This Is The End

                                          (Let The Doors set the mood)  


    Challenging myself to live more sustainably and reporting my experiences in this blog has been an interesting experience and has taught me much about the impact of an average North American lifestyle on the environment. As our school year comes to a close, and Amy and I are off for summer adventures, we will be ending our term as sustainability bloggers and moving on to bigger and better things.

    Bigger and better than sustainability? Surely I must be joking! Blast, readers you have caught me in my own web of lies. If I were to truly consider living sustainably as a passing fad, as many do, then I would return back to the life of ignorance and wastefulness and live in blissful ignorance right up until the onset of the First World Climate War in 2046. You've caught me again readers, I do not actually confirm that I have any advanced knowledge of the future of human civilization, I was merely using the example of another world war for hyperbolic effect. However, the message I was attempting to convey was very real. Climate change is set to transform the world: environmentally, socially, and politically. Coastal areas will be devastated by rising sea levels and vast areas of the world will see their regional environments turn to dust. These effects will be felt first and foremost by those living close to the equator; i.e. those living in developing nations, often in extreme poverty. I doubt very much that billions of people will lay down and die as their environmental conditions turn to disaster. Mass movements of refugees will quickly bring the social problems of climate change to our borders, and lines may be drawn to decide who will live in who will be lost. Hopefully, I am very off base with my fears but nonetheless, I feel that it is my obligation to make changes in my own life and to encourage others to live sustainably in order to help in any way to protect the stability of the planet. So my point from all of that is that although I am finishing up this blog, I am in no way finished with thinking about my footprints and changing the way in which I walk.

Living sustainably: Do I measure up?

I chose to challenge myself by:
Substantially lowering my thermostat [Link] 
     By turning the thermostat down to 55F and only heating occupied rooms with space heaters my household was able to cut our gas bill by 30% with only a small increase in electricity use for the space heaters. Therefore by wearing sweaters and accepting that winter isn't meant to feel like summer, we were able to significantly reduce the amount of energy used to heat our home.


Comparing my life to a list of suggestions [Link]
    I was having trouble looking for ways to challenge myself and came across a huge list of ideas posted by Amy. I went through each and every one of these suggestions and evaluated whether or not I could make the proposed changes. I found that I was already ahead of the game for almost every suggestion and I was able to pick out a few things which I could be doing such as cutting down on junk mail, reducing showers, and switching to vegetarianism.    


Flirting with vegetarianism [Link]
    Partly guided by the list of ideas for a more sustainable lifestyle, I recognized the impacts which my diet had on the planet. The week I spent without eating meat actually went by very quickly without too much trouble. Despite the benefits of avoiding meat,  I wasn't able (willing) to continue to avoid eating meat because of how good animals taste. You can hate me all you want for saying that, but at least I am being honest about my feelings on the matter. I absolutely 100% believe that everyone needs to switch over to being a vegetarian, I'm just not willing to be the first. I suppose that this exposes a trend in many people like me who recognize the importance of lowering their impacts of the world but are unwilling to personally make the changes required. I feel almost as if I am invalidating all of my work I have put into attempting to live sustainably by refusing to adopt vegetarianism. I will not leave vegetarianism off of the table however I feel it is too much of a change for me to make all at once. I've always been rather awkward at goodbyes and I know that I must find a way to say goodbye to steak but it's not coming easy.


Networked and Educated. 

   We were able to set up as part of the booth for the Sustainability Club at the 2012 World Water Day event on campus at UBCO. This was an interesting experience, we spoke to many students as they passed by and helped the Sustainability Club ask them questions about their water use and plans for personal sustainability.
   As part of another outreach effort, we were able to visit Lisa from Urban Harvest and discuss their organic food delivery service, how it could be accessed by students, and what alternatives existed which could benefit students with local and organic food. My questioning focused on if a delivery service could be used to treat the food desert situation at the UBCO campus and strategies for students to take advantage of these services.

To copy Amy, I will answer the question Can I can be sustainable?. I feel as though I am much more of a pessimist. My answer would have to be No. These small steps I've taken and others that I have heard of but not tried are all very small incremental changes almost designed to make me feel as though I am doing something in order to feel better about my life. Without making drastic and radical changes to the ways in which I work, travel, and participate in the environment I do not believe that I could ever meet the definition of a sustainable person. I can however become more sustainable than I am now. Although this doesn't solve the problem, it does help. So despite my pessimism in making small changes to my life in the name of sustainability. I do believe that from small beginnings, great things can come to be. The true power that I witnessed while talking to others about these issues weren't the great changes that people were making in their lives, but rather the networks of informed individuals which were forming from sustainability programs. If we are to see change than it will come from the actions of no single person. It will take networks of informed citizens to take back our climate and force the world to reorganize. Consider the fact that just fifteen cargo ships contribute as much to climate change as every car on the planet and you will see that our problem is situated deep inside our capitalist mode of production which seeks continual growth and thrives by externalizing environmental costs. It is imperative that everyone get involved with local environmental groups. No single person is going to beat this crisis by recycling their milk jug. It is going to take strong collective action in order to beat climate change and therefor I suggest that the single greatest and most simple action which you can take against climate change would be to go get involved, meet others who share in your views, and figure out how to teach others about the impacts which their lives have on the planet.

