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Grinclinations
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"Grinclinations" appears at least bimonthly in the UUFES monthly newsletter "Inclinations". It is part of the Green Sanctuary project "Challenge UUFES Congregants to Make Individual Changes at Home". Written by Tony Federer unless otherwise noted.
"Grinclinations is an inclination to be green."
Fuel Mileage and Cold Weather
By: Dick Byrd
Does it seem your car gets much worse fuel mileage in the Winter. Well, it is not your imagination; it is true. Cold weather indeed gangs up on your car in many ways to sabotage your miles-per-gallon. It is an even worse in a hybrid car. Here are reasons your car's economy suffers in cold weather.
- Cold air is more dense than hot air and hence it requires more energy to push a car through the more dense cold air.
- All of the lubricants and oils are more viscous at cold temperatures, so you need more energy to spin the parts through the more viscous media.
- Your car's tires are constantly flexed as they roll over the road. Cold tires are stiffer and require more energy to flex the rubber. Also, snow tires have a greater rolling resistance than summer tires.
- In the Winter, your gasoline has oxygenate additives that do not contribute to the actual energy contained in each gallon of gas. It requires more winter gas to get the same energy as you get in your summer gas.
- Cold running requires a richer mixture of fuel to the engine, so the engine computer feeds more gasoline into the air-fuel mixture when the engine is cold. (Remember the "Old Days" when you pulled-out the choke to start a cold engine.)
- The Prius and Honda Hybrids are very focused on keeping emissions low. The engine computer will run the engine just to keep the catalytic converter and engine coolant hot to reduce emissions.
- Cold batteries don't keep a charge as well and the engine must run more to maintain battery charge. This is a small problem in a non-hybrid car, but is a much larger issue in an electric hybrid.
I'll bet you didn't think so many items were working so much against your automobile in the Winter weather.
Ecocentrism
Two contrasting beliefs about the relation of humanity to nature, Earth, and the Universe can be described. Belief that humans are the pinnacle or culmination of creation (whether "under God" or not) is called anthropocentrism. This belief implies that everything else on Earth exists to be used by humanity in whatever way we choose. A strong case can be made that anthropocentrism is the fundamental problem of our times because it leads to arrogance, power, greed, and other forms of domineering and competitive behavior.
In contrast, belief that humans are but one component of a complex Earth system is called ecocentrism. This belief recognizes that all species, including humans, are interdependent and continually evolving, and leads to behaviors of respect, humility, and cooperation.
Humanity is either on top of the heap or in the heap; fundamentally, the two belief systems are mutually exclusive. Yet every day each of us makes choices that support first one and then the other. The broad grassroots movement to encourage us all to make more ecocentric choices and fewer anthropocentric choices is described in my recently completed book "ECOSHIFT: The Movement That is Transforming the Relation of Humanity to Earth". The book is on the web at www.ecoshift.net and is available as a free PDF or a printed book ($10 plus postage). I will be discussing the book at the next Green Sanctuary public talk 11:30 Sunday February 22 at UUFES.
Our Bioregion
Do you think of where you live as central New Hampshire or as the Gulf of Maine? Do you identify with a human-centered political location or an Earth-centered bioregion? Bioregions can be specified in a variety of ways. I identify mine as the Gulf of Maine and the watersheds draining into it. The Gulf is separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the shallows of Georges Bank and Brown Bank offshore of Cape Cod and Nova Scotia. We UUFES congregants live in watersheds that feed the Gulf of Maine and thus are part of the complex interactions among its land, its estuaries, and its marine ecosystems. For more on the bioregion concept and the Gulf of Maine, including a map, see the "Bioregionalism" chapter of my book at http://www.ecoshift.net.
Now is a good time for pondering how to become more green in the new year. I suggest learning to relate to the Gulf of Maine bioregion as "home". This may mean learning more about its wildlife, birds, plants, soils, geology, and history. This may mean vacationing in "exotic" locales within the region. This may mean exploring nearby paths, woods, and even roads to discover more about them. A bioregion provides an ecocentric framework on which to hang knowledge, interest, concern, and love. Most of us in UUFES live where we do because we love it. The more we learn about our bioregion the more we are motivated to take care of it.
