Sweet 16

I turn 50 this week, and some people are asking what I want for this noteworthy birthday. I really do have all I could ever want—family, friends, beauty. Well, almost. When I cogitated about what I could do to bring meaning to this milestone, I realized that my age now gives me permission to speak my mind. What can I say? So, gloves off, here’s what I really want for my birthday, from you and every one of you:

Number 1. I want you to think about stuff. The raw materials and “cheap” labor that go into making our electronics, clothing, and stuff have a huge impact on the planet and its inhabitants. We are buying, hoarding and discarding at an alarming rate, all in the name of stimulating the economy. It is an unsustainable and harmful model, shifting wealth from the many to the few and destroying our planet in the process. In the end, the content of your character is not defined by what you own.

• Ask yourself if you really need it. Wait a bit; you may find you don’t really need it, it was just a fleeting desire, inspired by clever marketing, or you were Jonesing. I’m pretty sure there’s a commandment about that.
• If you decide you really need it, do you need it all the time? Maybe borrowing or renting it could be the answer. Most people only use their power drills 16 minutes a year. Libraries have books and videos. Consider granges or sharing schemes, which range for everything from cars to tools to kids toys. Seriously, one lawn mower would do for five or six houses. We likely don’t need 3,000 square foot houses, three-car garages and storage lockers either, once we cut back on the stuff.
• If you really do need it, do you need it new? Chances are what you seek can be found on eBay, Craigslist, or in a thrift store or garage sale.
• Read/watch anything by Anne Leonard. (storyofstuff.org)

Number 2. I want you to think about your food. Factory animals, intensive chemical farming, GMOs, and trucking and flying food all over the world are bad for us and the planet and don’t make sense on any level. Did you know that tankers full of grapefruit rinds are shipped overseas to feed French pigs, while local food scraps head for landfill? The single act of changing how we eat may have the biggest impact on carbon footprint—and climate change—than anything else we do. Because it is so close to our selves and so immediate (we do eat frequently), this is not easy, but try these in small bites and grow it into a habit.

• Grow it. Organically. Rip out a bit lawn and put in a raised bed, then grow the one vegetable that you eat a lot of, one that you eat some of, one you’d like to try, and some flowers. We need beauty in our lives, and a small bouquet of flowers from your yard will put a smile on your face.
• Get to know a farmer. Go to farmer’s markets. Hire a farmer: CSAs are all over the place, and provide a direct connection between you and your food. You know those stands by the side of the road? Stop at them!
• Eat real food. Forget about things that come in boxes, cellophane or Mylar wrappers with bar codes. Eat in season. Put things by for winter—freeze it, dry it, can it. Open a jar of sunshine in February (otherwise known as jam).
• Don’t buy GMOs. They require huge amounts of chemical fertilizers by design, and line the pockets of companies that have no interest in leaving the planet a better place. Keep putting pressure on politicians to label them. Vote.
• Plant a tree. Plant lots of trees. They suck up carbon. Hug trees, fight for their lives when you see them threatened.
• Read anything by Michael Pollan. 

Number 3. Think about your energy use. The petroleum industry is hugely powerful and subsidized by our money to the tune of billions of dollars. And it’s a great business model: they don’t have to pay anything to clean up the mess—think spills, fracking and the Arctic wilderness. They already have five times more oil reserves ready to tap than the planet can bear if we want to cap global warming to 2 degrees C—a level that already wipes some islands off the map. This is not theory, it is fact. At the rate we’re going, it’s only 16 years away. I will be 66, my kids will be in their 30s. This is important, and it’s something we all need to do together. Now.

• Don’t use it. Remember Jimmy Carter in his sweater? Turn down the thermostat. Sweat in summer, wear another layer in winter. Turn off lights. Insulate. Bake the whole meal in the oven or crockpot together. Go for efficient over flashy.
• Green it: If you have an expanse of roof, cover it with solar panels. They work even here, in the darkest corner of the country. If you live in the sunbelt, you have no excuse. If you have a lot of wind, put in a windmill. If you don’t have sun or wind, sign up for your utility’s green energy. Do it now, it’s easy, and will cost you less than the price of a latte every month.
• Think about your driving. Don’t do it: walk, bike, get on a bus. Work from home, move closer to work. Dump the low-mileage vehicle. You can always rent a pickup truck when you really need it, but look at your driving habits, and tailor the car you own to majority of your driving needs rather than 100%. I bet you’d be fine with an electric car or a hybrid (but ask yourself why you’re driving so much to begin with).
• Buy carbon offsets. They may seem like a scam, but they are the only mechanism we have to level the subsidized playing field. While you’re at it, write to your politician, and ask them to tax carbon emissions. And keep asking. Did I mention it’s important to vote?
• Read anything by Bill McKibben (350.org)

All of these things will save you money (some will take longer than others to do so), and all are good for you, but most of all, they are good for the planet—our planet. I want to have grandchildren someday, and I want to be able to spoil them with a beautiful, healthy planet. Call me selfish.
And there’s one more bit, and it’s hard: do these things as a gift to fellow inhabitants of the planet (not just humans). Lead by example, but don’t get too cocky—pride goes before the fall. The point is to make it look easy/fun/like it will save money so someone else might say to themselves, “hey, that’s a good idea, I’m going to try it.”