Go Beyond Teach In

As Amy mentioned in her last post, we were recently invited by our professor Dr. Mary Stockdale to help facilitate a teach-in in our classroom. Our teach-in was a part of a larger campaign put on by the GoBEYOND campus climate network, an organisation dedicated to getting post-secondary students involved in environmental and climate action issues. The idea behind the teach in was to get as many professors as possible to dedicate at least 15 minutes of their class time to an activity designed to teach environmental and climate change issues. Although our entire course is designed to get us taking about these issues, we dedicated our class time in order to show solidarity for the cause.

Although we did not design the teach in activities we were asked to give a short talk about our experiences as students trying to lower our footprint in order to set the tone for the rest of the discussion. The main activity which we facilitated during the teach-in was splitting into groups and reviewing different tips for greening your life by BC Hydro. While reviewing these tips we were asked to pick the top three easiest and the three hardest from each of the three categories of food, shopping and transportation.

The answers were:

Food

• Three easiest ways to make an impact:

1. Eat Meals
2. Compost Your Waste
3. Learn to Cook/Eat Food, Mostly Plants (Tie)

• Three most difficult ways to make an impact:

1. Preserve for Winter
2. Practice Energy-Efficient Cooking
3. Grow Some Food

Shopping

• Three easiest ways to make an impact:

1. Reduce, Reuse, Repair
2. Shop Locally
3. Become Non-Toxic

• The most difficult way to make an impact:

1. Join a Local Exchange Network

Transportation

• Three easiest ways to make an impact:

1. Ride a Bike
2. Reduce Personal Automobile Use
3. Adopt Efficient Driving Habits

• Three most difficult ways to make an impact:

1. Consider Where You Live
2. Keep Your Car Tuned
3. Choose an Efficient Vehicle

When considering how our class answered these it must be remembered that these are students. For most students making decisions about where you live, what sort of car you drive and planting food are out of reach. 

What I'm doing: Cutting out the meat

As I mentioned in an earlier post my food footprint was my most environmentally offensive impact on the planet. According to the results of my ecological footprint, one of the best ways to reduce my impact of my diet on the planet is to stop eating meat. The website govegbegreen.org outlines how a vegetarian diet could be central to mitigating climate change, slowing deforestation, and to ensure that there are adequate resources on the planet for all of its residents.

It is not always the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of climate change but the reality is that livestock production is the number one producer of green house gas in the world. Forget taking the bus, or switching to compact florescent light bulbs; if you want to cut out the number one source of greenhouse gas on the planet then you need to stop eating meat.

Like every other environmentally damaging activity global meat production is on the rise despite the looming threat of climate change. Estimates claim that by the year 2050 meat production will be double what it is today. Although the demand may be there, I find this very hard to believe because I do not think that there is anyway that our world could sustain a doubling in its number one green house gas emmitter. Fueling the rise in meat production are developing nations who are consuming more and more meat as their incomes grow.

Demanding that developing nations cut their meat consumption is not seen by many people in these nations. Those of us in developed nations have, for a long time, gorged ourselves with meat as a primary aspect of our diet and promised our lifestlye to any nation which could make itself more "developed". Just as India and China are becoming more affluent, their diets are changing to be more focused on meat just like our own. As their economies continue to grow this trend will not be easily reversed and will lead to this huge predicted increase in meat production.

In order to make a personal change in my life, this week I've heading into the deep end and cut meat out of my diet. I'm going to make no attempt to identify with any particular veggie sect and instead will simply pledge to not eat meat without resorting to extreme veganism by cutting out all by products. This won't be the easiest task for me because I cook meat at my workplace. Luckily I'm a good enough cook that I will be able to make good dishes without any meat but I still think this will be a challenge. To kick things off, tonight I made this garlic noodle dish. It wasn't the most healthy or nutritious meal in the world but as far as very simple noodles go this one was a winner.

Help Us: Upcoming World Water Day!

