GreenGranny

Greening the Suburban Lot

The cold, wet spring has finally yielded to warm sunny weather.  Maybe my four small cherry tomato plants will get planted outdoors before they grow spindley in the shelter of my house.  I jumped the gun when I bought them, though  most years it wouldn't have been too soon.  This year, April was March over again, and we just had to wait for May.   Iowa weather is often weird. We're used to it, but we prefer when the months fit our expectations.

Two and a half years ago, my husband and I moved to be closer to grandchildren and to shopping, and because I was keen to ride a bicycle as much as I possibly could for daily living, and not just for recreation.  Oh yes, and to live where high speed Internet was available without having to go the expensive satellite route, and to have suitable space for a home office following retirement.  (By that I mean a room NOT in a dark basement.  My cubicle life--not being able to see outside--was over.)

The house we chose met all those requirements very well.   Now that I have taken time to pursue a greener lifestyle, however, I am confronting the decidedly un-green aspects of a typical city lot.   That first summer I discovered a huge crop of crabgrass had taken over the lawn while I was busy getting myself retired.  I've hand-weeded lawns most everywhere I lived, so out I went with bucket and knife and sun hat and kneeling pad. 

My husband thought I was a glutton for punishment, ripping out the weeds that way.   From my point of view, I had an excuse to spend lots of time outside and see what was going on in my new neighborhood.  Besides, the crabgrass was far too well established to eliminate with weed killer.  Tried that once many years ago and killed the grass, and still had to dig out the crabgrass. 

The scale of that first summer's weeding was daunting, but some weeks later, that lawn looked as good as others on our tidy street, and our reputation as people who maintained our property was saved.  I probably gained a different reputation as the crazy woman always out crawling on the ground.

Since then I've indulged in an annual application of crabgrass pre-emergent, but we never use broad leaf weed killers or insecticides.  After my crabgrass feat, dandelions don't stand a chance. 

This spring, our third one here, I stood looking up and down the street at all the emerald green grass, lush from spring rains, the ideal of beauty most of us are fixated on.  I thought about all the fertilizer, weed killers, and power tools that everyone here uses to maintain this look, and how that burden to the environment of earth is mostly for appearance sake and to fill the distance between houses. 

Now and then, children play on lawns, but mostly the turf only knows the passing roar of the lawn mower, the stealth of the neighborhood cat, and an occasional tickle by a bird, squirrel, or rabbit.  I think SOMETHING HERE HAS TO CHANGE.    

Perhaps when we have electric energy from renewable sources, we might feel that those rechargeable battery garden appliances are a good thing.  Right now, no form of power appliance makes me feel good.  I know that the gasoline motor on the lawn mower is very polluting to boot.  But the area of grass is out of scale for a push mower like my dad used when I was a kid.  His city lot was 30 feet wide.   I'd need a battalion of teenagers with push mowers to get the job done.  I don't think I could find even one teen willing to earn a little money with a push mower, around here. 

At our former house in the woods, we kept a small area around the house as lawn with flower gardens filling a lot of space.  The rest was left natural.   On our new street, residents bag up every leaf and twig as yard waste and pay to have it taken away.   

I am no stranger to flower gardening in difficult circumstances--clay and rock, or dry sandy soil.   Working with the natural terrain and profusions of wildflowers at our country home, I managed to create lovely and at times, spectacular, displays of blooms. I am not a strong person, but I am a persistent one.  I'm not about to let one city lot defeat me. Besides, now I want to try vegetable gardening even more than I want flowers. 

I know you half expect me to say I've dug up the whole front yard and planted food crops, but that isn't my plan.  If it ever is, it will be part of a neighborhood effort, and we'll all be hungry.   Other than the hand-weeding, I will focus my greening efforts on the backyard.   After we lost some large trees to last spring's ice storm, we had plenty of sunlight.  It was easy to get grass growing in the bare spots that had formed under those trees.  Now that we had lot-line to lot-line grass, what could be done next?

Now here's the thing:  I haven't the strength to bring home a rented garden tiller, tear up the sod, and then grow a garden by myself.  And my husband isn't about to trade the work of mowing grass for the far greater work of growing a garden.  I'm the only one who likes the summer heat. Until food prices really skyrocket, I'm on my own and limited to taking small steps.  One such step handily presented itself.

Last season my husband tried to start raspberries along the back fence, so that strip had gotten cultivated and watered.  Most of the plants did not grow, and only pine straw mulch remained there.  He turned that area over to me, and it alone was going to take me many hours of effort just to prepare it for planting something else.

I analyzed the entire backyard to see what more I might be capable of doing there this season. I looked at the patterns of shade and sunlight as the day progressed.  I looked at where the soil tended to dry out quickly.  I noted the subtle slope towards the back of the lot, ending with the neighbor's privacy fence.  I read my own book collection on the needs of vegetables and on gardening for bird food sources and habitat, then realized that the two might not be entirely compatible.   If I plant vegetables along that fence, it will be difficult to get water that far, and the critters will eat it all before I do.Finally I came up with a modest plan for this spring.

I'm going to plant sunflowers along the fence, with some root crops in front of them, just to see what happens.   Over a period of years, I'll try to develop the back corners of the yard into thickets of shrubs to provide cover for birds.   Each year I can try to widen the garden border along the fence by half foot or so. Those steps will cut down a bit on the area given to lawn.  Fortunately, the neighborhood has plenty of mature trees, both deciduous and evergreen, to provide nesting sites, cover, and food for song birds.

Up near the house, I designated an area for shade flowers and a sunny spot to grow a few edibles in containers, including some herbs.   I'm going to try growing gourds too. 

My garden book directions always say to begin a garden by adding lots of rotted manure.  Maybe 30 years ago suburban gardeners could obtain that from the farmers closest to them.  Now, if the big box stores don't carry it, I probably won't be able to get it.  Around here, people walking dogs even pick up after their pets.  I want to keep purchases of soil amendments and fertilizers to a minimum.   

