Laudato Si Sunday Reflection: Making wisdom our bottom line

Today's reflection is brought to you by 
1 Corinthians 3: 16-23.

We are your temple,
O God,
because your Spirit dwells in us.

But your Spirit also dwells
in all that you have made,
so all of creation
is your temple.

And how many of your temples
we have destroyed!

Our wisdom is foolishness
compared with yours.

But we pretend
that we know
all that's worth knowing
even as things fall apart around us.

Remind us
that we
and all that you have made
are sacred to you.

Help us to hold creation
and one another
as you do --
within your protective embrace.

Let us make your wisdom
our bottom line.

+Amen.

* * * * * * *

Chapter Five of Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home is, in my humble opinion, the best part of Pope Francis' encyclical. He and his encyclical writing team spent the previous 4 chapters "pointing to the cracks in the planet that we inhabit as well as to the profoundly human causes of environmental degradation"... but "now we shall try to outline the major paths of dialogue which can help us escape the spiral of self-destruction which currently engulfs us" (paragraph 163).

Of course, it's going to take more than discussion to sort out the ecological and social messes we find ourselves in, but before I get ahead of myself and the Pope, we're looking at paragraphs 163-167 this week. You can read them for yourself if you click here and scroll down.

I like the first line of paragraph 164 -- "Beginning in the middle of the last century and overcoming many difficulties, there has been a growing conviction that our planet is a homeland and that humanity is one people living in a common home." Basically, this underlines the idea that we are interdependent -- "one world with a common plan." Unfortunately, we've been sold a bill of goods by consumer culture that insists we must all exist independently, apart from our neighbours, with our own homes, possessions and live-it-up-lifestyles that take us far from the idea of the common good. Similarly, our countries too often act independently of each other when what we really need is to pull together:

A global consensus is essential for confronting the deeper problems, which cannot be resolved by unilateral actions on the part of individual countries. Such a consensus could lead, for example, to planning a sustainable and diversified agriculture, developing renewable and less polluting forms of energy, encouraging a more efficient use of energy, promoting a better management of marine and forest resources, and ensuring universal access to drinking water (paragraph 164).

Imagine what that would look like! Canada growing grains for drought-ravaged Sudan, Sudan developing solar farms that can give energy to Europe, Europe and the Pacific Rim countries working together for better ocean management programs (Canada being one of that group) and everyone everywhere working together to protect our most precious resource, water, and ensure that all species on earth have enough of what we need to live.

Utopia? No, reality -- if we can set aside our differences, listen to our scientists, and follow through on some good management by working together.

Perhaps our biggest challenge is found in the first lines of paragraph 165: "We know that technology based on the use of highly polluting fossil fuels -- especially coal, but also oil and, to a lesser degree, gas -- needs to be progressively replaced without delay."

Jason Kenny, wake up! The environment is the bottom line -- we can't eat money or drink oil. Even your Pope tells you that climate change is a reality (there are rumours that you're Catholic). But Pope Francis is talking about politicians like you when he says,

"Politics and business have been slow to react in a way commensurate with the urgency of the challenges facing our world. Although the post-industrial period may well be remembered as one of the most irresponsible in history, nonetheless there is reason to hope that humanity at the dawn of the twenty-first century will be remembered for having generously shouldered its grave responsibilities."

Wake up, Jason Kenny! It's time to reduce greenhouse gases! You can do it! (If you're not sure who I'm talking about, Jason Kenny is Alberta's premier, who is pretending that the rest of the world is not shifting to alternate forms of energy and who is pushing for more climate change-increasing carbon emissions with his insistence on pipeline and tarsands mega projects even as the price of crude oil falls below the point where it will bring the province any kind of economic return).

Paragraphs 166 and 167 mention how "Worldwide, the ecological movement has made significant advances," (paragraph 166) and that World Summits have tried to be responsible for getting us on the right path to saving our planet, though in many cases, the lack of political will to implement the Summits' recommendations has caused too much delay. Pope Francis and friends note that that 1992 Earth Summit in Rio was "a real step forward, and prophetic for its time," but that "its accords have been poorly implemented, due to lack of suitable mechanisms for oversight, periodic review and penalties in cases of non-compliance" (paragraph 167).

