Archive for the ‘Environmental Issues’ Category

« Older Entries

A Farm for the Future

Tuesday, February 1st, 2011

I’m buzzing about making dreams and plans for the future: how can I farm without a tractor? How does no-till farming work? What size of windmill do I need to provide for our needs? How do you keep chickens from freezing in -20 temperatures?

And I’ve realized yet again what a fantastic resource youtube is! I learned to spin and knit and sew with my treadle on youtube, and now it’s teaching me about farming! Which is how I happened upon this series of videos from BBC about a woman who is reimagining farming in an oil-free world. It’s really exciting and interesting.

Posted in Environmental Issues, Self-Sufficiency | 1 Comment »

Do You Know Our Story?

Saturday, January 22nd, 2011

It’s an interesting one.

Four years ago found me ending a 15 month tour of duty as a soldier in Iraq. Yes, really, me. I was a soldier.

I was coming to find just how much my experience of war had changed me, religiously, politically, physically–I felt changed to my core. Once an evangelical christian, I was now leaving that faith behind (“I can’t believe in a god that sanctions–even commands–war,” thought I).

Most significantly, I had come to see everything I did in my normal American life as “consumer” as exploitative: to myself, my countrymen, to Iraqis I was killing, to countless other people across the globe, to the earth from which we get our life.

I was crippled by the guilt of exploitation. When I returned home, I made drastic life changes; since I moved right in with Nick, he made changes along with me. We left the military behind. We learned to cook all our food, began learning to make our clothing, conserved energy, sold our car and bought two bicycles.

We also rejected the normally-held belief in the necessity of college degrees and regular jobs. Nick quit college, because he saw all the busy work was holding him back from actually learning, because in his field (programming), finished projects matter more than university certificates. Instead, he started a web design business, we pursued plans for a co-op farm, and I luxuriated in exploring all the self-sufficiency tasks I wanted to learn.

Next, wanting to escape the political-social climate of the US, we sold everything and moved to Germany, despite having never before been to Europe. We enjoyed our adventure, though it was lonely. After a year, our work-opportunities were fading, and we crossed the Atlantic again, this time to Canada, as immigrants twice over. Nick was working on his dream of game programming. We reveled in the gift of free communication in a language we know.

Vancouver is lovely, but expensive! Here, one makes a lot, but must also spend a lot, mostly because housing is so costly. It’s also, yes, lonely. How can a million people make one feel so alone? By not speaking to one another! So, we like Vancouver, but…

Since I left the military and changed my life, my goal has been self-sufficiency. I realized the “career” I wanted was that of producer of my own needs. I wanted to cease to be a consumer, and instead be the opposite. And I realized that rich community and self-sufficiency had become my life goals.

And now we’re dreaming the fulfillment of our goals, looking forward to the next chapter of our story. The chapter called “Self-Sufficient Farm.”

While here in BC, properties are priced in millions, we’ve discovered a place where land prices are mere tens of thousands. A place of community and slow lifestyle we could actually afford to dream of. A place where I could take the next step in my “career.”

Could the next chapter hold, as Anne Shirley says, our House of Dreams?

Our wishing is in overdrive.

(If you have a wish-granting faerie, will you make a wish for us?)

Posted in Economics & Business, Environmental Issues, Home | 5 Comments »

Grains CSA

Monday, September 6th, 2010

I’m so so happy to have discovered Urban Grains! It’s a CSA of locally grown (Vancouver) grains. Double yay!

Since I’ve been baking bread regularly, obviously we’re using lots of flour. And unlike in hippie-heaven Bellingham, there isn’t a local grain mill here that sells organic flours. But this CSA is even better! Not only is our grain milled nearby, it’s also grown just outside the city! Our share costs $95, and we get 20 kilos of milled grains, while the farmers get a full $1 for each pound of grain sold. Fantastic.

Plus, their blog is way cool, and gives us lots of information about the grains we’ll be eating soon. Oh, I’m so so excited!

I’m also excited to have fittings for 7 pairs of shoes this week!  So wonderful!