I've had some success with composting lately, and no weed or leaf goes to waste any longer.  The pines on our lot keep us supplied with pine straw for mulch.  I don't like handling it, but it's there, it's free, and it works.  I collect the pine cones for decorative mulch up near the house.  Even with that, I am guilty of buying a few bags of decorative mulch for the front of the house.

And for the neighborhood's beautiful front lawns?  I am pleased that most people let their grass go dormant, so that the street goes from emerald to golden tan during summer, to green again before winter.  We really don't need to irrigate grass in this part of the country, except when starting it from seed.  Letting areas of grass grow tall might some day come into vogue, with different varieties of grass to add shading and texture.  

I remember victory gardens as a child, though by the time I was old enough to notice them, the Second World War was over.  Some people continued to garden on their city lots for some years following the war.  They kept chickens back by the alley and grew a few fruit trees, even on those 30 foot wide lots.  In vacant lots like the large one next to my childhood home, vegetable gardens were shared by several families.  My mother canned tomatoes the day before I was born.  As I grew up, the coolest part of the cellar still had shelves and some glass canning jars, but they were empty and forgotten.

When it matters to do it, people will relearn the skills of growing food.  For now, I'm happy to visit the farmer's market and get tomatoes and beans from my daughter's home garden surplus.  Still, by growing a little at my own home, I can more easily ramp up production if I feel the need.  Most people around here have backyard garden plots--a very popular hobby.  If the day comes when backyard gardens are a necessity instead of a hobby, let's hope we can be one state that can feed itself, even as our corn and soybeans feed the world.

 

 

Do You Know Where Your Electricity Comes From?

Here in America we flip the switch and the lights come on.  When there are major power outages, it makes national news.  Utility companies across the nation try to keep their customers satisfied with cheap, dependable power.  And all too often, that power is coal. 

Coal is bad for several major reasons. First, the mining--whether deep shaft or mountain-top removal--is harmful to people and the environment.  Second, endless coal trains rumble across the nation west to east, to feed the coal power plants generating electricity.  Those diesel train engines are not  environmentally friendly. Third, when burned, coal releases a number of nasties that harm those downwind.  It releases mercury, causes acid rain and respiratory problems, and creates the "solar dimming" phenomenon that obscured the sun in Beijing, until China shut down factories for the Olympics. 

Last and worst, coal releases prodigious amounts of carbon dioxide gas when burned, such that if coal burning worldwide isn't soon curtailed and eventually ended, nothing else we do to stop green house gas emissions will matter.  That is the scale of the threat coal has for earth today.

Let's return to electric power generation.  Juneau, Alaska is in the news because the isolated city uses hydroelectric power exclusively, and an avalanche destroyed the transmission towers and lines from the dam to the city.  It will take three months to rebuild, during which time the city is getting by with expensive fossil-fueled generators.   The cost is so great that people voluntarily reduced power consumption in ways that would be unthinkable to most Americans: candlelight in the evening, hanging out the wash in a cloudy wet climate, doing without appliances. 

The people of Juneau know  they will return soon to their non-polluting power supply.  Moving to the lower 48, most areas are on THE GRID, the network of electric transmission lines that covers the nation.  A variety of power sources feed the grid and there is some ability to move that power around should any specific source fail. 

Most of us have no idea how the grid actually works.  It is a part of the infrastructure as significant as roads and as ubiquitous, but as long as the power lines don't run through our backyards, we ignore them.  We ignore them until there is an avalanche, or more commonly, an ice storm, that can take down neighborhood lines and giant towers in just hours, affecting hundreds of thousands of households.  Many towns have had to get by with emergency generators and public shelters for weeks at a time while repairs were made to restore electric power.

The grid may be interconnected, but the utility services that run the power plants are discrete entities.  In Iowa, there are many rural electric cooperatives supplying power to farms and small towns.   Numerous cities have their own municipal electric services which are also not-for-profit.  Then there are the publicly owned and traded power companies serving many cities and rural areas as well.

The map of service coverage in Iowa recently published by the Des Moines Register (April 27, 2008) shows two public companies, each as several large "blobs" of service area with tentacles snaking out into rural areas otherwise served by the co-ops.  There is no smooth geographical demarcation of their territory, and the tentacles of each snake around and past each other.

The map also shows a few small "blobs" of service areas scattered about the state representing service by municipal utilities.  I happen to live in one of those places, but my natural gas service is provided by one of the for-profit utilities.

Taken together, these electric utilities obtain most of their energy from burning coal, with lesser amounts from natural gas plants and nuclear plants.  Wind farms are developing wonderfully well and are expected to become a significant part of the mix in the near future.  It can't happen too rapidly!   

As naturally occurring resources go, Iowa's abundant wind power is equivalent to Juneau's hydro power.  Water behind a dam is stored power.  Until wind power storage technology is adequately developed, it isn't possible today to use wind as the only source for electricity.  As wind farms become more numerous and geographically distributed, the power they supply to the grid, as a whole, will have smaller variation.  Wind speeds at a variety of locales will average out. 

Which brings us back to coal and the challenge all Iowa electric utilities face: how to transition from fossil fuels to renewables without dallying around for 50 or 100 years doing it.  Iowa is colder in winter than Juneau, and far hotter in the summer.  Instead of 30,000 people, we have about three million.   What to do?   There is a lot that can be done, and the more one searches for ways, the more opportunities are found.  A subsequent post will share what I have been learning. 

