I tried the Moon Cup!

Since the return of my period when my daughter was 14 months old, I have been a GladRags girl. GladRags are reusable cloth menstrual pads, and in my five years of using them, I have loved them! They are so much more comfortable than disposable menstrual pads, they are obviously cheaper in the long run and better for the environment, and they are multi-purpose--I wear them when I am sick and have stress incontinence while coughing.

But they are messy to clean. So I finally decided to try the other green alternative -- a menstrual cup. I hadn't tried it earlier because I was never much of a tampon wearer, since I found them uncomfortable. But I recently learned the discomfort of tampons has much to do with their absorbancy, which can be drying to one's vagina. Reusable menstrual cups don't have that problem.

I chose the Moon Cup, which I purchased from Amazon using accumulated Swagbucks, so it cost me only about $13 including shipping and handling. (Note: the link shows Size B, but I use Size A, for post-vaginal delivery). What a deal! I knew when I first bought my GladRags that it would take me a few years to equal the cost of buying disposable pads each month. But $13 is what I used to spend in about 3 months on pads, for a product that will last me 10 years!

It took a few tries to get used to inserting it and taking it out comfortably, and my fingers get a little bloody when doing so. According to the instructions, while sitting on the toilet, you fold the cup between your thumb and forefinger to insert, and then release once it's fully inside you so that it opens up. The toughest part is adjusting the Cup once it's in--again, according to instructions, you pull the tab a little bit forward and up so that it's in line with your cervix. I have found that practicing this while wearing a mini-pad helps. Try sitting, standing, lying down and walking. If it feels comfortable in all four positions and you getting little or no leakage, you've done it correctly.

Overall, the Moon Cup is very comfortable and so much easier to clean than reusable pads. And if I have another bout of bronchitis with stress incontinence, I always have my GladRags to fall back on.

Advantages of our move from house to apartment

We moved two weeks ago from the home of military relatives for whom we had housesat for three years while they were overseas. And I am so glad!

Our new apartment has almost everything I was hoping for in greener urban living:

1) Smaller space. Our new apartment has less than one-third of the square footage of our previous home, but unbelievably, more storage--the most I've ever had in an apartment! It will be so much easier to keep this place warm or cool, as the weather dictates, without using as much energy.

2) More walkability. I had hoped to keep my daughter in the same school system, but live somewhere closer to public transportation and other amenities. We had moved from a neighborhood in Boston with a Walk Score of 85 (very walkable) to a house outside of Tacoma with a Walk Score of 7 (where almost all errands require a car), and I found our car-dependency very frustrating.

We lucked out. We not only found a place in the same school district, but it's also one block from public transportation and two blocks from our local town center. Yesterday, my daughter and I walked to the town center to do our grocery shopping, using a large collapsable canvas shopping bag on wheels that I picked up at a yard sale for $1. It was awesome to be able to do something without driving for a change! Our new neighborhood has a Walk Score of 58.

3) Places to play and garden. One of our relatives' selling points in housesitting was that they had a yard for our daughter to play in, whereas in Boston, we needed to walk to a park. That wasn't the case--they have a beautiful, heavily landscaped yard that was totally inappropriate for a young child to play in. And there were no parks within walking distance. (That will soon change, thanks to a Pepsi Refresh grant my town won to build a new playground).

However, their yard did provide us with the benefit of space to garden, and we had a fun two years of growing our own vegetables and herbs.

One of the downsides of moving to an apartment is that we won't have the space to garden anymore. However, I am growing a few plants on our balacony, and I recently learned that some folks are trying to start a community garden in a park that is three blocks from our new home.

But for my daughter, the move is a real blessing. Not only are there two parks within walking distance of our home, our apartment building is one of several that encircles a huge grassy courtyard where tons of kids play. My very social, very active daughter is loving it. As an unexpected bonus, we found out that my daughter's best friend from school lives in one of the other buildings!

Tacoma's EnviroHouse

In light of our upcoming move, I've discovered the City of Tacoma landfill and recycling center. They recycle scads of stuff (much more than my local municipality), and it's helping us clear the house out. And in the process, I also discovered the EnviroHouse! Located at the entrance of the the landfill/recycling center, the EnviroHouse is "a permanent model home showcasing green building and natural landscape ideas, materials and techniques to create a healthy home and planet."