                                                                Source: nixxphotography

World water day is coming up fast on March 22nd and we plan to co-ordinate our weekly challenge to coincide with this. The Sustainability Office here at UBC|O is cordinating three days of activities around World Water Day form March 20th to 22nd and we plan to get involved.

We need your ideas for on how to challenge ourselves this week. Please comment on this post with your ideas and hopefully we can come up with some great ideas!

Fifty Ideas and Me.

I've been having a hard time coming up with idea's for how to lower my footprint. Any ideas I find either don't apply to me or are not feasible. In an attempt to find something to to I'm going to go through the 50 suggestions on the website (http://www.50waystohelp.com/) suggested by Amy and evaluate each suggestion in relation to my life.

Here it goes:

1. CHANGE YOUR LIGHT

     I took a quick look around my house and we're using compact florescent bulbs in every part of my living area.

2. TURN OFF COMPUTERS AT NIGHT

     I always make sure to shut off my computer whenever I'm not using it however my laptop could be drawing power to charge that I am not aware of. Due to phantom load, unplugging devices could gain me extra power savings with a small effort. 

3. DON'T RINSE

    Although I agree with the premise of not washing dishes before placing them in the dishwasher, not rinsing often leads to improper washing, clogging the dishwasher with food, and can require more energy to wash them a second time. 

4. DO NOT PRE-HEAT THE OVEN

    I consider myself to be an amateur cook and from my knowledge, failing to preheat the oven can wreck many pies and breads because the initially hot oven is requires to seal in the moisture. However preheating is not required when cooking meat that has already been browned, or when using the broiler. 

5. RECYCLE GLASS

    My household collects all recyclable glass, plastic, and paper and recycles it through a combination of the municipal recycling collection program and trips to the bottle recycling depot. 

6. DIAPER WITH A CONSCIENCE

     I don't wear diapers very often anymore. 

7. HANG DRY

     I currently hang all of my shirts and pants to dry and only use the dryer for socks, underwear, and bedding. Do to the season and space constraints I am hang drying all that I can. In the summer I hope to put up a clothes line as I love the smell of clothes which have dried outside in the summer. 

8. GO VEGETARIAN ONCE A WEEK

    At the moment I go vegetarian at least three times a week. I do not consider meat to be central to my diet but I do need to eat it a few times a week. Perhaps one of my challenges could be to eat only vegetarian foods for a week to try something different.

9. WASH IN COLD OR WARM

    I do my laundry in cold or cool water using a cold water detergent. 

10. USE ONE LESS PAPER NAPKIN

    I don't have any paper towels or napkins at home, we entirely use cotton clothes and towels and wash them with our laundry. 

11. USE BOTH SIDES OF PAPER

    I am very guilty of this when taking notes in a notebook. I neglect to use the backs of pages because I cannot write very close to the metal book binding with my right hand. I should start to use more of the back of the pages to extend the lives of my notebooks. 

12. RECYCLE NEWSPAPER

    I currently recycle newsprint and paper products. 

13. WRAP CREATIVELY

    I tend not to wrap presents for birthdays and friends however I waste a lot of wrapping paper at Christmas time. Wrapping in newsprint or other recycled papers would drastically reduce the amount of paper waste from gift giving in the holiday season and I will keep this idea on my radar for next year. 

14. RETHINK BOTTLED WATER

    I do not often purchase bottled water, I usually have access to a water source wherever I am and drink from water fountains or cups. 

15. BAN BATHTIME!

     I don't have a bath.

16. BRUSH WITHOUT RUNNING

    I'm not guilty of this, I don't run the water while brushing my teeth or shaving. 

17. SHOWER WITH YOUR PARTNER

     Anytime I've tried this I've stayed in the shower for at least twice as long as I normally would have. 

18. TAKE A SHORTER SHOWER

     I am very guilty of this, maybe not in shower duration but certainly in shower frequency. I average two showers a day because I tend to shower when I get out of bed in the morning and again when I come home from my job smelling like a kitchen. If I did not shower before going to work I could drastically reduce my water use. This might be a good idea to try during world water week. 

19. PLANT A TREE

     This is an excellent idea, I may try this. 

20. USE YOUR CRUISE CONTROL

     I do not have a cruise control device on my bike and do not do enough highway driving for it to be practical. 

21. SECOND-HAND DOESN'T MEAN SECOND-BEST

     I shop at value-village for things such as kitchen tools and some clothes. I love finding a great deal on something that would have cost much more new. 

22. BUY LOCAL

    This is something I wish I was doing more of, due to time and money constraints I often end up doing the bulk of my shopping at supermarkets and making food choices based upon price.