Meanwhile, the first step is to understand where electric power comes from in your town, your county, your state, your nation.  Then, goals must be set in terms of emissions reductions and when those must be achieved.  This may change as more scientific information becomes available.   For the last couple of decades, the science emerging by the month only shows an increasingly urgent global situation.  We aren't in a position to choose the pace of change that suits us. Like the avalanche near Juneau, nature has spoken. The atmosphere is more fragile and in worse shape than we ever thought possible just a decade ago--or just a year ago.

Concurrently with the above steps of understanding status and goals for electric power, we can be building and start implementing our arsenal of alternatives to fossil fuels and ways of reducing power consumption.   The good news is, we may not have to use only candles at night or hang laundry on the back porch to keep it out of the rain, as in Juneau.  Provided we act now.

      

You Could Be Green Granny's Neighbor--A Thank You to AARP

I was out raking pine needles in my backyard when my neighbor diagonal from me waved me over to speak.   Most backyards on my block are screened from those behind either with a row of spruce trees or with privacy fence, but there are opportune gaps for neighborly communication.  We stood in one such opening and she handed me a page torn out of the March/April 2008 AARP Magazine, said to have the largest circulation in the world. 

"I KNEW it!" she said.  "When I saw this I said to my companions, I think that's my neighbor they're talking about in that article!"

Indeed I was.  During get-acquainted talks I'd had with her since moving to my home, I included a bit about my blogs and writing as Green Granny, so she was able to make the connection.  But by then, having people know of me and my mission via the AARP Magazine article was something I'd grown accustomed to.

The Article

"Tree Amigos -- Older eco-activists are logging on--and spreading the word" only occupies page 13, and the text itself is just a fourth of the space.  The size belies the impact.  A paragraph about me and my environmental work is followed by noting how "eco-elders are organizing online." 

The article's finale is about two other senior activists, Max Lindberg, 76, and Robert Lane, 90, to finish the play on words (Tree Amigos).  Both Max and Bob are highly respected by Green Seniors and their sites are linked to ours at www.greenseniors.org.

The Impact

The week that the publication came out, the daily hits to Green Seniors doubled, then tripled.  Weeks 4 and 5 were the peak, followed by a trend toward baseline, a lovely if somewhat skewed bell-shaped curve.  Hits are still running 50% higher than before the article, and I hope it stays that way.  Some super folks found us and we want them to pay return visits. 

So many emails and comments and requests came in that I'm still not through the entire list.  My home office looks like a cyclone hit it.  I found I'd been added to many mailing lists, because I was deluged with emails regarding Earth Day.  Though it ranged from too commercial all the way to fascinating, I was glad to get a better sense of who was doing what.

I want to thank Reporter Jeff  Young for interviewing me and writing the clever and effective article, and Assistant Editor Chai Woodham for verifying every detail.  They were very impressive.  Special thanks go to Holly Schultz, the eCommunications Editor of AARP International, for discovering me and co-founder Keith Farnish of the UK, and partnering with Green Seniors on a couple of projects last year.  Holly's patience and kindness made it a good experience.

Bask in AARP fame one moment, fight coal emissions the next

And so, readers, the first reason I'm behind on blogging is the happy result of the AARP article.  The second reason is the April surgeries of two family members, but now they are doing quite well, so that's happy too.  The third reason is taking time to do my duty as a citizen of Ames and Iowa regarding the issues of coal power plants. 

Coal power for electricity is a crucial issue that is coming to a head in numerous states.   I've been pleased with my opportunities to join in the debate, and I've been impressed with the sheer numbers of activists involved. Even those arguing for one more new coal plant understand that emissions reductions (as by closing older, less efficient coal plants) are necessary to combat global warming.  The dissention is only about  how rapidly and by what means that reduction can occur.

One of the top climate researchers of our time, Jim Hansen, provided comment to our state's debate.  The latest science only shows more clearly how grave earth's status is, with more carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere than can safely avoid the ultimate melting of all polar ice.  (Having read reports of ancient ice melting in Greenland, this comes as no surprise.)   

The ante has been upped

This really should stun the go-slowly-lest-you-harm-the-economy group.  We can't cut emissions at our chosen pace--reality isn't negotiable.  We must reduce CO2 as rapidly as it takes to stop those ice caps from melting.  Earth is past the "tipping point."  If we could wave a magic wand and freeze the CO2 concentration exactly where it is today, the poles would still eventually melt, turning earth into something unlike anything most species alive today have experienced. 

What we strive for now is to achieve reductions not only in current emissions but also in the atmosphere as a whole, sufficient to prevent going past a point of no return, a point where the natural systems of earth accelerate warming  in runaway fashion. 

Humanity got earth into this predicament by being so darned smart, so "successful" as a species that we've overpopulated the planet.  The industrial revolution with the greenhouse gas issue certainly helped us do that.  Now, we've got to figure out how to undo it.  If we fail, it won't be just our own species that experiences population collapse.

As Bob Lane put it:

"Our generation defeated fascism and Japanese imperialism, but we exploited the earth.  So we owe it to our grandchildren to do what we can to repair it."

  Bob's generation and all subsequent generations need to put their shoulder to the wheel.  The second world war lasted much less than a decade.  In America, industry was re-tooled from consumer goods to the tools of war in just one year--1942.  We need a similar all-out effort to stop burning fossil fuel, but it will take longer to change direction, and far longer to bring to a successful conclusion.

Even if I live another 20 years I do not expect to see the outcome.  But I do hope I can say that I did my best, and I send my love and hope into the future with my grandchildren.

 

How to Make Your Knitting Eco-Friendly

One of my retirement ambitions was to learn more of the needle arts.  From my teen years I'd sewn garments and dabbled in crewel and needlepoint, and I even hooked a rug (which I'll NEVER do again). Knitting and crochet had thus far eluded me, and I wanted to try them.  My sister was happy to get me started knitting this winter.  Then in a sewing class I met some circular loom knitters, and it looked like fun.  Before long, I was loom-knitting warm winter hats for my entire family.  They just loved them,  and I was delighted to have found a relaxing and productive handcraft that allows for a little artistic invention to boot.  What a deal!