My daughter and I visited this week when dropping off recyclables, and it was so cool! The entire house (structure, counters, walls, furniture, floors, etc.) is made from either recycled materials, including glass and paper, or rapidly renewable materials such as bamboo. I can't do it justice to describe everything they've done to make the house and the landscape low-impact, energy and water efficient, and sustainable, so please read the EnviroHouse link for more. At the house, the city offers free workshops, tours and advice to people who want to learn more about making their own homes and yards more natural and sustainable.

My daughter was fascinated by everything she could touch and feel (all the different textures of materials used in the home), as well as the real-time computer readings of the solar energy being absorbed by the house, even on a rainy day! I most loved how free and open the house felt: how fresh the air in the home felt, how bright the natural light coming through the skylights was (and again, this was a very rainy day!), and like my daughter, how wonderful everything felt to touch.

Finally! A green quiz for the rest of us

At last! The folks at Practically Green have come up with a green quiz and set of tips that make sense!

I've taken several "how green are you?" quizzes (they're all over the web these days), and most of them I find useless. The quizzes tend to fall into three types:

1) The snarky quiz. These quizzes include multiple choice questions with 3 choices, one of which is an absurdly anti-green action, one of which is an extreme green action, and one of which is meant to represent the sensible middle. You know you're supposed to pick the sensible choice, even if none of the above apply to you. For instance, they might ask you about your toilet habits, and the choices are: a) I flush 6 times each time I use it, whether I need to or not; b) I compost all my body waste in a pit outdoors; or c) I have a dual-flush toilet.

2) The "how many earths are you destroying?" quiz (otherwise known as a carbon footprint calculator). These quizzes depress me, without teaching me anything new. I already know that because I'm American, because I drive a car and because I eat meat, that my lifestyle is not sustainable and that if everyone on earth lived like me, we'd deplete the entire planet in about 3 years.

3) The "this only applies to the wealthy and/or homeowners" quiz. These quizzes only ask questions about actions you have to have a lot of money or own a home to do, such as installing insulation or Energy Star appliances, buying hybrid vehicles, buying only clothing made from organic fabrics, and the like. No green actions that apply to non-homeowners, or that cost little or no money, appear on the quiz.

The quizzes all come with recommendations, but the recommendations are often equally useless, to me at least. The first type only offers one possible option per area (e.g., buy a dual flush toilet); the second would require radical changes in our society to have an impact; and the third, I'd have to have a lot more money than I have now to do.

A green quiz for the rest of us: Practically Green

This quiz was awesome! It only takes five minutes, but it asks multiple questions in four different areas: health, water, energy and stuff (possessions). They actually ask whether you own or rent a home, they include questions about things that you need to be a homeowner to do (such as install dual-paned windows), but also about actions that anyone could do (such as wash clothes in cold water). And you can answer "not sure" or skip the question if it doesn't apply.

At the end of the quiz, they bounce back recommendations for you in each of the areas. If you click on the recommendation, you can read why it's green, how to do it, and some resources that will help you to implement it, which is fantastic. Then you can check whether you're not yet committed to the action, whether you're already doing it, whether you plan to do it, or whether it doesn't apply to you.

Although they give you about a dozen recommendations for each area, as you check them off, new ones appear (their web site says their database includes more than 400 actions). I love that, too, because sometimes I feel tapped out, unsure how to keep making improvements to be more green. Because of the recommendations, I have added the following items to my action plan:

1. Clean/mitigate any household mold
2. Shop at a farmer's market
3. Sign up for CSA
4. Inflate your tires
5. Switch to all-natural chewing gum
6. Switch to all-natural hand sanitizer

So, kudos to Practically Green!

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

William Kamkwamba was a 14-year-old in his native Malawi who used a science textbook to build a windmill. His feat would change the lives of his family and everyone in his village. The young man is now a student at Dartmouth. He will share his story at a book signing for his memoir, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, this Sunday at 2 pm at the main downtown branch of the Tacoma Public Library. Visit Youtube to hear more about his amazing story.

Dragging my family along on my green journey

OK, I admit it. I'm the big greenie in the family. But I love how my family comes along on the ride.

Not perfectly, of course. I have the hardest time getting my husband to remember to use reusable bags, even though I put them in his car. (Fortunately, I do most of the shopping in the family, so we don't collect many disposable bags).

But in other areas, my family has come a long way. For example, even though we keep a roll of recycled paper towels around the house (which lasts about 6 months), they've gotten used to using cloth towels and napkins.