Deer Season
Being green involves being outdoors. There is no incentive to be green without recognition of the close connection between humans and Earth's ecosystems. Most of us in UUFES walk in the woods frequently, and every year at this time we either worry about or happily anticipate DEER SEASON. Certainly there is nothing wrong, ecocentrically, with hunting. Before human agriculture took over Earth, all species of life were either hunters (carnivores) or gatherers (herbivores) or both (omnivores). In our region deer populations were kept in check by predators like wolves, mountain lions, and probably microbes. Now, humans have become the most important deer predator, and there is nothing intrinsically wrong with that.
Over the past two centuries, hunting has become regulated by the state, both to prevent overhunting and to limit the risk to non-hunters in the woods. Now I see browse lines in many forests and deer populations so high in some places that trees cannot regenerate. Although many ecocentrists would like to restore wolves, we still need human hunters too. I used to complain about not being able to walk in the woods for a month each fall; now I just wear blaze orange and go anyway.
Here are the relevant dates so you can decide how to change your behavior this month. In New Hampshire, archery season for deer has been going on since Sepember 15. Youth weekend, when anyone under 16 can shoot any deer, is October 25-26. Muzzle-loading season is November 1 to 11. Firearms season statewide is November 12 to December 7, and is for antlered deer only in our area. Farther south, "any deer" can be shot for from 1 to 9 days starting November 12 depending on the specific location.
By the way, in New Hampshire it is ALWAYS open season for shooting skunk, weasel, coyote, and woodchuck.
"Local" Clothing
We hear a lot about buying locally-grown food these days, including from our own "Sustainable Tamworth". But when it comes to the second of the three necessities of life (food, clothing, and shelter), we resign ourselves to buying items made in distant lands by people working in questionable conditions. Though we don't WANT to support sweatshops or to help export jobs, the "Made in China/Thailand/Mexico/Viet Nam/..." labels seem ubiquitous.
Many years ago, when jobs first began disappearing to overseas, labor unions began a "Buy American" campaign. Although the early effort obviously failed, the advent of green considerations and of internet purchasing has resurrected it. With a bit of effort you can find clothing and other fabric-based equipment in which the fabric was not made in America, shipped overseas to be sewn together, and shipped back again. Web sites seem to be proliferating: www.shopforamerica.com, www.buyamerican.com, www.howtobuyamerican.com, www.madeinusa.org, and ESPECIALLY www.stillmadeinusa.com, a one-woman, non-commercial site, which lists companies by categories. Each of these lists clothing (and many, many other products) manufactured in the good old U.S.A. This is one area in which I believe in patriotism.
For us outdoor types in particular, we should support Thorlos, New Balance, and our own Ragged Mountain Equipment in Intervale. I had "Chuck Roast in Conway" on this list but Suzanne says they just went out of business. The Concord Monitor for August 17 reports "[Chuck] Henderson said his company just cannot compete with similar products being made for a fraction of the cost overseas." Nuff said.
Fair Trade Coffee
Exotic foods like coffee, tea, sugar, and spices have been a component of globalization for millennia. So-called "middle men", who trade, process, ship, and distribute such foods, have continually increased their share of the consumer's cost. Consequently the farmer who grows the product has received less and less. "Fair trade" (certainly not to be confused with "free trade") attempts to reduce the role and share of middle men and thus increase the income for the farmers. The fair trade movement began and has had its greatest success with coffee. When you buy coffee with a "fair trade" label, you are assuring that the coffee-grower receives a fair price. These growers are generally on small family farms in Central and South America or in Africa, so your purchase also helps prevent development of company-owned plantations used by standard coffee brands. The coffee may also be labelled as "organic" and/or "shade-grown". "Shade-grown" implies production under the canopy of larger trees, often fruit and nut trees, that are much more useful for winter habitat for many of "our" summer birds than are the monoculture coffee plantations.
