blog

Greetings & Salutations DEEP GREEN troops! My “Green Daytona” radio show tomorrow will be focused on a hot topic: RESILIENCE. Tune in from noon to 1 EST on WJOY 106.3 FM Daytona Beach, or via Facebook Live on the City of Daytona Beach Government Facebook page.

Resilience: What does it mean for governments and the public? On this week’s Daytona Beach Radio program, tune in to hear about how Florida and regional leadership are preparing the state for the environmental, physical and social impacts of sea level rise and other manifestations of climate change. You’ll also hear about grassroots initiatives, and get some tips on how you can boost your own resilience at the household and neighborhood level. #CityDaytonaBeach.

Update: In case you missed it in realtime, here is the Facebook Live recording.

Further Reading:

Climate Change: How Lucky Do You Feel? (article in Reason.com)

You’ve probably heard the expression “peddling influence” … Well, I just heard a happy story from a friend of mine who pedals influence.

My friend Ms. S., age in her late 60s (guesstimate), is a gardener and grandmother who rides her bicycle to the Y five days a week for yoga and other activities.

We had a mini “visit” by text today. After catching me up on the latest with her sons and new grandbaby, she continued:

“… can’t help mentally shaking my head as I pedal past <local middle school> – especially on a chilly day where car after car idle with parents bringing their kiddos to school…and almost all in the car have their heads bowed to their cellphones…and here I go bundled up with my yoga mat in the back basket whizzing past standing traffic breathing fresh crisp air and lavishing the sun on my face.”

I responded, “You are setting a wonderful, beautiful example! So perfect that your route takes you past the school … you never know who you might influence!”

To which she replied: “Actually had not thought about planting seeds as I pedal..going to start throwing those thoughts out…with smiles…as I pedal…oops…time to don my helmet and go about my mission.”

And then a little later:

“Kids were already in school but as I was pedaling on the sidewalk one car stopped and waited a good while before turning into the entrance so I could go on by…rolled down her window to call out Merry Christmas 😊👏😊 We have so much power in our thoughts!”

Yes indeed we do. Our thoughts and our actions are contagious! For better or for worse! Keep on “pedaling” that influence! Whether your pedal is an actual pedal, or a microphone, or a keyboard, or a shovel, or …

Small but mighty green actions made our neighborhood watch group’s holiday party even more fun than it already would have been.

– We composted our food scraps. (Simple: I brought one of my 5-gallon plastic buckets and we used it to collect food scraps, which I took home and added to my compost.)

– We used reusable dishes, cups, and utensils; and cloth napkins. (Have been doing that for a while now. We have a set which one of the members keeps at her house.)

– The same member also generously takes care of washing the dishes and napkins. Since her whole house is powered by solar panels, that’s a green bonus.

– When someone mentioned decorations, and talked about going to the dollar mart for plastic tablecloths (the kind that generally don’t last beyond one use), I instead offered to bring Christmasy fabrics (from my huge collection of fabric scraps people hand down to me), and sprigs from my cedar tree. We arranged the fabric and greenery into mounds in the center of the table and added sparkly bells, mini drums, and other shiny/sparkly decorations (which were bought from the dollar mart but are reusable).

– The greenery got added to my compost collection bucket at the end of the night, and made a nice cover layer for the compost bin at home.

– We have banished bottled water. Instead, we offer a water cooler for people to fill those reusable cups from.

All of these actions are modest in themselves but they add up. Actually, they multiply, because at least a few of the couple dozen people at the party who were exposed to our “green practices” might try it themselves sometime. We made it look simple and fun (because it was). People like and copy things that are simple and fun.

Also, with reusables and “real stuff” (such as actual plant material) there’s an element of respect and reverence that people surely picked up on. Single-use plastics, styrofoam, etc., have become so ubiquitous that I don’t think we’re always conscious of how much they degrade the vibe of a mealtime or other event.

Every little thing you do has a potentially very big impact. Who knows? Maybe someone at your party will try this in their own home. Maybe they’ll make it a regular thing. Maybe someone will even be influenced to go on and start a green local business, like a mobile dishwashing trailer or a compost collection service (shout-out to O-Town Compost* here in my home state). And it all keeps multiplying out from there.

*Special note about O-town Compost, based in Orlando: They (actually it’s one guy, Charlie) handled the compost collection at the Florida Permaculture Convergence this past weekend. Now THAT was a high-volume job! A gathering of about 100 people chowing down all weekend on fresh organic produce, with all the professional dedication a conference of permaculturists can muster (which is a lot)!

Further Reading:

Article from Shareable, on how to start a community “party pack” of reusable dishes, cups, silverware, napkins.

Behold my new “kitchen counter area” (lower right quadrant of photos). I slapped it together yesterday from stuff I had lying around the house.

A concept I really find useful in minimizing my eco footprint, getting good stuff done in the world, and making life all-around more enjoyable is “Minimum Viable Product.” I first heard this term in the startup-business community, especially in software development. It means what it sounds like. Basically, rather than endlessly tweak your software or other product in pursuit of perfection (and years later it’s still not out the door), you put together the minimum possible version that will work for your customers. Now, this is not license to put out half-baked work; hence the use of the word viable.

