I took the train from Wisconsin to Massachusetts. Most of the saner people I know wonder why I would do such a thing. I continue to seal my fate as a whackjob in the eyes of my friends.
In part, it was a continuation of my quest in slow, in part an expression of my frustration with the deterioration of the air travel experience, and in part an effort to internalize my own carbon footprint, to understand viscerally what it means for me to use less.
Aboard the train I had lots of time. I read a book. I listened to music. I looked out the window. I reveled in the fact that I didn't have to do anything at all.
I wrote.
9.29.08
The sleeping was wretched, but now, in the daylight, I'm glad to be on the train. Like driving to South Carolina it makes me see that in the space between here and there are a million places. Not only the cities that are the big dots on the map: Chicago, Toledo, Cleveland, Erie, Buffalo, Syracuse. Everyone mostly remembers those exist whether they see them or not.
Flying has turned places into destination or blank space in between: it's "Arrival" or "Departure" or it doesn't exist. The separate identities of all those blanks is lost--small towns with main streets and furniture stores, cornfields, cabbages, scrapyards and graveyards, a woman washing dishes at her kitchen window.
Who knew, for example, that northwestern Pennsylvania is grape country? Fields of vines, straight rows stretching in long lines until they end abruptly at the next field which begins again in perpendicular lines. Wine grapes, I found out later. The vast vineyards of PA.
I see snapshots of the passing cities, little tastes of America. Gary, Indiana, is more eerie than Erie, with foundries and gas flares burning and steaming and smoking in the weird street-lit night glow. Buffalo is grim and resigned under a steely sky. In the Illinois suburbs, lawns are luminous green after new rain. In Angola, PA, there's a store called "Slutz." Lake Erie lies flat and silver as a fish in the early morning light. The leaves are changing color.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Being Slow
Yesterday was World Carfree Day. I had no idea until late afternoon, but when I found out I felt pretty smug that I'd ridden my bike to work.
I’ve been doing that a couple of times a week for about a month now. I only learned to ride a bike about two months ago, so I feel a bit conceited about my dedication. I met a guy once who had been vegan and gave it up. He said he didn’t really feel bad about eating eggs and milk again, but he missed being able to feel morally superior to everyone else in any given room. That’s sort of how I feel about it.
My commute is eleven miles each way. It gives me plenty of time to think about the process and why I am putting myself through this grueling ordeal day after day. I’ve drawn several conclusions:
1. Tire inflation actually does make a difference. If my legs can tell, so can the engine of your car.
2. It takes a lot of energy and effort to move the weight of my body and bicycle eleven miles. Add half a ton of plastic and steel and you can start to appreciate the work that gasoline is doing for you.
3. Really, nobody should live more than five miles from where they work. More than that extends us beyond our means to travel without the assistance of fossil fuels. Sure it can be done; I’m happily doing it and so are many others. But the greater the distance, the greater the effort, the greater the time commitment, the less the average person is willing to make that commitment.
Making myself do this day after day has also made me think harder about other choices I make, and as I find the small joys in my commute that I wouldn’t have noticed in a car—watching the cranes in the hayfield, catching the fleeting scent of some unknown flowering thing, noticing the wind direction—I am more willing to change other things. As I make choices that are increasingly consistent with what I believe, I find that not only do I feel good about it, there are almost always unforeseen rewards.
None of this is easy. Despite the ubiquitous list that promises “small changes that make a big difference” or “ten surprisingly simple ways to green your lifestyle,” committing to a life that is less resource-intensive takes just that: commitment. It isn’t just buying products that are labeled “environmentally friendly,” it’s questioning whether you need to buy them at all; it’s not only owning a fuel-efficient car, it’s making decisions about how often and how far you really need to drive it.
The answers frequently require more of us: they take more time, forethought, and planning. They are complicated by a society that has built shopping centers away from residences and shunned public transportation. They risk being labeled a whack-job by neighbors Mr. Fastidiously Manicured Lawn and Mrs. Always Takes The Minivan.