UUFES will be selling Equal Exchange free trade coffee at both the Tamworth Farmer's Market and our own "coffee time", on selected Saturdays and Sundays. Not only does this raise money for us, but we share the proceeds with the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee through their Coffee Project (http://www.uusc.org/info/coffeeproject.html). Everybody gains from this: UUFES, UUSC, the coffee farmers, and the birds. If successful, we can expand into tea, cocoa, and chocolate too.
Gas and Oil
Why are gas and oil prices going up so fast? I don't have a complete answer, and neither, apparently, does Congress. What I do know is that world oil production has apparently reached or passed the "Hubbert Peak", in which global oil production reaches a maximum and then starts to decline as oil gets scarcer. M. King Hubbert rightly predicted in the 1950s that U.S. oil production would peak in the 1970s. Others have since predicted the world peak for 2000 to 2010. For more on this see http://www.peak-oil-crisis.com/. As the peak is passed, still-rising demand, primarily from North America, China, and India will push prices ever higher as supply decreases. Whether the oil companies are price-gouging or not, the basic drive toward higher prices is scarcity, and this will only increase over time.
So where does that leave us? Needing to do all those energy conserving things we hear about. One of the most important is to reduce our travel. And I'm not talking here about number of trips to the grocery store and riding a bicycle. What have I really gained by cutting my local driving by a thousand miles if I then fly or drive three or four or five thousand miles to visit a son or daughter or for a vacation? It's those big trips we have to cut down on. And family visits are a major reason for them in this era when our offspring and our parents distribute themselves across the country or even overseas. Save the money and donate it to those less-advantaged who can less and less afford to drive to work and heat their homes.
Plastic
What a great technofix plastics have been. Obviously plastics are cheaper and easier than glass or cans for storing and transporting food and a lot stronger than paper and cheaper than cloth for bags. We just need more and larger dumps (sorry, sanitary landfills) to get rid of them. Oh, you don't want a dump in your back yard; that's OK, we'll recycle the plastics and we'll put little numbers on them to make it easier and so you can feel good sorting them out.
Enough sarcasm. Americans use a huge amount of plastics; see "Running the Numbers" at http://www.chrisjordan.com/ for illustrative examples! True recycling of plastics, bottles into bottles, bags into bags, has proved very difficult to do. Plastics don't get recycled the way glass, metal, and paper do. #1 (PET polyethylene terephthalate) and #2 (HDPE high-density polyethylene) can be downcycled into something else, like plastic lumber or railroad ties. With minor exceptions the rest get burned or buried. #3 (PVC polyvinyl chloride), #6 (PS polystyrene), and some in the catchall #7 (OTHER) contain toxic chemicals. Plastic bags (normally #2), supposedly "recycled" by many supermarkets, usually get sent to countries, like China, with low air pollution controls to be burned for energy; this closes the shipping loop for all the manufactured stuff we get from there. Locally, different towns take different numbers for pseudo-recycling. Some towns may inform you what they are doing with what. Many don't. If the town can't sell the plastics, they end up in the dump anyway, even though you think you have "recycled" them. Of course all these plastics are made from oil so the end of oil in a few decades will probably see the end of plastics too and Earth will breath a sigh of relief.
Recycling Paper
Paper is made from fibers that are created by trees using solar energy. The individual fibers, which you can see when you tear paper, are tough and can be reprocessed into new paper about five times before they become too short. Such reprocessing takes much less chemicals, water, and energy than the primary processing from trees. So, unlike some "recycling" that is really reuse as something else, paper can be truly recycled.
"Closing the loop" is necessary if recycling is going to work. We need to purchase recycled products in order to create a demand so that manufacturers will be encouraged to make them. Lack of demand has caused some paper manufacturers to stop making recycled paper products, and without demand municipalities cannot sell paper intended for recycling. However, many paper products that are labelled "recycled" are made from factory scrap paper and contain little or no post-consumer paper. So to really close the consumer loop, look for product labels that show a high percentage of "post-consumer waste". While you are at it, look also for unbleached or peroxide-bleached paper, not chlorine bleached, which adds toxic chlorine gas to the atmosphere. Staples 100% recycled copy paper is acid-free, chlorine-free, and 100% post-consumer.