Then I got to thinking about a hand-loomed cap to which I could affix my Green Seniors pin (badge, button).   This led me to consider the environmental aspect of yarn manufacture and fiber origination. I went to the yarn shop, on my bicycle as usual, and started to read all the labels.  The most common fiber was acrylic, or acrylic blended with some wool or polyester.  There was all-wool and all-cotton yarn in lesser variety.  Finally, there were the new varieties:  organic cotton, bamboo, soy and corn blends.   

Yarns in this store were manufactured in the United States, Canada, Italy, China, Turkey, and a few other places I can't recall.  The diversity of final manufacture startled me because of the enormous prevalence of Chinese-made goods for most other commodities in the American marketplace.   If  the craft store were converted into a map of the world according to the source of the merchandise, it would nearly all be China with a handful of other nations squeezed into the yarn aisle.   

Next I checked the Web to see what I could learn about acrylic, the most prevalent yarn, and about the ecological footprint of all kinds of yarn.  Acrylic is a man-made fiber, of course. I found out it was first used in athletic socks and has since become common in most types of apparel and other uses of fiber.  On the plus side, acrylic is soft and comfortable, wicks moisture away from the skin, resists bacteria and mold, and is extremely durable.  It is essentially a plastic, and therein lies its downside.  When acrylic apparel finally wears out, does it last forever in a landfill? I suspect that is the case. 

The best statement I found about the environmental impact of yarns was that it was hard to tease out the true ecological footprint.  There appears to be no one solution to "greening" one's yarn, as it is with a great many of the goods we consider a normal part of life.  It's going to take some time and some digging to come up with green options. 

Corn and soy?  I'm from the corn belt, where ethanol and biodiesel are all the rage.  Using byproducts is one thing, but burning food in vehicles or making it into clothing?  Food that requires fertilizer, pesticides, gasoline-burning farm implements, and often, coal-powered manufacturing plants? No way. 

Bamboo?  It has promise, but the unknowns involved in tropical areas far removed from environmental understanding are troubling.  What do we know about how it is harvested and processed? 

Organic cotton?  I'm sure it is preferable to regular cotton, but what I've seen of cotton fields in this country are irrigated from aquifers.   Cotton fabric wears out fairly soon and stays wet a long time after washing--often longer than the sun shines on the clothes hung on the line.   

Wool? I read that vegans may object to wool, but I have survived many winters grateful for its comfort.  However, wool can be tricky to care for. 

I intend to enjoy my hobby using any of the yarns that suit the project, except cotton.  We use all kinds of things manufactured from petroleum, but that's surely better than burning it for fuel.  I'm not ready to snub acrylic yarn or durable plastics.  In time, the footprint of yarns will become clearer, and another decision can then be made. Meanwhile, you CAN green up your knitting hobby by paying attention to these peripheral, but potentially significant, aspects:

GreenGranny's tips for knitting "green"

1. Don't drive alone in your vehicle just to visit the craft store. 

2. Use your knit things for more than style.  A soft knit hat that you've made to fit comfortably is great to wear to bed on cold nights!   I plan to wear mine under my bicycle helmet. 

3. Don't stuff every closet and drawer with your hand-knitted garments (or your other clothing for that matter).  Own fewer clothes.  See that the ones you don't need go to a good use.  Just because you are making hats with your own hands doesn't mean it is therefore "green" to have 10 or 20 of them.  Those of you making knit toys and other novelties, this applies to you too.  Your grandkids can only use so many of these items. 

4. Hand or machine wash and air-dry your knitting and avoid dry cleaning.

5. Consider reusing yarn from projects you no longer need.   That afgan that's been in a closet for the last 15 years, the one with dated colors, might have yarn that could be used in more current color combinations for a handbag or in making felted wool projects. 

6. Thift shops are a good place to find the handmade knitted or crocheted things of a generation ago. Perhaps if they were to age another 100 years, someone would collect them.  Instead, things once considered lovely languish there.  You might be able to put them to some use.

The Best "Green"

As I made a knit hat for each granddaughter, I thought about what would look nice on her, what would suit her taste.  When I sent the box off, I included a hand-written note telling each girl why I chose the color and style for her hat, and why it was uniquely hers. 

The following week I was talking to Lily, age 8, on the phone.

"Did you like the hat I sent?"  I asked.   

"Yes, Grandma, and I liked the note you sent even better."

Then she added, "and I happen to be wearing the hat right now."

"Are you outside?" I asked.  (It was a warm winter hat.)

"No" she said. "I'm inside, but I just wanted to be wearing it."

I smiled to myself.  Something told me that the love that went into that hat was doing its work well. It was a blue hat, but I think it was the "greenest" hat of all--one that will be worn and enjoyed as a bond between us for a long time to come.

 

A Footprint Calculator That Really Teaches You Something

Most of you interested in helping the environment have probably tried a footprint calculator available on any number of websites.  I found them unhelpful. My main frustration was that nothing I could readily change, no improved green living habits, were being reflected in the footprint numbers.  However, Redefining Progress has an outstanding footprint calculator that is featured on Green Seniors, the companion blog to GreenGranny, thanks to co-founder Keith Farnish.  Check out the Redefining Progress site at  http://www.rprogress.org/ecological_footprint/about_ecological_footprint.htm

There are 4.5 biologically productive acres per person on this planet at this time.  The average footprint per person in the United States is 24 acres.  My footprint came out 22.  I redid the footprint along the lines of how I could be living now if I weren't trying to conserve and was out for any luxury I could get.  My hypothetical footprint  came out 34 acres.  Somewhat relieved (yet horrified at the same time), I wanted to see what I was doing to account for my 22 acres and how it might be reduced. 