We want everything to happen so fast. It’s the way our world is structured. We have no time for ourselves or each other (which begs the question: just what are we spending our time on?). But just the action of getting on that bike in the morning, planning my day to include that time, has forced me to slow down. Once I did, I found that there was a whole new opportunity: it’s not only about getting to your destination; everywhere you go has a journey that gets you there. It’s up to you to use or forsake the adventure of it. I like the slow way. I notice things. I have time to reflect, time for myself. I'm starting to think that the wasted time is the 20 minutes it takes in a car; the 50 minutes on the bike is an investment.
I’ve been doing that a couple of times a week for about a month now. I only learned to ride a bike about two months ago, so I feel a bit conceited about my dedication. I met a guy once who had been vegan and gave it up. He said he didn’t really feel bad about eating eggs and milk again, but he missed being able to feel morally superior to everyone else in any given room. That’s sort of how I feel about it.
My commute is eleven miles each way. It gives me plenty of time to think about the process and why I am putting myself through this grueling ordeal day after day. I’ve drawn several conclusions:
1. Tire inflation actually does make a difference. If my legs can tell, so can the engine of your car.
2. It takes a lot of energy and effort to move the weight of my body and bicycle eleven miles. Add half a ton of plastic and steel and you can start to appreciate the work that gasoline is doing for you.
3. Really, nobody should live more than five miles from where they work. More than that extends us beyond our means to travel without the assistance of fossil fuels. Sure it can be done; I’m happily doing it and so are many others. But the greater the distance, the greater the effort, the greater the time commitment, the less the average person is willing to make that commitment.
Making myself do this day after day has also made me think harder about other choices I make, and as I find the small joys in my commute that I wouldn’t have noticed in a car—watching the cranes in the hayfield, catching the fleeting scent of some unknown flowering thing, noticing the wind direction—I am more willing to change other things. As I make choices that are increasingly consistent with what I believe, I find that not only do I feel good about it, there are almost always unforeseen rewards.
None of this is easy. Despite the ubiquitous list that promises “small changes that make a big difference” or “ten surprisingly simple ways to green your lifestyle,” committing to a life that is less resource-intensive takes just that: commitment. It isn’t just buying products that are labeled “environmentally friendly,” it’s questioning whether you need to buy them at all; it’s not only owning a fuel-efficient car, it’s making decisions about how often and how far you really need to drive it.
The answers frequently require more of us: they take more time, forethought, and planning. They are complicated by a society that has built shopping centers away from residences and shunned public transportation. They risk being labeled a whack-job by neighbors Mr. Fastidiously Manicured Lawn and Mrs. Always Takes The Minivan.
We want everything to happen so fast. It’s the way our world is structured. We have no time for ourselves or each other (which begs the question: just what are we spending our time on?). But just the action of getting on that bike in the morning, planning my day to include that time, has forced me to slow down. Once I did, I found that there was a whole new opportunity: it’s not only about getting to your destination; everywhere you go has a journey that gets you there. It’s up to you to use or forsake the adventure of it. I like the slow way. I notice things. I have time to reflect, time for myself. I'm starting to think that the wasted time is the 20 minutes it takes in a car; the 50 minutes on the bike is an investment.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Oh, Dorky Singing Scientists...
You've just got to love someone who can put a tirade about climate change to the tune of "Proud Mary."
Monday, September 8, 2008
A New Recipe for Parental Pride
I think this year my parents have become prouder of me than ever before. What have I done to deserve this? It's kind of a mystery: I have not secured myself a high-paying job, I haven't gone to graduate school, I'm not saving dying babies in Africa, I've done nothing that many parents would consider all that remarkable.
But it's all about expectations.
