Are We Sinking or Disappearing?

Miami is changing. Heard about that ‘climate change’ thing? How it takes a while to come around? You know, like glacier slow kind of takes a while? Well, I got news for ya – glacier slow has accelerated. It’s not slow anymore. Glaciers are disappearing. You know what they do when they disappear? They melt.

Unless the people of Miami are there for a romantic notion that they can be like Venice, perhaps they may want to consider moving? Read about it here:

Miami is already sinking under rising sea levels

Old ice is vanishing, and the sea levels are rising. Things are changing. I see different bits of information and I simply connect the dots. Here’s another dot – a time-lapse that pulses like a heart, our heart, our world’s heart:

Old ice in Arctic vanishingly rare

And another dot – a city of 20 million people soon to be without water:

Taps Start to Run Dry in Brazil’s Largest City

We are all connected. So, what do we do about it? How can we rise up against a tyranny of power and short-sighted greed that maintains a status quo in a rigged society?

It is becoming clear to me that water will be the determining factor, from not having enough of it, to having too much of it.

And another dot – a timely piece of news that we may have found another planet to live on:

NASA’s Kepler Discovers First Earth-Size Planet In The ‘Habitable Zone’ of Another Star

Is this our way out of living in denial? Fat chance. We’re not going anywhere soon unless we fix our problem:

So, are we sinking or disappearing?

Tar Sands In My Backyard?

I have been aware of the tar sands – one of the largest industrial projects on the face of the planet – for a few years now. What can I tell you about it? Let’s start with a picture:

The boreal forests of Canada support an abundance of flora and fauna: 85 species of mammals, 130 species of fish, 32,000 species of insects. Let us not forget the 300 species of birds that nest there.

The picture above is what’s left of a boreal forest after it has been worked over by the only mammal still living there – the human.

Canada wants to send tar sands bitumen through a pipe line across the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. Read about it here in Bitumen in the Canadian Encyclopedia.

I say, “Fuck that.”

A Sea-change…

I made a comparison today:

The slob sitting life out on the couch smoking and drinking, playing video games and watching mainstream television bullshit eating processed foods and Monsanto GMO chemicals is the same as the rich person buying up material crap, hiding in penthouses and McMansions behind locked doors and individually wrapped lives, constantly busy busy busy with no time to give to the simple needs of living, hiding their fear, unable to cope with reality.

They are both in denial. They are both contributing to the destruction of our world through apathy and selfishness.

One feeds off the other, and around it goes…

I believe that the people that are ruining this planet know that they are. How they live with themselves is easy to figure out – they cannot come to terms with their own weaknesses, and so they opt out. But, really, their weaknesses are quite simple. It boils down to just one – they are human.

We, as humans, are in the process of waking up – as a species.

It is time. To make a change. Before it is too late.

I challenge you to stop what you are doing and think about how you can do it better.

That is all. Just do it better…

Take some responsibility for more than just yourself.

Responsibility is not convenient — it’s necessary.

Rethink. Refuse. Reduce. Reuse. Reimagine.

Love.

Some links to earlier posts about the sea-change:

https://beyondplastic.wordpress.com/2011/03/03/why-you-should-read-this-blog/

https://beyondplastic.wordpress.com/2011/04/03/full-fathom-five-thy-father-lies/

Bag to the Basics…

I have been wanting to write something, and I just did not know what.  I thought I would get back to my blogging roots and do a little research via the internet on plastic bag bans.

Let’s start with this New York Times piece from Kate Galbraith in the Green Column: Should Plastic Bags Be Banned? from February 8th, 2012.  Austin is considering a ban on plastic bags.  Would a ‘wide-ranging ban’ on plastic bags really cause chaos and confusion amongst the customers of Austin?  Seriously, are we humans really that stupid?  Look around you, Ronnie Volkening, president of the Texas Retailers Association.  He called the proposal for a ban draconian and fears for the consumers ability to handle the loss.

That might help the therapists of Austin, though.  What about that, Ronnie?  Maybe there is grief counseling that is available for those consumers that will suffer from this bag ban.  Or not.  Maybe those suffering consumers might just adapt.  Because they’re human.  That’s what we do.

We screw with stuff, generally making a mess of things, then we adapt, make some more changes, and then we adapt some more.  Do we need to keep making things worse and adapting to that?  Why not turn around?

You know that if you turn around, and take a step, you’re still going forward?

So, instead of trying to fix a problem with yet another problem, or ignoring a problem in the name of profit, why don’t we just impose a ban on plastic bags and let the chips fall where they may?  Let’s move in a more positive direction…

I’ll adapt to that.

