Save Water
I grew up watching Sesame Street, and vividly remember the “Don’t Waste Water” song:
…Yes, water means so much that we
Have got use it carefully
Don’t waste water
(Water, water, water)
When cleaning hands or teeth, be smart —
Turn off that faucet, do your part
Don’t waste water
(Water, water, water)
And if you’ve got a drippy leak in your shower or your sink
Tell your folks to get it fixed, hey people stop and think
‘Cause once a drop goes down the drawn it’s kinda hard to drink
Save water…
Americans use an average of 80-100 gallons of water per day at home. With climate change causing droughts across the nation and around the world, it’s critical to save water whenever we can.
I live in a town where I pay for the municipal water use. So for me, conserving water makes not only environmental sense, but saves me cents, too — excessive water use is not only water but money down the drain!
Low-flow faucets: One of the first things I did when I moved into my apartment was to replace the kitchen and bathroom sink faucets with low-flow faucets. These use a maximum of 1.5 gallons per minute and are reducing my sinks’ water flow by 30 percent or more from the standard flow of 2.2 gallons per minute. How did I know which low-flow faucet to buy? The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sponsors a voluntary partnership program called WaterSense. This is both a label for water-efficient products and a resource for helping you save water!
Wash full loads of dishes and laundry: These are the two appliances in your home that use the most water. Only washing with full loads of dishes or laundry saves 15-45 gallons of water in the washer, and 5-15 gallons of water in the dishwater.
Daily savings: 7-21 gallons (assumes daily dishwasher use, plus one load of laundry per week).
Don’t run the water while brushing your teeth or shaving: Two to three minutes without the water on while brushing your teeth can save 2-3 gallons of water each day. Instead of having the water on while shaving, fill the bottom of the sink with a few inches of water to rinse your razor. These two adjustments can save 180 gallons per month.
Daily savings: 2-6 gallons.
Fix leaks in your home: On average, leaks account for 14 percent of indoor water use. Leaks can go unnoticed for years, so proper inspection and maintenance of appliances can help prevent them. Your bathtub and sink could leak one drip per second, wasting more than 3,000 gallons per year. Outdoor irrigation systems can leak 1/32 of an inch in diameter, which can waste over 6,000 gallons of water annually.
Daily savings: about 24 gallons.
Choose tap water over bottled water: I never buy bottled water, and instead use a reusable water bottle. It takes about 1.5 gallons of water to manufacture a plastic bottle, which are almost always made from new plastic.
Daily savings: 6 gallons (assumes recommended daily water intake of eight eight-ounce glasses).
Avoid unnecessary flushing of your toilet: Throw tissues and other bathroom waste in the garbage can or compost pile, which doesn’t require gallons of water. The average person flushes five times a day, so that water use can really add up. You know what they say—if it’s yellow, let it mellow. The toilet is one of the most water-intensive fixtures in the house. Do you need to flush every time? Another way I save water with my toilet is that I’ve added a gallon jug filled with water to the tank, which then causes the tank to use a little less water than it normally would, and it still flushes fine!
Daily savings: 4 to 28 gallons, depending on how old your toilet is.
H/T: Green America’s 13 Ways to Save More than 65 Gallons of Water a Day
The Natural Resources Defense Council has 9 other tricks that save a ton of water.
What do you do to save water?
How Your Holiday Gifts Can Fight Global Warming
I’ll turn it over this week to the folks at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Specifically, the December 2015 blog post titled How Your Holiday Gifts Can Fight Global Warming: 5 Ways to Have a Cooler Smarter Christmas.
The basic gift ideas have the following ideas:
- encourage plant-based diets (vegetarian/vegan cookbooks/recipes, a Community Supported Agriculture, aka CSA share)
- promote energy efficiency through LED light bulbs
- consider alternative transportation: electric bicycle, offer to carpool
- buy less, and buy smart. (And maybe think about filling stockings with “experience” gifts in place of short-lived plastic doodads.)
Climate change at Thanksgiving
For today’s Sustainability Sundays, I’m going to turn it over to Dr. Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist and evangelical Christian. In this webinar, she discusses how we can be effective witnesses for climate action this holiday season. She’ll explore the latest social science and psychological research, review communications best practices, and identify concrete strategies for having productive climate conversations with friends and family.
Consider talking with your friends and family at your Thanksgiving dinner about climate change. What shared values can you use to connect with each other?
