Fear and Consumption :Updated with Letter to City Council

I have been wanting to write on this topic for a while now, but things haven't gelled in my head enough to do so. I've had a post on the back burner for almost a year that I rework now and then, but I'm never happy with. Today I'm going to write about the topic anyway, from scratch, because I heard something on the CBC's Edmonton AM this morning that really, really ticked me off.

The radio host was interviewing the owner of a company that proposes to put huge, double sided video screens on several major thoroughfares around Edmonton. These dozens of screens would post emergency information or other urgent information in the public interest, such as amber alerts (when a child may have been abducted), extreme weather warnings, etc. The idea is that putting this information out near the driving public would be the best way to get the information disseminated quickly. Apart from the fact that this info is already broadcast on radio and tv stations already, it sounds pretty good so far, right?

Well, when there isn't an emergent or urgent situation happening, the screens would be filled with commercial advertising. When the radio host asked the company owner what the expected proportion of advertising to emergency information was, the owner dodged the question, saying that the screens would be dedicated to emergency information only for up to 7 days when an emergency occurred. The host pressed for the information again, saying that surely the expected proportion would have to be known so the owner could guarantee advertisers a certain amount of 'screen time' for their money. This is where it gets good: the owner then said, with quite a lot of defensiveness in his voice, that surely 'saving the lives of one or two little girls' outweighs every other consideration and makes the proportion of advertising time irrelevant. The radio host then made the comment that he expected the owner would be making that point in particular when he goes to City Council to pitch his idea.

Deep breath. Ok.

How dare he. How dare that man play on fear to sell the idea of his advertising business!!! And how dare he mix fear and consumption in the first place!!! Can you imagine this: driving down the road and seeing, say, a tornado warning on the big screen, and then shortly afterward being shown an advertisement for emergency equipment? Or being shown that the road is slippery ahead and then being shown an advertisement for snow tires? Or how about being shown an amber alert, with the emotional sight of a missing child's face, and then after the amber alert is lifted, having the ads be heavily weighted for house and car security systems, or the government's latest pre-election "get tough on crime" spot?

Fear and advertising should never, NEVER, be mixed. They are mixed, all the time though. Maybe its not as blatant as these screens would have it mixed, but all the time we are bombarded with messages in the media that danger/discomfort/hardship exists everywhere and wouldn't this nice (insert your choice of consumer produce or service here) make everything better/nicer/easier for you. Don't worry your pretty little head about the tough stuff, just keep consuming yourself into a soporific state and we the multinational corporation/paternalistic government will take care of everything. Just get comfortably numb and let the 'invisible hand' of the market work its magic.

One of the worst parts of the whole radio interview was that the business owner seemed to think that there was no problem with this approach. And, the radio host's comments seemed to imply that the owner's argument could be expected to have good leverage with City Council. Nothing like 'business as usual,' eh?

You can bet that the owner of this business will be receiving a letter from me. I doubt it will have any effect, but I'm not afraid, and I'm certainly not comfortably numb.

(Repeated bailout schemes, varying terror alerts, new psychiatric 'disorders', 'catastrophic health emergency insurance,' they're all good for business aren't they? Has anyone else seen any blatant or subtle examples of the mixing of fear and the corporate push to consume?)

Image courtesy this website.

Update, January 26, 2009

The following is the letter I submitted via email to Edmonton City Council today. I received email confirmation that it has been distributed to the councilors for their review:

Hello Council Members:

A recent story on CBC Radio talked about a businessman who would be pitching his idea of having large video screen billboards on various high-traffic routes around the city. These would carry emergency information about 1% of the time and advertising the other 99%. I am writing to convey my dismay and disgust with such an idea.

First, such changeable advertisements would be extremely distracting to drivers, making city streets even more hazardous than they already are. Second, and this is where my disgust comes from, these screens would provide a venue for advertisers, and this businessman, to profit from fear. Imagine that an amber alert has just been lifted, and the screen goes back to advertising, say for home security systems, or self-defense classes, etc. The fact that an amber alert had just been in effect could well be used to scare or intimidate people into buying such products. This would be an insidious and sickening use of advertising.

I strongly urge city council to reject this businessman's proposal when he pitches it to you. Surely our city will not stand for such coercive and manipulative tactics.

Sincerely,

Theresa XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Breakfast lessons

Yesterday Gord requested that we have a 'nice breakfast' today, Sunday morning. This request is short form for a breakfast consisting of eggs, toast, hashbrowns, and maybe some fake bacon, or possibly Dutch pancakes or French toast. We have an excess of eggs at the moment, as well as some fake bacon to use up, so I opted for the first choice. I'm not a terrific cook by any means, but I can whip up a pretty good breakfast.

The breakfast itself turned out well: my homemade hashbrown patties were nice and crisp, I managed to make Gord's eggs over medium like he likes them, and my egg soft basted the way I like it, all at the same time as having the toast ready. And the fake bacon is always just bacon-y enough to satisfy one of my few cravings for meaty flavor.

