In my quest for a carbon-negative life, one of my abiding fascinations/obsessions is with how much plastic has come to dominate our food culture. Here in Kenya, it is almost impossible to get away from the ubiquitous water bottle. To get by, I brought my partner's metal water bottle, and we fill up from water coolers that are stocked with recyclable large water bottles. Still, this is the tip of the iceberg. We reuse any plastic that we can avoid throwing away, and we try to avoid buying anything in plastic that we can (opting for glass, etc.).
Still, this is nowhere near as abstemious as one can get. This young man from India (in the US) conducted a personal life experiment where he tried to avoid waste for two years. He eventually was able to get rid of even toilet paper. Although I can't see myself going this far, this article has definitely moved my goal posts.
If you want to read more about this recycling demigod, you can read his blog here.
Saturday, February 25, 2017
Saturday, February 18, 2017
Looking for solutions
The purpose of this blog is to chronicle our efforts to reverse our environmental damage, and ultimately to point to successes for emulation. Saving the world should be fun, yes?
To that end, let me introduce you to a guy who has built his own island of vegetation in the middle of the Arizona desert, Jake. Watch and see how much you can accomplish on your own with some patience and love of nature.
If at first you don't succeed
I'm only a few weeks into my carbon challenge, and I'm finding that even the basic things like calculating carbon footprints and buying carbon credits is a challenge. Although I'm still buying TerraPass carbon credits, their methods for calculation seem a bit...um...generous. The more I research on human carbon footprints, the more I think that Carbonfund's methods ring true. Not only are they a bit more pessimistic on how easily remediated our activity is, they also have a few other things recommending them. 1. They are a charity (tax deductible!), and a 4-star rated one at that. and 2. The money goes towards remediation, sequestration, and renewable energy project development.
If we are going to march our way out of this problem, we are going to have to take bold action and try multiple things. In that spirit, we're going to work with both TerraPass and Carbonfund, and keep looking for ways to calculate our true effect on the environment.
If we are going to march our way out of this problem, we are going to have to take bold action and try multiple things. In that spirit, we're going to work with both TerraPass and Carbonfund, and keep looking for ways to calculate our true effect on the environment.
Saturday, February 11, 2017
Baseline Carbon Footprint
I stated earlier that my stretch goal is to get to carbon negative by 2030. Scratch that. I would like to get to carbon negative this year through offsets, and reduce the amount that I need to offset each year by about 7%.
So, to get going on this trek, I used the EPA's Carbon Footprint Calculator (still online, thankfully).
Turns out that Miriam and I have a smaller than average carbon footprint for two U.S.ians. We put about about 11 tons of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere between the both of us (couples usually average around 14 tons). This likely has to do with living in an apartment that is well insulated, and owning one car--a Honda Civic (and flying often, on the negative side of the ledger). So, bully for us starting at a not-as-terrible place.
So, to kick this off, I'm going to get us to carbon negative the easy way--through buying carbon credits via Terra Pass. To be safe, I'm going to buy double the offsets our consumption merits (by their calculations, at least). They will take our monthly payments and use them to build renewable energy installations or to methane flaring.
This is really just the start, though. We're going to keep trying to switch our primary consumption to renewable energy sources, to decrease consumption where possible, and increase efficiency of our consumption. Additionally, we are going to look for ways to support environmental remediation, and to advocate for local, regional, national, and international change in addressing climate change. So, we're on the road, and the prospect of a very long journey seems a bit brighter today.
So, to get going on this trek, I used the EPA's Carbon Footprint Calculator (still online, thankfully).
Turns out that Miriam and I have a smaller than average carbon footprint for two U.S.ians. We put about about 11 tons of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere between the both of us (couples usually average around 14 tons). This likely has to do with living in an apartment that is well insulated, and owning one car--a Honda Civic (and flying often, on the negative side of the ledger). So, bully for us starting at a not-as-terrible place.
So, to kick this off, I'm going to get us to carbon negative the easy way--through buying carbon credits via Terra Pass. To be safe, I'm going to buy double the offsets our consumption merits (by their calculations, at least). They will take our monthly payments and use them to build renewable energy installations or to methane flaring.
This is really just the start, though. We're going to keep trying to switch our primary consumption to renewable energy sources, to decrease consumption where possible, and increase efficiency of our consumption. Additionally, we are going to look for ways to support environmental remediation, and to advocate for local, regional, national, and international change in addressing climate change. So, we're on the road, and the prospect of a very long journey seems a bit brighter today.
Grief
During a daytime drive after the election, I was hit by a familiar light, and it blinded me. The light is metaphorical, of course, and it came in the form of a resigned biologist talking about the inevitably of ecological and social collapse. Hearing this biologist on the darker side of a discussion about global warming didn't hit me as much as detonate the news about record warmth that has been coming in percussively year-after-year, and now month-after-month. The despair of this particular scientist, and his willingness to retire early and give up as an advocate sent me into a bit of a tailspin.
It was a familiar story.