The Earth Summit (ECO92) came up with 27 principles (that you can read by clicking here) that I somehow missed until I read Laudato Si the first time. Some of the encyclical's ideas sound like they come directly out of them. For example, here's principle 6:

The special situation and needs of developing countries, particularly the least developed and those most environmentally vulnerable, shall be given special priority. International actions in the field of environment and development should also address the interests and needs of all countries.

I can't help but wonder where we would be as a planetary people if we had inscribed these principles on our hearts and begun to live by them almost 30 years ago... but I think my church was too busy preventing one of its liberation theologians, Leonardo Boff, from speaking at the Earth Summit to really pay attention to what the Earth Summit was all about. I appreciate that Pope Francis is revisiting that territory now, but in the meantime, we've lost valuable time to dig ourselves out of all this trouble we're in.

The northern hemisphere is slowly moving into spring, the south into fall. The edge season we are in is a wonderful time to consider our earth as it begins to reawaken or settle into its dormant season. But no matter where we live, we are all called to wake up to the actions we can take to reduce our dependence on fossil fuel energy, to cut our emissions of CO2 as much as possible. When I was reflecting on this part of Laudato Si four years ago, we decided to take a big step, installing solar panels to provide most of our electricity. Though most of them are covered with snow, today they produced about 1800 watts of electricity, enough to light our home.

Here is an excellent list from Ontario of ten ways for anyone to reduce greenhouse gases:

Ten Ways to Reduce Greenhouse Gases

How many do you follow? And how many more can you try to implement? How else can we employ God's wisdom as our bottom line in the way we care for creation?

We can't wait another 4 years

This election, it is critical to vote for climate change solutions. As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change gives humanity less than 12 years to reduce our carbon emissions and keep the warming of our planet under 1.5 degrees, we need to act now. We just had the hottest July ever, and if we don't do something, the deep trouble we're already in will only get deeper.

The video below is rather tongue-in-cheek, but it points out that kids see the real threat to their future and want to do what we adults have delayed doing for far too long. I would like to see the voting age dropped, maybe not to eight years of age, but you have to admit that it would be interesting to see what would happen in our world if kids could vote.

Today's food for thought. Also a pretty cute website, if you click here -- especially the FAQs! (Toward the bottom.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWf-bBEodSI

Some food for thought

Nine days to our daughter's wedding, but this dropped into my inbox today, and I thought I'd share it since it's all about how one family chooses to live simply...

Guest Moodler: Our journey to solar energy

Here's a first -- my hubby, Lee, is today's guest moodler, here to tell you about our 24 panel solar installation...

Our Journey To Solar Energy

I am writing this post in response to a number of people asking for more information about our family’s recent residential solar electric installation and for others who might benefit from our perspectives and learnings as they make similar individual choices. As it turned out, this journey was about improved energy, environmental, and food sustainability.

Our journey began about a decade ago when I attended a solar energy society event. During this event, the speaker noted that home owners should try to increase their energy efficiency to the maximum extent possible and reduce consumption before even considering a solar installation. Although not as glamorous as putting in a new solar system, energy efficiency has a number of key benefits:

• it has immediate and substantial financial payback in terms of ongoing savings offering a better business case before even considering solar
• it reduces greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by reducing energy use from emissive sources
• it has made our 1950’s vintage house more comfortable i.e. warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer.  
• it translates into lower first capital costs for solar systems since they can be sized smaller.

