One woman's search to find greening in the world today …

Monthly Archives: November 2010

Feeding the Hungry …

It’s Thanksgiving and we have so much to be grateful for. In my awareness of sustainability and living a greener, more eco-friendly life, I can look around me and see  more conscious living happening all around me. For example, today was the 17th annual RUN TO FEED THE HUNGRY here in Sacramento, and it’s a pretty big deal. A 5K or 10k fun and timed run/walk, it winds through some of the most picturesque residential streets with the added bonus of vibrant fall foliage and (for me anyway) nice flat streets. Often over 30,000 people participate in what is billed as the largest Thanksgiving Day race anywhere.

Everyone who enters the race gets a long sleeve T-shirt, and this year for the first time, the shirts have “gone green.” This means they are introducing a technical fabric race shirt that is an ultra lightweight wicking fabric designed to move with the body’s natural motion. As the organizers said, “We have had the good fortune to work with Greenlight Apparel to produce shirts that – although they are not actually green – are 100% recycled polyester!” Greenlight Apparel is a San Francisco based activist clothing brand with a mission to help eradicate child labor & human trafficking. They donate 10% of each sale to fund humanitarian partner charities that are focused on helping rescue and sponsor underprivileged children in South America, Asia & Africa.

So, I did a little very unofficial  math. Suppose that the  Run folks purchased 30,000 shirts @ $5 each. Greenlight Apparel would then donate 50 cents per shirt or a whopping $15,000 to one of their charities. AND the shirts are all recycled polyester! How grateful can we be for that?

Now in the service of full disclosure, even though I have done the 5k walk before, I bailed on walking this year, and I feel like I really missed out. Next year, promise! A couple of family members did participate in the 5k walk, braving the 28 degree weather at the start of the race, and wore the shirts with pride. Here’s more on their experience: Why Wait…take action now

But for today, savor the day, the moments and bask in gratitude…HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.” ~ Melody Beattie

sustainABILITY

Some weeks I write about places or products or people in my search for greening. Today, I would like to ponder a concept that has my brain literally buzzing. Humor me if you will, because I feel like I am on the verge of something…

One word keeps popping up on my radar these days – SUSTAINABIITY. For people and for the planet. But how does it move beyond being just  the latest buzzword and into our daily consciousness? First, let’s come up with a working definition, OK? How’s this:

SUSTAINABILITY: the capacity to endure and the potential for long-term maintenance of well-being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions. Able to be maintained at a certain rate or level. Conserving an ecological balance by avoiding depletion of natural resources.

Fine, as far as it goes. What if we call this “Traditional Sustainability” – you know, the way we think of things, well, enduring. But what if we took our knowledge, resourcefulness, creative thinking and innate wisdom to move beyond this to imagine something that moves us into  a whole new world of possibilities. We can create ideas we haven’t even dared to dream of before. Things that celebrate the greater good.

Which is where “Creative Sustainability” comes in. To me, this is when the world of creativity converges with all we know to be true about sustainability. Looking at things from a whole new angle. Inside out, upside down, combining, taking apart. Being curious, playing with ideas and concepts that have the potential to make the world so green, so sustainable, and so fresh and healthy that we can reverse the damage already done in big, dramatic ways. Seeing the planet and the people thriving, inspired by the miracles that they are surrounded by.

What does Creative Sustainability look like? I don’t know exactly, which is where the adventure begins! Come along with me as I begin to discover the questions…

Buy Back the Bombs…Please

Driving by Capitol Park here in Sacramento, I happened to glance over at our Vietnam War Memorial. Today is Veteran’s Day. On the sidewalk there were groups of people holding signs declaring all manner of things about peace and war, but the signs that were getting the most enthusiastic reaction were the ones that asked drivers to “Honk for Peace!” (Of course, there was one guy holding up a sign that read “Fire Bush”  - maybe nobody had the heart to tell him that Bush has been out of office for 2 years now.)