Divest (and re-invest), Part 2
Last week, I shared how I divested my retirement account that I hold through my employer of fossil fuel companies, and re-invested in a fossil-fuel-free mutual fund. Most financial advisors agree that 10–20% of your salary is a good amount to contribute toward retirement. Several advise on at least 15%. In 2017 when I realized my employer’s contribution to my retirement account was less than 15% of my salary, I decided to supplement employer-sponsored retirement by also investing in the stock market. Here is where I add the disclaimer that I am by no means a financial expert. Please consult a certified fiduciary for your own finances.
I did a bunch of research, including reading, including “The Index Card: Why Personal Finance Doesn’t Have to Be Complicated” by Helaine Olen and Harold Pollack. I also watched many YouTube videos about personal finance and investing. This was also around the time that a friend posted on Facebook about how quick and easy it was to get their feet wet in the stock market with a new smartphone app called Robinhood. It seemed too good to be true — it was (and still is) possible to use Robinhood essentially for free (i.e. no commissions/fees), and I could dabble into investing with a very small amount of money.
Then, I came across a financial security called an Exchange Traded Fund, or ETF for short. ETFs are sort of like a hybrid between mutual funds (groups of stocks, bonds, etc.) and individual stocks. ETFs are listed on exchanges and ETF shares trade throughout the day just like ordinary stock. “The Index Card” book suggested NOT holding individual stocks, but instead having a portion of holdings in an S&P Index Fund, another portion in small-cap (market capitalization between $300 million and $2 billion) funds, and another portion in international funds. The book also suggested holding some assets in bonds. The neat thing about Robinhood is that one can have ETFs in your portfolio, and some bonds are even available as ETFs.
I used fossilfreefunds.org to screen which ETFs did NOT have fossil fuel stock holdings (i.e. earning 5 badges on their website). I also looked at ETFs that scored an A or B for Deforestation stock holdings, specifically avoiding companies that use palm oil.
The problem with palm oil
Palm oil is used in everything from cosmetics to food to soap. There is enormous demand for it. But it is hugely controversial because it involves the clearing of tropical rainforests to grow palm oil plantations. This has led to the loss of biodiversity and habitat for under-threat animals such as the orangutan. Greenpeace International recently reported about the fires blazing in Indonesia, that have placed nearly 10 million children at risk, are linked to companies widely considered to be “sustainability leaders” in palm oil. The fires and their smokey haze are causing health problems for people in Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines. They are also driving the climate catastrophe. This year alone, the fires in Indonesia have already emitted almost as much CO2 as the entire United Kingdom does in one year. Greenpeace International’s research found that Unilever, Mondelez, Nestle, and P&G are each linked to nearly 10,000 fire hotspots in 2019 alone. Despite Indonesia’s freeze on palm oil plantation permits, the process lacks transparency, making it difficult to assess its effectiveness, and the government should provide updated information, an industry watchdog official recently told Reuters.
The Excel file
In practice, quarterly, I contribute the approximate difference in percentage between what my employer contributes to my retirement account, and 15% of my salary. This allows me to gradually build a portfolio of stocks and bonds, which happen to both be ETFs. I have a group of “watchlist” ETFs that are waiting in the wings. These are ETFs that I might be interested in buying but don’t currently have enough money (because I only add additional, fixed, buying power quarterly), and/or are not favorable to buy (I use a rough rule of thumb to determine a favorable buying price: the P/E ratio should be less than or equal to 25, and the P/B ratio should be less than or equal to 3.) I then keep track of these values over time, and color code them on an Excel spreadsheet. The “recommendation” column is the advised percentage from “The Notecard” book.
You’ll notice IPKW is crossed out. This is because I realized earlier this month that fossilfreefunds.org gives it a D rating for fossil fuels. So, I divested from that fund, and reinvested in other (fossil-fuel-free) funds. The other neat thing about fossilfreefunds.org is that it shows you what percentage of your mutual fund or ETF is invested in the Clean200, “a list of 200 publicly traded companies that are leading the way with solutions for the transition to clean energy.” This makes me feel good about investing in the companies that share my values, while simultaneously NOT investing in companies that do not share my values. It’s entirely possible to do both!