I sat down with my breakfast, along with my tea and orange juice and dug in. My thought process went something like this:

"Gotta eat my egg while it's hot. Wait, gotta taste that hashbrown patty first to see if it's crisp this time. Oo...I need a swig of tea while it's hot too. My toast is getting cold, ack! My bacon is cold already, dang! Hurry hurry, dunk toast in egg yolk! No time for orange juice, gotta have hot toast!"

About 30 seconds into this, I realized that maybe a breakfast consisting of six items, including two beverages, is too much to appreciate properly. I was just gobbling it all up. Maybe it would be better to just have egg and toast OR hasbrowns and bacon, so I can enjoy everything while it's hot and not have to rush or gobble. This seems obvious, but until I actually paid attention to my thoughts, I didn't even realize I was rushing and gobbling.

Funny how this is a lesson that keeps popping up for me - probably because I haven't actually learned it yet. It strikes me that this is a lesson that our society hasn't learned yet either. We're still rushing and gobbling at the world's un-refillable buffet table, leaving little for those who are further back in line. Another lesson for me personally is that of humility: I continue to make the mistake of mindless consumption at my literal breakfast table and need to remain compassionate towards those doing the same at the metaphorical world buffet table.

Further, I need to continue to work on becoming mindful of these things beforehand, rather than just catching myself in hindsight. Doing so, and changing my habits accordingly, could serve as an example that sets off a chain of insight in someone else, and so on. Not that what I do is particularly exemplary, just that seeing someone do something differently tends to have more of an impact that just talking about it. Which brings me back to my 'resolution' for 2009, which is, in a nutshell, more action and less talk.

Picture of veggie bacon courtesy this blog.

In which a person dies on Buy Nothing Day

Today is North American Buy Nothing Day. In a sickening irony, a worker at a store that shall not be named, was trampled to death by those wanting to buy their 'fair share' of discounted consumer goods (a.k.a. cheap plastic crap). Does this not just say it all about what has gone so horribly wrong in our society?

I don't know if a cup of tea is going to cut it for this one.

August Challenge: Discretionary Eating

Today I say goodbye to the No Graze Days challenge and to the Quit Now challenge. I had combined these two challenges in an effort decrease the amount of time I eat without taking the time to sit down and be mindful of the food I am privileged to have to eat.

July was a really busy month for me, but even if it hadn't been I don't think I would have made much headway in these challenges. It has become so ingrained in me over the last 30+ years to eat while watching TV or reading a book, that it's going to take some kind of mental dynamite to break the connection these two things have in my head. Especially since the way I often reward myself is to sit down with cup of tea and some kind of snack and read a good book. This is the ultimate in relaxation for me. On Sunday mornings I do it in bed, even. Starting the day off this way sets such an easy tone for the rest of the day, and helps me feel recuperated for the work week ahead. So I've decided to give this whole idea a rest for the time being, and try and focus on some other ways to be more mindful and to get better at eating my fair share. Chile seems to have read my mind somehow, and has come up with the Discretionary Eating Challenge. Chile has defined discretionary eating along the same lines as you would define discretionary spending, but referring to food instead of money:

"Discretionary eating is the amount of an individual's food consumption that is eaten after basic caloric and nutritional needs have been met."

I have noticed over the past few months that the only way I seem to be able to avoid eating more than I need to satisfy my hunger is to think about the food I have in relation to the food other people have, and in relation to the amount of resources, time and energy it has taken to grow the food and get it to my plate. Trying to eat more mindfully has certainly helped me to take more note of the latter.

My thoughts on the former are related to my increasing consciousness about the interconnection of all things and how what I eat, buy and do has consequences for other beings in the world. I have always been a person who is bothered by the unfairness of things, and my eating gobs of food when others have none is just not fair. It's sort of like when kids get told to "eat, the people in China are starving." The smart remark afterwards was always that we could just send the leftover broccoli or other disliked food item to China.

That's not practical of course, but what I didn't get (and developmentally couldn't get) as a child was that if people have so much food over here that we're throwing it away for reasons of food preference or being 'too full', maybe we have too much food and waste too much food. And maybe having 'too much' of something means there's some unfairness somewhere, that needs to be addressed either personally or systemically, or both. And maybe too, that society reinforces greed and excess, and makes us into good little money-spending consumers. That is too much stuff for a little kid to think about, but stuff that I regularly think about now as I try to remake myself into more of a conserver and less of a consumer.

So, I'm going to give Chile's new challenge a good try. She's made it very flexible, with varying levels of commitment to choose from. The one I'm going to go for at the 100% level is to have "seconds only when hungry" (SOW for short!). I've signed up to reduce my current consumption in the other categories by 50% - these include things like eating out, eating refined foods, using sweeteners (sugar, honey) or stimulants (caffeine - even in chocolate form!- and alcohol). Mainly I just want to make sure I stop eating when I stop feeling hungry. To be content with enough, and to remember to be grateful that I have more than enough.