Posted in Crafts, Economics & Business, Environmental Issues, Food, Home, Local News, Shoes, Vancouver | No Comments »

Toast!

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

Have I mentioned before how much I love the clothing company Toast? I could write a sonnet to Toast. But I won’t.
In addition to beautiful, simple clothes, they also care a bit of homey goods. Like these:

Perfect little, stackable, clipable stainless steel tins. What a fantastic replacement to all those plastic Ziploc storage dishes!

Is it right to write sonnets to dishes?

Posted in Environmental Issues, Pretty Things | No Comments »

“Handmade Nation” or Handmaking the Nation

Monday, August 17th, 2009

Etsy, a documentary, and ever-increasing blogs and crafters indicate that crafting and the handmade is experiencing a giant boom right now. Without a doubt, this is something to be celebrated, as it is allowing greater numbers of people to explore their own creativitiy and ability to create their own material culture; it’s also a step away from the excessive materialism that has driven the modern world for nearly a century. Crafting is busy raising practical arts like needle work from the realm of women’s work to legitimate, valued art.

However, the “Handmade Nation” is not without it’s flaws. First and foremost, most of the crafters and their products are spare-time and spare-money oriented, and many of the products, while being lovely and challenging, are superfluous. Specifically, they have little practical use. For, indeed, zines, jewelry, and beer-soap are fun, and do adorn and inform, but they do little in the face of real human needs of clothing and protection. Handmade seems to have left the purely practical behind.

Additionally, the handmade movement is working almost entirely with industrially-produced supplies. So, then, I may be able to buy a t-shirt that was sewn by an individual crafter, but what of the cloth, the fiber, the farmer? Exploitation is reduced at one level, but many others remain; the creation of my product is now more local, but incomplete. Imagine the continuity of locally hand-sewn, woven, even grown trousers! A true revolution will take into account not just the finished product, but also the individual ingredients in each project.
Of further concern is the fact that we see very little diversity among crafters, who are mostly women, mostly middle-class. Where in the past, hand-crafters may have been engaging in cottage industries because doing so was a practical method of earning extra cash, when wearing homespun was a mark of poverty, now the poor have only small opportunity to do and make. This may be because they lack the knowledge, as much of crafting knowledge is now no longer passed through generations but is learned at universities, and is certainly affected by the high cost of tools and materials. Also, the lack of non-rich crafters is also surely a result of the scandalously cheap availability of pass-produced goods–why make it when you can buy it for $2? But, of course, the poor (and the rich!) buying cheaply-produced products only continues to reinforce poverty, both domestically and abroad.

How might, for example, being able to create durable, practical shoes improve the life of a poor city dweller? What would the economic and material landscape look like if not only the rich first considered making their products before purchasing them? It could mean an important change, not just in the prominince of materialism, but also in sustainability, peace, even equality.

Because, then, a major barrier to crafting, is the cost of tools and materials, I plan a project that would use the internet to disseminate practical and academic information about crafts and would work to establish community crafting centers. How might the situation be improved if communities had publically-available crafting tools? I imagine a community center that includes sewing machines, looms, leather cutting materials, torches, kilns, and the like, so that expensive tools could be shared widely. Practical steps to solve a practical problem, and contribute to the growing revolution!

Posted in Clothing, Crafts, Economics & Business, Environmental Issues, Pretty Things | No Comments »

Babies, Babies, Babies

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009

In only a matter of months, we have gone from this: 

To this:

 

Goosie Babies!

Goosie Babies!

Can you believe it? Life is everlasting; it just keeps going on and on, stretching forward into forever, grass and bugs turning like magic into baby geese.

But be careful when you walk among them, those mamas are fierce hissers!

Posted in Environmental Issues, Hamburg, Pretty Things | No Comments »

What it’s all about…

Saturday, March 28th, 2009

There are some things which will always remain foreign to our friends and family. Things which, no matter how many times explained, are alien and weird. Before leaving the States I had a conversation with a friend of mine. Much was discussed, including why, when and for how long we would be in Europe, one of the most important things was explained, but I don’t think it will ever be widely understood.