Recently I was having dinner with my friend Rob, discussing family and growing up, our specific histories. "I want to show you something," he said. "This is one of my favorite pieces of paper in the world." He handed me a roughly sketched graph. His father had drawn it when Rob graduated college to instruct him in choosing a career. High up on the positive side, "10" on the y-axis, was a corporate job: lawyer, business man. "Government" was the next category down, including a list of administrative jobs in various sanctioned government departments. Lower, but still barely within the range of respectability fell "Foundations." Then the x-axis. Below the x-axis (arbitrarily "-80") was a scribbled list: Nader, Greenpeace, ACLU, Sierra Club.
I laughed. Rob laughed. We've both spent the better part of our working lives in the section below the line. Fortunately, not doing so was never an expectation for me.
What I've done to make my parents proud is become more like them. This year I accomplished two things symbolizing that I'm moving in the right direction: for my mother, I planted a garden; and for my father I learned to ride a bicycle.
Mom's always been an almost obsessive gardener, and along with it, she freezes, cans, dries flowers and herbs, enters county fairs. I always maintained that I had no real interest in gardening, but then I bought a house. I found that I wanted to make my land do something, produce something. I wanted to turn soil and sunshine into food. So I called my mom and she talked me through it. She sent me seeds, and book after book on growing and preserving food. She has been wanting to do this for years; I finally gave her a window.
My father firmly believes that humanity's two best inventions are the hot shower and the bicycle. Yet, somehow, he never taught his only daughter how to ride a bicycle; that inability has stood as a monolith of failure in the middle of our relationship for as long as I can remember. This summer I decided I was done, done with the guilt, done with the embarrassment of not being able to do something that everyone over the age of 6 can do. I borrowed a bike and got a friend to go to an empty parking lot with me for a couple hours as I teetered around, and pretty soon I was riding whole miles all by myself. When I told him, Dad said "Well, it took you long enough," but I knew he was pleased. We now talk about what bike paths we'll take when I visit, and how much grocery shopping you can do with a backpack.
So it seems that my years of rebellion, of trying to take as distinctly opposite a path as my parents', are over. I've emerged as a product of both of them. As the child, it's hard to look in a mirror and see mom and dad, to hear them speaking through you as you talk, to sometimes catch their mannerisms controlling your movements. But as a parent, I can only imagine it's the most you could want: to see in your son or daughter all the elements you love most in your spouse and in yourself; even better, to see some of the least attractive parts jettisoned.
I'm not saying I'm there yet. I still have a long way to go before I can embrace all of my parents' best qualities as my own, and ridding myself of their particular shortcomings and follies is daily a challenge. But in my rebellion, I tried to become part of the "normal," the America that's on TV, where people shop at malls and drive everywhere and live in the suburbs with perfect lawns and have endless meaningless conversations, and I found it empty. I'm going back to an earlier time.
But it's all about expectations.
Recently I was having dinner with my friend Rob, discussing family and growing up, our specific histories. "I want to show you something," he said. "This is one of my favorite pieces of paper in the world." He handed me a roughly sketched graph. His father had drawn it when Rob graduated college to instruct him in choosing a career. High up on the positive side, "10" on the y-axis, was a corporate job: lawyer, business man. "Government" was the next category down, including a list of administrative jobs in various sanctioned government departments. Lower, but still barely within the range of respectability fell "Foundations." Then the x-axis. Below the x-axis (arbitrarily "-80") was a scribbled list: Nader, Greenpeace, ACLU, Sierra Club.
I laughed. Rob laughed. We've both spent the better part of our working lives in the section below the line. Fortunately, not doing so was never an expectation for me.
What I've done to make my parents proud is become more like them. This year I accomplished two things symbolizing that I'm moving in the right direction: for my mother, I planted a garden; and for my father I learned to ride a bicycle.
Mom's always been an almost obsessive gardener, and along with it, she freezes, cans, dries flowers and herbs, enters county fairs. I always maintained that I had no real interest in gardening, but then I bought a house. I found that I wanted to make my land do something, produce something. I wanted to turn soil and sunshine into food. So I called my mom and she talked me through it. She sent me seeds, and book after book on growing and preserving food. She has been wanting to do this for years; I finally gave her a window.