Eco-Angel Bridget suggested that I write about a wonderful project that she found – Peace Bomb Bracelets!! Buying  these bracelets supports artisan families in Naphia Village in Laos and helps them create sustainable businesses. Also, a donation is made to the community bank that funds infrastructure projects including roads, light poles and electricity for the school and other communal areas.

I have to admit that it never really occurred to me that we left behind  physical garbage from the Vietnam War with all of the metal from the bombs dropped. So, this project is a great way to clean our clutter and recycle at the same time. The peaceBOMB Project is also works to make the scrap metal supply chain safer for artisans and scrap collectors by collaborating with organizations that specialize in unexploded ordnance (UXO) removal and education.

I found their story so moving, I wanted to share it in their own words: “A bracelet. A story about war and peace. Destruction and reconstruction. History. Instead of words, this story is composed of fragments of bombs, melted and shaped into a circle, a bracelet, a reminder.

1973. Laos. A major theatre of war during the Vietnam conflict, the US has ceased its 9-year long aerial bombardment known as the Secret War intended to halt the spread of communism across Indochina. Communist Lao leaders and 23,000 civilians slowly emerge from homes carved in the karst cave complexes of Houaphan Province.

1975. War is over. Saigon has fallen to the North Vietnamese Army. Victory within near reach, the Pathet Lao advance westward. A lone man from Houaphan also moves west. He journeys through the emerald-mountain passes toward the bomb-cratered Plain des Jars.

Naphia Village, Laos. The man makes a temporary home. He collects scrap metal from farmland and forest scarred by war debris from the 250-260 million bombs that were dropped. He crafts spoons from aluminum melted in an earthen kiln and cast in hand-sculpted molds of wood and ash.

Villagers watch, listen, learn. The first Ban Naphia resident learns the trade from the lone traveler. He begins to craft and sell spoons. Eventually, he teaches the technique to his son. Today, 10 resourceful and enterprising Naphia families supplement subsistence farming activities with income from repurposing war scrap metal. Through resourcefulness and problem solving, they take a constructive approach to a legacy of destruction.

2009. peaceBOMB bracelets. Developed through the collaboration of Naphia spoon makers, the Rural Income through Sustainable Energy Project of the NGO, Helvetas, and ARTICLE 22, a social enterprise that supports sustainable development through design thinking. Each bracelet purchase brings: income to households otherwise dependent on subsistence agriculture as well as two levels of donations, first, to the locally-managed Village Development Fund for electricity, small infrastructure projects and individual business micro-loans and,  second, to a larger fund co-managed by RISE and ARTICLE 22.

NOW. BUY BACK THE BOMBS.”

I just ordered 4 bracelets – what a peaceful, powerful, positive way to work toward  healing the wounds  these bombs created on the planet. I am excited to give them as gifts this holiday season, and to pass the story along…

Vampires Among Us…

Halloween has come and gone, but the evidence remains that Vampires are still among us!! Vampire power, that is. Just what is it? Basically it is standby power, also known as vampire power, vampire draw, phantom load or leaking electricity, which refers to the electric power consumed by electronic appliances while they are either switched off or in a standby mode. This problem is so huge, vampire power is costing American homes about $3 BILLION a year!

The biggest power-suckers are:

  • Power supplies, transformers and inefficient electronic devices.
  • VCRs, DVD players and most audio systems.
  • TVs, home cinema suites and set-top boxes
  • Microwave ovens
  • Computers, digital monitors and printers
  • Air conditioning systems with remote control.
  • Devices with “Instant on” functions, with remote control receivers, or waiting for the user to interact.
  • Devices with a stand-by light or clock.
  • Power Adapters (sometimes referred to as wall warts), whether they are powering a device or not.
  • Most home video game consoles

I stumbled upon a great site that tells us how to figure out how much energy we are wasting, and lots of other amazing facts:  Vampire Power Sucks

The short, easy answer for all of us is to turn off, unplug, buy power strips that are green (ones that stop power from being sucked out when devices are off) and basically be aware. You CAN make a difference, and so can I. The goal – stop the Vampires from sucking any more power from us!