If you have mutual funds and/or stocks, I highly encourage you to talk to a certified fiduciary about screening your portfolio for fossil fuel companies, divesting of those companies, and re-investing in the Clean200 companies. To learn more about investing in your values, visit https://www.asyousow.org/invest-your-values/
Divest (and re-invest)
Disclaimer: I am by no means a financial expert. Please seek financial advice from a fiduciary.
The largest source of greenhouse gas emissions come from fossil fuels. Divesting means taking your money out of institutions that fund fossil fuels and fossil fuel expansion, which weakens those fossil fuel projects and companies both financially and reputationally. The fossil fuel divestment movement has removed over $11 trillion dollars from oil, coal and gas companies who are fueling the climate crisis.
As Bill McKibben wrote in The Guardian: “The deeper question, though, is whether divestment is making a dent in the fossil fuel industry. And there the answer is even clearer: this has become the deepest challenge yet to the companies that have kept us on the path to climate destruction.
“At first we thought our biggest effect would be to rob fossil fuel companies of their social licence. Since their political lobbying power is above all what prevents governments taking serious action on global warming, that would have been worth the fight. And indeed academic research makes it clear that’s happened – one study concluded that “liberal policy ideas (such as a carbon tax), which had previously been marginalised in the US debate, gained increased attention and legitimacy”. That makes sense: most people don’t have a coal mine or gas pipeline in their backyard, but everyone has – through their alma mater, their church, their local government – some connection to a large pot of money.
“As time went on, though, it became clear that divestment was also squeezing the industry. Peabody, the world’s biggest coal company, announced plans for bankruptcy in 2016; on the list of reasons for its problems, it counted the divestment movement, which was making it hard to raise capital. Indeed, just a few weeks ago analysts at that radical collective Goldman Sachs said the “divestment movement has been a key driver of the coal sector’s 60% de-rating over the past five years”.
“Now the contagion seems to be spreading to the oil and gas sector, where Shell announced earlier this year that divestment should be considered a “material risk” to its business. That’s how oil companies across the world are treating it – in the US, petroleum producers have set up a website designed to discredit divestment,.
“Divestment by itself is not going to win the climate fight. But by weakening – reputationally and financially – those players that are determined to stick to business as usual, it’s one crucial part of a broader strategy.”
Fossil Free VSC
From February 2017 to summer 2018, Castleton University Associate Professor Brendan Lalor and I facilitated a Fossil Free VSC group, an alliance of students, alumni, faculty, staff and residents of the broader Vermont State Colleges community (where we both work). Fossil Free VSC worked with the VSCS Board of Trustees and the Facility & Finance Committee to shift 20% of the VSCS’ endowment to fossil-free investments, and provide fossil-free retirement options for all VSCS employees.
My Divestment and Reinvestment
As a Vermont State Colleges System employee, my fledgling retirement portfolio, which my employer began contributing to in 2016, had — by default — contributions invested 100% in TIAA-CREF Lifecycle 2050-Institutional (TFTIX).
Now, I had to do a bit of research. I had found an excellent online resource, https://fossilfreefunds.org that allows anyone to type in the name or ticker symbol of a fund and see if any of the underlying companies of the fund were associated with fossil fuels. Fossil Free Funds analyzes the climate impact of thousands of U.S. mutual funds and ETFs and shows you if your money is being invested in fossil fuel companies, or companies with high carbon footprints. I tried typing in TFTIX into fossilfreefunds.org, but it didn’t come up with any results. I went back to my TIAA quarterly statements, and learned that since TIAA-CREF Lifecycle 2050-Institutional (TFTIX) is a multi-asset investment, comprised of multiple holdings, I needed to figure out what those holdings were. Then, I could search those holdings on fossilfreefunds.org Sites like Yahoo! Finance are able to breakdown multi-asset investments into the constituent holdings. For TFTIX, these included (but weren’t limited to) these funds: TIAA-CREF Growth & Income (TGIWX), TIAA-CREF Large-Cap Growth (TILWX), TIAA-CREF Large-Cap Value (TRLWX), TIAA-CREF Quant Large-Cap Growth (TECWX) and TIAA-CREF Quant Large-Cap Value (TELWX).
A quick search on fossilfreefunds.org with these ticker symbols showed that a lot of those funds contained companies that are associated with fossil fuels. Not only was I concerned about the financial ramifications associated with investing in fossil fuel companies (e.g. financial losses), for me it was also an ethical choice. I didn’t want to support, with my own money (small as it is), companies that are robbing life from humans, other species, and ecosystems. I wanted to invest in my values. With the no-carbon Pax Global Environmental Markets Fund (PGINX) now offered through my TIAA account, it was a no-brainer for me to move 100% of my existing retirement portfolio, as well as allocate 100% of all future contributions, to PGINX.