My father firmly believes that humanity's two best inventions are the hot shower and the bicycle. Yet, somehow, he never taught his only daughter how to ride a bicycle; that inability has stood as a monolith of failure in the middle of our relationship for as long as I can remember. This summer I decided I was done, done with the guilt, done with the embarrassment of not being able to do something that everyone over the age of 6 can do. I borrowed a bike and got a friend to go to an empty parking lot with me for a couple hours as I teetered around, and pretty soon I was riding whole miles all by myself. When I told him, Dad said "Well, it took you long enough," but I knew he was pleased. We now talk about what bike paths we'll take when I visit, and how much grocery shopping you can do with a backpack.
So it seems that my years of rebellion, of trying to take as distinctly opposite a path as my parents', are over. I've emerged as a product of both of them. As the child, it's hard to look in a mirror and see mom and dad, to hear them speaking through you as you talk, to sometimes catch their mannerisms controlling your movements. But as a parent, I can only imagine it's the most you could want: to see in your son or daughter all the elements you love most in your spouse and in yourself; even better, to see some of the least attractive parts jettisoned.
I'm not saying I'm there yet. I still have a long way to go before I can embrace all of my parents' best qualities as my own, and ridding myself of their particular shortcomings and follies is daily a challenge. But in my rebellion, I tried to become part of the "normal," the America that's on TV, where people shop at malls and drive everywhere and live in the suburbs with perfect lawns and have endless meaningless conversations, and I found it empty. I'm going back to an earlier time.
Monday, September 1, 2008
On Ethical Dilemmas and Old, Shitty Houses
If I could have had a superhuman power, this past weekend it would have been time travel. Nothing could have made me happier than to visit the previous owners of my house thirty years ago. If only I could have convinced them not to fuck up the house -- especially not to cover the second floor and stairwell with wall-to-wall carpeting. Most especially not to glue it to the floor with thick smears of yellow paste. The beautiful hardwood floor.
Alas, time travel is not within my repertoire of miracles.
The first thing I did upon buying the house was rip up their stained carpeting. Even in its heyday, this particular carpet would have been an unwise decorating decision. An abstraction of yellow and brown, it made your eyes twitch if you looked at it too long. Tearing it off was cathartic, like I was liberating the floors, freeing my house from the oppression wrought by previous owners.
Underneath I found the glue. Heavy gobs of hardened glop, tan and gray, whose job it had been to hold that awful carpet in place. It was the barrier between me and my dream of beautiful hardwood floors. In a harrowing battle back in January, I reclaimed the wood on the second story. This weekend it was time for the stairs.
Instead of time travel, I have to resort to toxic chemicals.
The thing about working for an ethics-based organization is that everything becomes an ethical dilemma. Chemicals scare me. I have a bad habit of reading the entire warning label from start to finish and it's paralyzing. Sentences like "Cannot be made non-poisonous" and "Known to cause cancer in the state of Californa" -- thankfully I'm not in California -- keep me awake at night. What am I doing to my body? What does this stuff do in the landfill? What about the poor guy in Memphis who works at the factory where it's made, taking it home on his clothes and skin to his children every night? Does he not even realize?
My friend Steve, one of my many gurus in do-it-yourself home repair, dubiously lent me his sander to attack the stairs. "You really should use a stripping chemical," he said. "This going to take you forever."
I told him that stuff scares me. And why do we go to all the trouble of making good-for-you choices like eating organic vegetables only to bring even nastier chemicals into our homes and spread them around on the floor? I just can't face doing it.
"I know," Steve said, "but it's because we go and buy these old, shitty houses."
Alas, time travel is not within my repertoire of miracles.
The first thing I did upon buying the house was rip up their stained carpeting. Even in its heyday, this particular carpet would have been an unwise decorating decision. An abstraction of yellow and brown, it made your eyes twitch if you looked at it too long. Tearing it off was cathartic, like I was liberating the floors, freeing my house from the oppression wrought by previous owners.