So there you have it, my birthday wish list. Feel free to share my wishes, pass them around, send me notes, but most of all act on them. Start with baby steps if you have to, but start. I don’t want to have to ask again when I’m 65.

Gyre

A friend recently snapped a picture in his local supermarket. Amazingly, this fresh perspective of such an everyday place sparked quite the discussion. Different people saw different things: one person wanted to know where the people are (sobbing on the floor?); one commenter from the UK thought it was local; to me, it made it pretty clear where the Pacific garbage patch was coming from.

And it got me thinking again about the whole contrived experience of the supermarket. Carefully orchestrated choreography, designed to make you slow at certain (high-priced) items, themed end-cap displays to add to your list of must-haves for the season (n.b. "season" here refers to created events, like the Super Bowl party or Halloween).

The perspective makes it all clear: little bump-outs try to make you think something is compellingly different. But from this view you'd be hard-pressed to discern what section of the supermarket this is: baking, snacks, pasta? It all looks the same from here, just an ocean of packages.

Now, think of what you see at a farmer's market. If it's anything like the ones around here it's mostly food rather than "bland sugar-coated nonsense," (to quote the photographer) and a bag or basket carried on your arm serves the same purpose as the mega-cart designed to look like a cartoon race car. All those tents and people make it look more like a party than a store. I can also compare it with my CSA, where it is painfully obvious whether we are purchasing vegetables or meat, for example. Both of which would make for a more attractive picture postcard than this shot.

Fruit platter

I have assumed my corporate mantle, in spite of Mother Nature's efforts to bring Seattle to its knees. It was no triumph of humanity over nature that got me out of an iced-over airport, just patience and dogged determination. After my 24-hour travel odyssey, I was rewarded with a hotel room, and a upgrade to the executive level.

There is a certain comfort for the weary road warrior to know exactly what to expect: the branded soft bed with choice of pillows, big fluffy towels, a desk and huge-screen TV with an assortment of cable channels. Unfortunately, the food is nearly always equally as predictable: a breakfast bar of bagels, toast and pastries, with juice, cut fruit, coffee and tea.  The fruit platter, regardless of the season, is a prime example of homogenized food: cantaloupe, honeydew, strawberries, watermelon and pineapple; only the garnish (raspberries and blackberries this week) changes.

Hotel lunches offers up a little more variety, but afternoon snacks are invariably a cookie and coffee. It's no wonder that business travelers stream out of hotels for dinner, seeking a hole in the wall that dares to serve something other than chicken Caesar salad or steak and potatoes.

It was in this context that a couple of us set out in the hour between the end of the meetings and needing to catch a flight home--anything to get some fresh air before heading back into a sealed box. So imagine our surprise and delight in turning the corner to be greeted by rows of easy-ups: a farmer's market. Tables groaning under baked goods, fruits, meats--real, seasonal food; the people lining up to buy the food outnumbered the sellers.

In that moment, the reminder that the seasons still exist not just as snowstorms to disturb flight plans and that the earth provides without shipping pineapples across the globe, I relaxed. Just the sight of frost-kissed greens, and the promise in that oasis of bounty in an icy concrete jungle, and I could feel the tension leave my body and my shoulders drop.

Turnips and kale, bread and eggs; not cantaloupe and strawberries. Farmers in the city, life in winter.

All you can do

My electronic information consumer habits have brought many messages my way these past few days. Most of it is the usual recalls, corporate America getting it wrong (think oil spill) and government not doing much better. The FDA has been pouring recall notices into my inbox, the usual e Coli-tainted beef (two companies this wee, 39,000 pounds so far) and spinach, as well as an interesting one where 61,000 pounds of Brazilian recalled beef contains the animal drug Ivermectin (an anti-parasitic, used for de-worming, in case you were wondering). The sheer volume and negativity is overwhelming; I find myself paralyzed in terms of what actions I can take to make a difference. One glimmer of hope comes all the way from Australia, where supermarkets are beginning to post the kilometers the food has travelled to give consumers a tad more information (however incomplete) to help them make better decisions.

But Australia is pretty far from here, and I don't see that I can make my personal choices make much more impact than they already do. To the blog I turn, wondering if there is anything I can say, any way to beat the drum that the message will reach one more soul.

And then word comes from a friend of a friend: fed up with the increasing amounts of steroids her doctor is prescribing for her daughter, and at her wits end from seeing her suffer from eczema, she announces that she is ready to plunge into the land of the elimination diet: no eggs, dairy, wheat and soy. Her resolve lasts until she tries to fix her first--vegetarian--meal. She's completely overwhelmed and paralyzed, unable to act. She doesn't know where to begin. I know how she feels.

But upbeat news bekons to me from my inbox: the chatty newsletter from the Redmond Saturday Market, which reads like the church bulletins of my youth, including cute plays on words ("Market Thymes") and pithy quotations. And there it is, at the bottom of the page, from none other than Henry David Thoreau: "One is not born into the world to do everything but to do something."

Ok, so I can't do everything. So, something it is. I grab my electronic pen and sketch out a week's worth of kid-enticing vegetarian meals for her, along with some hints on where to find key ingredients. You see, it's overwhelming to start, but I've had enough practice that it's second nature to me. And it turns out that helping one person past paralysis helps me, too.