made their choices. I want some serious bibliography, footnotes, grading-sheets, etc, and it’s not there. Having someone else tell me what choices to make is not what I’m looking for! It smacks of PC-mandated brand loyalty to me.
Someone a while back (? ?) posted a link to a lovely article on greenwashing/green-labeling advocating for labels that don’t say “made with 100% recycled rutabega skins”, but “you don’t need this!” I’m all for it. But then, how do we decide what gets that label? I’d put it on all the things I don’t buy, and get to be judgmental about everyone else… ooh! now there’s an idea — what if we went through each other’s houses and put labels on stuff. and if you put a “Phoebe says you don’t need this” label on my Amy’s frozen burrito (yes, there’s probably one in the freezer), then we have a little conversation: “Ok,” I say. “Tell me how you live without this. What do you do for dinner on those nights you work when you don’t have time to make something in advance?” And if you have some genius plan for simplifying my life, you share it.
Would it work? Sadly, a lot of the answers are probably “think ahead”. “Spend less time online and more time making dinner for tomorrow.” But those won’t be all the answers.
Ooh, I’m all stirred up now. But back to work it is…
*hugs*
Ken
While I haven’t read the book you mention, I kind of bristle at that stuff sometimes, too. The past two years of rural living have really shown me how urban and privileged you have to be to follow most advice for greening your life. I do what I can, but eating local, driving less, and recycling are much harder here.
I have to drive my recyclables to a drop-off station because we don’t have curbside pick-up. My workplace and other establishments I frequent don’t recycle much or at all, so I cart bottles and cans around with me until I get home or to R’s house.
There’s no transit here, and things are spread out, so we drive. R and I walk as much as we can from his house to downtown (where we shop to avoid the Mart) and campus, but my place is in the boonies.
I eat meat and eggs raised by friends and colleagues, but almost all my veggies have been trucked in from far-flung places. We can get Colorado-grown organic produce in the summer, but that’s still be driven into the farmer’s market. The rest of the year, we pay much money for produce at one of two grocery stores in town. We bring our own grocery sacks and have stopped buying bottled water and most stuff that comes very packaged (which kills me because I love me some fancy water).
Basically, R and I do the easy and semi-easy stuff, but there’s a very real threshold for living green in a community like ours. Plus, we live in a state that lives or dies by the price of oil. It’s a weird feeling.
I thought about your question the whole way to work (one of the great joys of living here is I can and do walk or bike to work) and I think the answer for moving beyond living as a responsible consumer is to get involved in local politics and activism. This is easy to say and very difficult to properly do; it’s much easier even to get involved in national politics. But I don’t think agitating for Obama, say, matters nearly as much as agitating for bike lanes, or regulations on new suburban development, or even the stuff many of us take for granted: curbside recycling in Haloolah’s case (below), or modifying your suburban homeowner’s covenant to allow solar panels, or fighting against wal-mart, or asking that your state DNR use less pesticides in their roadside management, or a thousand other things. These are the things that make a difference, and it is very hard to do without committing a lot of time and becoming very invested in your community and dropping all pretense that you know better than other people because you are an Enlightened Liberal.
I think that often it is hard for people like us to really get involved locally because we are outsiders or we feel like outsiders. I am certainly not terribly invested in Yolo County, California, even though it is one of the true gems of the nation in many ways, with stunningly productive farmland. When I was growing up in Arkansas, though, we were perpetually involved in local causes, and it was a lot easier then to walk up to a true redneck salt-of-the-earth farmer and say, “hey. I grew up here. I love this river and this place as much as you do. I know how hard it is to make a living. And that’s why we need to keep this chicken processing plant from polluting the river upstream. Here’s the regulation in question and here’s the town meeting when they’re discussing it.” And in cases like that, people listen to you. And it’s not much, to enforce regulation on a single plant, and it’s certainly not sexy, but it’s something — and no one else in the whole world is going to do it for you.
Anyway, that’s all I’ve got
These are the times when this country is going to be sorely upset that we did away with all the trains. If I were a futurist, I would bet it all on maglevs, because I think it’s the only long-term sustainable thing around.
