New Order of Things..?

“Mitigation of the present ruinous situation, the recycling of materials, the diminishment of consumption, the healing of damaged ecosystems; all this will be in vain if we do these things to make the present industrial systems acceptable. They must all be done but in order to build a new order of things.”

Thomas Berry

Orientations (2)

Recently we wrote: consumption and sustainability are opposites.  Here’s more.

The consumer orientation, to which most of us are deeply compliant, says: go ahead, use things up, you can always get another.  Or more.  Planet as cornucopia, a bottomless well.

I remember as a small child in the 1950’s thinking oil would run out someday.  I mentioned this to my mother, who told me not to worry, so I didn’t.  But I knew the logic was irrefutable, even if I couldn’t get a straight conversation going.  I shut up.  (No, I was not a precog child, just occasionally left alone too long.)

Now, of course, we all know oil will indeed run out, as will everything and anything else, if we’re not careful.  Consumption is the original slippery slope, is it not?

It’s okay to have, use, buy, and sell things.  Stuff.  We just have to make it all last.  Underscore “all”.   And forever.  I love to repeat Thomas Berry’s phrase, “The earth is a one-time endowment.” A literary way of saying this is all we’ve got, there ain’t no more, arguments for inter-planetary colonization notwithstanding.

So save something today.  Re-use something.  Continually develop new uses for all your “old” stuff.  Easier said than done.  When was the last time you found a new use for a worn-out, trash-bound sneaker?  Can you come up with one today?  A planter, perhaps?

I have this fantasy…  I have a road-side stand.  I sit there and people come by with their old stuff.  I come up with new uses for everything anybody shows me, and I charge each person a dollar for every new idea.   I am getting very, very rich.   I’m thinking of franchising.

But it’ll never work, because anybody can do this.  And it doesn’t have to be a future thing.  Now is good.

Ralph

Is this hard or what?

Why don’t more people adopt sustainable practices in their lives? The need is clear, the data is all around us – so what’s the hold-up?

And, oh yeah, why does progress on the community level take so long?

As I told my buddy Phil Duran the other morning, when he asked me the latter question, I could lecture on the subject for three days, but I’m not sure I know the answer.  Some observations…

• Progress is indeed slow, here as anywhere.
• Our habits die very slowly, in part we keep reinforcing them, in spite of what we may understand to the contrary.
• An interesting form of inertia does operate: a phenomenon known as “path dependency”.  Think of the path as habit on a societal level, and dependency grows from ingrained, expected normality of all of us doing things the same way over and over again, because we become convinced this is the way the system works, and it is what’s expected of good, normal people.

Here are research results from my friend John D. Adams, prominent organizational psychologist and author of a cool book entitled, Thinking Today As If Tomorrow Mattered.  John interviewed people about what they did to make an important change in their life.

In other words, how does a big change in a person’s life stay changed?  John reported on the patterns as follows.

In 90% of the cases, success depended on all of these factors being present:

1. Understanding and accepting the need for a change.  (Okay, so this one’s obvious.  Read on.)
2. Belief that the change is both desirable and possible.  (Emphasis on belief in a new reality.)
3. Passionate commitment (Old-fashioned sticking with it).
4. Specific measurable outcome and a clear first step.
5. Structure or program that reinforces repetitive discipline around implementation of a new behavior pattern.  Did I mention repetition?
6. Social Support / feelings of safety during tough moments of passage
7. Variety in available mental tools (if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail).
8. Patience and perseverance.  (Duh.)

It’s work, and it it’s important.  It takes commitment, and it only lasts if there is strong personal support from credible friends and family.  If you want to make a change, ask for help.

Ralph

Our Orientation (1)

Can we understand sustainability as the OPPOSITE of consumption?

One key implication of that question is this.   Any purchase you make – any purchase – is counter to sustainability.  Can this be true?

What’s your opinion about this.  Here’s mine: it’s absolutely true.  For now.  It does not have to be true in the future, but today we’re there.

I think this might be the test for the proposition: name something you can buy that, in making AND using the item, you use the same or less resources than it took to make, distribute, and maintain the item in question for its useful life.

Possible exception: purchase of a tract of land for the purpose of preserving it in its natural state in perpetuity.  Can you think of any others?

Of course, I wish I could say I get my food, clothing, transportation, medicine, and baseball bats– crucial for a truly good life – through systems that lived up to the Natural Step’s system conditions for sustainability (see details on the SL website), but I cannot.

How did things get this way? We ignored two key facts of life: 1) earth’s resources have always been, are, and will always be finite, and 2) long-term system considerations always win, no matter how shiny that new car looks in the show room.

Ralph

Earth Day yada yada

I want to commend everybody who did something special for Earth Day.

Two examples.  Rider University’s campus-wide displays, booths, etc. featuring both administration- and student-focused examples.  Very, very cool.  That’s one.  The other is the regular 3rd-Wednesday-of-the-month meeting of the Township’s Open Space Committee.  Virtually nailed down after months of thankless work by volunteers (significantly including a certain wife to whom I belong) is the Lawrence Township Trail Guide.

Miles of trails.  In your town.  For enjoying local Earth-ly manifestations any frikkin day!

Off the Guide will soon go the printer (ETS’ gratis service) and then to your mailbox.  Watch for it later this spring.  Then get walking, okay, because every day is Earth’s Day.  Which is the big thing you should remember on Earth Day, after all, right?

Get it?

Ralph

Lawn Sagacity

Mike McGrath was here as our guest a couple of weeks ago.  He treated us to another wonderful day of presentations about how to be smart lawn and garden stewards.