Along our journey we took a number of steps:

• 2004/2005 -- upgraded a largely under insulated basement with up to R20 of insulation added.
• 2005 -- upgraded old aluminum slider windows to triple glazed windows (R6 to 8).  South facing windows had a lower R-value to allow for more light and heat to enter the house during the winter.
• 2006 -- removed old stucco and installed siding with R12 insulation on the exterior
• 2007 -- upgraded attic insulation from R30 to R60; converted nearly all lights to fluorescent or LED; began drying as many clothes as possible on an outside clothes line, reducing electric dryer use substantially. (Clothes dryers can add up to 15% to an electrical bill in a given month.)
• 2009 -- installed a 95% efficient natural gas furnace (old one was ~80% efficient); installed a high efficiency washer (went from a 134 kwh/month top load model to a 187 kwh/year front load model). Washed items were not as wet upon completion of the wash cycle, allowing for the use of an inside clothes line which not only further reduced electric dryer use and but also humidified our home during the dry winter months.
• 2013 -- upgraded an old shed to be a cold-weather greenhouse to grow more garden food and bedding plants – reduced gardening and food costs and increased the amount of high quality local food produced.  This shed uses 100% green electricity.

This process of retrofits and improvements had a cumulative yearly effect on both gas and electrical energy consumption in our home. From utility records, I compiled two charts showing these gains over 12 years with the most dramatic gains achieved in the early years. Our consumption of natural gas dropped from 160 GigaJoules per year to about 70 GJ (more than 50%) and our electrical consumption went from over 6000 kilowatt hours per year to just under 4000 kWh (about 35%). Gains seen by others taking similar steps may vary depending upon their specific circumstances e.g. existing house insulation levels, existing furnace efficiency, natural solar gain etc..

Further Considerations 

I would also like to acknowledge that getting to a position where our household uses 100% green electricity (and biomass sourced natural gas) could not have been done without emerging utility company green energy program offerings. About 7 years ago we signed up for the Bull Frog Power program and last year switched over to a new EPCOR CHIRP green electricity program (and the EPCOR Encor green gas program) to further reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. This choice was made so that all the electricity consumed from the grid (or natural gas system) was from greener sources i.e. non or lower-GHG emissive impact.

The residential solar electric system we installed this spring (2016) is grid-connected, meaning that any electricity needed in the house and not produced by the solar panels is drawn from the electrical grid. During the night or in cloudy periods of the day when the solar panels are not producing enough electricity, we are using electricity from the grid. Any excess solar electric system energy produced by our house system is returned to the grid (with microgeneration credits received from EPCOR to recognize this contribution).

When considering solar electric system sizing, how the electrical utility company green program offerings are used is an important consideration. Some home owners may conclude that using such green program offerings are both an economic and practical alternative to installing a solar electric system. In our case, we initially chose this option for a quite a few years as the costs for solar electric systems continued to drop. This option has the added benefit in that it helps finance the increased build-up of the overall green energy capacity in the electrical system that will in turn be available to more consumers.

This year we decided to install a solar electric system because we believe this is now a better mid-term choice for our specific situation. Going forward, we plan to continue to utilize the green programs, but on a smaller scale. There are many possible deployment configurations. For solar installations, sizing impacts the desired amount of up front capital investment (payment plans are available as well), the cost per watt of the deployed system, and how much ongoing use of green electricity programs will be needed to fill any remaining gaps in electrical consumption.

Over time our family’s journey has progressed along inherently related and self-reinforcing pathways:

1) An economic/technological path: As our family pursued energy efficiency and related green/clean technologies the overall objective was not only to reduce overall living expenses, but also to live “lighter” on the planet. Monthly utility and food costs have been reduced.

2) An environmental/food sustainability path: Increasing environmental and food sustainability involved not only improved use of energy, but also a number of other changes including expanding our backyard garden, retrofitting an old garden shed to become a cold weather greenhouse and catching and utilizing rainwater to help water the garden.

3) A social path of changing personal practices and sharing them within a broader community: An important part of a household’s energy and environmental performance depends upon personal choices. For us, such choices have included a much greater use of clothes lines to dry clothes (electric dryer usage has decreased at least 80%), turning the thermostat down significantly at night, choosing to grow more food in the garden versus grocery purchases (lower costs and transportation-related emissions and higher quality local food), and turning off and unplugging electrical appliances and lights when not in use, to name just a few.

By sharing our experience, I hope that it will benefit a growing number of other people as they make their own personal choices.  And so the journey continues…

If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comment box below.

