One Size Fits All

I finished reading Hope, Human & Wild by Bill McKibben last week.The book is a collection of three stories that promote a message of hope against…a world where resource depletion is almost a contest. The stories are detailed from McKibben’s perspective which may be why I wasn’t too thrilled with the book. I’ve watched McKibben in many documentaries and he seems to have a rather negative world view. Its probably justified considering the number of years he’s been writing about the environment and global warming to seemingly no avail.

The first story is about McKibben’s own backyard: the Adirondack region where he lives. The story detailed is almost an echo of the story of Pennsylvania.

A few years back, I had read an article in the Philly Inqy that mentioned how green Pennsylvania currently was, how there was this canopy of green covering the state. The  reason this story was significant is the same reason McKibben chose to include the Adirondacks in his first story of hope - the North East portion of the U.S. was the first to get completed raped of its resources: trees, minerals, oil, etc, etc as it was one of the first areas to get settled by Europeans. So with the demand for mahogany desks and whatever else people wanted, millions of acres of forests disappeared. Then, just in the nick of time the Louisiana Purchase was sealed and new virgin territory expanded the U.S. borders which came under intense exploration. This gave the depleted North East portions of the U.S. some time to recover. Today new forest growth has changed the N.E. landscape and everything now is just dandy.

Except it isn’t.  Because of how the U.S. economy has changed its focus from one that agricultural and manufacturing based to one that is service based, many of the residents in McKibben’s community live at poverty level wages. And its sad. So the change that the residents make are often into sectors that isn’t feasible in the long term. Shasha Cedar discussed this recently.Not exactly hopeful…but the hope part of this story came from the fact that many of the original native wild animals are beginning to make their way back into the Adirondacks because of the new forest growth.

The second story of hope was my favorite.The subject was a city in Brasil named Curitiba. Its success as a model city that continues to grow with low resource consumption was primarily due to the efforts of its three-time mayor, Jaime Lerner, who implemented a wide variety of programs that had a wide reaching ecological impact. Many of Lerner’s ideas were similar to Jane Jacobs’ ideas and observations in Life and Death of Great American Cities. And the programs worked. For example, Curitiba’s bus system sounds amazing: bus only lanes with connecting routes with buses that run frequently. Old buses get transformed into classrooms that teach people practical skills for a low fee. Another example of Lerner’s ingenious thinking was how he dealt with the flooding problem. He designed and created artificial lakes with parks surrounding the lakes that get filled during the flood season. Lerner also took one of the suggestions from the authors of Rubbish by incentivizizing rubbish collection - so now the bums get a meal and the streets are clean.There was alot of hope here…if we can elect decent people who care enough.

The third story…well I’ve already written about my feelings but I should say a bit more. The story of Kerala and its low resource consumption in the face of other measures of success makes it an anomaly in India and even the rest of the world. But there is a similarity between Kerala and Curitiba - its leaders/elected officials. The leaders of both places cared enough about their people and their home to do something to make it better. They implemented programs with the blessings of the people and listened to their concerns to make life better…

Overall, the book wasn’t bad, but it didn’t actually fill me with hope. Maybe I was just in a lousy mood but I don’t like messages that put the locus of control on some external source like elected officials.  This is probably why I liked Blessed Unrest which I thought had more of a hopeful message than Hope, Human & Wild.In fact Blessed Unrest came highly recommended to me at a time when I was feeling very despondent about the world. Perhaps its because the message was a bit different from Hope, Human & Wild - that a top-down methodology of implementing ideas wasn’t necessary for success to occur. Many of the bloggers whose blogs I read believe in that notion…that we can all do something in addition to electing some visionary thinker or calling our elected reps. And I think that is more of a hopeful message.

 

RATING: 3 out 5 stars.

READERS: medium to dark green readers.

I finished reading Rubbish: The Archaeology of Garbage by William Rathje and Cullen Murphy as part of my participation in Green Bean’s May Bookworm challenge which is now going to continue into the month of June. As I mentioned before on this blog and on other blogs, this book was very thought provoking and shattered many of my preconceived notions about garbage and landfills.