We wish to live in a world (or a part of the world) which understands us. Not ‘accepts us’, as if we were different, or wrong, and you tolerated us, but lived with us, truly understanding, and even sharing the same values as us.

Cars are not vital for survival. They are not essential for your well-being. They are not the key to success or the path to happiness. When you tell people that you don’t own a car, or you sold you car, and you now ride your bicycle everywhere, you are questioned as to how your life could possibly function. I’m not kidding. Some people only ask a couple questions, while others inquire for several minutes, inferring that we are so ‘lost’ and incorrect in our thinking.

I’m not going to preach the evils of automobiles, or even digress into the ‘alternative fuels’ which are being developed. It’s a mindset that every single person needs their own person vehicle, which will honestly do more, if changed, than any fuel being developed. The costs of vehicles, plus insurance, plus gas, plus repair and maintenance all add up. If you want to pay it, go ahead. The look, or reaction that I give you, is one of bewilderment, but you won’t notice it because you live in society where your decision is the norm.

Organic foods are a great way to have people give you that look like you’ve just told them you eat dirt. People do not care about the quality of their food. They just don’t. You can’t say that you do, when your purchasing and eating habits speak differently. Your beef is fed by potato chips and chocolate, how could that be remotely healthy? Your public water is full of drug particles which you can’t remove. But we’re the ‘weird’ ones for trying only to put natural substances into natural bodies.

You don’t have to get defensive though, because you’re part of the majority. No matter how different we are, you will never have to feel like an outsider. You won’t be referred to as hippie, or granola. There are those who do wish to make a statement, to go against the status quo, and they identify with that, but we are not. We want to live the way we want to, and it’s not a political statement, nor it is something irrational.

In Bellingham, we hung our clothes to dry on a line. We got funny looks. We even got asked to take down the line by our property management company because it ‘didn’t look pretty’. It saves energy. Plain and simple. You can look at it from an environmental point of view, as well as a practical point of view. Less energy means a smaller bill. I spend less money by just hanging up the clothes.

In Hamburg, you *must* hang up your clothes. Our apartment building does not have a dryer. It is the norm to hang up your clothes to dry. No strange looks, no nicknames, nothing. It’s practical. It’s not a political statement.

In Bellingham, bicycles were present, but they were a burden to the local populace on certain streets. It was also dangerous for the cyclists in the downtown area, with cars blindly pulling out of parking spaces. However, in Bellingham you couldn’t do what we did below.

In Hamburg, cyclists have their own portion of the sidewalk, so they need not compete with cars or pedestrians for space. Not to long ago we biked 16 kilometers to IKEA and back. We put all of our new houseware on our bicycles. Granted, it wasn’t a lot, but it was significant enough to require a good amount of twine. In Bellingham you would have received some interesting looks if you rode by with a bike like this. In Hamburg, it’s just how things are done.

 

I know this has been *quite* a long message, but I felt finally it was time. We left the States, expecting to find what we found. We are not granola, nor hippies, nor ‘green’ or whatever other nicknames you have for people who do not live the typical American lifestyle. What we did in Bellingham as ‘weird’ people, we do here, in Hamburg, as normal residents. Bicycles, organic food, fresh food (there are markets everywhere), and hanging your clothes to dry. This is why we moved, to live in a place which embraces, not just tolerates, our way of living.

Posted in Environmental Issues, Food, Hamburg, Home, Self-Sufficiency | No Comments »

Sunny Island Paradises

Thursday, March 19th, 2009

Several months ago, I wrote a dreamy post about Samso, the Danish island of wind power, wishing heartily to live in such a place. Fizzling at the edges of my consciousness for a while has been a new revelation: I do live there, or a place like it–only my place is a step up!

In some ways, anyway. Certainly all the power feeding this computer does not come from wind turbines, I don’t live on a farmer’s island, and these streets are whizzing with cars all day. But Germany, much larger and more populated than an island in the mainstream Danish whole, is the world’s largest market for renewable energy, especially solar and wind power, according to renewableenergyworld.com.

