Doing Global Math

This is my bowl of empty prescription bottles. That's not how many prescriptions I use, by the way. I have only two prescriptions that I refill every month. I have been trying to take the bottles back to get them refilled each month rather than get new bottles each time. As you can see, I'm not always successful. Does it really matter? Some people want us all to think that little tiny changes will make no positive impact on the environment. I mean, really, just look at how tiny those bottles are. They can't take up too much room in a landfill, can they? Besides, I only get two new bottles every month, that's not much waste to put into my garbage can.

Surely the only way to make change is to tackle the giants like corporations, or commuters, or population control, or the use of private jets...

I think we need a little math to get at the answer here. First of all, there are 303,201,560 people in the US right now. Of that number, about 40% of those people take prescription drugs. There is really no way to estimate how many months or years each prescription is taken. Let's just look at the minimum number of prescription bottles that are thrown out each year. This 40% is the number of people taking at least one prescription, however, 1 in 6 Americans are taking at least three prescription drugs. So if we stick to the number of people taking just one, our answer will be conservative.

121,280,624 people are taking at least one prescription right now. Most prescriptions are refilled on a monthly basis. So that means that every year at least 1,455,367,488 plastic prescription bottles are being thrown away. So, call me crazy*, but do almost 1.5 billion plastic bottles make no impact? That could fill up my house. That would fill up my whole yard.


Environmental issues are finally becoming mainstream and the more it enters the consciousness of the average American, the more power we have as a population to make big changes with small actions. Most things you do in your life such as drinking a plastic bottle of soda a day is something at least a million other people are also doing. So when you throw away (or recycle) that bottle, it's not just you, it's at least a million other people who are (or could be) making the same choice as you. Send a million bottles to the recycling center, or to the landfill?

Recycling is the first and easiest remedy to dealing with waste. But even recycling takes up resources and has an environmental impact. The great thing about it is that on a large level, recycling is the reuse of materials we've already made commercially and insisting on good recycling programs throughout the country gives us (or Japan, as the case mostly is) the opportunity to reuse waste. Recycling is good.

Reusing is even better. When you can reuse something again and again you prolong the period of time before an object finds itself in the trash. It takes some creativity to start implementing the reuse of things that formerly would have landed in the recycle bin, but if you lack the inspiration there are a ton of blogs and magazines that are focusing on projects that reuse things we already have in our homes.

This is where my prescription bottles come in. If I have only four bottles, two for holding this months pills, and two to send to the pharmacist to get the next month's refill, and I don't forget to bring my old bottles down to be refilled I could avoid consuming (and wasting) 24 plastic bottles a year. (Plastic bottles that aren't recyclable in my town- FOR SHAME YAMHILL COUNTY!!!!!) I won't likely stop needing medications over the next 20 years (more likely I'll have to add to them as I age) so just right there I could be keeping 480 little plastic bottles from ending up in the landfill. And all I have to do is remember to bring the bottles with me to the shop.

An exercise in living consciously.

The message for today is: don't let anyone belittle the changes you're making. Don't believe anyone who tries to make you believe that the little changes don't count.

Every effort you make counts.

Do your own math if you don't believe me.

Note: I spent the morning looking up statistics on populations and "health care" in this country and I invite you to look up some information too; National Center For Health Statistics, Demography Of The United States, US Population Clock.

*Go ahead, I do it all the time.

It's A Mad Max World Out There

What I've been wondering a lot about in the last couple of days is how come watching "Dark Angel" and "Firefly" doesn't depress me. They really should. The same way that "Blade Runner" should, but doesn't. I'll admit that I can't watch Blade Runner very often because it's too intense and darker than the other two shows I mentioned. "Mad Max" is so intense that I will not be ready to watch it again for another 11 years, but still, there's something about all those films and shows that I find oddly hopeful and appealing.