I actually picked this book up by accident. The title caught my interest, and after picking it up and opening the book I found myself sitting cross legged on the floor of the library amazed at what I was reading. I am not sure what it is about garbage that fascinates me…but its related to my fascination with suburbia. Let me explain.

A few years back, I read "Building Suburbia" by Dolores Hayden that gave me an incredible insight into the growth and popularity of the suburbs. The book focused primarily on American suburbs, but the idea of a suburb was originally a British one that was later imported. Prior to reading Building Suburbia I had an incredible hatred of what suburbs stood for. I hated the fact that they were unwalkable, that they tended to be homogenous in every way imaginable, that they were inaccessible by trains and buses and I hated the culture that surrounded it - a sort of blandness that bugged me to no end.

One of the original ideas behind a suburb was the idea of having green space and empty clean, hygenic looking spaces. A livable area where one could pretend to live close to nature - and most importantly, a place that was not as dirty as a city. Before governmental agencies were established to take care of garbage and the general maintenance of cities, the cities were filthy. Horses died and rotted in open gutters, people tossed their garbage outside their homes by just flinging it outside their windows. In short, the urban environment was a festering mess of dirt and disease. Not exactly a place one would want to live in. With the invention of the combustion engine, travel to places outside of the city became possible. Wealthier families were able to live outside the filthy cities and enjoy breathing clean air. With the invention of street cars or trolley cars, commuting for work became a feasible option for many people. This later lead to the expansion of the automobile industry which lead to the desire to live further and further away from the dirt and grime of the cities. There are other reasons for the growth of the suburbs of course…but for now I’m going to focus on people’s desire to get away from dirt and grime.

So Building Suburbia shed light on a relatively modern view of people dealt with garbage, but I wondered how people dealt with garbage before the invention of automotive engines when one couldn’t just commute from a suburb. Well…here is an excerpt from Rubbish that describes the garbage habits of the residents of Troy (i.e. in the B.C. era):

The archaeologist C. W. Blegen, who dug into Bronze Age Troy during the 1950s, found that the floors of its buildings had periodically become so littered with animal bones and small artifacts that "even the least squeamish household felt that something had to be done." This was normally accomplished, Blegen discovered, not by sweeping out the offensive accumulation, but by bringing in a good supply of fresh clean clay and spreading it out thickly to cover the noxious deposit. In many a house, as demonstrated by the clearly marked stratification, this process was repeated time after time until the level of the floor rose so high that it was necessary to raise the roof and rebuild the doorway.

I paused for a very long time after I read the above para. It was a WTF moment for me. 

Rubbish has many such passages about ancient cultures and their garbage habits. But the book for the most part discusses compostion of landfills and various experiments conducted by Garbologists (people who root around in garbage under an academic banner) and the results of their analysis of the analyzed garbage. I found it surprisingly insightful. I, like many others, had the impression that landfills were filled with disposable diapers and plastic bags and tires. But the reality (at least in the 80s and 90s - when the analyses were done) is that "two kinds of garbage - paper and construction and demolition debris - account for well over half of America’s general refuse." I imagine that that number went up even further from the housing construction boom that seems to have ended recently…but that fact also surprised me. But on second though…demolition debris is a lot more voluminous then yogurt cups and disposable diapers. And I can’t imagine a thriving industry that reuses demolition debris especially with the risks with lead paints and so on.

Toward the end of the book, the authors made many suggestions regarding how garbage output could be reduced and I liked three of their suggestions. One was to incentivize the task by having people who put out a lot of garbage pay more and vice versa. Another suggestion was to encourage composting in households since removing food waste from landfills will result in something useful rather. The third suggestion that I liked was to encourage the purchase of products made from "post consumer recycled" materials. Ideally the product would have 10% or higher of post consumer recycled goods.

I could write a book detailing how useful and insightful I found Garbage. But instead I’ll suggest that you read it and I’ll end with another quote that cheered me up:

Over time, grand civilizations seem to have moved from efficient scavenging to conspicuous consumption and then back again to the scavenger’s efficiency. It is a common story, usually driven by economic realities. 

I am participating in Green Bean’s "Be a bookworm" challenge this month. The first book I finished was "Plenty" by Alisa Smith and J.B. Mackinnon, creators of the 100 mile diet. Yes, I am reading more than one book for this challenge. After all, I am a bookworm.