But it's really cool when they start to love some of the green changes. My daughter loves helping me mix together my skin and hair care recipes. I never expected my husband to be more avid about gardening than I am. And he loves my homemade deodorant. As a big guy, it's been hard for him to find a deodorant that keeps him dry all day. My homemade stuff does the trick!

Reusable bags and the barriers to going green

I recently got into a discussion on the blog of a company, which I won't name, that sells reusable bags. The company's blogger was responding to a news story about lead being found in the inks used in some reusable bags.* The blogger wrote about how this news story shows why people shouldn't buy those cheap $1 reusable bags now sold in almost every store, and should buy quality bags like theirs instead. Their bags sell for $13-16 each.

He or she added that it's embarrassing to be a walking advertisement for a company, since many reusable bags carry the logo of the store where they were purchased, and that it's even more embarrassing to use a reusable bag in one store that carries the logo of another store.

I responded in part because of the blogger's tone: it was snarky and critical of those who buy inexpensive bags, rather than simply positive about their product as a great alternative.

I wrote back that for many people, their bags are too expensive, and if it's a choice between buying their bag or none at all, they'll continue to use disposable plastic bags. I added that I personally feel no embarrassment about whatever label is on my bag, no matter what store I'm in. (Does anyone else? When you think of all the ways we advertise companies, from the labels on our jeans to the logos on our T-shirts, does anyone even care anymore?)

The blogger responded to my comment that it's better to buy one quality bag than a cheap one that people won't value and will likely discard. She or he then linked a photo of one reusable bag thrown into a pile of garbage, which consisted of several disposable plastic bags, and added a comment about it being silly to think we can save the planet for a buck.

The blogger then deleted my follow-up comment twice. But since this is my forum, I'll share it here. My points were:

1) Comments like that are the reason many people think environmentalists are out of touch with the needs of ordinary people. A family household probably needs an average of five bags to carry all the groceries they buy for the week--so to buy this company's bags, they'd need to spend $65-80. In this economy, many households don't have that kind of spare income--but more can afford to spend $5 for five reusable bags.

2) When you tell people that the efforts they're making aren't good enough, rather than encouraging their progress, the end result is that people often throw up their hands and say, "Forget it!"

3) It's important to acknowledge the barriers that people face, and offer "next best" alternatives if a reader can't, because of whatever circumstances, do the very best. I shared a quote I'd read recently by a doctor, who said that if people can't afford to adhere to the "12 things to always buy organic" list, they can still reduce the burden of pesticides they ingest by eating a wide variety of produce, and washing produce well before eating it. I suggested this company do the same (perhaps not on their company web site, but at least on their blog), saying something like, "For those who can afford it, please buy our bags for these reasons. But if you can't, please continue to do what you can to reduce the amount of disposable bags you use."

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What do you think? I'd like to do the very best for my family in everything, but that's not always possible. I started this blog because I want people to know that even if you can't buy a homestead and live off the grid, or afford to purchase organic cotton clothing and a hybird vehicle, there are still ways to become more green inexpensively.

The blog Condo Blues also recently took up the topic of reusable bags. She writes,

I don’t support laws that ban plastic shopping bags because it ends up hurting people that cannot afford to buy reusable shopping bags. I’d rather a store or city offer incentives for using your own bag because I think you get more flies with honey than vinegar.

Condo Blues goes on to share some sweet honey: an interview with the "Green Bag Lady," a woman who sews reusable bags and gives them away for free.

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* Note: The news story that reported on lead in reusable bags had some interesting readers' comments. One reader questioned the holes in the story. He pointed out that the story never reported how many bags were found to contain lead nor how much lead they contained. He asked whether or not ink in the lead on the outside of the bag can leach into food on the inside of the bag, as well as how much lead can be absorbed by food that generally remains in a reusable bag for less than an hour. Without this more specific information, he noted, the story sounds like propaganda by the makers of disposable plastic shopping bags who want to discourage people from using reusable bags.

When going green is a pain in the *@%&

Let's face it--one of the challenges to going green is that some of the things you must do are a pain in the *@%&. It seems selfish to admit this; after all, compared to many of the daily living tasks our grandparents did all the time, or that many people in less developed nations still do, the stuff I want to complain about is nothing. However, I don't think much good will come from not admitting my annoyance, and maybe by talking about it, I will be able to think of ways to overcome the frustration. So here goes:

Green living takes forethought and preparation. Unfortunately, I'm not always as prepared as I would like. On Saturday, we went to Puyallup to get some work done on our car. Originally my husband was going to go alone, while I remained with my daughter taking care of our various Saturday tasks. For a variety of reasons we realized on Saturday morning that we all needed to go (the money to fix the car was in my account, but I needed the card, so I couldn't just give it to hubby; and we still needed some form of transportation once the car was in the shop).