And yes, of course travel is environmentally horrible. I don’t ever want to give up traveling for pleasure, though: you can pry my jet tickets from my cold dead fingers. But traveling for business could probably be cut down in most industries; and we would all be better for it.
I am glad the price of oil is going up. I know it affects poor people more than anyone else, and we are worse than most third-world countries when it comes to public transit in most places. But fuck the car companies for continuing to make trucks and SUVs in this day and age; the only thing motivating them is pure unmitigated greed, and it is sickening.
Yeah, that’s pretty much the nail on the head. Even here, if you leave the Bay and drive out into rural California, suddenly it’s like Idaho or Montana or anywhere else in America where there ain’t much money and a definite reliance on the things that such “living better” guides advise against. What exactly is one supposed to do if all there is in your town is a wal-mart? open your own damn grocery store? I don’t know. It sounds like you are basically doing what you can out there.
I don’t ever want to give up traveling for pleasure, though: you can pry my jet tickets from my cold dead fingers.
I know what you mean. When you actually think about what the “make life sustainable” crew is advocating, it’s not all that appealing:
* little or no travel that’s not people-powered
* no exotic foods (or exotic anything)
* elimination of the majority of modern conveniences
* less electrical stuff by far
* including horrible, environment-destroying computers
* etc.
Uh, no, I like my post-industrial society. The romanticizing of local food, e.g., is wonderful, but few and far between are the people who actually want (or would be able) to endure the labor involved in actually making all their food, clothes, etc.
Just want to add: this is the most interesting, intellectually engaging comments thread I’ve read this year. Cool.
Yeah, it’s also harder to be really damn poor and go green. I mean, $2 for a T-shirt or $20 for an American Apparel T-shirt? No question what you’re going to to do if you don’t have the Benjamins.
Yes. It’s pretty hypocritical that my pals and I and everyone like us — the roving computer nerds of the world — make our living and depend entirely on hardware that is manufactured by slave labor in Malaysia. The computer industry is horrible.
But on the other hand, there is a balance, and there are a few things one can do. A tremendous amount of electricity is used up every year by electronics that are simply plugged in and in a resting state all the time. Yes, I leave my computer on 24/7. But my VCR? It’s also drawing power, and it really doesn’t need to be. Nor the stereo, the toaster, the other computer that is left charging, etc. You know the drill: if everyone unplugged all that shit we’d save umpty eleven megawatts a year. It’s trite, but it’s true. Better yet: I don’t actually need a new stereo. I desperately want one, but need? Yes, I like strawberries in the middle of the winter, but really, I can make do with frozen ones, and buy fresh produce when it is actually roughly in season and not shipped in from Chile. The little stuff.
“Tell me how you live without this. What do you do for dinner on those nights you work when you don’t have time to make something in advance?”
That’s a really good question we’ve been pondering too. Amy’s is also a feature of our freezer of late, but at $4.50 a pop, only so much so. I’ve been thinking about doing more cooking of things in large batches… makes a very hearty squash soup that, combined with some steamed broc. or carrots makes a tasty meal — and the recipe makes, like, 10 or so main dish servings. More cooking like that, maybe, though it can be hard to build your life around huge rashes of cooking when you want to use the weekend for other things…
Agreed. I’m a big on (relatively) on unplugging things… We’ve also taken to more recycling of late. When our bi-weekly pickup happens, it’s bags and boxes of stuff… What I haven’t gone over to yet are canvas shopping bags, though we keep them in the car. She uses them and I am… lazy… but will eventually use them.
something i’ve been thinking about for a while (and not doing…) is organizing a frozen pot luck: everybody buys a bunch of those reusable plastic food containers and makes 10 or 15 servings of some tasty meal and portions them out into containers. Then we have a big get-together and trade meals so that I’m not stuck with ten servings of soup I really like. Instead, now I’ve got soup, enchiladas, stroganoff, stir fry, curry, mbaazi, and who knows what-all else.
on the flip side of this problem, i expect that consuming-less is probably much more valuable on the whole than consuming-greenly.
at what point does poverty tip over into being inherently greener than high-minded yuppie consumption? i don’t have that math…
yes — poverty can lead to inherent greenness. Buying nothing is *always* better than buying something. Reusing something that’s already made is nearly *always* better than buying something that’s newly made.* Part of what is bad about $2 t-shirts is they are so crappily made that they will probably never have a continued life in thrift stores. It’s in that terrible middle ground of the middle class where you have money and inclination to buy a lot of crap, but not enough money to buy well-made things, that things go downhill.