Source: https://finance.yahoo.com/
Most financial advisors agree that 10–20% of your salary is a good amount to contribute toward retirement. Several advise on at least 15%. I knew my employer’s contribution to my retirement account was less than 15%. Check back next week for how I decided to compensate for this!
In the meantime, you can build a fossil-free portfolio by finding socially-responsible investing financial advisors on GreenPages.org and by encouraging your faith organization or alma mater to divest from fossil fuels (and re-invest in environmentally sustainable investments).
Toothbrushes
Almost two years ago, in my quest to waste less and use more sustainable products, I started brushing my teeth with bamboo toothbrushes. I ♥️ that “all components (bristles, handle, wrapper, and box) are made from plants.” Out go my old plastic toothbrushes!
This is not a sponsored post. However, if you’re curious, I bought this bamboo toothbursh from Brushwithbamboo.com.
Reducing Food Waste
Do you throw food away? How often? Why?
Here’s a startling fact: according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, about one third of food produced globally goes to waste. That’s one in three loaves of bread. Whether it’s buying more food than we need or forgetting what’s in the freezer, we could all do a little better. Plus, according to Project Drawdown, reducing food waste ranks third in the potential solutions to reduce carbon dioxide-equivalent greenhouse gas emissions. If global food waste were a country it would be the 3rd largest emitter of greenhouse gases!
Project Drawdown defines reduced food waste as: minimizing food loss and wastage from all stages of production, distribution, retail, and consumption.
Project Drawdown continues: “Estimates suggest that 30–40 percent of all food produced worldwide is wasted across the supply chain (Smith, P. et al., 2014). When food is wasted, all the energy, resources, and money that went into producing, processing, packaging, and transporting it are wasted too. The further down the supply chain the food gets before it is thrown out, the more resources are wasted to get it to that stage. If measures are taken to reduce food waste by improving storage and transport systems, generating public awareness, and changing consumer behavior, this solution could lead to substantial reductions in waste and carbon emissions.”
So what do I personally do to reduce my own food waste?
Shop & cook smarter
I try to go to the grocery store once a week with a shopping list. I create the shopping list after I have planned my meals for the upcoming week. I also don’t go to the grocery store on an empty stomach. All of this helps me to avoid impulse purchases. Also, I don’t often purchase in bulk — it’s not a bargain if it eventually ends up in the trash!
In my research for this post, I came across a website that helps to plan portions lovefoodhatewaste.com so I won’t cook too much. I think I’ll try this! There’s also an online cookbook Amazing Waste by science students from University of Wisconsin-Madison that contains 50 recipes for using up scraps. At the week’s end, especially in the winter months, I make a stew or a soup from whatever’s left in the refrigerator and freeze portions for next week’s dinners.
Try physically smaller plates. A Danish survey showed that if the plate size is reduced by just 9%, the food waste can be reduced by over 25%. Further justification for smaller plates: American researcher Brian Wansink found that we don’t even notice when we eat portions that are 20% smaller. Meanwhile, we tend to like our plates to be fairly full. By reducing the size of the plate, you ensure that you don’t overfeed yourself or the trash bin.
Understand date labels
According to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic (FLPC), date labeling emerged in the mid-20th century when Americans began to move from rural to urban communities. Away from their food source and increasingly reliant on grocery stores, people lost their ability to judge the freshness of food and began to demand standards and verification.
So, date labels were put in place to ensure peak freshness and quality. The problem is, there’s no standardized date labeling system in the U.S. Additionally, and perhaps surprisingly, purchasing past the sell-by, use-by and best-by labels does not pose a threat to safe consumption. Use your nose: if food still smells okay, it’s likely still edible. Please exercise your own discretion when deciding what’s good to eat!
While date labels are not currently federally regulated, bipartisan leadership has led Representative Chellie Pingree (D-ME) and Representative Dan Newhouse (R-WA) to introduce the Food Date Labeling Act (H.R. 3981) to Congress on August 1, 2019. The new bill aims to standardize date labels across the United States to tackle the complex system of sell by, use by, and best before dates.