Thus, we set off on Saturday morning rather quickly, without having prepared for the day. Normally, I'd make breakfast for the family in the morning, and we'd carry lunch with us. Yesterday, however, we dropped off the car and hadn't had breakfast, so we went to a nearby McDonalds. Then we decided to visit the Puyallup farmer's market, one of the biggest in Pierce County, while we waited.

In many ways, that was great--we bought lots of fresh produce, at much cheaper prices than at the farmer's markets in Tacoma. I also bought some natural fragrances--gardenia in jojoba oil--at a great price from a vendor, who discounted her products because this is the last farmer's market booth she plans to do for the year.

However, we then needed lunch, which we bought from food vendors at the market, and it was all packed in styrofoam. And we were there so long waiting for our car to be ready that we had to rush to a birthday party that afternoon, for two sisters who are friends of our daughter's. There was no time to carefully shop for presents, so we hurried into Walmart for heavily plastic-wrapped dolls. (There were some really cute handmade items at the market, such as tie-dyed sundresses for little girls, but they were too pricey for our budget, especially since we had to buy for two children).

Thus, we generated a lot more garbage than we might otherwise have done had we been more prepared. (Although I tried to make up for it by collecting the bottles and cans to recycle at both the birthday party and a church picnic today!).

Green living sometimes just takes more work. The watermelon rinds and corn cobs and husks collected at my birthday party two weeks ago have been decomposing in a plastic bag on the deck. I started to add them to the compost pile today. Before I could do that, I had to chop up the rinds and cobs and cut up the husks. And yeah, it got tiring after a while, which is why I started thinking it would be easier to just throw it all away (I didn't).

While I love all my handmade personal care products (hair conditioner and detangler, facial moisturizer, deodorant, toothpaste), it can be a pain in the *@%& to make them. Not that any of them are complicated to make, but the fact that I have to make them, instead of just buying a pre-made product at the store, can sometimes be annoying, especially if I'm tired or I'm in a hurry when I suddenly discover that I'm out of what I need.

And my reusable menstrual pads? Yes, I love them, as I wrote about a few days ago. But I'll admit, there is a bit of an "ick" factor when I'm rinsing out the pads that have been soaking.

So what to do? Well, sometimes you just gotta vent. After that, I think it's like anything that's a pain in the *@%& to do (taxes, say)--remember why it's important. And remember the benefits. It's easier with things for which the benefit is immediate and obvious, such as my personal care products. But "saving the planet" is a long way off from my small efforts. But perhaps I can focus more on the intermediate term. With my compost, for example, I can remember that next spring, my plants will love me!

Awesome Earth Day event

Yesterday, my daughter and I attended an Earth Day Fair at the Bryant Montessori School in Tacoma, where I was helping to staff a table for the Tacoma Food Co-op. It was everything I had hoped the Livable Communities Fair would be. Held on the school grounds, the event had lots of activities for children, a lot of small, home-based vendors selling handcrafted items, information about sustainable living, and lots of gardening information, including local farms which had plant starts for sale or, in some cases, to give away.

But the best part about it was the feeling of community. That is my conviction now: sustainability should always be about community.

Thoughts on the 2010 Livable Communities Fair

The 2010 Livable Communities Fair was a shadow of the 2008 event. The 2008 fair was a one day free event held on a Saturday at the Tacoma Dome. This year's fair was a portion of the Puyallup Spring Fair, a four day event with an entrance fee, held at the Puyallup fairgrounds.

I wonder if the organizers thought that combining it with a well-attended event such as the Puyallup Spring Fair would give it increased exposure. The fair will continue through Sunday, but my impressions from attending it yesterday is that it might not, for several reasons:

--The Livable Communities Fair has its own tent/pavillion, and you have to intentionally enter to see the exhibits there. With so much else going on at the fair (carnival rides, performances, a livestock fair, etc.), people seem unlikely to accidently drop in. The few people I saw wandering around there yesterday already seemed to have an interest in sustainability/eco-living, and made a point to visit.

--I also got the impression that people are eager to visit the sections that have been long-time parts of the Spring Fair, such as the livestock exhibits. A new component, without something special to draw people, might not get a whole lot of attention.