Here's our CO2 offset for the past month...

Maria's note: Our solar array began its work on June 1, 2016. To date, our carbon offsets are 217 gallons of gas, 96 trees, and 1919 kg of carbon emissions. Plus we haven't paid for electricity for the past three months -- we are being paid. 

Depending on market forces, it might take 20 years for the system to pay itself off, but we're not worried about that. We just want to reduce our impact on the earth now because our planet is warming too quickly. It's fun to watch the carbon offsets add up!

Laudato Si: Sunday Reflection #15... Changing ourselves and our world

I've been moodling (musing and doodling) a fair bit this week about whether Pope Francis' encyclical is really going to help change the world. I've come to the conclusion that it can't -- unless we remember that we are a big part of God's action in the world, and that if we want the world to change, we have to change ourselves, too.

from: www.desktopwallpapers4.me

This week's piece of Laudato Si, is about The Mystery of the Universe (paragraphs 76-80, which can be accessed by clicking here). I'm thinking that there are too many mysteries to count when it comes to the universe and God's care for one particular planet and its inhabitants.

Paragraph 76 notes that "Nature is usually seen as a system which can be studied, understood and controlled, whereas creation can only be understood as a gift from the outstretched hand of the Father of all, and as a reality illuminated by the love which calls us together into universal communion." I'd never really thought about that before, but it's true that biologists like to talk about nature, while believers talk about creation.

In paragraph 77, the Pope and his writing team assert that the creation of the universe wasn't a random occurrence or "arbitrary omnipotence," but rather, was the result of God's choice to create out of love, and that everything created exists because of that love. For me, it's impossible to imagine that everything surrounding us in creation is the result of  randomness. It makes more sense that something, Someone, namely our Tender God, enfolds everything with love and holds it in balance so that it continues to exist. And it's becoming rather obvious that humans' upsetting of the balance is the reason that things are starting to fall apart.

Ancient pagan religions saw nature as divine, and I can't help but wonder if that wasn't closer to God's intent than the Judaeo-Christian thought that "demythologized nature" according to paragraph 78. Demythologizing nature might have been fine if human beings had taken responsibility for valuing and protecting it the way God does, but it seems our connection to both God and nature have never been quite strong enough to hold everything in balance the way God does. We are only human, and we have periods of doubting God -- or forgetting that we are not God! More recently, the influence of "the modern myth of unlimited material progress" has led too many of us to Mammon (greed) rather than toward the wise direction, development and limitation of our powers as intelligent creatures created by God.

In paragraph 79 we find that "In this universe... we can discern countless forms of relationship and participation....We are free to apply our intelligence towards things evolving positively, or towards adding new ills, new causes of suffering and real setbacks...." God has given us choice, over and over again. Unfortunately, human beings aren't exactly reliable when it comes to choosing life, and so the Church's work, particularly in this letter to the world, is to remind everyone of our duty to care for nature and protect humanity from self-destruction.

Thanks be to God that He and She is reliable. Paragraph 80 reminds us that God can bring good out of the problems human beings have caused. I love the line from Pope John Paul II's Catechesis: "The Holy Spirit can be said to possess an infinite creativity... which knows how to loosen the knots of human affairs, including the most complex and inscrutable." Actually, I'd invite you to read paragraph 80 in particular for yourself (Laudato Si is worth reading), but without letting moments of positivity lull us into a sense that God is going to fix everything without us lifting even a finger. Unfortunately, there are people on this earth who think that way, and they are part of the problem!

The Holy Spirit's infinite creativity resides in each one of us, and as Saint Teresa of Avila liked to say, we are all the hands and feet and heart of Christ. So now the question is, what are we going to do as part of God's action on this planet? How can we put the Spirit's creativity to work in ourselves, for our world?

There has been a lot of talk lately about creating strategies for dealing with climate change in the lead up to the Paris Climate talks (COP 21) from November 30th to December 11th -- less than a month from now. There is hope that this time, a real plan for significantly reducing global carbon emissions will emerge. With increasingly severe climate disasters all over the world, there is a rising urgency for humans to change our ways, and what is clear is that if we don't figure things out soon, our inaction will determine a pretty miserable future for life on the planet. Syria is giving us a taste of how bad a refugee crisis can be. There will be many times more refugees if our climate issues are not addressed, and soon.