Thanks for reading.

Responsibility in not convenient — it’s necessary.

Rethink.  Refuse.  Reduce.  Reuse.  Reimagine.

Love.

The Keurig: Another Modern (In)convenience to Life as We Know It.

I am appalled by this machine.  In this day and age, as the world we live on becomes one giant garbage dump, the money that companies (like Vermont’s Green Mountain Coffee Roasters) are making off of this is absurd.  The waste that is generated makes me sick.  The lack of thought in regards to the environment is a disgrace.

And for what?  Convenience?  Really?

Is it individual choice to dictate how we live our lives?  Is it a responsibility of a government to create order and tell us how to live?  Is it a belief system inherent in our culture that tells us how to live?  Should the companies that create waste be responsible for it?

The plastic K-cups do not get recycled.  The coffee grounds do not get composted.

The coffee itself can cost upwards of $51 a pound when all is said and done.  Wow.  Read about it in the New York Times piece from February 7, 2012:

With Coffee, the Price of Individualism Can Be High

A New York Times piece from August, 2010 about the waste of K-cup packaging:

A Coffee Conundrum

The life cycle of K-cups and their hidden costs from Carbon Diet, a website that helps people figure out how to go green:

K-Cup Coffee Maker Garbage An Environmental Issue

So, what?  So, single-use plastics are ruining our planet.

Think for a change, and change will happen.  The Dalai Lama says it starts with yourself.  Or was that Buddha?

I have a hemp coffee filter, a single cup coffee brewer to put on top of my mug, a bean grinder that runs on solar, and a tea kettle to heat the water.  All of that may not seem convenient, but it sure does make me cherish that cup of coffee.

I am interested in Green Mountain Coffee’s opinion regarding this, so I sent them a message asking them how they were addressing the waste produced by their K-cups.  They have not responded yet.  They pride themselves on “protecting the environment” and you can see their achievements here: Brewing a Better World.  It is quite a list, and I applaud them.  But the list stops in 2009.  Hmm…

According to CNNMoney, they are #2 on Fortune’s list of fastest growing companies in 2011.

So, screw the environment for profit?  Am I getting that right?  If I am wrong, by all means set me straight.

Thanks for reading.

Responsibility in not convenient — it’s necessary.

Rethink.  Refuse.  Reduce.  Reuse.  Reimagine.

Love.

Plastic: A History (Part I)…

When I first decided to think about plastic, I really did not know what would come of it.  That’s the way things go, though, isn’t it?  You get an idea, and you do stuff related to that idea.  Right?

My New Year’s Resolution two years ago was to not use single-use plastic grocery bags.  Now look at me.  If you look one way, you might compare me to a religious nut (you know who you are); look another way and you might become defensively hostile (you know who you are, too); look yet another way and you might say, “Thanks for helping me to see things differently.”

I much prefer that last one, and you know who you are…

But I won’t begrudge the first two, especially since those people are both related to me.

I am not seeking applause or accolades or even more “thank yous” by writing these words.

I am merely writing words.

Two years ago there was this little thing called the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit, or COP16, for short.  I had just discovered that twitter was a valuable tool for gathering information and used it to witness the Summit from my little apartment in Vermont.  I felt that I was a part of a global community for the first time in my life.

At the same time that I was discovering the global community, I was discovering the local community.  Having just recently moved across the continent, I was still getting acquainted — with the people, the landscape, the weather… my Self…

I was working as a saute cook in a high-end bistro in the capital of Vermont.  I was cooking with nearly 100% local food for the first time in the twenty-odd years I had been in the restaurant industry.  It was a wonderful discovery.  Do you know how to cook a parsnip?  Were you aware that the color of carrots is not just orange, but that there are hues of reds and purples?  How many different kinds of beets have you seen?  Don’t get me started on the organic vegetable farms I have worked on since…

I am nearly 43 years old.  I have been around a while.  Life has a way of tempering.  Tempering… it’s a good word to know.  What does it mean?  Look it up.

Finding a balance (did you look up the definition of tempering?) in life is no simple task.  I spent more than a year on the streets of San Francisco making a living as a bicycle messenger learning balance…

Losing your balance — well, that is a simple thing, easily accomplished.  One slip is all it takes…  I think you might all know that…

I would posit that our planet is unbalanced.

That sentence made me pause, to stare out the window for a moment, lost in thought.  What does that mean, to be unbalanced?

We start off living, us humans, dependent upon our parents to care for us, to feed and clothe and protect us.  Until we can learn how to do it by ourselves.  Why do we make such a big deal out of that first step?