23. ADJUST YOUR THERMOSTAT

     DONE

24. INVEST IN YOUR OWN COFFEE CUP

     This is a good suggestion, I order take out coffee 3-4 times a week and would be able to reduce waste by bringing a reusable mug. 

25. BATCH ERRANDS

    I'm pretty good at planning trips to the store. I find the key is to always have a list. 

26. TURN OFF LIGHTS

    My household does an excellent job of keeping lights off in areas that are not occupied. My landlord has installed nightlights for us to use so that we do not need to keep the lights on to navigate the halls at night. 

27. GREENER LAWN CARE

    I do not have a lawn

28. PICNIC WITH A MARKER

     This is a neat trick for a problem that I do not run into very often. 

29. RECYCLE OLD CELL PHONES

     I am guilty of never having recycled my electronics but I do not currently have any eletronics to recycle. I would suggest that on top of disposing of electronics it is often very easy to find someone else who could make use of them. I gave my old cell phone to my sister and set my room-mate up with my aging desktop computer which I had replaced.  

30. MAINTAIN YOUR VEHICLE

    I'm great at maintaining my vehicle. It is not well known that having your tire pressures even a bit too low can cause a big impact on the fuel economy of your vehicle. 

31. RECYCLE UNWANTED WIRE HANGERS

    I don't have any. 

32. RECYCLE ALUMINUM AND GLASS

    I currently do this. 

33. TELECOMMUTE

    If I had a job where this was possible I would try to do it as often as possible. I always prefer to work in my underwear and this is not always well received at the office. 

34. KEEP YOUR FIREPLACE DAMPER CLOSED

    I don't have a fireplace

35. CUT DOWN ON JUNK MAIL

    This is something that I need to do. The biggest offender are the newspapers which we receive, stuffed full of unnecessary junk. Sometimes the newspaper contains twice as much junk in the middle than in the actual paper. These papers are seldom read and could be easily replaced with a local on-line news source.

36. CHOOSE MATCHES OVER LIGHTERS

    This is something which I wouldn't have thought of. I considered a disposable lighter to be better than matches but I did not take into account the materials used. I would suggest that a well-built refillable lighter might be the best solution in the long run. 

37. LET YOUR FINGERS DO THE WALKING—ONLINE

     I haven't used a phone book in more than 5 years, however some members of my household still rely on it. 

38. GIVE IT AWAY

    I don't have anything to give away but if I did I would most likely try to sell it on an online classifieds website or give it to a friend. 

39. GO TO A CAR WASH

    I question whether building an entire facility dedicated to washing cars which uses many hazardous detergents and industrial powered dryers could have less of an impact than washing a car with a garden hose, a soft cloth, and some mild soap. 

40. PLASTIC BAGS SUCK

    I do all of my grocery shopping with my backpack on my motorcycle or on the bus. I do not take plastic bags and instead just load everything into my backpack. When I do bring plastic bags home for whatever reason, they are put into a cupboard and reused for other needs. 

41. FLY WITH AN E-TICKET

    I will try this next time I fly.

42. DOWNLOAD YOUR SOFTWARE

   I haven't bought a physical copy of software in years. Everything from games to office software is readily available online. 

43. STOP YOUR ANSWERING MACHINE

    I don't have an answering machine but turning my cellphone off at night could save energy that would otherwise be wasted powering a device when I don't need it. 

44. SKIP THE COFFEE STIRRER

    The coffee shops I purchase from do not use disposable stirrers. 

45. FIND A BETTER WAY TO BREAK THE ICE

    Good idea, but it does not apply to me. 

46. USE COTTON SWABS WITH A PAPERBOARD SPINDLE

    I had never payed close attention to this before but I will the next time im in the market for some cotton swabs.

47. PAY BILLS ONLINE

   I currently do this for all of my bills.

48. STOP PAPER BANK STATEMENTS

   I currently do this for every statement that my bank is allowed to offer online. 

49. USE RECHARGABLE BATTERIES

    Surprisingly I have no devices which require removable batteries. All of my portable devices have built-in rechargeable batteries. 

50. SHARE!

    I'm trying to do that right now!

In summary, the areas where I could have the largest effect would be: reducing phantom load by unplugging my devices, try to adopt a vegetarian diet, make better use of paper, reduce the amount of showers I take, buy local, use a re-usable coffee mug, and cut down on junk mail. 

This week I will purchase a re-usable mug and begin to unplug all of my devices nightly. I will save some of the larger challenged for later weeks. 

Turning Energy Saving Into a Game

An article published last week on the website ArsTechnica.com highlights an emerging trend in the car in at home in which reducing the amount of energy you consume is turned into a game. I won't attempt to replicate the entire article here because author Rob Pegoraro has already done an excellent job in his article and I would urge you to check it out.