Here, a few excerpts from my notes of his sessions…

• “There are no native lawn grasses that are native to America.”
• Kentucky bluegrass — which comes from Korea…
• Here, probably your most sensible choice is the newer versions of Kentucky bluegrass.
• …So many ratty lawns in America, because we plant them at the wrong time of the year.  Many of us have been sold some useless four-point program or other by a commercial lawn company that calls for spring seeding.
• Best time for planting here: 8/15-9/15.  Best because the soil 4-5 inches down is warm enough.  Even October or November are okay.  Grass will continue to root and grow into the winter, whenever the ground is not frozen.
• Blades of grass are little solar collectors… they need to be three inches high (or 3 1/2 inches in shade) to grow strong below the surface.
• No way a weed can get established if your lawn is managed well and cut at the right height (no lower than three inches).  Start out with thick turf in the spring, you’ve got a good “barrier to entry” against weeds.
• “When you cut a lawn below three inches, it goes into shock.”
• All our lawns are what are known as “cool season lawns”.  Never cut a cool season lawn during a heat wave.

For more info, see Mike’s website (first one on this blog’s list of links) or go to his page on the SL site: http://www.sustainablelawrence.org/lawn.html.

Happy spring!

Ralph

Our Home Energy Audit

The guys came today. My expectations for this experience, as posted earlier…

1.  We will find that the house is reasonably tight, though hardly perfect.

2.  He’ll recommend more insulation.

3.  Other suggestions will involve expensive items.

4.  The inspector will see things we can do that we never imagined, some easy, some not so.

5.  We will wind up being caught between opportunities for long-term savings, which could be considerable, and short-term expense, also noteworthy for size.  Welcome to the club.  Who said sustainability was going to be easy?

The actual experience: a few observations, now that we have spent 4+ hours with two auditors.  We’ll call them Jack and Joe.

They work for a commercial heating and air conditioning contractor in the area.  They are knowledgeable, articulate and very easy to be around.  Jack, the leader of the duo, and the more experienced, started selling almost the minute he walked in the door.  Lesson number one: with a commercial operator, you get commercials.

The New Jersey program, of which this whole shtick is a part, aims to save a homeowner at least 25% of its heat energy usage.    Less than that, and you don’t qualify for any of the rebates.  Lesson 2: the State has built in a good, strong incentive for the auditors to find real savings opportunities, and 3: this audit is not a true, complete energy audit, it only covers heat energy.  There’s nothing here about your electric bill (unless you heat electrically).

It’s all about air leaks, holes in your walls for vents, pipes, etc.,and possibilities for insulation.  Jack and Joe mentioned nothing about conservation.  Lesson 4: it’s rarely about your windows: there are SO MANY others kinds of drafty places to check out.  (BTW, Jack and Joe said that little infrared device that shows you those dreaded icy cold black areas on its screen costs thousands.)

Jack kept telling us he’d come back with a proposal covering their “top ten” items.  He said in our case, the big one might be replacing our furnaces (we have two, for different parts of the house, of different ages) and our water heater with one system that does it all.  That’s gonna get us all the way to the full rebate threshold.  (Not to mention bunker-bomb the family piggy bank.  So we’ll see.)

They’ll be back, said Jack, in 2-3 weeks with their formal proposal and the real sales pitch.  He actually said that.  Clearly he thought he was being disarmingly candid, funny, and charming.  And it was sort of okay, because he sort of was.  Lesson 5: join in the fun, but don’t swallow the hook.

I’ll take up this topic again after they come back.

Ralph

Still Out There

Lunch today brought old news.  Again.

An environmental consultant I know has been working with a municipality and included in a report to her client (a municipal government in a nearby state) information about the effects of global warming.

A key member of the government body to which she delivered the report wanted that part removed from the report.  Uh-oh.

Because he doesn’t believe in global warming.

Do I need to comment on this?

It does not matter if we’re certain (we are) global warming is occurring (it is) or that human are primarily responsible (we are).  Let’s just go crazy a minute and say all that is wrong (it’s not).

Let’s then also say it’s okay to cross a busy street without looking, because someone says no traffic is coming.  Unless you’re a fool, you look anyway.  This is called the precautionary principle.

When it comes to greenhouse gas (GHG)-generated climate change, it’s a very, very good idea.  Use it.  Look both ways.

So much for the municipal troglodyte.  This is up to me and you.  Take precautions.  Slash your energy use.  If I turn out to be wrong about this, well, shrug your shoulders.  And, oh, the money you save?   Keep it.  You can thank me later.  For now, get to work.

Ralph

Change o’ Plans…

For those of you holding your breath, our auditor called to say he needs to deal with a personal emergency, so our home energy audit has been postponed for a few days.  We will return you now to our regularly irregular programming.

Ralph

P.S.  Noltice that I’ve started adding links over there in the right-hand column of this blog-site.  I’ve got a long list I’ll gradually upload, and I’m also interested in your suggestions.  Thanks.  What sustainability sites do you like?

Our Home Energy Audit: Expectations

Today’s the date of our home energy audit. The guy will be here any minute.

Here are my expectations…

1.  We will find that the house is reasonably tight, though hardly perfect.

2.  He’ll recommend more insulation.

3.  Other suggestions will involve expensive items.

4.  The inspector will see things we can do that we never imagined, some easy, some not so.

5.  We will wind up being caught between opportunities for long-term savings, which could be considerable, and short-term expense, also noteworthy for size.  Welcome to the club.  Who said sustainability was going to be easy?

Details in my next post.

Ralph