* or at least, I cannot think of counter-arguments to nothing>something and reuse>new stuff, except in a few cases of power-consuming machinery. A new car that does not pollute as much is better than your old smoke-belching truck, probably.
Sounds like fun! This sounds like my friend zeitgeist’s awesome soup exchange.
Cooking enormous batches of stuff is one of the few things that make me want to live in an intentional community/commune where things like cooking are shared out.. co-housing looks more and more appealing.
A guy I know in Seattle does this with soup. It’s a party where everyone brings 1 qt. of a soup. If a couple dozen people come, there’s enough for a little variety for all. They apparently divide it into a “wheel of soups” — vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, meaty, etc.
jinx!
Double punch jinx punch no punch back!!!!
::not enough money to buy well-made things::
I learned this from Terry Pratchett, of all folks. I believe his example was a pair of $100 boots that will last a lifetime v. $10 boots that will last a year; though he was talking about this from a conservation-of-finances not conservation-of-materials perspective. Still holds though: if you can’t afford the well-made stuff, you will spend more of your own resources using more of the world’s resources.
::power-consuming machinery::
I’ve been thinking about this with respect to getting a big chest-freezer (you know, for all that food I’m going to make in advance, and all that local broccoli I’ll freeze, and maybe half a deer or something.) Do I buy a new EnergyStar rated freezer for $450 (I think that’s the cheapest ES freezer they’ve got at Sears), or do I buy some old clunker for $50 on Craigslist? What if I did a $50 freezer plus another $50 in carbon offsets? (ooh… and there’s a whole other can of wax… speaking of yuppies buying off their souls an’ shit…)
I will join John in commending you for starting this marvelous thread. As much as I don’t feel like I have the time for it, I needed this conversation today.
this sounds great — though I think I’d definitely want to start with (and end with) more that two quarts of soup!
I think we have taken to recycling less (well the last apartment recycling was ungodly inconvenient) since there is so little that can be recycled in this city. We just talk about recycling A LOT more because we can’t recycle anything(*looks at the mound of bubble wrap in the middle of the floor not knowing what to do about it*)
For Shame! Bubble wrap, like book boxes or nicely-shaped containers is to be saved.
oh, for years I have wished that I had even a slightly larger freezer so that I could join the cook once a month gang. Even if I just cooked 5 different meals and froze them once a month, frozen food for work could be taken care of with the added bonus of an actual meal at lunch.
Actual food for lunch?! That is crazy talk!
I usually subsist on coffee and oranges throughout the day. Perhaps not the healthiest thing to do….
my approach to eat meal-like substances for lunch is to cook more dinner the night before (when that happens…). I typically cook dinner for 3-5 servings for the two of us, and the rest becomes lunches or dinners for the next day. of course, that relies on cooking regularly, which hasn’t happened much lately…
Yeah, I have an unfortunate tendency to eat too much at dinner when I do that too. “Oh look, there’s more! Guess I’ll have another serving!”
But then, I have food issues. I think it would work better for me to have dedicated cooking afternoons or whatever on the weekend. But of course you need a freezer and containers and dedication and planning skills and stuff to pull that off, sigh.
The book I read last week, and have been meaning to post about, is Bill McKibben’s Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future, and he addresses these concerns to a certain degree.
His answer is not to give up everything (which, aside from being undesirable, just isn’t a choice that we’re all going to collectively make) but to start building systems and structures that support sensible forms of localization and unpack some of the lies that we tell ourselves or we let our products tell us. We eat chicken from thousands of miles away because it’s “efficient” to abuse animals and people to bring us cheap food. If we took the actual costs of the environmental and human damage done by the cheap-food system into account, it wouldn’t make any sense at all.