Not surprisingly, the Tao Te Ching has some lovely things to say about contentment and moderation. Here are a few excerpts:

From Chapter 9

Holding a cup and overfilling it
Cannot be as good as stopping short

From Chapter 15

One who holds this Tao does not wish to be overfilled
Because one is not overfilled
Therefore one can preserve and not create anew

From Chapter 46

There is no crime greater than greed
No disaster greater than discontentment
No fault greater than avarice
Thus the satisfaction of contentment
is the lasting satisfaction

Water and Personal Accountability

As I mentioned yesterday, after reading the book Blue Gold, I've become acutely aware of the looming world and local water crises. This crisis scares me even more than peak oil issues, because while humans (and and animals, and plants) can certainly live without oil, none of us can live without water.

One of the most amazing things about water is that instead of contracting when it freezes, like most things do when they get cold, it expands. This makes it lighter than water, so it floats on the tops of lakes rather than sinking to the bottom. This has the added effect of insulating the rest of the lake, preventing the body of water from freezing. If this didn't happen, all the fish and other aquatic animals and plants would be killed every winter. I've always found these properties of water to be amazing, if not downright miraculous!

I also love the paradoxical nature of water (of which the expansive freezing is one example). It is placid yet powerful, gentle yet relentless. It can be restorative yet lethal, depending on the circumstances. It's also the "universal solvent," as my dad says, and that's true: literally and metaphorically I would say.

But all this waxing poetic-like is meaningless if I'm not doing anything differently, isn't it? Which brings me to my personal accountability for my water use. I'll start with what I'm doing pretty well at, move on to what I'm getting better at, and end with what I still need to change. In doing so, I hope readers will ponder their own water use and engage in a similar water reckoning for themselves.

What I'm already doing:

• "Navy" showers, most of the time
  
• Showering every second day
• Saving shower warm-up water in a bucket in the tub to use for flushing the toilet
• Saving kitchen sink warm up water for watering plants or putting in the tea kettle for later use
  
• Low flow toilets, shower heads and faucets
• Low water use front loading washing machine
  
• Yellow/Mellow principle
  
• Turning the tap off when brushing teeth
• garden hoses on timers, using a soaker hose/drip irrigation for part of The Big Garden
  

What I'm in the middle of doing, or trying to do better:

• One 40 gallon water barrel set up outside but not yet hooked up to downspout - materials to hook it up have been purchased and just need to be installed.
  
• Spot watering with a watering can and collected rainwater before using the hose/sprinkler - this depends on how pressed for time I am on evenings/weekends, and if there's water in the barrel.
• Turning tap off when I wash my hands
• Not waiting for tap water to warm up before washing my hands or my face or my hair.
  
• Looking into taking a rain barrel conversion workshop since we have two good blue plastic barrels that just need to be converted for water collection purposes but which are sitting empty at the moment
  

What I have to start doing:

• Figure out how to waste less of my greywater
• Increase drip irrigation system to Big Garden; start one for the Little Garden.
  
• Use less water to wash dishes
• Put something (maybe a rock and water filled 2 L pop bottle?) in the toilet tanks to make the low flush toilets even lower flush
• Navy showers, ALL of the time
• Figure out how to add contour/swales to my yard to help the water soak in instead of running off
  
• I'm sure there is more to add to this list....
  

The amount of water I use for each of these things really hit home the day I partially set up the rain barrel outside about 4-5 weeks ago. It was raining for most of the day, sometimes quite hard. So I set up a bucket under the nearest downspout and just poured the collected water into the rain barrel, bucket after bucket. It took quite a while -- several hours actually, as the rain became ligher and heavier again througout the day. Mostly I used just a small 1 gallon ice cream pail, because it was easier to lift and pour it into the rain barrel without spilling that way.

As I'd wait for the pail to fill, I'd pull a weed or two, and even did a little bit of Tai Chi in my rubber boots and rain hat. Then I'd pick up the pail and pour it in the barrel again. It occured to me then that sometimes I've let the kitchen tap run and probably a whole gallon of water would go down the drain before it warmed up to my liking. Juxtapose this with the care I was taking in saving this rainwater from the downspout and putting it in the barrel - it just didn't make sense to waste in the kitchen what I was collecting in the yard.

So now when I turn on the tap, I imagine the water coming out of the downspout and into my ice cream pail, to be saved in my water barrel. It's made me waste a lot less water, making that inside/outside connection. Imagine how much more precious water is to someone who walks a mile or two every day to collect their family's drinking water! Generally speaking, we rich westerners are disconnected from where our water comes from and where it goes when we're finished with it. Going out and collecting my own water has changed that for me. I encourage everyone to try it sometime, and think about the paradoxical miracle of H2O!

Picture courtesy a recent rainfall in my yard

July 2008 Challenge Update

It's nearly halfway through the month, and I thought I should post an update about how I'm doing with these two challenges. Especially after reading Chile's post about her blog-related peeves, which includes people who sign up for a challenge and then never post about it!

I have had more success with Heather's challenge than with Chile's challenge, I confess. I have mostly been able to sit down when I eat, although I do forget and out of habit will pop a carrot or cucumber slice into my mouth while making a salad for the guinea pigs, or dinner for us. I have also stopped myself a lot of the time though, put these morsels aside and then gone over to the couch and sat down to eat them more mindfully. Or at least stopped what I was doing and paid attention to what I was chewing.