But we can't just expect world leaders to make changes -- we need to change our own lifestyles too. That means giving ourselves an energy audit. If we really want to prevent further climate change, we all need to become more aware of the places in our lives where we are creating needless carbon emissions, and reduce the size of our carbon footprint. Change begins with us.

For example -- how much heat are we using in our homes? At my house, we've gotten used to a certain level of comfort, and we've forgotten that the basement of our home isn't often in full use -- so this weekend we are closing off heating ducts to those empty spaces that don't always need to be warm.

75 years ago, hot water was pretty much considered a luxury, but now it's an expectation that creates a fair bit of waste if we really think about it. My parents talk about the "weekly bath" that was shared in their families. Our present culture likes our daily hot showers -- but maybe we could look at their length and frequency and reduce the amount of greenhouse gases created by our hot water tanks, remembering that there are places in the world where water is so scarce that a hot shower can't even be imagined. Could we get away with showering every second or third day to live in solidarity with our brothers and sisters who don't have the option of a daily shower? And could we shower for less than 5 minutes if it would slow climate change so that our children and grandchildren can worry less about forest fires, floods, droughts and severe weather?

Are we willing to give up idling our cars? Using automatic car starters? Are we willing to use public transportation if the option exists? Are we willing to buy local food instead of exotic items that have to be trucked halfway across the globe? Where else can we cut our energy use?

What are we willing to do? And what would you like to ask our world leaders to do?

If you live here in Canada, there's a wonderful opportunity to let our new Prime Minister know the answer to both questions above. If you click here, the link will take you to a webpage where you can sign a card checking off some steps you are willing to take to reduce your carbon footprint, and you can also ask Prime Minister Trudeau to commit to:

1. Adopting a fair, ambitious and legally-binding international agreement on climate change to ensure that the world's temperature rise does not exceed 2 degrees centigrade.
2. Providing the resources necessary for the most vulnerable communities in the world to adapt to climate change.
3. Transitioning Canada's fossil fuel dependent economy toward one that is based on energy efficiency and renewable energy.

If you don't live in Canada, I'm betting there are other ways to let your country's leaders know about the change you would like to be, and to see. We all need to do our part to help God keep the balance necessary for creation, and if we can get our leaders on board when it comes to changing ourselves and our world, all the better.

*******

A prayer for our earth

All-powerful God, you are present in the whole universe

and in the smallest of your creatures.

You embrace with your tenderness all that exists.

Pour out upon us the power of your love,

that we may protect life and beauty.

Fill us with peace, that we may live

as brothers and sisters, harming no one.

O God of the poor,

help us to rescue the abandoned and forgotten of this earth,

so precious in your eyes.

Bring healing to our lives,

that we may protect the world and not prey on it,

that we may sow beauty, not pollution and destruction.

Touch the hearts

of those who look only for gain

at the expense of the poor and the earth.

Teach us to discover the worth of each thing,

to be filled with awe and contemplation,

to recognize that we are profoundly united

with every creature

as we journey towards your infinite light.

We thank you for being with us each day.

Encourage us, we pray, in our struggle

for justice, love and peace.

+AMEN.

(A prayer for our earth and all quotations from Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home © Libreria Editrice Vaticana)

Next up: #16... God's love letter

Simple Suggestion #164... Save your eggshells (and other things)

My hubby found a wasp in our mailbox yesterday, so I was tempted to just remoodle last May 15th's Simple Suggestion #121, Put up a wasp-scarer -- after all, 'tis the season when they start nesting. But you can click on the link above if you missed it the first time around.

I have a different suggestion for today -- one that comes out of all my planting yesterday. I put in 33 tomato plants, with a little bed of crushed eggshells around their stems, to discourage cutworms and slugs. Eggshells are calcium, a mineral that tomato plants appreciate, and they make life miserable for slugs, so I use them pretty liberally wherever I plant lettuce and other veggies that slugs consider tender vittles. That's why there's always a pail under my sink in which we save our eggshells -- why give them to waste management when they're actually a valuable garden resource?