Part of the reason I’ve not posted about this yet is that I need some more time to absorb some of the possible solutions — I’m currently failing to remember them really. I suspect that a lot of them had to do with changing laws and government policy to not prop up the systems that perpetuate these forms of injustice.
I would like to think that we can keep some of the features of contemporary convenience while bringing some of the excesses back into greater balance. Am I crazy?
Ooh! I like Bill McKibben. I have bought that book but haven’t read it yet. Maybe soon.
Part of what I like about engineering is that it tries to solve problems. There’s a whole exciting area of green technology out there — how can we do exactly the same things, but better, cleaner, more efficiently. If you’re going to build a new building anyway, try these materials and cut your energy use in half — that sort of thing. So yes, I think there is a balance that can be made between modern life & keeping our planet going for awhile.
I have really enjoyed this all-day conversation, btw
I’m contemplating your schedule for… well, pick any month of yours I’ve ever heard of. I think you’ve got the planning skills, Phoebe. The time? That might be another matter…
One of my motivations behind the freezer-potluck is that making an event of it makes it something that must be done on time, rather than something-i-keep-meaning-to-do. (So now, of course, organizing the event is something-i-keep-meaning-to-do — same sin, once removed…)
Huh. No, I don’t think you’re crazy. I think people tend to do what is easiest/most economically effective en masse. Educating THE PEOPLE might work, but I wonder what the breaking point is for people in terms of what they’re willing to pay for less-damaging options. I think, at root, many people don’t particularly care whether they hurt the planet or not, and this attitude is bolstered strongly by certain, uh, religio-cultural attitudes about our role as “shepherds” of the earth, and what that’s unfortunately come to mean.
I think trying to convince the government to change the system will require evidence in the form of imminent or in-progress catastrophe. Change on the scale of the elimination of DDT was possible because (I think) there were alternatives out there, and it wasn’t a matter of people not having enough to eat if its use was curtailed. If we went to $10/lb. chicken, $15/lb. beef, etc., the majority of people just aren’t going to be eating a lot of meat, and that proposition is probably unpalatable to congressmen whose constituents like their hamburgers. Of course, I am usually too “gloom and doom” about these things.
You’re right, of course — getting involved is a clear next step, and is *not* an easy one. I’m taking baby steps there, and wish I had 10 hours a week to devote to it but am fundamentally unwilling right now to make that time.
Just keep swimming…
Have you read the book Cradle to Cradle: remaking the way we make things? The authors, William McDonough and Michael Braungart, are green designers (an architect and a chemist) working on just these sorts of problems with a specific focus on making things with the intention of them being reused/recycled easily. What if we sold our crisps in packets that would biodegrade in a few days instead of mylar sheaths that’ll last forever? Books that are easily converted into other books without too much energy/water input? They’re on it. (The physical artifact of the book itself is a wacky beast — it is indeed made with those principles in mind, and contains instructions for where to send it for re-making — which is crazy, since it’s really a book that you should give away and keep in circulation if you’re tired of it…)
::I have really enjoyed this all-day conversation, btw
::
Me too. It has been one of the most worthwhile conversations I’ve had in a while. I want more! (Damn americans, always wanting more….) Say — wanna get together next week?
*hugs*
I suspect it’ll take a concatenation of education, government reforms, and (yes) new ways of doing things moderately inexpensively.
The part of the equation that’s currently on my mind is that people can’t afford to pay what chicken’s worth because they’re getting paid shit wages to make cheap something-else. For convenience’s sake, let’s say they’re underpaid poultry-processors. If we can change the world so that they’re getting paid better to do less-appalling work more locally, the money that Tyson saves on fuel and healthcare and earns on higher chicken prices can go to pay them better. I’m sure the math is harder than that or we wouldn’t have gotten to where we are. But of course the real biggie is that executive salaries have sky-rocketed, and there I *do* want legislation — scary ass taxes for companies that are making money hand-over-fist at the expense of the people and the planet. No, I don’t think I want to be responsible for writing that bill.
(All right, all right, I’m a freakin’ commie pinko and I want socialized medicine and companies that only make a little bit of money…)