Giving up eating mindlessly is what I'm doing for Chile's challenge. When I do stop, sit down and think about what I'm eating, I am glad. I deliberately think about the sun that has shone on my veggies, and the farmers and truck drivers and soil that have had a part in getting this food right here, right now, right in my mouth. My problem is that this thought process only lasts a few moments and then I'm back to being my scatter-brained self. But, it's a start.

Where I'm really making no progress at all is not eating in front of the computer or while reading a book. I seem to go into my 'do-what-I-wanna' trance state and just plop down and do it, even when the little voice in my head is saying, "hey, you're doing these challenges, remember?" I have yet to figure out why this is so hard for me. I guess 35+ years of doing things one way takes a while to unravel and change.

Time for a gatha, maybe? Here's one from the Everyday Yogini that seems to fit the bill perfectly!

When eating a sweet summer zuppa,
I vow with all Beings,
To savor each spoon of rich flavor,
Thanking rain, sun, and soil in turn.

Friday Questions

What is it about some Albertans that makes them get so upset about increased charges for text messaging, yet merely shrug their shoulders in response to the toxification of our rivers and lakes, killing of water fowl, and government subsidization of the Big Oil companies. No one seems to blink an eye when the Alberta government announces that they will use 2 billion dollars of taxpayers money to build a carbon capture and storage pipeline/system, yet make Canadians pay 'too much' for their iPhone data plan, and they virtually stampede to the company headquarters in protest. (And I do mean virtual - most of what people do these days is virtual, not actual.)

The 'stampede' had quite the effect though, with representatives of two companies being summoned by the Industry Minister to explain themselves. Minister Prentice sounded very concerned when he said, "While I have no desire to interfere with the day-to-day business decisions of the two private companies, I do have a duty ... when necessary, to protect the interests of the consuming public." Oh yes, the consuming public must be protected.

Funny how the Environment minister never summoned the oil company execs to Ottawa to be held accountable for their actions when 500 ducks died, or when the Athabasca river is continually ravaged and polluted and boreal forest and wetlands devastated. Oh, that's right, those companies are only accountable to their shareholders.

Why does the 'free market' apply more to non-renewable resources than to cell phone plans?

Is this not a tragedy and a travesty, that people are more attached to their cell phones than to the Earth?

EPCOR and Foreshadowing

Beware: sarcasm ahead!

While listening to the news on the way home from work yesterday, and while driving to work this morning, spokesperson for the local electricity company, EPCOR, warned us all that power outages were a certainty sooner rather than later. He stated that our population has doubled and Alberta absolutely needs more transmission lines immediately, preferably yesterday, and that without them we'll all be in the dark in short order. His sound bites on the radio were full of urgency and anger, saying haughtily that Alberta shouldn't conduct itself this way -- it's like continuing to drive your car around when the low fuel light is blinking and you just keep ignoring it. The implication being that you should stop and fill up, you idiot! And, that we should just stop and build more transmission lines you idiot! Or we're all going to be freezing/boiling in the dark/light here any minute!! Be afraid, be very afraid!

Now, am I just suspicious and cynical or is EPCOR laying the groundwork for Nuclear Power! to come in and save the day? Ya sure, they're talking about transmission lines now, but with all that population growth it isn't just new transmission lines that we're going to need is it? It's more electrical capacity, to send down those bright shiny new wires. A few brownouts and blackouts or, horror of horrors, being asked to cut down your own personal power use, will convince people that of course we need more power plants, and thank goodness there is this nice power company just waiting patiently to build us a nice new power plant. And not a coal power plant, oh no. Alberta is way too 'green' for that, we'll build a nuclear plant, right here where we've been considering putting one all along, while we go through this open and transparent consultation process with the good sheeple of Alberta.

Whew, that was close! We almost had to cut down our consumption of something! Good thing we finally woke up and saw that metaphorical fuel light blinking and whipped into the nearest filling station before that last drop of fuel ran dry (or maybe that blinking warning light ain't so metaphorical?). Thanks Mr. EPCOR man, for scaring me into realizing that I need a nuclear power plant! Don't those come with hundreds of years worth of toxic waste though? Oh, don't worry my little head about that? Oh. Ok then.

Picture courtesy the Humble Narrator

Greed and Disconnection

Late last week I was sitting at my desk at work over lunch, thinking about a complex and persistent work-related problem. I won't get into what the problem was, but I had this thought all of a sudden, which said: "Disconnection is the root of all evil." Then my thoughts said, well no, everyone says it's greed that's the root of all evil. So then I figured, "disconnection and greed must be related somehow."

So I pondered on that for a minute, imagining myself when I am greedy and what I'm doing and feeling and thinking at the time of the greed. (Since I was gobbling down my banana tofu pudding at the time, the imagining wasn't all that hard.) And it dawned on me then: greedy acts cut us off from everything and everyone except the immediate physical and mental sensations of the greedy desire being filled. It's almost like a trance state of some kind, that distances a person from outside awareness.