--Some of the types of exhibits that might have been a part of the Liveable Communities Fair two years ago are now split with other exhibit halls. For example, there is a kids' pavillion with activities for young children that was packed with people, and groups such as health care providers and even the Master Gardeners have displays there, rather than in the Liveable Communities tent.

Although having such groups in the kids' tent is great, this saddens me a little, because one of the things I loved in 2008 was the wide range of exhibitors at the Livable Communities fair, demonstrating that the types of programs that make a community "livable" go far beyond environmentalism/eco-friendliness (although those are two important aspects of liveable communities).

--Even taking into consideration the other exhibit halls, the number of exhibitors was greatly reduced. This might be because this year's event requires more time (four days rather than one) or more travel (to Puyallup, rather than downtown Tacoma), and some organizations just couldn't make that commitment. There may also have been a greater cost to participate, although that's just pure speculation on my part.

Alaffia continues to impress me

I've shared about how much I love Alaffia's Everyday Shea body lotion, not only for the product, but also the values of the company that produces it. I was telling someone about it recently, and it prompted me to visit their web site again. They've updated it since I last visited, and now the company's founder, Olowo-n'djo Tchala, has written on their web site about the company's commitment to moral responsibility, environmental, social and economic sustainability, and fair trade. It's worth a read, starting here (see the right side bar for other topics).

Our friend Michele has suggested a small road trip to Lacey, WA to visit their company operations. We have to plan that sometime soon!

Pierce County Livable Communities Fair

The Pierce County Livable Communities Fair is a biennial event that last occurred during our first weekend in Tacoma. In 2008 it was held at the Tacoma Dome; this year it will be held at the Puyallup Fairgrounds. The 2008 event was a great introduction to the city: we met our first friends there (a family with two daughters a year older and a year younger than our girl), I found some job contacts, and we generally got a good sense of the city and what it has to offer. The event includes both "green living" group and many other organizations that help make a community livable, including nonprofit, service and civic organizations.

The only downside (in these tight times) is that while two years ago the event was free, this year there is a fee to attend: $9 for adults, $7 for kids 6-18, and free for kids 5 and under. (However, discount tickets can be purchased at Safeway and Fred Meyer, $7.50 for adults and $5.50 for ages 6-18).

UPDATE: The reason for the fee this year is that the Livable Communities Fair is now part of the Puyallup Spring Fair, and the admission is included in the Spring Fair price.

Connections

Once more, I don't have enough time to post all I want, but I'll try to do this quickly.

Everything is connected... that's what I've been thinking about.

When Colin Beavan reached the "no more electricity" stage of his No Impact project, he realized that some of the challenges he and his family would face are the same that impoverished people around the world face daily: keeping food from spoiling; keeping cool in hot weather, and warm in cold weather; doing laundry and other chores without labor-saving devices; providing artificial light after the sun goes down so children can do homework; etc. As Beavan writes on p. 170, "When you take the 'use less' philosophy to scale, you have to question its worldwide applicability. Because how on earth can someone who has no access to electricity possibly use less?"

This makes me recall what the Permibus folks said: any "sustainable solution" that doesn't work for poor communities and urban communities isn't sustainable.

I am working with our friends Johnnie and Michelle on a grant application for their organization, Heart and Soil, so that they can do more projects engaging youth in community gardening, provide more support for local gardeners and small farmers, and do more community outreach and education. Their long-term goal is to ensure that everyone in Pierce County has access to health, local, sustainably grown foods. As Johnnie put it, if something were to happen to the highways between Pierce County, where Tacoma is located, and King County, where Seattle is located, the shelves in grocery stores throughout Pierce County would be empty in 48 hours.

Speaking of connections, we've been talking about ours. Johnnie and Michelle moved to Tacoma about the same time we did (they came from California); they are also house-sitting; they, like us, have backgrounds in community service and youth development; and they, like us, really want to make sure that the sustainability movement doesn't leave out low-income communities and communities of color. So there is at least one reason we're here in Washington after all!

And speaking of Tacoma, it's funny how one of my complaints about Washington two weeks ago has changed. We've had a lot of sunny days recently, while the east coast was getting slammed with bad weather.