Corrugated cardboard is especially valuable for recycling, so it is often separated from other paper. Similarly, in Conway at least, magazines, books, and newspapers are separated from mixed paper. Any paper is OK for the mixed paper category, even wet paper towels, egg cartons, and the paper backing on bubble-wrapped purchases. But do the recyclers a favor and don't recycle the glue strip on sticky notes; it gums up the works, so tear it off.
Paper - Reduce and Reuse
Becoming greener involves changing one's mind-set about the choices and actions of daily living. Nothing illustrates this quite as well as what we do about paper. So I'll spend this column talking about reducing and reusing paper, and next month about recycling it. Production of paper from new wood requires lots of energy and water, causes pollution, destroys countless trees and sometimes whole forest ecosystems, and creates 40% of America's solid waste.
Last month I said that the best way to reduce energy consumption for lights was to turn them off; similarly, the best way to reduce demand for paper is to stop using it. The internet provides many ways to reduce paper (it has other problems like disposal of computers, but that's another story). I use e-mail for most communications, including our annual holiday letter. I use paperless billing and paying and paperless financial statements and reports whenever possible. I get most news from the internet and felt really good some years ago when I cancelled my subscriptions to daily newspapers. I use http://www.catalogchoice.org/ to get off of catalog mailing lists. I choose to make too few copies of materials for meetings rather than too many. One of my pet peeves is the profligate use of paper towels in restrooms; I manage with one sheet, or my handkerchief, or my pants, repeating my mantra: "I LIKE LIVE TREES BETTER THAN DEAD ONES".
When I do need paper I turn first to the back side of envelopes, usually business-sized, that still arrive in the mail in amounts such that I never run out of notepaper. Next I use the back side of sheets that have already been used once; they work fine even in the computer printer. I'm proud to set an example by mailing twice-used paper to others; they can figure out which side is relevant. No piece of paper gets recycled without having been used on both sides first. I've even been known to cut up 9x12 envelopes to reuse the inside of them. When I absolutely need clean white paper, I use 100% post-consumer paper, but that is next month's story.
Fluorescent Bulbs
I often hear "I use fluorescent bulbs" as a response whenever the energy/global warming crisis comes up in conversation. This reminds me of times past when "I recycle" was a response to environmental trash problems, even if the only recycling involved was getting 5 or 10 cents for soda bottles and cans. I do not want to belittle fluorescent bulbs, they are a symbolic first step. But it is important to recognize that they are only a small and imperfect piece of solutions to problems that face us today.
Like all solutions, fluorescent bulbs are not a perfect answer for several reasons. My experience with them is that they do not last as long as the hype implies and consequently are even more expensive. Disposal of them is a problem because they contain toxic materials; the Conway dump has a separate receptacle for them. They give less illumination and consequently are less efficient than advertised. If you use electric heat in some rooms, as I do, then you are not saving any energy or any money by using fluorescent bulbs in the heating season. Finally, I think fluorescent bulbs send a wrong message, that we can have all the light we want as long as it's fluorescent. The way to really save energy is not to switch bulbs but to switch the switch! Turn out lights! In general our homes and offices and stores and streets and parking lots, etc. are way overlighted. (I'll whisper here that UUFES usually is also.) Use sunlight as much as possible. Don't leave lights on in unoccupied rooms; it's a myth that turning lights off and on uses more energy than leaving them on. Fluorescent bulbs are a simple example of a techno-fix, giving the same product (light) for less energy, when what will really make a difference is to reduce our "want" for the product itself.
Green Resolutions
I don't believe that resolutions should be saved up for and not acted upon until the New Year. Nevertheless, this month is a good time to think about the purpose and the functioning of resolutions. A resolve to do something (or not to do something) arises from an inner feeling, a need, to make a change in lifestyle. Some resolutions may be one-shot deals (I resolve to write to my grandmother this year), some are longer term (I resolve to lose 15 pounds), but most are intended to be permanent (I resolve to watch less TV).