Greed is the ultimate in narcissism. Greed is being cut off from last part of the equation that more for me means less for you. Greed even separates me from the rest of myself, because I lose sight of the consequences of my greedy behavior while I focus only on the sensations that come along with immediate, selfish gratification. Like when I gulp down the pudding, and I'm just focussed on the tasting and gulping. When that's happening I don't think of the fact that I'm lucky to have pudding (or anything) to eat, or that there are people who will never taste pudding in their entire life.

I remember the same kind of thing happening when I would go shopping. I would get into a mindset where I was focussed just on the thing I wanted to buy, and I would dismiss any and all arguments against purchasing it. I have a five hundred dollar PDA device sitting unused in my backpack as testament to an episode of zombie-like consumption I had a couple years ago. I was convinced I needed that thing and no information to the contrary was going to dissuade me.

I think greed has such a distancing effect that at times we don't even know we are being greedy. We are so used to consuming what ever we want, whenever we want to, that it becomes normal to over-eat, over-buy, over-indulge in all sorts of ways. Eventually we become de-sensitized -- our senses become dulled from continuous over stimulation. We become disconnected from ourselves, and we don't know the difference between being fulfilled, and just being filled.

How can we recognize greed sooner, before the trance-mode of sensory over-stimulation sets in?

Lately I've been captivated by taking close-up pictures of things. Like the picture up there, of the little drop of water caught in the corn seedling after this weekend's rainfall. Who knew corn could catch rain and save it, directing it right down into itself? Stopping and looking at things, at the little small tiny things has helped me to re-sensitize myself. To look at what's right in front of me, and appreciate it and marvel at it. To recalibrate myself, somehow. When I consciously take time to look at the very ordinary, very humble things, it seems to lower my sensory threshold and I only need a little of any kind of sensation for it to register in my sensorium. This recalibration is helping me to be joyful in moderate circumstances. It is a meditative process that is helping me to reject greed, at least some of the time.

Edited to add Chapter 12 of the Tao Te Ching, which speaks to this issue well I think:

The five colors make one blind in the eyes
The five sounds make one deaf in the ears
The five flavors make one tasteless in the mouth

Racing and hunting make one wild in the heart
Goods that are difficult to acquire make one cause damage

Therefore the sages care for the stomach and not the eyes
That is why they discard the other and take this

April Challenge Summary

This month I signed up for two challenges: Crunchy's Buy Nothing in April, and Chile's Cut the Crap decluttering challenge. I did reasonably well with these challenges, but as usual, they were harder than I thought.

I did pretty well in not buying any unnecessary goods this month - we bought a window blind duster/cleaner that was on sale and which Gord really wanted (he likes a clean blind!) and a 205 litre rainwater collection barrel that was also on sale. The water barrel may not 'count,' by Crunchy's rules, since it will collect water for the garden and therefore is related to growing our own food, but it is nonetheless a fairly big household item. Other than these two things, we bought just groceries, vehicle fuel and paid the monthly bills. We resisted buying a new TV, and that turned out to be fairly easy, actually.

Where I didn't do so well was in resisting buying my lunch instead of making it. I make my lunch most days, but usually do have a day or two per week where I am too lazy or too tired or just don't feel like it. On those days I usually get something from the cafeteria at work or I go to my favorite cafe, Three Bananas. I had intended not to do this at all in April, but I gave in and did it anyway, once a week, sometimes twice. And I also went out for dinner twice - once planned and once unplanned.

As for the decluttering challenge, I was pretty low key with it. I gave away a spare hand blender and some items of clothing, cleaned out my filing cabinet up to to and including the letter "C", earmarked some items for a future garage sale, dealt with a backlog of receipts and bills, and had a bonfire to deal with some rotten deadfall and brush that isn't suitable for burning in the woodstove. I didn't add to my clutter at least, since I barely bought anything!

There have been some good outcomes from these challenges for me! It was quite free-ing not to have to decide to buy something or not. I just didn't buy it. And the two things we did buy, we really thought about if we needed them first - there was no impulse shopping at all. Not buying unnecessary things also spilled over into our grocery shopping habits - our monthly bill was 24% less than usual and we still ate as much as we normally do! It was just that the food was in the form of unprocessed, non-prepared items. And, I was able to double our normal monthly debt repayment amount because of all the money we didn't spend this month! All in all, it was a good month of learning that stuff doesn't equal happiness!

Thanks to Crunchy and Chile for organizing these challenges. I've gone ahead and signed up for three challenges in May but I will blog about that in another post soon....

Cut the Crap Challenge

Well, in for a penny, in for a pound, as they say. Chile has started another challenge this month, and it dovetails so well with Crunchy Chicken's challenge that it just didn't make sense not to do it. Crunchy is challenging people to not to buy anything new in April, and Chile is challenging us to responsibly downsize the amount of stuff we already have. This combined approach tackles the problem of 'too much stuff' from both sides, and should result in a more simple, streamlined, parsimonious house and home.