The calculator produces a little report showing productive acres of land required in four categories:  Food, Mobility, Shelter, and Goods and Services. As I changed scenarios by answering the footprint quiz in different ways, I could see which categories changed and by how much.  My original category totals were:

  Food - 5.4 acres         
  Mobility - 0.2 acres 
  Shelter - 9.6 acres   
  Goods and Services - 6.7 acres 

It startled me that Mobility was the lowest.  True, I have made major changes in that area plus investment in a vehicle with better gasoline economy, for use when a vehicle is necessary.  I could have underestimated miles traveled, but none the less my effort to change lifestyle paid off.  There's not much room for improvement and obviously I need to work on all the other areas far more.   

I suspected the cold climate I lived in was a major factor in the high Shelter category, so I repeated my quiz answers changing "Chicago" to "Los Angeles" as the city most resembling the climate where I live.  Bingo! My acres dropped by about 7.  It also explains why the average footprint for a person living in the State of California is lower than for Iowa.  Pretty much it's due to geography and climate.   But let's keep going with the scenarios.

What if we lived in a house one notch smaller on the quiz?  Shelter dropped to 6.9 and Goods and Services dropped to 4.9--quite an impact on the total.  It's not easy to change one's dwelling especially if one owns it rather than rents.  It's a costly decision for any family.  Selling and buying often takes many months during which time there are vulnerabilities to market fluctuations. 

And, while a family might desire to live in a smaller home, the housing stock in this country is what it is--tending to accommodate the larger family sizes of the 1950s and 1960s.  Furthermore, new construction tends to ever larger homes, and that trend hasn't slowed yet.  Retirees can probably downsize more easily than younger homeowners simply because so much retirement housing has been built sized to their needs--housing that has a lower age limit such as 55 years of age. 

What if we had more or fewer people in our household?  Ah! Now that really made a change!  Adding a person to the household had about the same impact as reducing the size of the home one notch.  But decreasing to a single person household, as happens when one partner is deceased, that really makes the footprint of the remaining person leap!  Living as I do now but alone, my footprint jumps from 22 to 37. 

Now here's an important thing:  we have a lot of widows and widowers living alone in their homes these days.  We also have a growing number of single-person households due to unmarried singles wishing to own their own home, and financially capable of doing so.  These trends are driving up resource consumption in the USA in an incredible manner, and the people involved don't even feel themselves to be excessively consuming.   From their perspective, they are living much as they always have.  They may not even prefer living alone but feel it is their best or only option under the circumstances in which they find themselves. 

I was surprised that Food contributed so much to my total footprint.  I can probably change what I eat easier than I can change any other category.  I've become more aware of the benefits of a vegan diet, but I'm still far up the scale in meat consumption, according to the quiz.  This is in spite of the tiny portions of meat and the large portions of vegetables I already eat, in spite of my constant soup-making.  Okay, there's an area to work on.

I laugh at myself when I recall my first decision to get into vegetarian cooking a couple of years ago.  I ran out and bought several new cookbooks--large ones with glossy photos.  Isn't that just like a well-conditioned consumer!  The books sit on the shelf while I improvise my own recipes, which is a lot more fun.   

I decided to answer the footprint quiz as it might apply to my daughter's footprint, raising a bunch of kids.  It came out 14 acres.  Put a big family in a small house and it does great things for the per person footprint, even if the kids don't turn out the lights and shut off faucets quickly.  If they do, so much the better, but the footprint quiz isn't sufficiently sensitive to pick up on those things.

The Redefining Progress site intends to keep improving so that footprint calculators can assist in decision-making and help educate people in a variety of going-green areas, including communities.  I haven't even touched upon some of the current capabilities.

Can anyone living a modern lifestyle (electricity, running water, heat) in a developed nation hope to reduce their footprint to the acreage available right now?  Yes, Keith Farnish of Green Seniors has achieved this very thing. Keith, as a co-founder, isn't himself a senior citizen.  As a father of young children, he has every reason to say that this degree of going-green is too difficult -- and yet, he and his wife have done it in a typical suburban setting.   

Living in southern England as opposed to a more severe climate helps.  A national housing stock that tends to be smaller, with many attached dwellings, helps.  Having more options for public transit helps.  But none of that diminishes the accomplishment of Keith's family.  Eating vegetarian (not quite vegan), appropriate use of technology, creative thinking, and making do with less (particularly buying almost nothing new) are major factors in their success. The family still enjoys life, in a way you might envy.

One of the most important things seniors can do is to evaluate their housing needs and options, and to downsize if at all possible.  I've read of seniors who, at the normal retirement age, have purchased land in the woods, built a green home with their own hands, planted a garden, and literally lived off the land.  But frankly, few of us are going to accomplish that, or would want to.  I know I need the social interactions afforded by a village setting.  We should look to living in a smaller space than the original family home, or else somehow increase the number of persons living in our large dwelling.   Our financial assets can be used more creatively to make new or retrofitted dwellings with smaller footprints.  While they may not afford us exactly the same pleasures we had before, we could have comfort and enjoyment including many pleasures we are missing out on now. 

 

Green Granny's theme song

Recalling a moving song "Morning Has Broken" from the 1970s, my husband found an instrumental recording of the ancient tune in the public domain.  I wrote my own lyrics, below.  I kept some words of Eleanor's and hopefully, much of the emotion she must have felt.  (She has been deceased for decades.)

Click on the audio link below and read the lyrics as it plays.

Download mornbrok.mid

Green Granny's lyrics to  Morning Has Broken

Morning has broken, like our first morning

Blackbird has spoken, like the first song

Joyous the singing at the day's dawning

Nature is waking for the new day.

Second verse:

Blue is the sky and warm is the sunshine

Cool is the dew fall, on the green grass

Rises the damp earth's freshest aroma

Breathe of it deeply, as we walk past.