It has struck me while re-watching the "Dark Angel" series that it's not such an unrealistic view of the impending future. I mean, o-kay, I don't believe we're going to be over-run with genetically engineered super-freaks, but the way the world looks in that series, the scrabbling nature of life, the necessity for recycling (as opposed to the choice to recycle or not) as a way of life seems completely in sync with all probability. Waiting in a long line for two gallons of gas to get you to the next town...areas of cities blocked off permanently due to toxic contamination... everything you get being old and used and having to learn to make it work... the grime... squatting in abandoned housing (there are lots of people who have to do this now, what if that was the common housing solution?)...

I think what appeals to me about Firefly is the same kind of futuristic vision, where life goes so forward that it also doubles backwards. The future isn't going to look shiny and robotic as Asimov liked to see it. Covered in clean machines. As much as I think that Joss Whedon tends to see through the eyes of a hormonal teen boy (breasts, people, hot babes with breasts), I think the world he created in Firefly has an organic element to it that reflects a hopeful view of a hard future. Even he kind of describes it as a mixture between a science fiction and an old western. I love that the crew of the Firefly can take old parts to other ships and make them work for their own. Theirs is a kind of happy scavenging way of getting by. Life is tough but they enjoy the scrapping.

So I've been thinking a lot about the world in it's current state and extrapolating how things might turn out. I know that lots of people fear (and some hope) for an Armageddon type situation. Whether it be that God shakes his angry fist at us and floods us all to Kingdom Come or that man wields his mighty nuclear power and blasts the bejeezus out of the planet. People love to imagine huge chaos, it feeds the wilderness in them. It seems so much more satisfying than a slow decline in which we all die of environmental disease and starvation. The Victorians may have found glamor in the slow death that is consumption*, but modern people don't want their tragedies to be so slow and wistful.

My main thought is that it doesn't matter if you "believe" in global warming or not. You can tell yourself all kinds of lies about how no one can really be sure if oil spills on the ocean are really the fault of mankind or nature...I mean, couldn't those poor birds and fish have accidentally jumped into an oilfield and poisoned themselves? As for those ice caps melting? Does anyone really have any proof? I mean, proof other than the measurable shrinkage of the ice caps? Maybe scientists have made mistakes and their measurements are faulty. Because, it's not like the earth has ever had serious climactic change before. That whole ice age thing? That's just something Satan made up to trick good Christians into doing the devil's work...

But seriously. Global Warming aside, life will not go on indefinitely as it is now. Your hummer will not continue to run for all eternity. Pollution is not something liberals made up to try to run the world. Pollution is something you can smell with your own nose and see with your own eyes. You have but to visit your local land fill to see the truth in the claim that we are trashing the planet, one big pile at a time. I am amazed that arguments are still going on about whether it's necessary to recycle. Arguments seem to hinge, for many people, on whether or not global warming is real, but forget about global warming. In Los Angeles there are days when people are advised not to go out because the smog is dangerous. Hello, is that not indication enough of the need to clean up our acts globally?

The fact that people are being warned not to eat fish that come from certain locations because the fish have been proven to have mercury poisoning? Is anyone still arguing that those fish may have been poisoned randomly by non-human means? That it may not be our fault that the ocean is full of nasty minerals and chemicals that weren't there before we came along?

Part of my thoughts for today are being influenced by a long piece I read by Stephen Fry last night about a brangle he got in with an American man who isn't sure he "believes" in global warming. An oilman. It was really a fascinating post and brought up some really good points. If you have three hours to read it, do so, because it's also pretty funny.

The world is changing. It's been changing ever since it came into being. It changes due to many factors, but always with reference to what's going on on it's surface. The dinosaurs used to roam the earth. But they ate through their viability, apparently, and they became the fuel that is currently running our species at top speed towards it's own viability limits. It's kind of ironic actually. The fossilized flesh of another big group of beings is currently propelling human beings ever faster towards their own doom. Or whatever the future holds.