“Food labeling is important for consumer education, but the current practice is confusing and outdated,” says Rep. Newhouse. While many consumers use date labels as a reference of food safety, most dates only indicate the peak quality of a product. This not only leads to confusion, but to millions of tons of food unnecessarily thrown out. “This bill takes a step toward reducing food waste by helping consumers understand the meaning behind date labels,” states Rep. Newhouse.
Buy imperfect produce
Sixteen percent, or about 10 million tons, of produce is wasted in farms due to strict specifications such as the need for produce to be a certain size, shape, color, etc. Produce that bypass such specifications and make it to retail are often then overlooked by the consumers. My local grocery store often has a shelf of imperfect produce, that’s sometimes also past the best-by date. Not only am I able to embrace the imperfect produce to keep it from being tossed, it’s also significantly cheaper!
Store better
Did you know keeping flour in the freezer extends its life? Or that a slice of brown bread can re-soften hardened sugar? Or that shaking water from fresh produce slows degradation? Find tips on storing, preserving, freezing and much more at savethefood.com.
Think before you toss
I was fortunate to grow up in a family that didn’t throw food waste into the trash, and instead always put the food scraps onto the compost pile. Often, we created really nice, rich soil that we could put on our vegetable gardens. So composting comes naturally to me, and I definitely feel disappointed when I visit places that don’t offer composting.
If you’re a Vermont resident, by law, you’ll literally have to “think before you toss” by July 1, 2020. What am I referring to? One aspect of Vermont’s Universal Recycling Law bans food waste from disposal in trash and landfills beginning on July 1, 2020. The Vermont Legislature unanimously passed the Universal Recycling law (Act 148) in 2012 in response to the state’s stagnant recycling rates that had hovered around 30-36% for nearly two decades. Almost half of Vermonter’s trash is recyclable or compostable material like clean paper and food scraps. Landfilling these valuable natural resources not only wastes them, but also releases many more greenhouse gas emissions than reuse, recycling, food donation, and composting. A January 2019 status report said the law was working: in 2017, Vermont composting facilities collected more food scraps than ever before—a 9% increase from 2016, and over 100 transfer stations now provide food scrap drop-off for customers. Since I rent an apartment, I take advantage of my local transfer station, the Northeast Kingdom Waste Management District, which has two garbage-bin-sized containers for food scraps at their Lyndonville location. I bring my covered bucket of compost to the transfer station (along with my recyclables), dump the compost into one of the bins, and then cover it with a layer of provided sawdust. The sawdust not only helps to cut down on the smell of the good garbage, it’s absorptive, and adds beneficial carbon back into the compost.
“Good garbage breaks down as it goes. That’s why it smells bad to your nose!”
What if your state or municipality doesn’t require or offer composting? Consider investing in a home composting bin, or even a wormery, and watch your scraps turn to rich, garden- (or plant pot-) ready compost in weeks. Coffee grounds, eggshells and citrus peel can go straight onto your garden providing mulch, aerating soil and keeping slugs at bay. See edenproject.com for more info on composting. Cities that don’t offer curbside composting pick-up can provide grants or free systems, which should pay for themselves within three to five years through reduced collection costs and tipping fees.
Project Drawdown concludes: “Reducing food loss and waste can also help close the over 60 percent gap between food available today and food needed in 2050, thereby working toward eliminating hunger. Although solutions at consumer level are difficult to implement and hard to measure, they must be pursued at regions with high levels of consumer food waste. Food loss and waste measurement tools must be developed to standardize the measurement and reporting. Food waste reduction targets should be set not only at country levels, but also broken down to corporate, supplier, and consumer levels. Incentives for waste reduction should be designed and provided to influence behavior change. Reducing food waste is a big physical problem. But it has widespread benefits for the economy, the environment, society, and human health.”
What are you doing to reduce your own food waste? How are you getting your family and friends involved?
Non-Violent Direct Action, Part 2
As a part 2 to last week’s post, I want to continue talking about John Lewis and non-violent direct action. The church I attend has a Peace Candle that we take turns lighting and sharing some words with the congregation. While I didn’t explicitly mention climate change, the struggles of racial justice are intertwined with climate justice, as the dichotomy between the haves and the have-nots continues to often be split along racial lines. This is what I said today:
On Monday, October 7, I went to a book reading and signing at the Flynn Theatre. It was quite a humbling and inspiring experience. Perhaps you saw excerpts from that evening on Vermont Public Television or heard parts on Vermont Public Radio. The following abridged article written in The Guardian from August 16, 2016 sums up why I left humbled and inspired:
“Of all the hats Georgia congressman John Lewis has worn over his more than 50 years in public life as a protester, activist and representative for Georgia’s fifth district, perhaps none is more unexpected than that of comic book protagonist.