Third verse:

Beauty surrounds us, at the day's dawning

Softly we walk here, gently we trod

Those who must follow, come with such longing

Let not our footprints burden the sod.

Last verse:

Ours is the sunlight, ours is the morning

Sharing the one Earth, this is our day

Join in all nature's gladness at dawning

Life is renewing in its own way.

Peace,

Joyce

GreenGranny's Soup Goes Out of Control!

I have always enjoyed making soup--not with a recipe, but just by taking leftovers and other things I find in the fridge, and cooking it all up with dried beans or other types of legumes.  There is something so old fashioned, so comforting, so earthy, in using dried beans.  The only way it could be better were if I'd grown them and dried them myself.  I've had big gardens years back and know what hard work it can be, so I'm resigned to buy them in the store for little money.

Now my soup-making tendency is reinforced by the knowledge that soup can be a very "green" meal.  The way I make it, it means consuming less meat and more vegetables while using relatively little energy to prepare, especially when using a crock-pot.

A few weeks ago my soup-making got out of control.  Be aware my husband is the head cook in our household and I don't interfere with that.  He gets the groceries and washes the dishes too!  He doesn't cook "green" intentionally,  but his cooking from scratch, love of vegetables, and ability to make everything taste good is enough for me.  He also indulges me in my experiments with soup.

Here's what happened one night....

After supper I wanted to save the cooking broth from his stewed chicken, a savory work of art with bits of carrot and other veggies floating in it. No way was I going to throw it out.  But I already had the cooking liquid from another of his delicious main courses in the frig, waiting to be made into soup, plus a pot of finished soup we were still eating from, seasoned with fresh ginger and fennel seeds--yum!

While I pondered this dilemma I thought of my fallback solution--freeze it!  Head Cook reminded me that there were all sorts of strange "things" I had put into the freezer during the year, and he surely didn't want more "things" added there. 

This was indeed a quandry.

Get out all the packages of  "things" I said, and he promptly did.  Hmmm...a package of cooked dried beans, two small packages of dried lentils cooked in broth, and two packages of the last of the season's garden tomatoes cooked with fresh basil.  Just the ingredients I needed! I set one bowl of cooking liquid at one end of the counter and the chicken broth at the other, and started to mix and match the frozen packages to the broth they might best complement. 

Since the chicken goo was already in a cooking pot and still warm, I plopped the frozen bean mass out of its freezer bag into the pot, tossed in some clove and bay leaf, put on the lid, turned up the heat, and went away for two hours. I didn't mean to.

When I came back, my husband had already taken it off the heat, saying the soup at the bottom of the pan seemed to be stuck up.  No harm done.  It wasn't burned, and it all came loose eventually.  I tasted it and it was delicious, just from the good herbs and spices from the broth--perfect! I set it aside in a glass container to cool down before refrigerating it.

Then I took the broth that had been in the frig and dumped it into the same pot I just emptied. Why bother to wash it?  I plopped in the still-frozen lumps of lentils and basil-tomatoes, added chopped onion and garlic and celery, turned up the heat, and went away...

No, not for two hours...maybe just one hour.  I didn't mean to.

I came back alarmed that I might have burned the soup.  My husband, who was in his chair reading a book, lifted his eyes up over the top and said calmly, "I've been tending it."  Relief! I opened the lid and what a sight, what an aroma!  I took a taste and it was quite delicious, different from the other batches and a nice counterpoint to those other flavors.  Somehow I managed to find space for this one in the refrigerator too. 

Two new soup batches and one still to finish!  Were we in grave over-supply? Head Cook paid me the ultimate compliment by joining me in a big bowl of soup for lunch each day, and sooner than expected, all the soup was consumed.  The soups seemed perfect for those wintry, snowy days, and the head colds we had that just weren't going away.

Since then I've made more batches of soup, never really knowing what they will taste like because the odds and ends I find to throw in are always different.  Soup ought to have an aura of mystery and anticipation, it seems to me, besides serving to clean out the refrigerator and eat cheap while eating healthy.

I just can't wait for lunchtime tomorrow!

   

 

GreenGranny Goes to Caucus

Last night was a wonderful experience in democratic government.  My political party in Iowa uses a caucus format rather than a primary election to initiate the process of selecting a presidential candidate, making it rather like a town meeting.  Many people would perfer a faster and more efficient process such as the other major party uses, but I found it inspiring to come together, to see my precinct gathered in one place, to interact.

The turnout was just amazing.  Our precinct was assigned to the high school auditorium while smaller precincts in our section of town used other areas of the school.  The other party required much less space because they could vote and leave immediately.

My husband and I  left the house early and long lines of cars were already creeping along streets towards the school.   It was a crisp January night, very cold but still.   The spacious parking lot was filling up.  Inside we signed in and took seats, then waited nearly an hour for everyone else to get in.  There were many new party registrations and that delayed things a bit.   We kept glancing over our shoulder at the auditorium filling up behind us.  The doors had been closed to late arrivals at 7 p.m., but the new registrants were allowed time to fill out their paperwork.

The entire thing was run by three grandmothers. Well, I don't know for sure if they were grandmothers, but they were senior women who have been volunteering in this way for decades. They knew how it was all supposed to work.  They were thrilled with the turnout even though, with over six hundred people filling every available seat, the size of the crowd was going to curtail the town meeting type of interaction. 

Besides those three in charge of the proceedings, there were precinct captains for each candidate along with teams of helpers. This group was decidedly youthful. They passed out paper badges with their candidate's name and greeted people as they filed in, trying to gain supporters from the undecided.  We put on the badge of our favorite candidate.