And while I'm at it, it's a good time to consider other valuable waste-like garden resources that too many of us leave for our garbage collectors to drag away... After last year's successful "Tired of Dragging Your Grass" campaign, the City of Edmonton has just started a "Go Bagless" or "Leave it on the Lawn" campaign to remind homeowners that

-- Leaving clippings on your lawn is good for it. (Some people think clippings are unsightly and bag them, but they disappear quickly through nature's simple recycling process, which is much better than the wasteful human process of bagging and shipping them to the dump!)
-- Grass clippings help the soil to retain moisture. 
-- Grass clippings quickly decompose, naturally fertilizing your lawn after each mow (the nitrogen in cut grass goes back into the soil better than chemical fertilizer that has to be watered...)
-- It's less work for you - by Going Bagless for one summer, you can save up to a full day of your time.
-- No more bagging and dragging up to 60 bags of grass to the curb each year.
-- It's safer for your garbage collector, too! In the growing season about half of all the waste collected is grass. Each collector picks up waste from about 700 homes each day. Heavy bags of grass increase the risk of injuries to garbage collectors; if you need to bag your grass, keep bags under 20 kg. 
-- Grasscycling is better for the environment, and is one of the easiest, most effective ways of reducing waste.

And if all this doesn't float your boat, here's something worth a thought:

-- The CO2 emissions saved if everyone in Edmonton grasscycled would be equal to the annual CO2 emissions of 24,686 cars! 
-- The water saved would be equal to 1814 Olympic sized swimming pools!

On other waste-reducing fronts, these days our autumn leaves are providing an excellent mulch for my perennials. They're another natural resource that's not nearly so costly to our wallets or our forest resources as fancy chip mulches... plus they're essential for composting.

So I guess today's suggestion(s) is (are) more for people who like to garden... but even people who don't might consider their own ways to reduce our waste load... maybe you can share your waste resources with others who do have gardens -- or perhaps, spread the gospel of grasscycling.

My thanks to Mark S-A from the City of Edmonton's Waste Services for sharing this info.

Looking for more Simple Suggestions? Click here.

Simple Suggestion #162... Reuse and reuse and reuse your plastic

If you've been following these moodlings for any length of time, you know that I'm concerned about the plastic buildup on our planet. Petroleum products in the form of bags, containers, coffee cup lids and islands in the ocean (ever heard of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?) create issues all over the globe. See that yucky mess over there? So this is a rather strong suggestion I'm making...

Human beings have become rather dependent upon plastic... and unfortunately, many of us treat it like it's an unlimited resource which we are entitled to use -- and toss. But that kind of thinking is gumming up a lot of natural habitat, clogging waterways, killing wildlife... and how many plastic bags have you seen flying in the trees this spring? Ugh. So we need to be more mindful of our plastic... and make sure that it isn't single use, at the very least. Rather than freeing the majestic plastic bag that you see in this four-minute documentary, why not use those cloth bags?

When I was a kid, my mom saved our bread bags so we could take our lunches in them rather than buying more trendy 'baggies' with the 'fold lock top.' Now my girls take reusable containers for their lunches, but I still reuse plastic bags wherever possible. Below are my veggie freezer bags -- some of them date back to 2008, when I started blanching and freezing our backyard vegetables. After each use, they get washed and hung up to dry in the laundry room, then put away until next blanching season. No reason to buy brand new when these work just fine, thank you very much. It's simply called being mindful of our beautiful earth.

There are plenty of other ways to reuse plastic before it goes to the dump. Fortunately, in Edmonton, we will soon have a solid waste gasification plant that will turn those plastic bits into synthetic fuel rather than landfilling them... but synthetic fuel's carbon emissions mean there's still no reason to throw out plastic if we can avoid it, whether it's gasified or not.

So, please join me in my efforts to reuse... and reuse... and reuse...