Here in Hamburg, may I remind you, winter has been long and unpleasant–cold, grey, rainy and snowy–endless, honestly. But this is the third day of graciously clear skies and bright sun, along with purple and yellow flowers peaking out of the earth. Traveling the streets, we see plentiful solar panels dotting the roofs of single family homes, corporate offices, steep-roofed apartment buildings, even the cheery yellow community building next door to us. In the sunny south, there are even more PV-homes. Last year, BBC reported 400,000 German homes have panels.

EU member states have committed to reduce CO2 emissions by 20% by 2020, but the city-state of Hamburg has budgeted 25 million Euro per year to reduce its emissions by 40%, and Germany as a whole is already producing more than 10% of its energy needs by renewables.

Even the recession isn’t affecting the German solar and wind industries so much, as both markets are expected to grow this year amid plans to install 45 land-based and 10 off-shore wind turbines. Shipping the turbines is expensive, but that’s not stopping it–10% of all the cargo through the Port of Hamburg, Germany’s largest sea port, consists of these wind turbine components.

Even individual German towns are picking up on the drive for renewables. Last year, the city of Marburg, home of 80,000 residents, passed a law requiring all newly built buildings and those undergoing remodel of their roofs or heating systems to install solar panels at a rate of one sq meter panel for every 20 sq meters of roof surface area.

So now, my consciousness awakened to the reality around me and puffy white clouds floating by in the finally-sunny sky, I realize, even though I don’t live in an island paradise, life is pretty great right here!

Posted in Economics & Business, Environmental Issues | No Comments »

Energy, Green and Otherwise

Wednesday, February 4th, 2009

First, a tiny note: When I log in to write a post, the first thing I do is check the comments page, mostly because there are so many spams that I have to delete them quickly or they pile up. How annoying! But gracious thanks to the real comment posters (that’s you, Evan!), whose fun blurbs are bright light in all that spam.

Ok, now on with it:

Here in Germany, purchasing household electricity is a bit different than what we’re used to. We’ve just paid the first bill, so it’s on our minds now.

First, unlike anywhere else I’ve lived, one has many options when choosing electric companies, meaning you can find the cheapest and most appropriate one for you; also meaning one company does not have what amounts to monopoly on a given region. (But if you don’t speak the language, trying to find the best company is a bit difficult. Oh, our lives greatly improve with each hour I study!)

Once a customer selects an electricity provider, a summary statement is sent and they fiddle with something behind the scenes to send the juice. The statement is essentially your bill for the next year, wherein the average use the previous year is averaged on a monthly payment. If the customer did not live in that residence the previous year, the average is from the previous tenant. Then this average is what is paid monthly. If it happens that you use less electricity than the average estimated, you receive a refund when the meter is read at the end of the year.

The same sanario is true for heating and hot water, which are separate from electricity, and are generated either for the residential building or at a regional heating facility. We pay our heat and hot water (called “Warm”) to our landlord and again may receive a refund at the end of the year.

All of this may be quite convenient for the companies, who don’t have to read meters each month, and paying the same amount each time is nice, but what it boils down it is that, since we only know how much electricity we use in a year, we really have no idea how much we use each month or each day, and how what we do (turning off lights, etc.) affects our bill.

A Germany company has solved this problem for some, with a website that shows up to the minute usage. To hear the Deutsche Welle (English language) radio story, click here and click “Audios and Videos on the Topic” at the bottom of the page.

As for the source of the electricity, most electricity here is generated from atomic and coal fired plants, which together account for 77% of power. That’s a lot of dirtiness! Traditionally, Germany has favored atomic energy as an alternative to coal, and because it does not emit carbon, it is even called environmentally friendly to some. Then, for a while, public opinion swayed away from atomic energy, given its incredible environmental and human risk, the possibility of extreme accident. But in the last several years, it has grown back into favor, because of its lack of carbon and the independence it brings from foreign oil and gas. Last year (I think), a massive series of underground caves and tunnels was created to house all the waste from French, Austrian, and German nuclear power plants. My guess is it will become more popular after the drama with Russia/Ukraine this winter.