To get an accurate count of all present, we had to count off one at a time, row by row, all the way to slightly over 600.  But everyone witnessed that together.  The count is important because a candidate is "viable" only if he or she gets at least 15% of the total turnout.  Viability means earning at least one delegate to the party's county meeting, en route to the state meeting that finalizes the choice.   However, in practical terms, it is the winner of the day, for both parties, that is broadcast nationwide and has great impact on state primary elections soon to occur in other states.  It shows how one group of people, the people of Iowa, have reacted to the candidates after extensive opportunities to see and hear them and to know their positions, their style, and their substance.

Unlike any other caucus I have experienced, people were saying how much they liked all the candidates, how fortunate we were to be able to choose from so many worthy individuals. I was seated next to a woman who told me she was a speech professor, and that one of the things she and her colleagues were curious about was whether all the candidates were truly as eloquent as they sometimes appeared.  Would their performance in small groups, at the end of long days and grueling weeks of campaigning, resemble their debates and their television ads?  Her remarkable answer was that they had all proven to be consistently excellent.   She knew that eloquence of speech and the ability to communicate does not necessarily equate to successful governing, but it can't hurt.

My first choice in candidates was centered upon his stance on global warming.  Bill Richardson, the Governor of New Mexico, took positions one step better than all other candidates on a number of issues connected to energy and the environment.  I felt that he  had demonstrated his ability to govern and to achieve his objectives, and that he was exemplifying the right kind of leadership on the environment as a state governor.   In my view, this trumped the environmental messages of the other candidates of my party who had not been so positioned to prove they can follow through.

When Governor  Richardson was campaigning in Ames, he called me in person and left a voice message on my phone, which regrettably I missed!  He called in person to invite me because I was GreenGranny, because I had helped start Green Seniors-- fancy that!  When I finally got to hear him speak in Ames on a later visit, Governor Richardson asked me to pin a Green Seniors badge on him and we shook hands.   

When the state vote was tallied, it was, overall, a vote for change in both parties--a vote against Washington insiders or anyone even suspected of having the tendency to behave similarly.   Experience meant less to voters than change, particularly to the young voters that flocked to the caucus.  I was glad to see young people engaged in the process, and they were on fire for Barak Obama.   If this is how it plays out in the end,  well and good.  Let our new President inspire and motivate and mobilize the people, and let those like Bill Richardson enable the change.  In the end our political leaders are a team, and we are  interviewing them for the slot on the team that they will occupy.  We need all the talent and dedication that can be mustered for the challenges ahead.  State governors will remain key to eventual success, along with city mayors, cabinet members of the next administration, and others who turn the wheels of government.  Over time, perhaps even Congress will stop being so dysfunctional.

In the web page provided by the Des Moines Register comparing the positions of the candidates on major issues, global warming was a category. Not energy, not energy independence, not biofuels, but GLOBAL WARMING.  And the detail and substance shown there indicated most of the candidates had some sort of track record on the topic. 

At the end of the day,  the issues that unite us held sway, and the devisive issues of previous caucuses, of previous presidential elections, were mute, for the time being anyway.  Global warming has become one of the uniting issues.  That is a pretty good way to start off the new year.        

GreenGranny's Scorecard for 2007

Will 2007 bring action? I addressed that question in January and July posts to this blog.  It has been a year of remarkable advances and big letdowns, but the battles themselves give me hope that the human race will at least fight the good fight against this greatest of all challenges, global warming.

The biggest news of 2007 was the accelerated melting of the Arctic polar ice cap, ahead of what scientific models had been predicting.  The people of Earth have far less time time than previously thought to avoid the worst consequences of global warming.  The time line shifted from a future generation, to our own generation, to a decade from now, and finally, to NOW. 

With a better idea of where things stand, it is plain that humanity's  global INCREASING RATE OF GREENHOUSE GAS PRODUCTION must be stopped, and massive reductions in future emissions be achieved, even as we prepare for warming effects that cannot be avoided.   

Getting back to the 2007 scorecard, points scored pale in contrast to  our improved comprehension of reality.  Yet I have hope, and so should the world, for we know what has to be done and we can do it. 

Topics from the earlier posts are scored:

Action by US Congress - passed environmental legislation hailed as a start in the right direction, but still under the influence of fossil fuel interests.  Too little too late in my view.  SCORE  ZERO.

(Sidebar on Bali - The United States backed down when the entire world confronted it.  For the delegates of the world who spoke up for the good of us all, SCORE ONE.   The unofficial US delegation more accurately reflected the will of the American people than did their federal government.)

The battle to stop the expansion of coal power plants - At the state level the fight continues throughout the United States.   I read that investors for new coal plants are becoming hesitant, as well they should.  That could turn the tide in the battle to stop increases in the primary greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, that coal burning produces in greater quantity than other fossil fuels.   "Clean" coal is no exception.  "Clean" coal allows more of the sun's energy to reach the earth's surface without reducing coal's greenhouse gas output, cooking the planet even faster.   The score for the anti-coal effort in America - too early to call.

Activists' progress - Environmental activists are trying to reach the American public. The problem is that there aren't enough of them, and although people are sympathetic, they aren't joining the action.  The direct response of the American public to the year's rallies has been ho-hum. Be it any consolation, the American public hasn't taken to the streets even for their most passionate grievances causing them direct and immediate suffering. 

However, the awarding of this year's Nobel Peace Prize to the IPCC scientists and to Al Gore was of enormous impact to the understanding of the American public. Media coverage changed in the United States overnight.  People finally started hearing on major news networks what the rest of the world already knew. 

To the opposition party to Gore's, too bad none of you took as great a leadership role on global warming and you had to choke on Gore's success.  I and the rest of the world wish the science had proven him wrong.  It didn't.  It proved his sources were correct. We all need to work together now to slow global warming, and a great many in your party are now doing that.  Please join them. 

For the Nobel Prize selection and the dedication of all environmental activists, SCORE ONE.