“But now, nearly eight years after the idea was hatched for the March trilogy – a graphic novel memoir of Lewis’s experiences in the civil rights movement – Lewis hopes it will help inspire a new generation to get into what he likes to call “good trouble”, and help young Americans understand how far the nation has come.
““I don’t think I’ve changed much. I still consider myself an activist,” he says. “I tell people all the time if you see something that is not fair, not right, and not just, then you have a moral obligation to do something about it – to get in the way, to get in good trouble, necessary trouble.”
“Recently, Lewis got in the way during a June 2016 sit-in to protest congressional inaction on gun control after the mass shooting that left 49 dead in an Orlando nightclub. That time, the protest ended without confrontation. For Lewis, that makes it an outlier. The 75-year-old has been arrested more than 40 times in his life, and five times since he was elected to Congress nearly 30 years ago. Lewis added with pride: “I’ll probably get arrested again.”
“Many of those arrests are depicted in the more than 500 pages of illustrated civil rights history covered in the March trilogy.
“The series, first released in 2013, covers virtually every major civil rights moment of the 1950s and 1960s, from Rosa Parks’ arrest on a Montgomery city bus to the 1965 Bloody Sunday attack by police and deputized white civilians on protesters who were peacefully walking over the Edmond Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. That event left Lewis with scars on his head that are still visible.
“The medium of a graphic novel might seem counterintuitive for such heavy subject matter. It was certainly without precedent as a publication by a sitting congressman. But in fact, a little-known and sparingly pressed comic, the 1956 publication Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story, served as an integral part of Lewis’s early civil rights education in the principles and practices of non-violence. “It became like our Bible, our guide. It influenced so many of us,” Lewis says.
“The comic told the story of how black Montgomery citizens organized and used nonviolent resistance to protest and ultimately overturn Jim Crow segregation on buses in Montgomery and throughout the state of Alabama. Published by the Fellowship of Reconciliation, a faith-based nonviolent action fellowship, the 14-page illustrated account of the Montgomery bus boycott has remained popular with activists around the globe for decades. It played a major inspirational role in the 2011 Arab spring protests in Egypt, for example.
“The congressman’s fond memories of the work are much of the reason why, when one of his staffers raised the idea of a graphic novel portrayal of Lewis’s stories from the movement, he was willing to at least give it some thought.
““Finally, he said: OK, I’ll do it, but only if you write it with me,” said Andrew Aydin, a coauthor of the book.
“Lewis said he saw the value in retelling the story of the civil rights movement as, essentially, an illustrated collection of memoirs because of the format’s accessibility to audiences of different ages. “When I first moved to Atlanta, I used to attend Dr. Martin Luther King Sr’s church, and sometimes his son [King Jr] would be preaching. And Daddy King, as we called him, would say: ‘Make it plain, son, make it plain,’” Lewis recounted. Producing March “in the form of a graphic novel is making it plain and making it simple”.
“By making it plain, Lewis and Aydin are confident that the book can have a significant and sustained impact on a new generation of activists and protesters. “These smart, gifted young people are picking up where we left off,” Lewis said of the Black Lives Matter movement, praising the numerous nonviolent marches and acts of civil disobedience it has initiated. But March is also a cautionary tale. “Don’t make the same mistakes that we made. Stay focused,” Lewis said. “Never hate, never become bitter, never become hostile.” And on this point, Lewis believes modern activists would do well to copy the discipline and preparation of his generation.
““We had so called ‘do’s and don’ts’, and we lived by those. The day the first mass arrest occurred in Nashville, Tennessee, every single student arrested, all 89 of us, had a copy on them,” Lewis said, adding: “Discipline is everything.” The “don’ts” included not to “strike back nor curse if abused”. The “dos” included to “remember the teachings of Jesus Christ, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Love and nonviolence is the way.”
“And for Lewis, while the names and faces, and the exact contours of racial oppression, have certainly changed over the past half-century, the strategy has not. Lewis added: “Our struggle is not a struggle for a few days, a few weeks, a few months or a few years – it is a struggle of a lifetime.””