To live more sustainably, to lighten our ecological footprint on earth, to live in harmony with nature, we require permanent resolutions, permanent changes in lifestyle. Just as losing 15 pounds is a one-shot resolution that is unlikely to become a permanent change, a majority of "green" resolutions suffer the same fate; the resolution is ignored or forgotten and life returns to what it was.
In order to make any green resolutions worthwhile, the changes need to be permanent. Resolutions to use less electricity, to avoid plastic packaging, to take fewer trips, to eat local foods, to spend more time in the natural world, all require permanence to be productive, useful, and gratifying.
But just as some people make a whole list of New Year's Resolutions that are forgotten in days or weeks, a long list of "green" resolutions is highly likely to also be forgotten.We cannot expect to change ALL the habits of a lifetime at once. So I urge you to make only one or two green resolutions at a time. I read once about someone who picked just one area to concentrate on each year, say food, or electricity, or travel, or home heat. By making one resolution and following it for a year, it becomes a permanent change, it becomes an automatic, accepted part of life, a new norm. And remember, you don't need to save resolutions up for the New Year; you can make one any time.
Alternative Gifting
You have patted yourself on the back for spending Buy Nothing Day not buying lots of plastic and other STUFF that people don't need, so now is the time to consider sustainable ways of giving in this gifting season. For several years the adults in our extended family (offspring, sons-in-law, and co-grandparents) have put our names in a hat and drawn to see who buys one gift for whom. Each adult thus gets just a single gift. It works, and it motivates us all to cut down on what we buy for the youngsters too. More and more our gifts among adults and to children are NOT STUFF, but are "alternative gifts". These can range from home-made gift certificates for such things as childcare, Storyland tickets, or an overnight at an AMC hut, through home-made items like knitwear, to charitable donations in the child's name. Our grandchildren (ages 5 to 9) love to get cards from the Heifer Foundation (www.heifer.org) thanking them for their gift of a sheep or three rabbits to a family that really needs them. Check out www.buynothingchristmas.org/alternatives/index.html for a long list of alternative ideas and www.alternativegiving.org/orgs.htm and www.alternativegifts.org/ for charitable organizations with alternative gifting opportunities. And finally, consider giving UUFES a gift in your giftee's name through our "Sharing Your Gifts" program. Look for it at www.uufes.org. The giftee gets a handsome card of thanks, and you'll feel good.
Buy Nothing Day
The rapidly shortening days indicate the approach of Consumer Season, that two month period in which people buy lots of useless stuff to give to people who don't want it and don't use it. Well, I may exaggerate slightly, but the buying frenzy is certainly real. Christmas shopping is the epitome of the consumer culture, where "consume" means to sooner or later throw stuff in the dump where it will last for eons. The shopping frenzy starts on the day after Thanksgiving, Friday November 23 this year. This day is known as Black Friday by the stores either because they make so much money or because they are overwhelmed. In the early 90's, as an expression of disgust at this ultimate trashing of Earth, Adbusters Magazine (www.adbusters.org) declared Black Friday as "Buy Nothing Day", a day in which participants REFUSED TO BUY ANYTHING AT ALL. The Buy Nothing Day movement spread rapidly around the world. It has been panned as ridiculous by opponents (of whom there strangely seem to be quite a few) because "those people will just buy more on other days". These opponents miss the point that Buy Nothing Day is a symbolic act, an annual ritual, a cheerful demonstration for the movement without a name (simplicity, sustainability, The Great Turning). You can learn more about Buy Nothing Day at http://adbusters.org (under the More Campaigns selector), at http://ecoplan.org/ibnd/ for International Buy Nothing Day, or at http://wikipedia.org. Join me in celebrating Buy Nothing Day on November 23. To show support for doing in the consumer culture, keep your hands off your wallet that day, and read next month's Grinclinations on how you can change your seasonal gift-giving practices.