But now I’ve just discovered Greenpeace Energy, after reading the website of a commune here in Germany, which is, by the way, a great English concession, given that most German sites offer only a few words in English. Not, of course, that they ought to provide more, but it is convenient for me when they do. On the site, they mentioned that they buy their power from Greenpeace Energy. Woo, Greenpeace Energy?!

It’s a collective energy company that sources only green power, mostly from water (hydroelectric), with a small amount of wind, solar, and biomass. The company is associated with Greenpeace, and I think it operates only in Germany (must learn more German to find out!), and they provide on their site a source-list, updated every 15 minutes, of electricity currently running into homes, as well as monthly and weekly customer usage charts.

So, wonderful! There are probably more green power providers, but this is simple, and I’ll certainly be reading more and finding out how to switch.

Now off to the real writing. Got to get to work!

Posted in Environmental Issues, Hamburg, Home | No Comments »

Lights Out in Hamburg

Wednesday, January 28th, 2009

Last week Aza and I went to our friends’ place across town. Season 5 of Lost had just come out and they were showing two episodes in one night. Our friends subscribed to Lost via Apple’s iTunes Store, and could download the episodes after they aired. After dinner and the beginning of the new Lost season, it was getting pretty late and we have two trains and a bus to catch to get back to our flat, which ranges between a 30 minutes to 60 minute trip depending on the waiting times between each connection.

The bus dropped us off just after midnight, across the street from our flat. It was here that I noticed something very odd, because the conditions didn’t exist for what I was seeing.

The traffic lights were out.

Now, everyone has seen a traffic light when it’s not working. In the Pacific Northwest snow knocks out power every year. Heavy rains, and especially wind can contribute to trees falling on lines as well. Here I am, though, in a residential area of Hamburg, the dead of night with no storm having occurred and the traffic light is out. No rain, wind or snow was present during the day, so this befuddled me.

Then Aza explained it to me.

Apparently, during the non-peak hours of traffic, certain streets have their lights turned off. This, I just learned, is a practice throughout various countries around the world, even a few places in the U.S. Most often an operational traffic signal is replaced by a blinking amber light, just to alert people to the existence of an intersection or pedestrian crossing.

I had never thought about it until that night, about how PRACTICAL it was to turn off a light not in use. Hundreds of lights throughout the city turn off. There is traffic, but it’s very little, and no one seems to have any trouble at all driving. You can imagine trouble if people did this in the U.S., but you have to remember that German drivers are familiar with this from an early age (just as Americans all understand how to “beat the light” when it turns yellow…).

It’s the same sort of “unimaginable” concept as the autobahn, a freeway with NO SPEED LIMIT (it is recommended you go about 81/mph). If you were to propose a limitless freeway in the United States I feel you’d get the same looks from people as if you proposed turning off the traffic signals. It would work if generations of Americans were raised with understanding how to properly drive on one. The same rationale is what makes a traffic light-less street operate without problems.

Aside from comparing cultural differences, there is something else which is very interesting. Why is this done? Why are traffic lights turned off? These reasons can range from practical to “save the world!” and anywhere in between.

> Less electricity. That means less electrical generation. Somewhere along the line that probably leads to less CO2. A very “green” reason.

> Who pays the electricity bill for the city? I’m going to assume it’s the tax payers. Tax payers don’t have to pay as much when the light is turned off. Same reason you tell your kids to turn a light off when leaving a room. A practical reason.

The funny part (to me…anyways), is that I come from a place where something like this could be seen as “foolish, idiotic, dangerous, irresponsible!” or as “progressive, ‘green’, environmental!” The truth of it is, it’s probably neither. It’s not dangerous, because it is familiar. It’s not progressive, because honestly the “green revolution” is only in the U.S., Europe is already ahead. Something which made my jaw drop for a second doesn’t get a second thought here, because it is how it is.

No big posters about “doing our part” or that we’re “saving the environment”. You just get the feeling that the entire society here understands that turning the lights off when their not being used is a ‘good’ thing to do.

Oh, Lost was great. New episode on tonight!

Posted in Environmental Issues, Hamburg | No Comments »

« Older Entries