There’s a wide no-man’s-land between viable and perfect. Better to get a viable product right out the door, then continuously improve it over time, than to hold your work back from people who need it right now (or yesterday).

In my own life, one arena where I use MVP often is in the design of my home environment. The other day I had an area of my kitchen nicely vacated by the removal of a monster stove. The stove came with the house but it was much too large for the space and for my needs. Now it’s in the home of a family who just moved to the area and needed a stove.

The removal of the stove gave me space to create a counter with storage underneath. Rather than wait for the curbside goddess of free furniture, I took an extra door that I happened to have (came with the house), laid it on its side on top of milk crates, tacked on a piece of fabric from my collection of scraps, and voilà!

The buckets for trash, recycling, and compost fit neatly underneath the counter, hidden from view by the fabric. Actually, I quickly found that I like to have the compost accessible at all times without having to bend down and bring it out from behind the curtain, so I am keeping it next to the sink (photo 2).

I am happy with my new counter. Minimum Viable Product! I didn’t even worry about hemming the fabric. This is a work in progress. (I find that allowing works-in-progress brings an element of fun and creativity to daily life.)

Speaking of fabric, I once read a great article about an artsy woman in NYC who’d edit her clothing over the course of her day. She’d start out wearing a long-sleeved sweater (that she’d gotten for $2 from a thrift shop or something), then, as she was bicycling around to her work and errands, she’d decide she wanted short sleeves so she’d cut the sleeves off. Or maybe make it a midriff. And continue on about her day. Minimum Viable Product, constantly evolving!

This blog post is, itself, a Minimum Viable Product. I woke up knowing I wanted to give you a post. But I’m busy getting ready for a talk, a conference, my neighborhood holiday party, and a radio show. So I knew I couldn’t allow myself to spend time fussing over the post.

Over time, I may circle back and add back-story, links for further reading, and so on. In the meantime, hope you enjoy this post and your day!

I am still hearing a lot of people express feelings of guilt about not doing enough, not doing what this or that person is doing, etc. One of the main points of my book is that there are many many ways to live a low-footprint life. It is sometimes hard for me to get that point across.

So — Maybe it’s time for someone else’s perspective. I really appreciated this article, 101 Ways To Live Sustainably (curbed.com) .

“The urgency to rise to a global challenge like the climate crisis can often feel overwhelming, like nothing we can do as individuals will ever be enough. Yet even the biggest movements began with small, localized actions—which is why we’ve made a list of 101 steps that anyone can take toward achieving a more sustainable future.”

A unique feature of this article is that it lets you browse by category: In Your Home; In Your Community; Wherever You Go; Through Your Lifestyle; For the Future.

Hope you find it helpful!

Yesterday, I had the honor of being video-interviewed at my home by Dr. J. Cho, a professor of Environmental Science at Bethune-Cookman University here in Daytona Beach. She set out to capture a slice of my version of “deep green” lifestyle.

Dr. Cho is leading the Halifax River Urban Watershed initiative. She and her students are testing and documenting the effectiveness of native plants, living shorelines, and other nature-based solutions for mitigating stormwater and nutrient runoff. They are doing great things and are taking into account the economic and social wellbeing aspects as well as the ecological.

If you enjoy the video, please Like and share and subscribe to Dr. Cho’s channel. She’s going to be posting lots of great examples of green initiatives happening all over the region. And as you probably know, what happens with Florida watersheds affects the whole country!

Here is Dr. Cho’s video of me at my abode, implementing one work-in-progress version of an effort at regenerative landscaping.

This is for any of you who have been participating in the 90 Percent Reduction Yahoo Group. Yahoo is shutting down its web-based Groups feature. All content will be deleted in mid-December. The group had not been very active recently, but in past years it served the Riot for Austerity movement well, as a forum for exchanging high-quality information and moral support.

Change happens in life, and we roll with it. The Riot for Austerity Facebook group is still alive and well as a forum for us to share ideas interactively. Activity on the Facebook group dropped off earlier this year, when one of our more active members became extremely worried about online footprint and stopped posting to it. But with the Yahoo group gone, I expect at least some people will gravitate back to the Facebook group. I would love to see more of you on there, and hope you will join our community if you haven’t already.

A word about online footprint. For sure, our online activities have a footprint. Our smartphones and computers are just the tip of the iceberg; the real energy hog is the servers required to transmit, store, and otherwise manage our billions of bytes. But, just like all other aspects of our lives, we can make our online activities RIOT-compatible. The benefit of networking and sharing information is worth the footprint of internet use, as long as we keep it within reason.

I wrote a series of posts about online footprint; will dig them up later for you. OK, here you go: Online Footprint Part 1 of 2; Online Footprint part 2 of 2

On that note, what if anything have any of you noticed about your online footprint? And how are you keeping yours within reason? Me, I have gotten more focused and deliberate about my online time, and even though I use Facebook and other internet channels primarily for work, I make a point of spending several hours a day unplugged from internet.