We are all connected. The only way anyone can think that humans have not had a huge hand in the current changes we are seeing on the planet is if they truly believe they live in a vacuum. That there is no connection between them, other people, the surface of the earth, the air they breath, the food they eat, and the relationships they espouse. Everything and everyone are connected. You may not like me (and why would you?) but you and I breath the same air. So if I shit all over your air, I'm shitting all over my own air too.

There's so much hopelessness being felt among those who see clearly what's happening and where humans are headed. Yet, while watching Dark Angel and Firefly, I can't help but see that even though things seem to be deteriorating faster than any of us can fix it all, there is a new kind of possible life emerging. Maybe there's some beauty to what the future holds. For those of us who are learning to make changes at a comfortable pace right now (while there's still time), the future will hold less discomfort and desperation than it will for those who refuse to see what's coming at all. Those people who don't engage in change now will be in an acutely uncomfortable situation when the oil finally runs dry. When living the good life means having some life skills like growing some food of their own, or fixing what's broken, or sewing their own blankets.

I care about people. Even people who obstinately remain blind and disconnected. So it isn't my mission to bash the environmentally blind in the head. Compassion will be called for in the future.

I think it's more important that those of us who see clearly and are trying to make positive change keep at it. Keep developing our scrapping skills. Learn to use what we have and buy less new. Learn to grow more of our own food, while supporting farmers who are farming in a sustainable way. Let us not lose hope. Let us support each other in learning to acquire the skills we'll need to get by as the world continues to change. Somehow, the rest of the world will follow eventually because they will have no choice.

If I have to live in a future that is darker than the present, let it be filled with hot people like Max and Logan who find junk on the heap and turn it into useful tools. If life isn't going to be easy, let it at least be smart and virile like Mad Max's world where every drop of water counts and you don't ask "should we take our private jet to see the show?" because there are no private jets and you will walk across the desert with no water and you will survive because that's what's called for. Maybe my favorite view of the future though is Joss Whedon's view of it in Firefly. Where there is still beauty, there is still camaraderie, people still have good marriages sometimes, and there is humor.

By the way, (in case you were wondering) if I could be any character on Firefly I would be Kaylee. I'd like to be Zoe, obviously, because of her kick-ass fighting skills and her total unquestionable babe-ness, but I would never be able to carry off the leather vest. Let's face it, even when I was a thinner person my rack was never able to impress me. I was always the sidekick to hotter girls, I was the one that most men (besides Philip) overlooked.

Am I complaining? Hell No!! After all, I got Philip.

It's a Mad Max world out there already, we just have to catch up.

*Now-a-days known as tuberculosis.

Food Redefined=Life Redefined

I am late with this post today and I'm not sorry about it. I'm not sure how I ended up there, but I have spent the last two hours reading a blog that many others have been reading for almost a year now: No Impact Man. I'm agitated with excitement just to read what he has to say. He and his wife and baby girl have engaged in a year long project to live a life creating no net impact on the environment. This family lives in a tiny apartment in New York City. The practical terms of their challenge mean that they have no air conditioning, eat only food produced and grown within a 250 mile radius, they produce NO TRASH (buy no products that come in disposable bags or packaging which means no yogurt, no store bought condiments, etc.), and they don't use any transportation that is not self propelled (which means their own feet and bicycling wherever they need to go).

What I'm noticing is that so much of our environmental problems stem from our agricultural practices and anyone wanting to make big change has to come face to face with the question of where they are getting their food, how it is produced, how far it has traveled, and what kind of packages it comes in. You simply cannot get away from it. Consumerism is certainly the broader issue in our culture, but when it comes down to it, some of the most enormous problems come from how we raise beef, and the fact that our culture demands so much beef eating. Beef comes at a great cost to us all. To our land. How we use our land, how we treat it, how we cultivate it, has an incredible impact on our air quality, our food quality, our health.

I can't type fast enough.

Choosing to eat locally will automatically make positive change in both your own life and health, while also making positive change for the environment and your local economy. But mostly it will redefine how you eat and what you eat and more than likely it will improve your diet, rather than make it worse.