City, State, and Regional local actions - These efforts continue to pick up steam and are a growing source of hope, from New York and Chicago all the way to my small city and beyond.   Governments and citizens are courageously breaking new ground to combat global warming. I will have more to say about some examples soon.  SCORE ONE.

Consumers - Again, more people are changing their buying habits and even their lifestyles than ever before, and hardly a day goes by without informative articles--genuine, not hype-- appearing in one or both of my daily newspapers.   General and mainstream magazines have joined the environmental publications in printing "green" articles.  Often they are in stark contrast to the magazine's normal fare, but at least they are there.   I've read about eco-conscious lawn care and the growing use of certified green gardeners, and also of cleaning services offering sustainable and environmentally sound methods.  All of this came to my notice in just the past year.

On the other side, it boggles the mind that so many people still jump in their cars for the most unimportant trip, throw aluminum cans into the trash, put inflatable holiday displays in their yards that require an air pump along with the lights, over-water their lawns when the city has requested conservation, and don't have the slightest awareness of how out-of-step with the times they appear to the growing numbers of who have gotten the message.  Yet nearly everyone drives their cars as much as ever.  This is a mystery to me, since so many families here and abroad are touched by the hardships and horrors of war, and buying gasoline empowers the combat.   That carries a sense of immediacy for every fill-up.  Have we no conscience even for this?

In spite of all the toy recalls and other problems with imports, Americans are still in love with cheap goods from overseas, usually manufactured with coal energy.   2007 has been a year in which the ability of multi-national companies to monitor and regulate products and their environmental costs is a proven failure, while corporate greed succeeds.  To be sure, this has been the rule rather than the exception throughout human history--and today it guarantees tremendous growth in greenhouse gas emissions.  We can do better on all counts, and we must.   

For American consumers overall: SCORE MINUS ONE.

Global warming and American politics:  As a resident of Iowa, where the campaigning of presidential hopefuls begins and has grown in intensity during the past year, I can't resist additional comments.   Over the summer, environmental groups worked hard to bring global warming into the set of top issues that candidates were debating.  It seemed an uphill battle.  Perhaps the Nobel Prizes made a difference, but by now all candidates of both parties have had to provide their positions on energy and the environment. 

I live in a city with a well-educated and aware populace.  Yet at the presidential candidate meetings I attended, it was the candidate more than the audience who brought up the issues of global warming and proceeded to address them.   Clearly, some candidates are well ahead of their audience and are not at all hesitant to speak out on global warming.   Their environmental statements rang true to my ears.  I am hopeful one of those candidates will become the next President of the United States. 

On the other hand, other candidates have made remarks that indicate little grasp of the situation, but certainly they show themselves attuned to the sources of their campaign financing. 

For the (anticipated) future leaders of the federal government, and for the elected leaders of states, cities, and other entities who have aggressively attacked emissions levels and barriers to reducing them ( including the federal government), who have set goals and are making plans for emissions reductions to the full extent required by the science - SCORE ONE.

Composite Score - Three out of Five Possible Points of the Scorecard

Let us all resolve to continue the struggle into 2008. 

For the rest of our lives, we will judge ourselves on what we did or did not do this coming year.  For the rest of our lives, by our actions in 2008 we will derive a bit of hope and peace of mind, or else incur overwhelming remorse. 

Choose the path of  hope and peace of mind in 2008.  Learn. Think. Plan. Do.

Create the Change. Be braver than you have ever been before. 

Love life as you have never loved it before.

These are my New Year's wishes for you, my readers, and for myself.

 

One Hundred Years Ago

Photo Caption: Susan B. Anthony was a civil rights activist dedicated to the struggle for women's right to vote.  She died in 1906 at the age of 86, 14  years before the passage of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution giving women the right to vote.

Recently I read a post from someone lamenting all the taxes we pay and claiming our nation was better off one hundred years ago.  A strong middle class and stay-at-home moms were mentioned as characteristic of that day.  I thought about my knowledge of 1907 and this is what I had to say:

There was no golden age 100 years ago.  "The Gilded Age" that began in the latter part of the 19th century had not yet ended.  This was an era during which a wealthy class flaunted their enormous wealth which was built through the labor of other people.  There was a disparity between wages of the productive workers and those who controlled the economics of the day--often through corruption--not unlike what we experience today.

100 years ago Mark Twain was part of the leadership of an anti-imperialist organization, having toured the world and seen first-hand what the imperialist nations had done to their colonies. He died in 1910, preceeded in death by his wife and three of his four children.

100 years ago the American Indian Tribes had almost been eradicated.  The impoverished survivors lost most of their culture and the memory of who they were, as the last old people died.   Only a vestige remained....

My mother was born in 1909, my grandmother's twelfth and last childbirth.  Eight of those children would live through the childhood killers for which we now have vaccines, and so my grandmother buried four little bodies while nursing the others through serious illnesses.  She was drained from pregnancies she didn't know how to stop or to space.    

I don't think there was a middle class with happy stay-home moms in 1907 as we think of them today.

Yes,  I disagree with many things now being done with my tax dollars, and that's why I try to use every avenue afforded by a free society to change that, like writing this blog without censorship, like exercising the duties of citizenship.

100 years ago,  I couldn't even have voted. 

There are certainly good models from the past and much that we could learn from and emulate today.  However,  the tendency is to see the past through our own biases, as confirming ideas and beliefs we hold today, and to ignore the historical facts that do not support our thesis.  People on both sides of every argument seem to do this. 

Let us study the past; let us learn what it has to teach us, but let us not idealize it.  Mining the past for ideas that can help us today is useful, but there is no such thing as simply going back in time even if we wanted to.  The only way forward is forward, hopefully with the best that humanity has displayed throughout history.  Let's put that best together and create a better world for ourselves and other life on the planet than has yet been seen upon the earth.