And not just plastic...

P.S. Looking for more Simple Suggestions? Click here.

Simple Suggestion #150... Turn down the heat by 2 degrees

Did you know that tomorrow, February 7th, is National Sweater Day? I just learned about it this morning, thanks to my Master Composter/Recycler newsletter. What is National Sweater Day? Well, the suggestion is that we all turn our thermostats down by two degrees and wear our granny-given sweaters in an effort to mitigate the effects of global climate change caused by all the fossil fuels we use to heat our homes. And if we can lower the heat on a regular basis, even better!

Of all the negative things going on in the world today, global climate change is by far the most terrifying. I'm not saying that the crises in the Middle East aren't frightening, or that the lives being lost and the amount of money being spent on conflict in places like Mali and Afghanistan isn't scary. What makes climate change the worst is that it is broader than these terrible conflicts -- it touches every person no matter where they are on the planet because superstorms threaten us all. It's too easy for us to ignore the obvious signs of climate change, like melting glaciers and disappearing global ice caps, because, like the conflicts I've mentioned, they are far away... but global climate change is becoming more and more obvious everywhere. Talk about climate change with people in Australia, who seem to be alternating between forest fires and floods. Or ask the people on the Solomon Islands, who experienced a 1 metre tsunami yesterday that killed 5 people because sea level has been rising at alarming rates for sea level communities. And then there are the folks in the Sahara Desert who experienced a snowstorm this week. Have you noticed an increase in the severity of storms where you live?

All good reasons to turn that thermostat down and listen to our grannies... though the grannies put forth by the World Wildlife Fund are more like grandmas when I was growing up than like any cool, zumba-grandmas I've met in our present day. Even so, WWF has come up with an interesting campaign to encourage us to reduce our consumption of heating fuels. If you have a few minutes, check out the website at http://www.sweaterday.ca/. I love how it's all done up in old-fashioned "granny-ness," doilies and all. And I'm really tempted to set up a granny phonecall for a few people I know, and for myself. It would be lovely to talk to any one of these ladies, I'm sure. "Now stop being so ornery and just wear the sweater!" -- and reduce climate change by a little bit. All those little bits can add up to something big. And check out these grannies for yourself!

P.S. Looking for more Simple Suggestions? Click here.

Something truly scary... and this year's Halloween costume

On Saturday morning, I woke up to radio reports about the flooding in Bangkok, and decided it was time to moodle about climate change again. I hate moodling about climate change, because it scares the heebie jeebies out of me. It's too easy to imagine that my own addiction to fossil fuels has no impact on anyone else... until Bill McKibben writes this op/ed piece about it, and Stephen W. Thomson makes it visual (see below). I am frightened, because who's to say the same sorts of things can't happen here? And I worry about my brothers and sisters in Thailand. How will they manage?

Here are more reasons to be a hummingbird, to live simply,
and to try to get by using as few fossil fuels as possible.

****

On a lighter note, after her successes as laundry basket, traffic light, and radio over the last few years, here's my youngest hobgoblin at school in the Hallowe'en costume she made this year!

Here's my girls' pumpkin art.

Happy All Hallow's Eve!

Simple Suggestion #82... Buy local where possible

My local shopping mall has a nice little farmer's market every Saturday. One day I was there buying some onions, and a tiny little senior citizen shuffled up to me and asked, "Nice onions?"
"Yes," I replied.
She came in closer to see for herself, then said, "Hmmph. They're cheaper at Safeway." And off she went to the big grocery store further down the mall.

Don't you just hate it when you think of what to say long after the opportunity has passed? What I should have said was that Safeway's onions probably come from California, and they're not so cheap when you add in the poorly-paid labour of the migrant workers who harvested them, the cost of the gasoline to transport them thousands of kilometres, and the carbon emissions of the trucks that brought them so far north. I could have suggested that we really ought to be supporting our local farmers, encouraging them by buying their produce so that they can grow more food for local markets, because there may come a day when the price of transporting onions from California will be prohibitive, or crops down there will fail, or there will be other reasons that we will need our farmers here to be doing well. If I would have pointed out to her that I don't mind paying a little more for my onions because they taste fresher than Safeway's and I like to kibbitz with the man who grew them and brought them to the mall in his truck, I wonder if she might have understood the happiness that comes from knowing where my produce originates and who is benefitting from its sale.