There's a message that is beginning to write itself in the air in front of my face from some of the blogs I've been reading, specifically Riana's blog These Days In French Life, and No Impact Man which is that when you turn off the Television, when you unplug your cell phone, when you use your own feet to get places, when you have to prepare almost all your food from scratch and when you only buy used things, when you live a life that takes so much more time to live- you have a lot more time to enjoy your life. Hmm, that is not elegantly said at all.

Riana was just writing recently about how so many people see the life she's living as one of deprivation and drudgery. Her response is that living a slow year has helped her become happier than she's ever been before, to connect with herself, her community, her husband, and it has forced her to slow down. Living life takes time. When you spend your time being resourceful, preparing your food thoughtfully, you no longer have time to waste watching television or chatting on the phone or rushing around trying to save time so you can spend time doing more rushing around. When you slow your life down, your rhythm changes, your focus changes and you no longer have to rush around trying to eek out quality family time because everything you do is quality.

Colin at No Impact Man has essentially the same message. Rather than life getting harder, and sadder, and emptier, it has gotten fuller and healthier and happier. They are more fit because they don't use elevators, cars, buses. They use their bicycles and their feet which means they don't have to try to squeeze time in to get to the gym. They are working out all day long getting from point A to point B and enjoying it. Eating local means their diet gets a little less varied in the winter (he speaks of lots of apples and cabbage on the menu) but it also means that their diet is much healthier and cleaner and when new fruits and vegetables come into season they taste infinitely better not only because they are only eating them when they are in season, but because they haven't tasted a berry for months. It's made all the little details in life become more meaningful.

Amber at Berlin's Whimsy was just recently talking about how discouraging it can be to try to make a difference when every time you do one thing, you find out that there's this other thing you didn't do that is completely negating the positive changes you thought you were making. It's frustrating and it is easy to get discouraged. To lose hope. I think we all have to remember that there is a huge machine out there trying to keep us tied to the great commercial engine that our culture depends on. Or thinks it does. Information is purposely obfuscated by industry in order to confuse us into an apathetic stupor. If we lose hope, industry doesn't change.

Colin says that part of what inspired he and his wife to do this no impact challenge was to see what they could personally do to help make change because waiting for the big industries to make good environmental choices was taking too long. Politicians are taking too long.

I know this is going to sound hokey, and I don't care, but think about this: there are billions of people on this planet. If every single one of us was choosing to live as Colin's family is, or as Riana's family is, Industry would be FORCED to change because they are nothing without us. Without our dollars they will collapse. The power really does always lie with the people in the end. We are the pockets that are truly funding McDonald's and cheap crap from China, we are the ones who are funding poor treatment of animals, we are the ones who are funding oil consumption and war.

I don't think everyone needs to change their entire life immediately. Not all at once. But everyone needs to make change. All of us. No one excluded. If you only make one change this month, you make a positive impact. The minute you get accustomed the change you made, where it becomes easy (because it will become routine), then you challenge yourself to add another change to your life. Make your own yogurt, for example. Or only buy local produce. Or grow a few things on your balcony. Or compost your table scraps. Or buy only used things. Or walk your kid to school every day even if it's half a mile away. Not only will your life begin to improve in quality, your actions will help you feel more hopeful, your actions benefit us all.

I'm not trying to preach at you. I'm just trying to tell you that those "little" things you already do, they matter. Capello of No Appropriate Behavior once commented that eating locally for them was a real challenge* but that they finally stopped buying their favorite imported apples to buy the locally grown ones. She mentioned this as though this tiny little change amounted to nothing. So what I'm saying is: all these little things we do are important and don't belittle yourself for starting someplace. Every single time you buy an apple that was grown by a local farmer is money you spend to support that local farmer. It's gas you have opted not to spend on importing your food. Every single apple counts.

I'm saying that once you've made one little change, it's not that difficult to challenge yourself to another one.