Underneath I found the glue. Heavy gobs of hardened glop, tan and gray, whose job it had been to hold that awful carpet in place. It was the barrier between me and my dream of beautiful hardwood floors. In a harrowing battle back in January, I reclaimed the wood on the second story. This weekend it was time for the stairs.
Instead of time travel, I have to resort to toxic chemicals.
The thing about working for an ethics-based organization is that everything becomes an ethical dilemma. Chemicals scare me. I have a bad habit of reading the entire warning label from start to finish and it's paralyzing. Sentences like "Cannot be made non-poisonous" and "Known to cause cancer in the state of Californa" -- thankfully I'm not in California -- keep me awake at night. What am I doing to my body? What does this stuff do in the landfill? What about the poor guy in Memphis who works at the factory where it's made, taking it home on his clothes and skin to his children every night? Does he not even realize?
My friend Steve, one of my many gurus in do-it-yourself home repair, dubiously lent me his sander to attack the stairs. "You really should use a stripping chemical," he said. "This going to take you forever."
I told him that stuff scares me. And why do we go to all the trouble of making good-for-you choices like eating organic vegetables only to bring even nastier chemicals into our homes and spread them around on the floor? I just can't face doing it.
"I know," Steve said, "but it's because we go and buy these old, shitty houses."
Thursday, August 28, 2008
"Honey, I'll be down in the plastic mines today"
It's really just recycling on a new timeframe.
British experts predict that there will come a time, somewhere around 2020, when we'll return to our stinking, festering landfills to mine for plastic. As resources become in shorter supply and the price of oil continues to climb, all our decades of flagrant waste will provide new sources of "raw" materials.
As Peter Mills, director of New Earth Solutions, was quoted as saying, the really great thing about plastic is that it never biodegrades: "Once plastic is in a landfill site, it pretty much sits there doing nothing -- and the beauty of that is that you're able to go back and recapture it in the future."
It had to be just a matter of time before someone figured out that a vast quantity of the earth's resources are back underground, where we put them after a mere one use. It's hopeful, actually. All that time we thought we were throwing things away; as it turns out, there is no "away" (as some have perpetually warned) and that's actually a very good thing. It means we might have a shot at recapturing some of what we lost in past mistakes.
The era of waste is far from over; in fact the folks studying the potential for landfill mining think it will become profitable within another ten years or so only because we'll continue our lifestyles of buy and discard, and with 9 billion people and millions more cars, we won't be able to keep it up without dipping into our old trash.
British experts predict that there will come a time, somewhere around 2020, when we'll return to our stinking, festering landfills to mine for plastic. As resources become in shorter supply and the price of oil continues to climb, all our decades of flagrant waste will provide new sources of "raw" materials.
As Peter Mills, director of New Earth Solutions, was quoted as saying, the really great thing about plastic is that it never biodegrades: "Once plastic is in a landfill site, it pretty much sits there doing nothing -- and the beauty of that is that you're able to go back and recapture it in the future."
It had to be just a matter of time before someone figured out that a vast quantity of the earth's resources are back underground, where we put them after a mere one use. It's hopeful, actually. All that time we thought we were throwing things away; as it turns out, there is no "away" (as some have perpetually warned) and that's actually a very good thing. It means we might have a shot at recapturing some of what we lost in past mistakes.
The era of waste is far from over; in fact the folks studying the potential for landfill mining think it will become profitable within another ten years or so only because we'll continue our lifestyles of buy and discard, and with 9 billion people and millions more cars, we won't be able to keep it up without dipping into our old trash.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Monday, August 25, 2008
Lost No More: Fulfilling the British Colonialists' Dream
"Chinese engineers build new highway to 'lost' Kenya"
Chinese engineers are building a highway in Kenya. They are investing time and resources to lay a swath of asphalt connecting small villages in a country that is not their own.
It seems an unlikely combination; why would China care about the road quality in remote Kenyan countryside? They cite a boost in tourism, bolstering local economies, and exploring resource potential. The usual stuff. In the Reuters article, China is described as a benefactor: "where Britain and post-independence Kenyan governments failed, China is leading the way: helping to build a major trade route that will open up the northern half of Kenya, a region that has been effectively sealed off for 100 years."