Rob points out how technology in modern hybrid cars keeps careful track of the energy efficiency of your driving habits and effectively encourages drivers to save fuel by making a game out of good driving. This technology has seen great success in automobiles and is now starting to make its way into home energy use as well.

The marriage of new power metering devices and online monitoring by utilities allows homeowners to carefully track their energy use and see how the decisions they are making contribute to their overall energy use. In addition to this a new revolution in appliance design is set to be unleashed in which appliances can carefully monitor their energy use and report the data directly to the consumer. No longer will a homeowner need to speculate about the amount of energy used by a stove, washing machine or television. With no special plugs or additional technologies, the appliances will grant easy access of energy use data to consumers. Another exciting project highlighted in the article is a social mapping website Gainesville-Green.com which takes public energy use data and uses it to create a map showing the relative energy consumption of every home in the city. Low-energy users are given green symbols and high-consumers are shamed into changing their habits. 


When lowering energy use is turned into a game, there can be no losers. One of the biggest barriers to this type of technology taking off is the reluctance of utility companies to make energy data available often enough for it be stay relevant. If the power company only reports energy use every quarter than it is hard to see how the decisions you are making are having an impact.

Oh Dear, Look at What I Have Done: Lowered the heat.

   Image from: http://avhsenvironmentalclub.blogspot.com/2010/01/bulletin-green-tip-3-turn-down-your.html

     Here is a fact: living in a cold climate is not good for the planet. No matter how you look at it, those of us who live far from the equator use a huge amount of energy to heat our homes and keep ourselves comfortable in the winter. In order to find out the average room temperature of Canadian homes I turned towards tenant acts to see what the minimum temperatures were demanded by law. It turns out that in BC there is very little information about this, it seems that BC has no law governing temperatures and lets municipalities decided. Looking locally all I could find for Kelowna was a proposed by-law from 2002 and a draft resolution calling for a minimum temperature of 20 degrees Celsius, as far as I could find this has not passed. It appears that this minimum is in line with many municipalities in Ontario which must maintain residential properties at either 68 or 70 degrees Fahrenheit.

     These minimum standards are very important for ensuring that no renters must face a winter in the cold and have access to a safe environment which is warm enough to support a healthy life. I will go right out and say that I do not believe that anyone other than those with poor immune systems need to maintain such a high temperature in the winter. Maintaining a house at 20 Celsius allows one to comfortably lounge around in a t-shirt in blissful ignorance of the winter outside of their walls. That's great, and while were at it why don't we eat candy for every meal because it tastes better, never exercise because its too much work, and drink a pint of whisky everyday because it gives us that perky stride.

     Luckily for the planet, my landlord doesn't believe in paying to keep the house warm in the winter. We keep our thermostat set at 58 F during the day and 55 degrees at night. Yes you heard me, fifty-five, or around 12.4 degrees C. Now when the winter started up I wasn't too happy to hear that the house was going to be so cold all of the time but because the landlord is a friend and also lives in the same house in the same conditions, I was willing to give it a chance. 

     Here is what I've discovered: it isn't as bad as it sounds. I wear sweaters more, sometimes I wear long underwear under my jeans, and most importantly I started to use a small 900w space heater. Now think about it: I've been sitting at my desk in my room for about 2 hours, I have the space heater running and I'm comfortably sitting in jeans and a t-shirt as I write this. The rest of the house is about 55-58 F, but that's just fine, everyone else is away at work and I'm only using one room. So based on this strategy I only need to heat the room that I'm actually using rather than a big empty house, this not only saves us money on our energy bill but also dramatically reduces the carbon footprint of our house. Using this quick calculator available on WarmAir.net, lowering our thermostat reduces our energy consumption by around 30%. I'm not suggesting that everyone should start to turn their thermostats down as much as we do, I'm just trying to say that its possible and I adapted to it fast. If I can turn my heat down to 55 F than surely the average Canadian can manage to keep their thermostat set at around 65 F. According to calculator mentioned before turning the thermostat from 70 F to 65 F will result in a 12% decrease in energy use.

    As I said earlier, those of us who live in colder climates require much more energy than those who live closer to the equator. Look outside, its winter! It's cold! If were going to live here we need to make some sacrifices. I love keeping the thermostat at 75 F as much as anyone else but the truth is that we are depleting our planet of resources and polluting its atmosphere in order to keep out feet warm. Put on socks, go for a run, get a space heater and only heat the room you're using, get into the kitchen and cook something over that warm stove, if you're still cold than you're doing it wrong.