Third week in April and Earth Haven...

"Building Green"

Green building, to me, is probably the most obvious thing we can do to reduce our footprints on the environment. By simply choosing some alternate means of construction, we have a way to save millions of kilowatt hours and keep potentially billions of tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. 

We need to learn to build around the environment rather than on top of it. Houses oriented to make full use of sunlight during the respective seasons could save Americans, particularly in the Southwest, thousands of dollars individually by reducing the need for active heating and cooling units (AC units). Solar thermal and geothermal units could also achieve the same goal, and there are few places in the US where at least one of these methods couldn't be incorporated. 

I saw some very interesting practices in green building at Earth Haven, which was probably my greatest take away from the trip. They used primitive, but very effective, building materials to provide better airflow and insulation in the structures, as well as to reduce the carbon footprint that materials like mortar and concrete have. They oriented certain buildings to capture the sun's warmth to heat the house throughout the nights, which I found out can be very cold. They also made very efficient use of the space they had been given, clearing no trees that didn't need to be removed to give more habitat to local fauna, while using the trees they did remove as building material in the structures themselves. I was also impressed that they attempted a green roof, something I've never actually seen firsthand, and found very practical and aesthetically appealing.

Second week of April...

This week we took a trip to the REWA wastewater treatment facility to see firsthand what happens to what we flush down the toilet everyday. 

I can honestly say my nose has never encountered a smell, nor my eyes a sight, quite comparable to the primary settling tanks. Thousands of gallons of raw sewage, solids being allowed to settle out at the bottom to be swept out by huge rotating booms. From there the separated wastewater, still containing a good amount of suspended solids, goes to secondary treatment by specialized bacteria. The smell in this tank reminded me very much of our own Living Machine, which I suppose shouldn't be surprising, since the Living Machine functions on basically the same premise.

One thing that did somewhat shock, if not horrify, me was the large pile of trash that had been initially grated out of the wastewater. It didn't surprise me that people flushed some pretty outlandish things (I saw a piece of a shoe). What concerned me was that if these were the things large enough to be caught in the grates, what about all the countless chemicals and medicines that people assuredly forgot about once they flushed them down? It suddenly made sense to me how these things were wreaking havoc on creatures, particularly fish and amphibians, in our waterways. 

First week of April...

"April showers bring May flowers"

While this classic phrase still rings true in most places in the Western Hemisphere, California hasn't been able to say it without being somewhat sarcastic for quite some time. For FOUR years now the state has been in a state of emergency due to the worst drought on record, which has plagued the Sunshine State with wildfires that have caused billions of dollars in damages and forced many from there homes. However, it's not the fire that's California's greatest cause for concern. It's water. Or the lack thereof. 

The above photo perfectly illustrates the scale of California's water crisis. A naturally rather arid state, most Californians' water comes from vast reservoirs formed by dams on some of the state's most iconic rivers (which are also responsible for California having some of the most endangered rivers in the US). With nary a drop of rain for such a long time, even some of the largest of these reservoirs have begun to dry up. California's state government has even resorted to shipping water by train from wetter states just to meet the bare minimum needs of its thirsty citizens.

California's lack of preparedness in dealing with this crisis points to the fact that the vast majority of Americans can't imagine the idea of turning on their tap and having just a few drips come out. We are so accustomed, from birth, to the comforts of clean, drinkable water instantly at our fingertips, a luxury much of the world would quite literally kill to have. 

It is my hope that we will actually learn something from this crisis. The population of the west is growing at an unprecedented rate, and there simply isn't enough water to cater to the average American's consumption of it. We will have to institute water conservation plans into our new developments out West, or we may see environmental disasters on the scale of the Aral Sea at our doorstep. 

Second and Third weeks of March...

These weeks we discussed the extent to which our diets can impact the environment and our health. We, and by we I am addressing Americans in particular, live in a world (which I could argue isn't the real world) where there is a McDonald's at every exit and Walmart provides most of our produce. What's up with that? How have we allowed these HUGE corporate entities to essentially hijack the food industry from mostly local farmers and gardeners in less than a century? 
Well, it all goes back to the lie of the lowest price. Americans are obsessed with the idea of saving money, because we have devoted our whole lives to the accumulation of it. McDonald's can give you a pretty filling meal for less than the cost of the New York Times. Seems like a pretty good deal right? Almost too good to be true? Well, in the real world, when something seems too good to be true, it almost invariably is. You are not paying the real cost of that Big Mac. Here's who is:

The cows in the CAFOs, crowded shoulder to shoulder and standing waist deep in their own excrement. They suffer short lives of discomfort from a corn-based diet and disease only to be killed without respect and have their meat shipped to a packing facility to be ground and mixed with the meat of thousands of other cows who met the same fate.

The chickens whose beaks are cut off and whose feet will never scratch the dirt for worms. They are stuffed in boxes soon after they reach their genetically accelerated maturity. They are fattened to the point of immobility, so that we can do the same to ourselves. 

The pigs, or whatever the McRib, may be made out of, who get corralled and killed by gassing because it is more "humane." After the lives they endure, any sort of death seems comparatively human I suppose. 

The workers in the McDonalds, who are paid alarmingly low salaries that can barely feed them and their children. They are promised upward mobility, when in truth they are fired and replaced at will by the corporate higher-ups. 

Your children, who can all too easily buy into the ploy of the Happy Meal, if you allow it. Childhood obesity is at the highest it's ever been, and fast food chains that prioritize red meat and greasy foods are largely responsible. If all they know is McDonald's, odds are they will take their own children there one day, the cycle will continue, and health conditions will worsen.

So, is it worth it?

First week of March...

We read the article entitled The True Price Question. I appreciate that this article puts Americans in the hot-seat about their gross consumerism. While consumerism itself can be detrimental to the health of the individual and the environment, uninformed consumerism, like what we see in many American homes, can be deadly. Most of us don't take the time to question our buying decisions, because we've been fed so many lies like "cheaper is better" or "the more stuff you have, the more affluent you are." We don't stop to think how the things that we buy define us. Each time we buy, we cast a vote. Would the average American carelessly vote for a politician that they didn't support? I would hope not. So why do so many Americans cast their monetary vote on things that are killing communities and environments all over the world, and in the US itself? The answer is fairly simple: out of sight, out of mind. And it's not totally the consumer's fault. The producer has the responsibility to allow their consumers to make informed decisions by being totally transparent about what they're putting out. It seems like a basic human right to know everything that goes into the things that we put into our bodies and our homes. But in the interest of self-preservation and gross profit, large corporate entities often try to hide the truth in plain sight with branding ploys like "made with natural flavors" or "free-range." So maybe it is too much to ask the corporations to be honest with us. But if that's the case, we shouldn't just say "well, it's not my fault, I didn't know." We, as the most affluent population in the world, have the responsibility to get informed by any means necessary. Our habits are starving children in other countries and making our own children obese. Our lawns grow lush and green from chemical fertilizers while the rainforests that give us the greatest biodiversity and a large portion of our planet's oxygen get carved away by dozens of acres each day. It is my belief, or at least my hope, that if the average American were really informed about these issues, then they would attempt to make the right decisions. I can not believe that we are so stuck in our habits that we would not change if we knew what our purchases were doing to the world. We shouldn't hope for a savior in the form of a politician. We shouldn't wait for the corporations to hear us. As long as the money is there, that won't happen. The money comes from us, and if we continue to stay uninformed and turn a blind eye, we will be the true price.