Earth Day 2017

Earth Day, for me around here, is the more official beginning of spring, in that it prompts me to commit to a better lifestyle not available for me for most of the winter months. That is: less vehicle use, a move to a healthier lifestyle, more engagement with my community, breaking through a bad seasonal trough of depression, and having better intentions for living well in general. That’s a challenge to do around here in Saskatoon from the beginning of November up until the first half of April. Earth Day marks some sort of pivotal point of true alleviation from the stresses of winter.

This is my personal snapshot of conscientiously lowering conspicuous consumption, and basically an audit of the footprint I leave on this region of the planet for this day when I decide to note how to tread lightly on it. Taking account of just how much we really consume in utilities like our power, water, fuel, and the money and resources for which we are using and wasting for these things in our households, and in our communities, is something I think everyone should be responsible for doing, and Earth Day seems like the perfect day to be mindful for doing it.

Earth Day for me is the reminder of the pervasive perversion of what I call the Double F destructive cultural forces we humans indulge in that are killing our biosphere. The first destructive Double F culture is the Fossil Fuel culture, and its role in climate change, and the lobbying by their proponents to make movements towards renewable energy illegal in some cases. The second is the Fast Food culture, and its role in not only making us a toxic, devolving, weakened species of obese diabetics and cardiac disease patients, but it is also an overwhelming source of pollution in terms of discarded containers (bottles, cups, wrappers, straws, etc.) all for the sake of our selfish and foolish sense of convenience, and wasteful and unethical mass production practices which are under the control of a handful of corporations whose ultimate goal is to control all elements of growing, processing and distributing food on the planet, and squeezing out practitioners of ethical animal husbandry, organic food production, and removing natural genetic biodiversity in our food stocks. I could add a third destructive Double F cultural force: the Fascist Fathead culture, of seizure of political control by cretins like Donald Trump, aided by a population so ignorant to allow that to happen, who are not only climate change deniers and not only taking inroads to making this planet worse environmentally, but getting us uncomfortably closer to some reality of an approaching world war. I won’t comment anymore on such things, but I will comment on my initiatives for this day, and see if they lead me to action for a happier place to be.

Morning: Woke up. Washed up. Fed the dog, then fed me. We walked outside after breakfast out to our neighbourhood park and back. Like on previous Earth Days, we took some effort to be mindful to transfer stray bits of litter in the public spaces to a trash bin*, and collect whatever discarded recyclables to cash in along our walking circuit. This year, I must say that the area looks much cleaner. I suspect several positive and negative factors at play:

·         The laws cracking down on DUI drivers in the province, may mean less vehicular boozing, and hence there have been fewer beer cans tossed on the street

·         The earlier thaw this year got people out earlier to do their spring cleaning and less wind strewn litter has been coming out of the yards

·         The City’s street sweepers came through recently, hoovering up the extra stray human made debris

·         The kids from the nearby Adventist school perhaps went early on their own Earth Day programme to help clean up the park and surrounding area

·         The wretched oppressive austerity budget from this government is making people trying every means to save cash; buying less pre-packaged junk/fast food, hence less wrappers, and saving their bottles and cans for SARCAN refunds.

·         More indigent people around who are reduced to picking up waste recyclables as prices/(sin)taxes get inflated

Ella and I still found plenty of litter, but not one bottle or can was spotted along our walk. Mostly paper and plastic drinking cups. A 20 liter bagful was collected and cleared off our path and trashed. A small move for some better karma I hope.

I then cycled to the Farmers Market, bought a local product, and then returned home.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           .

Lunch Hour: Made a pizza – using the ingredients that I’ve either already had here, that were extras from other cooking projects (just like the way the original traditional pizzas in Italy were made, i.e. repurposing leftovers) or bought piecemeal through the week from a shop on the same route as my commute from work, thus no extra fuel expended for a special dedicated out of the way shopping trip for one project.

Afternoon: Reading, napping, daydreaming/meditating, doing sudoku, some house cleaning, language learning, dog-walking, attending a March for Science Rally (too briefly, but I at least got to sign some petitions), I went to the library to make returns and check out more new material. Except for the household cleaning, and language lessons, all of those things required neither power, nor fuel, nor water, nor extra money to do for the day. I’m writing this I suppose to tell those who are Millennials and younger that it is indeed possible to have a life for a large part of the day without electronics.

Evening: Drinking homebrewed beer, ate left overs for supper, more reading, listening to tunes (mostly bass-intense, shoe gaze Indie), writing this entry.

Power Used: Actively deployed power usage that I opt to turn on and off (apart from the constant utilitarian use of electricity like fridge and freezer operation, Wi-Fi router, etc.). One kitchen light, one bathroom light, one hallway light (combined 20 minutes of use), a toaster, 15 minutes of magnetic induction burner use (very efficient), kettle boiled, smartphone charge, 40 minutes of oven use at 170 degrees Celsius, ran the dishwasher, 2 minutes of microwave oven on high, my Bluetooth sound bar for music streams and running my laptop to write this blog (both for 90 minutes). I opted not to use the TV at all today (too much bad news). I read my books by natural day light. Including all my constant essential appliances running (fridge/freezer), I would guess that I used about 5-6 kWh today so far in total for my total power consumed if I interpolate the readings right from my last utility statement. The average Canadian, according to one statistic, uses  around 4500 kWh per year. Sadly, we are the highest per capita users on the globe, for the fact that we use power almost as liberally as the Americans do, but yet additionally have a climate that demands extra heating for homes, and more vast spaces to transmit power between centres where there is a significantly increased line loss. If my personal average use nudges up to close to 10 kWh per day, i.e. 3650 kWh per year, I'm still below the per capita national average for consumption of power.