Discussion Groups
We all hear a great deal lately about global warming and its threats. We also hear many ideas about what we as individuals can do to reduce our carbon dioxide emissions. If we are really aware, we know that the global consumer culture, in which we are immersed, can not be sustained much longer, so we understand that we must make significant changes. Yet such changes will not come from the top down in this country where the government follows the people instead of leading. Change will arise from the desires and actions of millions of individuals.
Such change will not happen overnight. Making permanent changes in personal lifestyles requires a high level of desire and a high level of commitment. One way to get and keep this high level of desire and commitment is by joining a group of like-minded people. The 1970s concept of a "support group" for personal growth can morph into support groups for personal greening.
One effort to promote such groups involves the discussion courses developed by the Northwest Earth Institute and promoted in New Hampshire by the Granite Earth Institute (www.graniteearth.org). These courses normally meet weekly for eight weeks. UUFES has already fostered three such courses, on Voluntary Simplicity and on Deep Ecology. "Choices for Sustainable Living" will start in October; this will be the third course for some UUFES members. Another course "Healthy Children, Healthy Planet" will be offered at the Mt. Washington Valley Children's Museum this fall and at UUFES next winter. These courses develop a sense of community and can evolve into true support groups.
Other possible types of green support groups include "Simplicity Circles" and "Your Money or Your Life" groups (www.simpleliving.net - Study Groups), book discussion groups, open discussion groups with changing topics, and specific program groups like Sustainable Tamworth, Saco Valley Greens, and Global Awareness Local Action in Wolfeboro. Each of these is a way to continue interactions among individuals who are trying to become greener and to reduce their adverse impact on Earth. Such interaction is necessary to maintain commitment to a changing lifestyle.
So join a group, or start one yourself! Commit to the time and effort it takes to make real change. If you are interested in forming some kind of support group you can contact me to see how it will fit into the Green Sanctuary program, or you can "Just Do It".
The Great Story
A couple of weeks ago UUFES submitted an Application for Green Sanctuary Candidacy to the UU Ministry for Earth. The UUFES web site (http://www.uufes.org/) should soon have a Green Sanctuary page that describes thirteen projects UUFES will carry out over the next year or two in order to gain certification as a Green Sanctuary. This Grinclinations column is part of a project called "Challenge UUFES Congregants To Make Individual Changes At Home".
Some of Grinclinations will discuss "50 Ways to Save the Earth" kind of stuff, but I will also delve deeper into ecospirituality. The Earth needs and in one way or another will require major changes in the lifestyle of humanity. Without a spiritual understanding of the interrelationship and interdependence of humanity and all the rest of Creation, civilization will continue to overstress Earth's support systems and may in the end cause its own demise.
To prevent this, humanity needs a new story of its place in the Universe and of its place on Earth. On September 16 and 17 UUFES will hear about "The Great Story" or "The Universe Story" in a service and workshop led by Rev. Michael Dowd. The Universe Story is a creation myth that arises from our scientific knowledge of the formation of the universe, our Earth, and the beings that live on it. The story tells that the atoms in our bodies were mostly created thirteen billion years ago in the "Big Bang". Atoms of the heavier elements were created in a supernova explosion about six billion years ago. Our solar system formed five billion years ago and Earth was created in just the right place to generate the only life we know of in the Universe.
We humans are stardust. Every breath we take includes atoms that were breathed in by everyone and everything that has come before us. Creation has continued since the Big Bang. It has produced the fascinating variety we can see in the night sky, the geological and biological wonders of Earth, and the unbelievable wonder of ME. I am a part of Continuing Creation. What I choose to do matters to Creation.
As far as we know, humans are unique in the Universe because we are aware of its story. We are Creation looking at itself. Humanity is beginning a supremely significant debate over the relationship of humans to the rest of Creation. On the one hand is anthropocentrism, which argues that everything on Earth is here for us to use as we please; this is the fundamental premise of our consumer civilization. On the other hand, ecocentrism argues that humans do not have a right to do as they please with Earth, but that non-human life also has a right to continue its own evolution, its own contribution to Continuing Creation.
Each of the dozens of decisions you make every day has an effect on the direction of Creation on this planet. That will be the underlying message of Grinclinations.
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