Chile has made some good suggestions already as to how to avoid having unwanted items in your home and life, and I'm pleased to say that I've already implemented a couple of these. I've mostly stopped the scourge of junk mail coming into the house, and just this weekend I canceled home delivery of the Sears catalog. We've also completely stopped filling out those seemingly innocuous forms for "free draws" which seem to be everywhere these days. We had filled out a bunch of these at a couple bridal fairs some years ago just before we got married, and that was a big mistake. It's taken all of the four years since then to get off of assorted mailing lists and calling lists. Plus, I'm always worried about the identity fraud potential of these things, so I just don't fill out anything like that any more. I also consistently ask to be placed on the "do not call list" when telemarketers call the house, so the amount of this verbal junk mail is also decreasing over time.

But I have a lot of decluttering left to do. I have clothes that are in good condition but I just don't wear anymore. These could be donated to any number of worthy organizations. We have boxes of stuff in the basement, that we haven't even unpacked in 5 years. I'm pretty sure I don't need what's in them. A lot of this could be donated too. My filing cabinet drawer barely closes anymore, so I really need to go through it as well and shred/recycle what I don't really need to keep.

This should be a very interesting month!

My organic cotton net produce bags are here!

I was so excited (some may say unduly so) about the arrival of a package in the mail from reusablebags.com yesterday!

Since I've been using my canvas bags to go grocery shopping it has seemed strange to still put my fruit and veggies in plastic bags to take home. So now I have 15 of these neat net bags to use instead. This will reduce our plastic bag consumption by quite a bit, and significantly reduce the clutter in my pantry as well.

The cashiers at the grocery stores had mostly stopped looking at me funny when I dumped my batch of canvas bags on the checkout counter. Now they will have a new reason to look at me funny, but I don't mind too much. I'm getting used to it, and I guess I'm less afraid to look weird than I used to be.

Family Day: We are all One Family

Today is Family Day in Alberta, and in a few other Canadian provinces too. It is a good day to remember the scope of Family, and that we are all part of the same One.

Crunchy Chicken has started an organization that doesn't just recognize this connection, but helps us to extend our good will and compassion to others in a concrete and practical way. Goods 4 Girls is an organization that provides reusable menstrual pads for girls in Africa. People can donate money to the organization, or sew the reusable pads themselves to donate.

Often girls in African countries are prevented from going to school, because they do not have adequate supplies to deal with their menstruation while they are there. Often, girls will stop going to school altogether after they reach puberty. The Goods 4 Girls site has a lot of eye-opening information about how menstruation can be a barrier, practically and culturally, to so many things that we in the western world just take for granted.

Even with the use of my Diva Cup and Luna Pads, there are days I'd like to wimp out and stay home from work. But imagine if you were prevented from going to work or school, just because you didn't have any reliable menstrual supplies at all, and had to use rags, or newspaper or animal skins to absorb your menstrual flow.

Some makers of disposable feminine hygiene products are getting kudos for donating their products to girls in these countries. But don't kid yourselves - this isn't because they want to be generous. It's because they want to expand their market and make money off those who can least afford it. It's part of the spread of the culture of waste and disposability that has helped to get the world into the over-consumptive mess we're in now. Plus, disposable menstrual products also contribute to the underlying societal message that menstrual blood is 'dirty' and is 'garbage.' It's not. Its part of the natural cycle that brings us ALL into being. Into the One Family.

Tao Te Ching, Chapter 6:

The valley spirit, undying
Is called the Mystic Female

The gateway of the Mystic Female
Is called the root of Heaven and Earth

It flows continuously, barely perceptible
When utilized, it is never exhausted

I am not a billboard

Yesterday evening Gord and I were talking about whether or not we might attend the local hockey team's skills competition. We weren't sure where is was being held, at which point I said it would be good if it were held at the ________ Centre. I then stopped myself and said out loud, "I'm not using that term anymore, I'm going to call it what it used to be called, before that arena was corporatized: the Coliseum."

In fact, I'm not calling any building by its corporatized name anymore - I'm going to make a point of calling public spaces by their public names, even if it is more cumbersome to do so. Those companies can pay someone to do their advertising for them, I'm not doing it for free.

This also goes for the clothes I buy from now on. I'm not going to buy anymore sweatshirts or T-shirts or anything with an obvious logo or corporate name emblazoned on it anywhere. I have a couple of these, from my pre-pondering days, and I'll still wear them because they're still in good shape, but I won't be adding anymore of them to my wardrobe. And, I'll encourage others to do likewise. I am not a billboard. People are not billboards.

Also, Gord and I are boycotting those two large carbonated beverage manufacturers, but that story's for another post.

Picture courtesy this site - it took some extra searching to find a picture without the corporate logo all front and centre!

At Last: 2007 Riot for Austerity numbers

Over at Learning to Step Lightly, Alexah has been diligently posting her Riot For Austerity updates on a monthly basis. In contrast, I've been procrastinating for many months, always telling myself I'll post them when I get one more month of numbers tallied up. And always hoping that the next month would lower my averages. But, this never happened and it's time to face up to the truth of the numbers for 2007.