Gasoline Used: Zero – I walked or cycled to everywhere I went today. As chilly and gloomy as the day was during the time that I was biking, I at least had the invigorating fresh air to breathe, the uncrowded Meewasin trail to use, the peace of not having to hear the awful screeching noises emitted from under my car’s hood (time to change some belts), and not having the annoyance of having to hunt for and pay for a place to park a vehicle.

Water Used: Health and Hygiene (brushing teeth, sailor shower**, and two toilet flushes, so far***), reloading the dog’s drinking fountain, making coffee, making ice, personal hydration, running my dishwasher (on economy setting as always), cooking and kitchen clean up. An estimated 40 litres used, or two brewing carboys’ worth. It’s good to know of this quantity should there be any planned water shutoffs for maintenance, like I already have been warned about coming in the summer months.

Personal Waste: As it is now, after three days, my 15 liter kitchen garbage is one third filled with stuff that is 85% compostable refuse (mostly fruit and vegetable peels and egg shells). I regret that there is no sort of composting station around here, and I wish my condo could be provided with one of some sort so I could reduce this waste volume further still. I’d use the matter to make enough soil to grow my own herbs. I buy very little canned food, but my building at least has the convenience of a recycling bin for such things when I do.

Purchase Today: Just ten dollars at the Farmers Market, for a jar of Sour Cherry Jam. I’ve been hunting around like crazy for this stuff (I have a special project in mind for it, which I may blog about later). It may be much more expensive than other commercial jars of jam, however from the perspective of living happily on the Earth while doing it a favor, and building stronger communities:

·         This is a unique commodity that I have not found anywhere else but the Farmers Market. For today, it seemed right to get something that came from nature. And it is delicious. Never willingly buy anything that doesn’t fix a problem, doesn’t educate you, or doesn’t give you pleasure! That is the essence of frugality.

·         It would still be more expensive if I were to try to make it all home, plus I’d still have to wait until the cherries were in season, if I ever actually had the time to commit to make this stuff (home economics issue)

·         It was made here locally, from produce from a local orchard, and not trucked in from a half a continent away, or from someplace across either ocean (fossil fuel conservation issue)

·         You support a small business and not a giant corporation (corporations which are generally polluting on an industrial scale, and you directly help them to do it by buying their products)

·         An added bonus is that I have gained another reusable Mason jar to fill with my own crafted canning recipes later this year

The cost break down of my day is actually very different once I tabulate the information on my SPL Check Out Receipt. It tells me the monetary value in savings I made by loaning the books instead of outright buying them. I saved $81.89 today, adjusted to $71.89 subtracting the cost of my wares at the Farmers Market. I’ll whittle down that figure again accounting for the real cost of the ingredient proportions for the pizza I made, and the beer I brewed myself ($6.50 for the pizza, and $0.67 for the beer) the savings of the day is now $64.72. Let’s compare that with the likes of an impulsive spender, let's call him Joe Schmuckjob, who is probably the same kind of stupid bastard who's living in my neighbourhood and throwing his cups and food wrappers all around on my block. Let's pretend he is going to have himself the same sort of “cheap” weekend of entertainment as I am. He buys the $81.89 worth of books (though I doubt he really reads, we could substitute that material with the same value in dope and video games), he spends another $25.00 for delivery of the same quantity of pizza I made at home, drops another $20.00 for a six pack at an offsale place, for his beer ration, and let’s not forget the yummy $10.00 Sour Cherry Jam. His cheap weekend is turning out to be costing him $136.89 so far, and I haven’t even factored in the fuel his lazy ass is using, and all the extra trash he is making, which has an extra civic cost to clean up and dispose. Sloth, blended with impulsivity and stupidity, is expensive. Bringing all these facts to mind is making it a happy Earth Day for me.

I don’t want to get too sanctimonious about these measures I used, because I’m certain there are areas of improvement I could still work out, especially for my water usage and power, plus I also still lazily exploit food services at times when I don’t want to cook – I just don’t do fast food or delivery. This factoring of the SPL receipt also makes me pissed off even more that the Sask Party is taking measures to defund library services throughout this province as an austerity measure, hence my effort to sign petitions.

*- I’m like the average typical Canadian who thinks you’re a scum of the earth if you openly choose to litter.

**- Moistening the body first, shutting off the water, scrubbing down thoroughly with soap and a loofah, and turning water back on only long enough to rinse off shampoo and soap. Less than six litres used with a high pressure-low flow system.

***- Sadly, I don’t have a low flush volume tank.