Appreciation

Last night, I stayed up late just to watch and listen to the rain. It was the first rain in several weeks.

Why is it only during a drought we take notice of the rain?

Enough

Oil dependency, global warming, drought. These may be related in more than one way.

First, the pattern becoming increasingly clear is 1) our fossil-fuel habit is resulting in excess heat being trapped in our atmosphere and 2) the additional energy increases the intensity of weather patterns, but there is another link I've found.

It's about having Enough. What is Enough?

In my younger days, we would throw elaborate parties. Well, I still enjoy an elaborate party, but we've gotten smarter about those parties. (I feel especially bright the morning after.)

We throw parties to celebrate the abundance of life. There is plenty of food and drink and we make expenditures that we couldn't otherwise justify. Life is for celebration, so there is nothing here for me to quarrel with.

The question is, what is enough? Do we throw a party every night? Is every day a holiday?

Cheap oil is like a never-ending party, only we know that parties do end. Turning all our fossil fuels into heat and smoke as fast as we can is partying hard. Slowly creeping into our consciousness is the idea that we can no longer take things for granted, like clean air and fresh water.

It may be the current drought that reminds us, like the wee hours of the clock, that we've been partying hard for perhaps too long. The dehydration of body and dehydration of our cities may have more in common than a first glance would reveal.

Water itself is a question of Enough. Besides challenging our intent to live our lives as if nothing has changed, the lack of fresh water asks us in an immediate way, how much do I need.

On camping trips, we like to sleep near the sound of falling water. I'm sure there are neurons deep in our brain that respond to the sound of water and send relaxing signals to our entire body. These neural pathways have been burned into the animal brain long before we found words to talk about it. Now we have to talk about it before we find we don't have enough.

- Enough to drink and to prepare our food, but not enough to water non-native plants.
- Enough to bring along on our bike, but not enough to wash the car.
- Enough to maintain hygiene, but not enough to run down the drain.

How we answer the question "How much is Enough?" defines our relationship with our environment and with our fellow man. Ultimately, the planet can provide enough to satisfy our needs, but not enough to satisfy our greed.

Having Fun

I'm all about having fun. Whether it's youth soccer, bicycle commuting, or conservation, I'm going to put in more effort when I'm having fun.

The Carbon Conscious Consumer (C3) is making it more fun to reduce our carbon footprint. Each month, they challenge individuals to make a pledge to change their behavior in simple but effective ways. Some recent pledges have been:

• Buy locally grown food.
  
• Make fewer trips by car.
  
• Don't buy bottled water.
  
• Reduce your junk mail.
  

C3's website has articles and commentary explaining how much of an impact these actions have on our environment.

This month, C3 is asking us to pledge to reduce the number of hot-water laundry loads to 1 out of 5 loads. I'm asking you to take the pledge by signing up with C3 by clicking the C3 image at the right-hand side of this page.

Oh, and if you spread the word to others, you have a chance to win prizes.

Environmental Education. Fun facts to share (for example, each liter of bottled water takes 3 liters of fresh water and a quarter-cup of oil to put on your shelf). A cool website with an image showing how you've contributed. OK, it's not as much fun as Disneyworld, but it's not bad for helping save the planet.

Bucket Brigade

Our buckets are getting a lot of use this year. This one is assigned outdoor duty. It had been collecting condensation from the air conditioner, but with the shift in weather, it now collects the condensation from our central heat exhaust. Instead of watering the plants underneath the vent, we can water our vegetable garden.

We also use our bucket in the shower to catch grey water. I never imagined I would consider whether cabbage prefers Dial soap to Ivory soap.

I got a comment this morning about using the water caught in the shower to flush the toilet. They mentioned they haven't had to flush in more than ten days now.

Our neighbors put in a rain barrel this year. I should create a separate post for this since others may want some pointers on how to set this up. I've got a place in mind for a rain barrel of my own.

Yellow Mellow, Brown Down

Atlanta's water situation is making big news. Brown lawns no longer catch your eye and the car is covered in cat-prints for lack of a wash, but our household didn't feel that it was doing enough. It was time to Step It Up a notch.