In a nutshell, we consumed less of some things and more of others compared to 2006. I had hoped to make further reductions in every category, especially since we weren't even actively trying to reduce our consumption in some areas yet in 2006. Halfway through 2007 we joined the 'Riot' and really stepped up our efforts - at least I thought we did.

Here are the comparisons. The first number listed is the North American Monthly Average (NAMA) for a 2-person household, where applicable.

Electricity (lighting, cooking)

• NAMA: 916 kWh
• Our 2006 average: 316.7 kWH which equals 34.6% of the NAMA
• Our 2007 average: 327.58 kWh which equals 35.8 of the NAMA. We subscribe to Bullfrog Power, which is 100% wind power. According to Riot rules, we get a 4:1 credit for wind power, so we do actually meet the 90% reduction target in this category. But it would be nice to reduce the actual kWhs, nonetheless.
  

Natural Gas (heating, hot water)

• NAMA: 106 gJ
• Our 2006 average: 8.93 gJ which equals 8.4% of the NAMA - 90% reduction goal met
• Our 2007 average: 9.29 gJ which equals 8.8% of the NAMA - 90% reduction still met, but it's close.

Water

• NAMA: 6000 gallons
  
• Our 2006 average: 1600 gallons which equals 26.7% of the NAMA
• Our 2007 average: 1416.67 gallons which equals 23.6% of the NAMA - a bit lower, so this is good. Using the shower/tap grey water for flushing the toilet seems to be helping.

Garbage

• NAMA: 270 lbs
  
• Our 2006 average: 15.125 lbs which equals 5.6% of the NAMA - 90% reduction goal met
• Our 2007 average: 67.41 lbs, which equals 25% of the NAMA - this is a big jump but I know why it went up so much: we took some things to the landfill for some people who would otherwise have had to pay to put in in their city landfill. The good news is that we salvaged quite a lot of what had been originally slated for the landfill and we are using that stuff ourselves around the house and yard/garden.
  

Vehicle Fuel

• NAMA: 316 litres
• Our 2006 average: 308.58 litres which equals 97.7% of the NAMA. This is our Achilles heel - we live in the country and drive to the city for work. One vehicle is a diesel and logs about 600 kms per week. The other vehicle is gasoline powered and logs about 250 - 300 kms a week.
  
• Our 2007 average: I only have the figures for my diesel car so far, and we seem to be headed for about the same level of consumption as 2006. The good news is that the second vehicle is now a smaller car instead of a pick up truck, presumably with better mileage, so our 2008 numbers should be lower. But until we move closer to work, or find some way to work fewer days a week, this number will remain too high.
  

Consumer Goods

• NAMA: $1667 (US or CDN, they're at par with each other these days)
• Our 2006 average: $1019.51 which equals 61.2% of the NAMA
• Our 2007 average: $1010.63 which equals 60.6% of the NAMA - virtually identical. We have started changing what we spend money on more so than how much we spend, as we slowly acquire things like gardening tools, some hand-crank lamps, some good kitchen knives and other things on our list of things to prepare for a self-sustaining lifestyle. This number could well go up, as we invest in rain-collecting equipment, and maybe dig a well.
  

Food

• I didn't keep very good track of our proportion of bulk, locally grown, organic foods vs. long-distance/non-organic food consumption, but I do know the former increased, since we had a little garden in 2007 and went to the farmer's market almost every week for fresh produce. I doubt I'll keep good numbers on this actually, we're just steadily working on eating more and more locally as time goes by.

So there it is - we've done alright in some areas and not great in others, although we are at least below average in every category. And I'll try and post these numbers monthly from now on!

New Challenge: Project NOWASTE

Crunchy Chicken has announced another challenge, and with some trepidation I have signed up for it. It's called Project NOWASTE, which stands for No Overeating While Attempting to Save The Environment - is that catchy or what? Essentially, it's a project designed to help those who want to include reducing their own food intake as part of their overall reduction in consumption. Lightening one's footprint on the earth, literally.

This is a topic I blogged about in the early days of this blog. I was frustrated with myself for being able to reduce our household use of all sorts of things, but not being able to reduce my own food consumption. And I was, and still am, frustrated with my own hypocrisy. I just can't keep on thoughtlessly feasting while most of the world's population is involuntarily fasting. One of the main reasons I became a vegetarian was because I didn't like the idea that food was getting fed to animals, the meat from which only rich people could afford to buy. It would be better that the grain fed to feedlot animals fed people instead. So Project NOWASTE will help me bump this commitment up another notch.

I've been doing some reading lately in some Buddhist texts about mindfulness and its role in slowing down and appreciating what we eat, so I will be posting a bit about that in the near future, and how it can help to reduce personal food consumption.

A little controversy for Boxing Day...

The folks at Adbusters are nothing if not controversial. I check out their site now and then, and I came across this ad there, as part of their Buy Nothing Christmas campaign, which goes along with their Buy Nothing Day campaign held each November. When I saw this ad for the first time my jaw dropped and I inhaled sharply from its impact.