That being said, I must look to myself first. Always look to yourself first. I am so inspired right now by doing my eat local challenge- even though it is a big adjustment. I just bought what may amount to all the produce I will be buying for the next month from Oakhill Organics. Do you know how happy it makes me to have bought 10 stalks of Brussels Sprouts, 6 bunches of chard, 6 bunches of kale, 15 pounds of carrots, 6 heads of garlic, 2 bags of salad (oh man, I am so excited to get salad this week!!!!), 3 heads of cauliflower, and 4 celery roots?

What makes me happy is that every time I make something with that food I see the faces of the people who grew it. Casey and Katie are growing a lot of the food I eat right now. I love being able to talk to the people that grew my food, ask them questions about their practices, and it's great to know that since Casey and Katie know most of the people who buy their food they can gage what their customers want the most, they know what's important to the consumers of their goods. This is how food buying should be.

Here's my next challenge: ride my bike to go grocery shopping. I have to take the scooter out at least once a week to keep the battery charged but I have been using it way more often. Considering how much weight I need to lose, this is the ideal plan. I used to do most of my grocery shopping on my bicycle in Sonoma so it isn't as though I have never done it. I sent Philip out to Winco to get 14 pounds of baking soda for bath bomb making and he bicycled there (at night, in the rain) which made me ask myself why I don't do that more often? Getting my exercise while I get my groceries is total efficiency.

I'm finding inspiration everywhere. Even from my own husband. (I need to tell him that!)

All I need to do is get myself some rain gear. I think I'll check out my local used clothing place first and see if they have any slickers, if they don't maybe I'll just get wet. Getting wet really isn't all that bad.



*I feel it should be mentioned that she also shops her local farmer's market which is such an important thing to do.

Wide green spaces and the children who live here

Last night I sat down with my newest copy of Elle magazine which I wasn't really all that excited to read, partly because Mandy Moore was on the cover and I was very recently underwhelmed by her personality and intelligence. I was in a mood, one of those moods where nothing really sounded that engaging but I wasn't ready to crawl into bed.

So I cracked open another beer, put a movie in that didn't need much paying attention to (Love Actually, if you want to know) because I've already watched it about 97 times before. It's part of my grand neurotic personality that I feel I can't go to sleep without sitting in my big thrashed chair and putting a movie in. Even if I'm not really going to watch it. I would probably melt into a puddle if forced to live without ritual.

The current issue of Elle is the "Green" issue. I love it when fashion magazines do these issues, it always seems so contradictory to be cover to cover advertisements for everything you can buy under the sun, to fill your pages with jet setting people who are driving the most ridiculous cars, and many of whom actually travel in private jets or like John Travolta, fly their own; which is about the ultimate in personal petroleum waste. In fact, I would like to slap John Travolta with an environmental crime award, for which the punishment is removal of his plane. The dude was quoted as saying that he thought we should just find other planets to inhabit rather than worry so much about earth.

OK, I've had enough of this whole Scientology group that spends most of it's time cultivating lives based on fiction. FICTION. I'm beginning to get excessively angry at their refusal to remove their heads from dark damp places. First Tom Cruise with his whole anti-meds campaign. Yeah, who needs meds when you can pay for any amount of therapy, or fancy spa visits to calm nerves, or hire a permanent personal masseuse? It makes me angry in a guttural way to hear people with endless funds for comfort dictate how us poorer folk should be running our lives.

Oh my, I'm way off track here....

I got lost in the magazine. I'm going to suggest that all of you read this issue of Elle. There is a fascinating and enlightening article by Sara Corbett called "The Kids Are Not Alright" in which the author has her and her children's bodies tested for environmental toxins. I think everyone needs to hear the frightening results of this one. Why? Because you WILL make changes after you read what illegal pesticides they found in their bodies, when you hear how much our bodies absorb from the air, when you find out how we past pesticides to our children through our breast milk-the kind that never fade away.