To conclude, ponder these questions:
- what “good trouble, necessary trouble” are you going to engage in as a Christian when you see something that is not fair, not right, and not just?
- How are you going to proclaim the Message, the Good News, with intensity, while still “keeping it simple”?
- In other words, how are you going to do a thorough job as God’s servant?
While this was (naturally) directed toward a Christian congregation, I truly believe that the central message of altruism — selfless concern for the well-being of others — can transcend any religion. Many of us were taught the Golden Rule as children. When we don’t “do to others as we would have others do to us”, that strips the “others” of any sort of dignity, often denying them the ability to realize “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” I don’t believe that’s a fulfilling way to live life.
Non-Violent Direct Action
Last Monday evening, I had the opportunity to be part of a full house at the Flynn Theater in Burlington, Vermont, where Congressman John Lewis was talking about his new graphic novel, March (specifically Book One, as it’s a trilogy).
If I recall correctly, the first time I truly learned about John Lewis was when I read a chapter that he wrote in the book Ignition: What You Can Do to Fight Global Warming and Spark a Movement. The one phrase that stuck with me from that chapter, and that he repeated at the Flynn, is that sometimes, you have to make “good trouble, necessary trouble.”
The “good trouble, necessary trouble” John Lewis has undertaken? Many instances of Non-Violent Direct Action. Perhaps the most known, was on the Edmund Pettis bridge in Selma, Alabama. “It was here that voting rights marchers [lead by John Lewis] were violently confronted by law enforcement personnel on March 7, 1965. The day became known as Bloody Sunday.”
I have participated on several occasions with what I would consider Non-Violent Direct action. On July 29, 2012, while New England governors and eastern Canadian premiers met at the waterfront Hilton Hotel to discuss energy policy, protestors demonstrated outside, voicing their opposition to a proposed pipeline across northern New England that would ship Tar Sands oil to Portland, Maine. We were all dressed in black, and lay down in the street, creating a human oil spill. On April 26, 2014, I participated in the #RejectAndProtect rally in Washington, D.C., calling on the government to reject the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline, and to protect Indigenous communities the pipeline was expected to be constructed through. On October 15, 2015, I joined members of the Rutland (VT) Area Climate Coalition standing on a street corner for a National Day of Climate Action, rallying in solidarity with friends nationwide. Days later, on October 24, 2015, I blocked the street in front of the Vermont Statehouse in Montpelier in response to Gov. Shumlin and the Public Service Board’s back room deals to influence the Vermont Gas pipeline review process. On April 29, 2017, I returned to the streets of D.C., this time with an estimated 200,000 others for the People’s Climate March. In September 2017, I demonstrated outside of TD Bank in Rutland, Vermont. TD Bank and Bank of America are two of 17 banks that have loaned Dakota Access LLC $2.5 billion to build the 1,100 mile Dakota Access pipeline, which is carrying fracked oil from the Bakken formation in North Dakota. Hundreds of people, mostly Native Americans, occupied an encampment for months to block construction of the pipeline under the Missouri River, the source of water for the Standing Rock Sioux tribe.
What “good trouble, necessary trouble” will you engage in when you encounter injustices in your own life?
Laundry
The two highest energy uses when doing laundry are:
- heating hot water
- using a clothes dryer
Whether you rent and go to a laundromat (like I do), or do your laundry at home, rethinking how you do your laundry to reduce how much energy you use (and save money!) can be as simple as washing in cold water, and air drying.
Cold water, full loads
Hot water heating accounts for about 90% of the energy your washing machine uses to wash clothes — only 10 percent goes to electricity used by the washer motor. Washing clothing in full loads can save more than 3,400 gallons of water each year!
Air dry
The average dryer uses 3.3 kilowatt hours of energy, meaning at an average electricity rate of 11 cents per kilowatt hour, using a dryer for 48 minutes uses 2.64 kWh of electricity, and costs a little over a quarter ($0.29). However, the cost to dry my clothing at the laundromat is a quarter for every 6 minutes, so I would end up spending $2.00 for the same 48-minute drying time. I choose to save money and bring laundry home to dry on a rack (see photo below). A bonus to air drying in winter is that due to the dry air (low relative humidity level) already in a room, the evaporation adds moisture to the room, and clothes dry fairly quickly. Plus, your clothes will likely last longer!