The "100 Mile Challenge"

I caught an episode of this show on Planet Green, and it highlighted for me just how hard truly eating locally is, since we have grown so used to having food shipped in from everywhere. The show is a reality series about six families in British Columbia who have to eat only food produced within a 100-mile radius for a period of time. During the episode I watched, one family learned to fish; two others produced a meal together that took five hours to cook, since as one woman said, "There are no pre-packaged foods produced 100% locally, so everything has to be made from scratch." In other words, the shortcuts most of us take, even when cooking "from scratch" can't be made: no pre-made pasta sauce or chicken stock, for example (to cite a few I use).

These folks were struggling with a crew of experts guiding them--no wonder I found it so hard!

The "No Impact" Experiment

I've been hemming and hawing about signing up for Colin Beavan AKA "No Impact Man"'s No Impact Experiment, and finally did so. After defending the man and his efforts on this blog, how could I not?

The No Impact Experiment is an invitation to anyone out there to attempt to drastically reduce your impact for one week, using some of the ideas generated by Beavan during his one-year no impact experiment. Each day of the week (beginning Sunday, October 18), you are asked to focus on reducing your impact in one area, and continue that reduction each day while adding a new area, as follows:

Sunday: reducing consumption.
Monday: reducing the trash you generate.
Tuesday: transporation. Attempting to get around by your own efforts (e.g., walking or biking) or public transporation.
Wednesday: food. Attempting to eat more sustainably and locally.
Thursday: reducing your energy usage.
Friday: reducing your water consumption.
Saturday: giving back. Finding ways to contribute to your community.

The No Impact project provides a downloadable (PDF) guide with ideas on how to help you each day, and you can sign up for their social networking site to talk with other folks about their efforts. I signed up for the Washington group, and because I was the first person to do so, I also signed up for Massachusetts, since several others are already members of that group.

As I look through this list, there are many things I have already begun doing, and several areas for improvement. Since the bus routes in my town changed, I have been trying to do more walking. I have been taking my daughter to the park in her stroller. It's a half hour walk in each direction, up and down several hills. But it is getting easier to do, so I hope to soon tackle the one-hour walk to the shopping mall, which is where the nearest everything else is for me: stores, gas, pharmacy, etc. and the once-every-15-minutes bus. (There is a once-an-hour bus right by the park, but to catch it, I have to time my walks very carefully). Next week, I'll take on that one hour walk challenge.

Another area to reduce is energy usage. One of the big areas I can work on is doing more things with my daughter, rather than parking her in front of the TV. I already do a lot with her (she helps me cook and clean, and we play together), but if she had her druthers, she would spend all her time at home with Mommy. A friend of mine with two school-aged sons, one quiet and one social, says she noticed this difference between her boys. The quiet one has no problem playing on his own. The social one always wants to be doing something with someone else. It drove her crazy for a while, until she realized that if she didn't try to stay close to her outgoing son, he would look elsewhere for all his social needs, and she'd find herself regretting it when he becomes a teenager and wants nothing to do with Mom and Dad.

I believe the same is true of my very gregarious daughter. But that means I need to be engaged with her in an ongoing manner, not sitting her in front of the TV when I want some quiet.

The hardest part for me (and one I may not do) is eating locally. We are already doing more by growing our own, but our budget isn't such that we can afford to buy locally all the foods we need to buy.

Thoughts on hypocrisy and "No Impact Man"

The current issue of The New Yorker has an article by Elizabeth Kolbert titled, "Green Like Me," that's a critique of the recent crop of confessional memoirs by people who are striving to live in more environmentally conscious ways. The article makes some good points, but I found the overall tone distasteful and counterproductive.

OK, the good points Kolbert makes:

1) Individual action and changes aren't enough to save the environment. Collective change is what is needed.

2) Sometimes eco-conscious people miss the forest for the trees, or focus on small changes while rationalizing the really big changes they aren't making. Kolbert cites Vanessa Farquharson, author of Sleeping Naked Is Green, as one example: Farquharson resolves to use no more toothpicks and to use natural lubricant instead of K-Y, while purchasing a new house and flying around the country to pursue relationships with various men (the problem there is the air travel).

The primary examples in Kolbert's article, however, are Henry David Thoreau and his somewhat modern counterpart, Colin Beavan of No Impact Man, and here's where I think her arguments really become unfair. For example, she writes:

A more honest title for Beavan’s book would have been “Low Impact Man,” and a truly honest title would have been “Not Quite So High Impact Man.” Even during the year that Beavan spent drinking out of a Mason jar, more than two billion people were, quite inadvertently, living lives of lower impact than his. Most of them were struggling to get by in the slums of Delhi or Rio or scratching out a living in rural Africa or South America. A few were sleeping in cardboard boxes on the street not far from Beavan’s Fifth Avenue apartment.