I've mentioned many times how I have a love affair with fashion and how I look forward to reading the magazines every month. My love has been fading ever so slightly lately. Vogue and Harper's Bazaar have this kind of celebrity and big designer worship that I find a little gross. Vogue has actually always had superb writing, if you bother to read the articles. But it is a magazine dedicated to promoting the huge designers out there, the established corporate designers who, in my opinion, have started to all look exactly the same. Harper's is annoying because they seem obsessed with convincing people not to buy "fakes", as though I don't have a huge list of more important things to worry about. I just can't get on board with this image of Karl Lagerfeld's business starving to death because a lot of non-rich people are buying knock offs. Jesus!

Shit, I'm all riled up here. Elle has become the torch bearer of real change in the fashion industry. Why? Because every issue features more and more indie designers, the renegades of fashion, the new comers, the small companies bringing you fashion that relates more to how most of us actually live. Yeah, they have big fashion shoots with the tired giants like Dior, but more than any other fashion magazine, they are concerning themselves with the real innovators and after reading the recent issue, I am now convinced that Elle is the only fashion mag who seems to really cover meaningful ecological change in their "Green" issue.

So read it and be surprised.

It's all got me thinking about the things I'm not doing to help bring change. I could tell you all the changes I've already made, but that isn't really important is it? What's important is finding what we're all NOT doing, and find new places where we are ready to embrace change:

• I still microwave my food in plastic. If you read the article I mentioned, you will feel motivated to never do this again. Not very convenient to only use ceramics, but I feel charged with fear about what I've been doing to myself and my family. It's time to commit to not microwaving food in plastic.

• I am still buying microwavable popcorn. Again, the article I mentioned talks about certain plastics that are especially toxic to people and one of the worst is the type of plasticisers used to coat the insides of popcorn bags. VERY-BAD-SHIT. I heard this before, from a separate source, made a pledge not to buy microwavable popcorn, then went ahead and started buying it again because popcorn is not as bad a snack as some other things Max likes to eat. I will research to find out if any companies manage to produce the popcorn bags without this awful plasticine-slicking-grossness that will infiltrate your child's body and never leave.

• Because the water at work is undrinkable, seriously undrinkable, I have been buying bottled water almost every day. This is not my first choice, very wasteful. I'm inspired to check out getting a water delivery service so that I'm not wasting so much plastic. Or, maybe I could just get a water purifying pitcher from Britta. (we don't have lots of money to spend on water, this might be cheaper for us). I would like to note that after Monica from Happy Zombie pointed out the water bottles in my trash can, I have started a recycling box for them.

• I don't turn out lights in my house at night until I go to bed. I don't like a dark house while I'm awake. However, I'd rather be able to keep living on earth than have to go to some uninhabitable planet with John Travolta and his ever growing brood (yeah, his foot-print is constantly growing larger. Maybe we should just send him and his family to another planet since they seem so keen on the idea) I think it's time I worked harder on this. Maybe it won't change the planet to turn out the kitchen light when I'm not in it, but EVERY BIT HELPS. That's the thing to remember.

• I don't dry any of my clothes outside on a line. I used to. At my old house. It must be pointed out that here in the Pacific Northwest there is this moisture issue to think about. There are a lot of months when line drying isn't particularly practical, however, the whole summer is as dry as California and that's enough months of line drying to make an over-all difference in the energy I use. I'm going to install the kind of line I had in the first home we owned. The kind that is rigged onto wheels so that you can just pull your clothes back in when they're dry. Very handy.

I know there's plenty more to do. I'll keep thinking this out. It's best, when making changes like this, to take smaller steps so as not to overwhelm yourself. Anyone else want to make a few changes with me? Is there anything you do that you've been thinking about changing but haven't yet? Let's take some steps forward! I know it isn't easy to make changes that impact the convenience in our lives, and believe me, I LOVE CONVENIENCE too, but it will be pretty inconvenient to have to nurse children through environmental illnesses.*



*I don't mean chemical sensitivity, I mean the rising number of people getting leukemia, cancers, breast cancer, liver failure...all of these things are a lot less random than many people like to think.