I had heard something nearly as psyche shattering when I was an undergraduate taking a course in Environmental Ethics. The professor (Dr. Bowman, a professor of theology, and the yearly "Voice of God" in our Christmas Feast of Lights show) sketched out the scenario of runaway greenhouse effect, where life quickly becomes hellish, and every sort of human behavior is quickly unleashed under the stresses of ecological and social collapse. This was hour one of day one, and we were wrecked as a class. During the class break, we all left the class and stared out the windows at what seemed a doomed world. After the break, the professor told us "that's the worst-case scenario, and here are other possibilities." We were challenged throughout the semester to see how we could contribute to making sure the worst-case scenario didn't play out. Over the course of the semester, we set about planning a life of advocacy and activism.
This one despondent scientist drove me to the Internet to see if what he was saying is indeed true, and to my horror, I could neither fully confirm, nor confidently disprove his case. After poring through a wide range of both experts and dabblers, there emerged a range of expectations between full extinction by 2030 and gradual change over 100 years (complete skepticism was rejected). Alarmingly, I found other very smart scientists who have also dropped out of their practice because what they discovered was too alarming, and their attempts to communicate results ridiculed (being cast as Cassandras). Like my earlier seminar, I was left on the doorstop of the desperate scenario without assurances of the better possibilities.
This made for more than a few sleepless nights. It was only in the depths of my anxiety that I realized I had not only confronted this 25 years ago in a seminar, but that I had confronted this anxiety from other existential threats as a child in church and in bible study. In a sense, we all have to deal with our certain personal annihilation, and with the potential demise of life around us. We live in a tenuous web, and we are only certain to disconnect from it ourselves. Nothing else is guaranteed
This realization also forced me to recognize that facing my own demise exacts a responsibility for those around me. My limitations require me to account for how I spend my time, efforts, and attention. Knowing that changes--possibly terrible ones--sit on the horizon, made me recognize that I have lived in a bit of a comfortable blindness. As much as I hoped I could be back to the earlier beliefs, I couldn't. That earlier person was dead.
I needed to accept that fact, grieve for a period, and then move on. It was at that moment that I decided that following the hopeless scientists was not an option. Neither was following the steps of the optimist, or the extreme skeptic. Instead, I would need to find the environmental version of Pascal's wager. I had to find a path that I could believe in, no matter the scenario that unfolded--from rapid catastrophe to comfortable glide path.
Now that I have buried the person who considered our stewardship of this planet as a side-issue, I must hit the road of the person who has left familiar country, and who is on a journey to figure out how to live consonant with the values of a person who wants to care for the people, the animals, and plants and the planet that he has called home. I'm now a pilgrim creating a path that will connect my footsteps to a better future--whatever form that limited time may take.
It was a familiar story.
I had heard something nearly as psyche shattering when I was an undergraduate taking a course in Environmental Ethics. The professor (Dr. Bowman, a professor of theology, and the yearly "Voice of God" in our Christmas Feast of Lights show) sketched out the scenario of runaway greenhouse effect, where life quickly becomes hellish, and every sort of human behavior is quickly unleashed under the stresses of ecological and social collapse. This was hour one of day one, and we were wrecked as a class. During the class break, we all left the class and stared out the windows at what seemed a doomed world. After the break, the professor told us "that's the worst-case scenario, and here are other possibilities." We were challenged throughout the semester to see how we could contribute to making sure the worst-case scenario didn't play out. Over the course of the semester, we set about planning a life of advocacy and activism.
This one despondent scientist drove me to the Internet to see if what he was saying is indeed true, and to my horror, I could neither fully confirm, nor confidently disprove his case. After poring through a wide range of both experts and dabblers, there emerged a range of expectations between full extinction by 2030 and gradual change over 100 years (complete skepticism was rejected). Alarmingly, I found other very smart scientists who have also dropped out of their practice because what they discovered was too alarming, and their attempts to communicate results ridiculed (being cast as Cassandras). Like my earlier seminar, I was left on the doorstop of the desperate scenario without assurances of the better possibilities.
This made for more than a few sleepless nights. It was only in the depths of my anxiety that I realized I had not only confronted this 25 years ago in a seminar, but that I had confronted this anxiety from other existential threats as a child in church and in bible study. In a sense, we all have to deal with our certain personal annihilation, and with the potential demise of life around us. We live in a tenuous web, and we are only certain to disconnect from it ourselves. Nothing else is guaranteed
This realization also forced me to recognize that facing my own demise exacts a responsibility for those around me. My limitations require me to account for how I spend my time, efforts, and attention. Knowing that changes--possibly terrible ones--sit on the horizon, made me recognize that I have lived in a bit of a comfortable blindness. As much as I hoped I could be back to the earlier beliefs, I couldn't. That earlier person was dead.
I needed to accept that fact, grieve for a period, and then move on. It was at that moment that I decided that following the hopeless scientists was not an option. Neither was following the steps of the optimist, or the extreme skeptic. Instead, I would need to find the environmental version of Pascal's wager. I had to find a path that I could believe in, no matter the scenario that unfolded--from rapid catastrophe to comfortable glide path.
Now that I have buried the person who considered our stewardship of this planet as a side-issue, I must hit the road of the person who has left familiar country, and who is on a journey to figure out how to live consonant with the values of a person who wants to care for the people, the animals, and plants and the planet that he has called home. I'm now a pilgrim creating a path that will connect my footsteps to a better future--whatever form that limited time may take.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)