If she had spent any time reading Beavan's blog or book, she would know that he knows he's not living with no impact; no impact living is impossible for any living thing. The name is just a clever way to call attention to what he's trying to do. His goal is also to try to balance out his and his family's impact, by reducing their negative environmental impact as much as possible, while increasing their positive impact through environmental activism.

Second, it's also nearly impossible for anyone in a western developed nation to live with as little impact as people in the most impoverished parts in the world. That doesn't mean we should do nothing in response, or denigrate the efforts of those attempting to live more sustainably.

Kolbert ends the article with this statement:

What makes Beavan’s experiment noteworthy is that it is just that—a voluntary exercise conducted for a limited time only by a middle-class family. Beavan justifies writing about it on the ground that it will inspire others to examine their wasteful ways. ... [However] the real work of “saving the world” goes way beyond the sorts of action that “No Impact Man” is all about.

What’s required is perhaps a sequel. In one chapter, Beavan could take the elevator to visit other families in his apartment building. He could talk to them about how they all need to work together to install a more efficient heating system. In another, he could ride the subway to Penn Station and then get on a train to Albany. Once there, he could lobby state lawmakers for better mass transit. In a third chapter, Beavan could devote his blog to pushing for a carbon tax. Here’s a possible title for the book: “Impact Man.”

Again, although she's quoting from his book, I wonder how much of it she's read, or if she has visited his blog at all. Throughout the two years I've been following No Impact Man, I have read countless posts about times in which he has:

-- written about environmental issues on a local, national and international level. I especially appreciate that he has addressed issues of poverty while doing so;

-- called his representatives (and encouraged others to do the same) about local and national environmental issues;

-- visited some of his reps in person to address such topics as making the streets safer for cyclists and preventing the air pollution that makes New York City one of the worst places in the country for childhood asthma;

-- swum in a benefit swim meet to raise funds to clean up polluted waters, and he will soon participate in a Climate Ride for Change;

-- spoken to groups of students about how they can work together to address their own personal impacts as well as that of their schools;

-- and organized the No Impact project "with the goal of engaging citizens in our cultural response to the crises in our environment and our way of life."

In other words, Beavan's story has been anything but simply the limited personal journey of a middle class family. The family stuff is in there, because that's what makes it personal and relatable to most people. But Beavan's goals and actions go far beyond that, so I find The New Yorker's belittling attitude shameful.

The Permibus

The Permibus "Skills Tour" came to the Hilltop. The Permibus is a sustainable mobile home operated by the activist family Delyla and Stan Wilson and their daughter, Megan (and their dog). They travel around the country teaching people about sustainable living and social justice activism. Johnny and Michelle invited them to the Hilltop so they could reach out to the neighborhood and to the youth who participate in the programs at my organization.

Right up front, Delyla said some things that I wholeheartedly agreed with. First, she pointed out that a majority of people in this world live in cities, and a majority are poor, so any sustainable solution that doesn't work for urban communities and poor communities really isn't sustainable. Second, she talked about the fact you can't just tell people about the changes they should make--you have to demonstrate and teach them in very hands-on ways.

Their home (a converted school bus) includes a compostable toilet, a hutch of chickens that live in the underbus luggage rack when they're on the move, a worm compost bin, and plants growing out of PVC piping, which allows them to grow in limited space, with little soil and water. Stan shared that kids usually say, "ugh" to the idea of a compostable toilet, until he points out that regular toilets flush stuff into the same water supply we drink from, which then must be filtered out. Composting our waste keeps it out of the water supply in the first place.

The Wilsons operate the bus using biofuel; use solar panels to cook, read and operate their computer; and keep the bus warm and cool in the respective seasons using curtains sewn from emergency blankets. They hunt, forage and can their own food.

While they were with us, they brought the chicken coop out. My daughter, braver than I am, held one of the chickens, and loved it. They also taught us how to make seedballs -- mixtures of compost, clay, water and seeds of all kinds, rolled into 1.5 inch balls. They let these dry and then toss them onto open land or vacant lots wherever they go. Not every seed will germinate, but something is always sure to grow.

My organization has a summer academic enrichment program for struggling students focused on science, math and technology, in partnership with the Tacoma Public Schools, so the Wilson will return later this summer to teach a few hands-on lessons to the students.