Shoulda, coulda, woulda. Next time, I'll be more prepared to defend the simplicity of buying from my local producer.

What's your favourite local product?

P.S. Looking for more Simple Suggestions? Try here.

In 23 hours or so...

I don't usually post two moodlings in a day, but an interesting piece of information just came to me from a Voluntary Simplicity friend. It seems that on September 14th (tomorrow, as I'm writing this on the 13th), starting at 7 p.m. in my time zone (MST), a reality internet video stream about climate change is coming to a computer near you, put together by the same people who are working on Move the Planet on September 24th (remember, the alternate transportation events designed to tell our governments we want action to reduce carbon emissions?) Here's a little blurb about tomorrow's internet event.

I'm not an Al Gore fan, but I do believe that it's time something is done to reduce carbon emissions, as we're already past the 350 ppm, and we're seeing too much climate instability in too many places. I keep thinking about Slave Lake going from fire to flood within a month. I wonder if someone from up there will appear on 24 Hours of Reality?

And in case you haven't heard about Move the Planet, you can check it out here. I'm looking forward to it!

Time to take action

Here in Edmonton, we've gone from snow and cold that wouldn't stop to rain and above average temperatures. My mind has wandered back to global climate change (or global climate destabilization, if you prefer) and the importance of taking action to stop it. I have been walking or catching public transit to work more often lately, trying to cut my carbon emissions even further as I think about my friend in Winnipeg and how his house will soon be underwater if spring flood predictions hold... As I walked this afternoon, I remembered this little video... that has now been turned into a book, it turns out.

Greg Craven is a high school teacher (chemistry, I'm guessing) in the US who has made a compelling argument about why we should take action when it comes to global climate destabilization, whether we believe it's happening or not. He gets a bit too goofy for my liking with the "devil's advocate" routine, but I can't argue with his logic. I just wish he'd go further and challenge his viewers to embrace voluntary simplicity, cut their consumption, reduce fossil fuel use, etc. etc. But that's just me, of course!

Convenience vs. saving the planet

Okay, I'll admit it. I drove to work today. And I've driven to work probably twenty out of twenty times in the past two months (I work part-time). The reason that this is something I don't like to admit is that my workplace is only a twelve minute bike ride or a thirty-six minute walk from where I live. There's really no excuse for taking our vehicle and adding to carbon emissions most days. Especially since I have a wonderful bike, and I enjoy walking.

So why don't I use my "alternative transportation" more often? I rode my bike all summer, but somehow, when school started, I got sucked back into that factor known as convenience, coupled with something we might call laziness. If I drive, I arrive at work in five minutes flat, unflushed in the face, unruffled in the hair, and unsweaty, period, and I arrive home in the same smooth condition. I also have a few extra minutes on both ends to futz around in my own space at my own pace.

When I walk or cycle, my cheeks are pink, my hair is messy, and I feel damp until that light perspiration evaporates. But I also take unbusy streets, avoiding the five-legged spider of a traffic circle where cars crawl and blood pressure rises. I enjoy the gifts of the seasons: light in the sky, birdsong, the smell of tree blossoms or fall leaves, the colours of growing things, or the secret sleeping mounds of plants hidden under the snow. My lungs fill with fresh air and my heart thumps rhythmically and my doctor has no reason to insist upon cholesterol medication before my time.

Most importantly, though, when I travel on foot or two wheels, I'm living simply. I save the planet, just a little bit, for future generations. Oh, I know I'm not making a huge difference in the grand scheme of things, but what I can do now could matter in the long run, especially if other people join me in my little plot to use less of the earth's resources. Actually, a lot of people are already on the "saving the planet" kick. And if I'm at all wise, I will get more serious in this regard, too. I'll plan ahead, get organized early, and walk or cycle to work.