I've been debating with myself whether or not to post it because while I don't mind being controversial, I don't want to be offensive. I decided I would post it today, knowing that some will think it goes too far, but in the hopes that it might get people thinking about what they plan to go out and buy tomorrow at all the Boxing Day sales.

I had someone say to me once many years ago that they thought the day was called Boxing Day because of all the new boxes of stuff they came home with after shopping that day. How far from the original meaning of Boxing Day that idea is. Maybe we could use the day instead to reflect on how fortunate we really are, and take some time to rest, reflect and appreciate the things and people in our lives already.

Consumption: The Big Picture

Thanks to Vanessa at Green as a Thistle for pointing out this very informative website, called The Story of Stuff. The 20 minute video there gives a really good overview of our our consumption patterns and how they are not sustainable. Did you know that only 1% of items purchased are still in use after 6 months? I didn't. That means that 99% of what we buy is wasted. It is past time to get off the consumption treadmill, and reclaim our identity as people, not consumers.

No Purchase Necessary: Buy Nothing Day(s) 2007

Since 1992, Adbusters magazine has been promoting an annual "Buy Nothing Day." It is traditionally held on the day after American Thanksgiving, which is apparently the most shopping-intensive day of the year. This year, the fast from consumerism is marked on Friday, November 23rd in the USA and Canada, and on Saturday, November 24th internationally. There are activities in various cities worldwide where activists do things like walk zombie-like through malls, publicly offer to cut up your credit cards, or line up together to form convoys of people pushing shopping carts with nothing in them. But the main activity is the not-buying of things.

I'm going to take the plunge and not buy anything on either day. Care to join me?

Imagine a day (or two) where you've decided beforehand that you're just not going to buy anything. No coffee beverage, no newspaper, no dinner and/or a movie, no gas at the gas station, no pop or chips. No impulse purchases of new shoes, mascara, CDs/DVDs, or that other cool doo-dad on sale 'today only.' Just a day (or two) of using what you already have. No need to even pay attention to advertisements on TV or the radio or the internet, because you've already decided that you have enough of this, that or the other thing. A time where we reclaim our identity as people, instead of just consumers. Where we remember that we are human beings who love and care for each other, not just handy marketing targets. Where we re-assert that the economy serves the people, the people don't serve the economy.

Blog Action Day!

Today is Blog Action Day, where bloggers world wide write about topics relevant to the environment in some way. I've been thinking about this for a while, and thought I would write about why I have that sentence up there at the top of this page: "One day I woke up and considered myself part of the planet instead of just living on the planet. Now what?"

This shift in my thinking probably took place over about a year or so, but there was a moment where I had this "aha!" experience where it dawned on me that I am not separate from my environment, I am part of it. Everyone is part of it and it is part of everyone and everything. The molecules of which I am composed, compose everything else as well. All things and beings are made of the same cosmic 'stuff' in varying proportions. From this it follows that what I do to the environment, I do to me. I'm not separate from it, I am it. This was, and still is, a realization the likes of which I have never had before, and it changed me, in that instant into someone who wanted to live within the means of the planet, not beyond them, utilizing only my fair share of its resources.

Feeling separate from something or someone is what makes it easier to be not so nice to, or just plain oblivious to that thing or person. But when I feel connected, then I want to be kind, compassionate and take care of the thing or person I feel connected to. So when I feel connected to and part of the environment, I don't want to litter or to disrupt natural ecosystems. I don't want to be wasteful because it took a lot of resources to make that plastic bottle, roll of toilet paper, rubber tire, or to transport that banana for my cereal here all the way from Ecuador.

Feeling like part of the planet also puts me in my proper place in the big scheme of things. I'm no more entitled to a piece of the planetary resource pie than any other person or thing is. My lifestyle shouldn't mean that other beings should have to suffer. This is a truly humbling thought, because I know that my lifestyle does result in others' suffering, every minute of every day. Because I have more, others have less. This is a hard thing to wake up to. I have lived as though I am entitled to more than my fair share for my entire life and not even known I was doing it.

So now I'm into the "Now What?" stage of my life. Now that I've had this "aha!" experience, I'm trying to figure out what I need to do differently, and how best to do it. And this blog is how I'm tracking those changes. Because, like I've written at the bottom of this page, "If you want things to be different, you have to do them differently." And I surely do want them to be different.

Chapter 25 of the Tao Te Ching talks about how all things, formed and formless, actual and potential, are interconnected and cyclical. When I think about it, I get that feeling like I do when I look up at a star or the Northern Lights and feel big and small at the same time:

There is something formlessly created
Born before Heaven and Earth
So silent! So ethereal!
Independent and changeless
Circulating and ceaseless
It can be regarded as the mother of the world

I do not know its name
Identifying it, I call it "Tao"
Forced to describe it, I call it great
Great means passing
Passing means receding
Receding means returning
Therefore the Tao is great
Heaven is great
Earth is great
The sovereign is also great
There are four greats in the universe
And the sovereign occupies one of them
Humans follow the laws of Earth
Earth follows the laws of Heaven
Heaven follows the laws of Tao
Tao follows the laws of nature

TTC Chapter 25 as translated by Derek Lin