Although we have the newer, less-wasteful toilets, we decided to follow the "Yellow Mellow, Brown Down" rule of flushing. Just because we grew up flushing after every use of the toilet doesn't mean we can still afford to waste fresh water.

At first, finding an unflushed toilet was a whack on the side of the head. Now, I'm enjoying the whack on the side of the head. We're giving ourselves a reminder -- several times a day -- that we're doing something about conserving fresh water.

We haven't had many discussions about what our guests can expect to find in our toilets, but the whack on the side of their head can be a good one. I think once we explain what the mellow yellow is all about, our guests may find they would like to go home and whack the side of their own heads.

Bottled Water is a Big Waste

God created Man in His image. He intended our brains to switch off when we're asleep, but not when it comes to bottled water.

If we lived in a part of the world that doesn't have access to safe water, that would be one thing, but most of my readers have safe water at the turn of a tap. Consider the expense we incur for the disposable convenience of a bottle of water:

• Meeting your recommended daily water intake would cost $1,400 if it were all bottled water. It costs 59 cents if you take it from the faucet. Who are you giving your money to?
  
• Bottling water is ironically, water-intensive. It takes 3 liters of water to bottle a single liter of water.
  
• To deliver our bottled water requires a weekly convoy of 37,800 18-wheelers and that rate is growing.
  
• Between the production and transport of the bottle, a quarter of a bottle of oil is consumed.
  
• Americans spent more on bottled water last year than iPods or movie tickets: $15 billion.
  
• An 18-wheeler cannot be filled with bottled water. It's too heavy. A shipment of bottled water requires the truck to leave empty space.
  
• On average, we pay far more for bottled water than gasoline, although you can find it for about the same cost as milk.
  

From an article posted on fastcompany.com:

A chilled plastic bottle of water in the convenience-store cooler is the perfect symbol of this moment in American commerce and culture. It acknowledges our demand for instant gratification, our vanity, our token concern for health. Its packaging and transport depend entirely on cheap fossil fuel. Yes, it’s just a bottle of water–modest compared with the indulgence of driving a Hummer. But when a whole industry grows up around supplying us with something we don’t need–when a whole industry is built on the packaging and the presentation–it’s worth asking how that happened, and what the impact is.

God gave you a brain. Are you using it proudly?

Global Warming Denial

Newsweek magazine published a front page article "Global Warming is a Hoax". At least that's what the well-funded naysayers who still reject the overwhelming evidence that our planet is getting warmer are saying.

The article goes inside the machine that has been (rather successfully) spreading mis-information amongst the US public and preventing legislation that would curtail the waste of natural resources.

The article has some interesting points:

• A conservative think tank funded by Exxon/Mobil had offered scientists $10,000 to write articles under-cutting the science behind human-caused climate change.
  
• The strategies employed by big oil, auto makers, and other industries who stand to lose profits are similar to the strategies employed by the tobacco industry when they lobbied against the science on lung cancer and smoking: presenting a false picture of dissension amongst scientists, down-playing the risks, and heavily lobbying federal law makers.
  
• How George W. Bush's campaign pledge of capping carbon dioxide emissions was kept out of his inauguration speech by one of the organizations funded by the impacted industries.
  

It appears the public is slowly waking up. Scientific reports may not draw more than a yawn, but perhaps the higher gas prices will get the public's attention.

Green means less waste -- and saves money

I'm befuddled by the perception that saving money is expensive. Our Federal government won't commit to reducing CO2 emissions because they argue it is expensive, but this brewery is saving money by reducing its emissions. Less water and energy usage were just two ways this brewery was helping the environment through reduce, re-use, and recycle.

When we were preparing for entertaining family and friends over this past weekend, Beth mentioned we should look for beers from the New Belgium Brewery. Although we didn't find any -- we had sketchy details on what to look for -- an article on MSNBC that was brought to my attention by the blog Rocky Hillside will help us support this brewery.