But what's it to them if Kenya stays "lost" or not? What is "lost" anyway?
When did simply living a life become no longer enough: that if we don't belong to the global economy, we're lost? To me, the lost places have retained a part of our humanity that the industrialized world has left behind. They're the places where people continue to live the same way year after year, surviving; where change is slow and technology hasn't outstripped the ethical ability of people to control it. They are our cultural wildernesses. And like natural wilderness, I want to know they exist, whether I ever visit them or not. I want to imagine that there might be a place on this earth that Coca-Cola has not yet reached; that is free of televisions, riding lawnmowers, automatic breadmakers, strip malls, subdivisions, superhighways, and matched luggage.
Maybe Lost Kenya is such a place. The author describes desolate scenic beauty, donkey trains wending through mountains and volcanic rock in shimmery heat. Little connection with the outside world.
And maybe it's not. Maybe the Lost Kenyans already yearn for the material goods of the Western world (brought this time, ironically, from the Orient), the creature comforts of running water and electric lights. Maybe they are filled with gratitude for the jobs and tourists this road will bring. Maybe their eyes will glaze with visions of automobiles and Ritz crackers, and they won't realize until it's too late that the Chinese don't really have their best interest in mind.
A change has started in the world. Just like colonial Britain, China has been reaching out tentacles to the rest of the world, securing a hold on the things its citizens want. With a population of 1.3 billion people and rising, where will those desires end? As with all its other world-dominating forebears, the force of China's wants will be exercised in the small places. Slowly, the donkey trains will become less frequent, and Lost Kenya will stop being a blank spot on the map. But as more and more places become "found," what have we really lost?
Chinese engineers are building a highway in Kenya. They are investing time and resources to lay a swath of asphalt connecting small villages in a country that is not their own.
It seems an unlikely combination; why would China care about the road quality in remote Kenyan countryside? They cite a boost in tourism, bolstering local economies, and exploring resource potential. The usual stuff. In the Reuters article, China is described as a benefactor: "where Britain and post-independence Kenyan governments failed, China is leading the way: helping to build a major trade route that will open up the northern half of Kenya, a region that has been effectively sealed off for 100 years."
But what's it to them if Kenya stays "lost" or not? What is "lost" anyway?
When did simply living a life become no longer enough: that if we don't belong to the global economy, we're lost? To me, the lost places have retained a part of our humanity that the industrialized world has left behind. They're the places where people continue to live the same way year after year, surviving; where change is slow and technology hasn't outstripped the ethical ability of people to control it. They are our cultural wildernesses. And like natural wilderness, I want to know they exist, whether I ever visit them or not. I want to imagine that there might be a place on this earth that Coca-Cola has not yet reached; that is free of televisions, riding lawnmowers, automatic breadmakers, strip malls, subdivisions, superhighways, and matched luggage.
Maybe Lost Kenya is such a place. The author describes desolate scenic beauty, donkey trains wending through mountains and volcanic rock in shimmery heat. Little connection with the outside world.
And maybe it's not. Maybe the Lost Kenyans already yearn for the material goods of the Western world (brought this time, ironically, from the Orient), the creature comforts of running water and electric lights. Maybe they are filled with gratitude for the jobs and tourists this road will bring. Maybe their eyes will glaze with visions of automobiles and Ritz crackers, and they won't realize until it's too late that the Chinese don't really have their best interest in mind.
A change has started in the world. Just like colonial Britain, China has been reaching out tentacles to the rest of the world, securing a hold on the things its citizens want. With a population of 1.3 billion people and rising, where will those desires end? As with all its other world-dominating forebears, the force of China's wants will be exercised in the small places. Slowly, the donkey trains will become less frequent, and Lost Kenya will stop being a blank spot on the map. But as more and more places become "found," what have we really lost?
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