That first step.  It is one of those moments when we discover within ourselves that we can balance…

That is one form of finding balance.

What about balance by losing crutches?  There is purity in that, as well.

That is what plastics are for me — a crutch.  I would like to rid what plastic is doing to this planet, what plastic is doing to unbalance our world.  We need to move beyond plastic.  Evolution is not designed for us to destroy ourselves with short-sighted greed.

Plastic = Oil.  Oil is being controlled by the few to control the many.  Oil is destroying our planet.  Look at what Chevron is arguing in court with the indigenous people of Ecuador.  Look at the travesty of the Deep Horizon/Gulf Oil Spill.  Look at the wars we wage to maintain access to a steady flow of the stuff.  Look at the senseless politics and what people will say just to make a few bucks (okay, a few million or billion).  Look at what is happening in Nigeria right now, today.

We cannot afford to slip at this point.  We carry the weight of the world on our shoulders; to fall now would cost us greatly…

Are you balanced?

Thanks for reading.

Responsibility in not convenient — it’s necessary.

Rethink.  Refuse.  Reduce.  Reuse.  Reimagine.

Love.

A New Category: The Rant

This is a bona fide rant.  I have not done a whole lot of that lately, and not much at all on this blog.

Some friends of mine had a miscarriage just recently.  It was their first time trying to make a baby, and only just a few months after my first attempt to actually have a baby.  I hope to have the great fortune of being a father in just about six more months.  It is one hell of a thing.

So, to have those friends be in a state where sorrow takes center stage is not an easy thing.

To be in a place, the place I am in now, of being on the cusp, the edge, the verge, of so much joy and beauty, hope and wonder, is a humbling feeling.

It puts my life into perspective.  My heart aches for their sorrow.  I feel tears well up within me.

And I ask myself, “Me?”

“Yeah?”

“How you doin’ these days?”

“Me?  Oh, I’m effin’ great.  I can barely get enough food to eat, much less my sweetie who’s bearing my child within her belly; between the two of us we just shelled out a grand and then some on our fossil fuel burning vehicles, and heaven knows how I’d get along without mine, and now I have to figure out where the rent is coming from.  Student loans?  Don’t get me started!”

“Cry me a river.”

“Hey, you’re the one asking.”

I have faith in myself, in my people – those that I surround myself with, that choose to accept me and love me, and me, them.  Family.  I have family.  I do not know what the future holds, but I know that with each day that passes, my bonds with my community are growing.

My community extends beyond these hills in Vermont.  They have gone beyond borders drawn on maps.  My community encompasses the world.

We planted almost 240 garlic cloves today.  In the soil out behind the house.  Those future plants will provide, not just me and mine with garlic, but also for my extended family – those people in my world around me.

I know people that grow more food than they need because – as I am beginning to see for myself – they can.  They are not doing this out of greed, or for selfish gains.

Selflessness.

What perspective does a multi-millionaire have for someone living below the poverty line?  How do things like money and the monetary system and the role of our government play their parts in the definition of community?

What does it mean to belong to a country, with its systems of beliefs, with its ideologies?

Why are we all doing the things we are doing?

I have to ask those in charge of the dominating factors of existence – the financial institutions, the despots, the tyrants, the manipulators of wealth and power – what does it benefit the global community to continue down the path you have chosen for yourselves?

Selflessness.  The newest word in my dictionary.

I have a few other words in that book I have been building.

Words like:

Responsibility.  Kaitiaki.  Quality.  Respect.

There’s this kid I know.  Been getting slowly written off for most of his life by various people along the way.  Not me.  I can make a difference to that human being in a positive way.  In doing so, I will step out beyond my own selfish borders.  Not for any personal benefit.  Not for any short-term goals.  I will do so merely for the hopes that I can help that child grow up to be a good person.

I have been following the Boycott Wall Street protests.  Corporate greed.  The inequality of life.  I am not complaining, and I don’t think that the protesters are complaining.  I think it is more like they are just saying, “Hey, look at this.  Your short-sighted greed has finally reached a point where we, the people, must say something about it.  We need a change.”

I started with a simple desire to eliminate plastic from my life as much as I can.  That plastic grocery bag has taken me all the way around the globe; to discovering the injustices being committed by those wielding power; to the profound joys and sorrows of what it is like to live in a community.

At the Copenhagen Climate Summit just two years ago, there was one protest sign that really resonated with me.  It said: “There is no Planet B.”  I am doing what I can, on a local level, as a neighbor and a friend, to make life good and decent.  It is my hope that like a pebble in a pond, my ripples will be felt, that I will make a difference.

Okay.  Rant winding down.  Thanks for reading.