I had heard about their project awhile back…probably during the course of their actual challenge (where they comitted to eat all their meals within a 100 mile radius of their home). But at the time, I was not ready to eat local. Like every new idea I first needed to let it percolate in my head for a while before I warmed up to the idea. At the time (in 2005-2006) I think I only purchased fruits from farmers’ markets and was busy trying to eat the cheapest food possible without any consideration for quality or nutrition or even taste. Obviously I am at the other end now…where I make alot of efforts toward purchasing as many items local as possible. Today I follow the locavore pledge:

If not LOCALLY PRODUCED, then Organic.
If not ORGANIC, then Family farm.
If not FAMILY FARM, then Local business.
If not a LOCAL BUSINESS, then Fair Trade.

The book was interesting. I expected the book to be mainly about their trials and tribulations regarding finding local food sources (of which there were plenty), but…I was not expecting read about their co-habitation disputes or problems. I realize that all relationships have problems and issues that need to be dealt with, but its not a subject I am very interested in reading about. Every chapter in Plenty made me worry: are they going to split up? If they do, who gets the potatoes and canned jams?

I think Smith and Mackinnon have done alot in terms of getting people to eat local. I don’t remember restaurants in 2005 proudly claiming to offer locally grown ingredients on their menus. Even the local Acme has signs on how much of their produce is locally grown. Unfortunately they are conventional…not organic (with the number on the sticker beginning with a "9"). But its a start. Personally, I’ve extended my definition of local to 250 miles although most of my meals are often within a 100 mile radius. Afterall, I live in the breadbasket that is New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The idea of eating locally also touches on my little hot button: oil consumption and how to reduce it. Food is a necessity and if the sky is going to fall tomorrow I might have to get used to eating whatever is grown near me. And the 100 mile diet has really gotten me to embrace the idea of eating locally. 

Going back to the book…I liked the fact that each chapter was written by either Smith or Mackinnon, I thought each of them had a unique point of view. I liked Mackinnon’s style of writing. It was more matter of fact and less on the neurotic meandering. Although if I had to recommend a book on eating local, I’d recommend Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. It has a more positive tone and many, many laugh out loud passages.

My husband purchased Hooked! as a birthday gift for me and I am glad he did. This is one of those books that can be read repeatedly. Each reading gives me new insight that I did not previously have.

The book is a collection of 17 essays about consumerism from a Buddhist perspective. But its a valuable resource for anyone interested in learning about consumerism and how to deal with it and stop mindless consumption - not just Buddhists. Personally, I don’t identify as a Buddhist but find the teachings of The Buddha to be valuable guide to living a life that is ethically sound.

Buddhism address consumerism and mindless consumption with the idea of the hungry ghost, "depicted as a craven figure with a protuberant stomach and a long pencil neck [with a small mouth], a maundering wraith unable to satisfy its insatiable desires. In this realm, attempts to avoid pain by seeking satisfaction cause more pain for oneself and others". 

Lately, I have identified my specific type of consumption. I call it "forced kindness". Thus, I will refuse to purchase something that is made in China (for example) because I am aware that many of the Chinese citizens working on American products work very long hours, live in cramped quarters and generally deal with very sucky conditions. However, the counter argument is that this new Chinese economy is beneficial for these workers who would otherwise have worse job prospects and that the money they currently earn is beneficial enough that after a few years they can go back to their villages and jump start their lives there.  However, I don’t want to be responsible for someone working 90-100 hours per week. I demand that they work 40 hours or less and get benefits, health care, proper living quarters, access to clean, non-poisonous water! I refuse to buy bananas from South America because the banana pickers are paid shitty wages and are otherwise thoroughly exploited. I would like them to not be beaten for asking for higher wages. Since I can’t do anything about their beatings or the Chinese workers’ high work hours, I choose to just not consume their products.

This idea of "forced kindness" is reflected in Hooked! The title of the book itself is illuminating. The Tibetan word "shenpa" is often translated into English as "attachment", but a more accurate translation would be "hook" or "that sticky feeling". "Shenpa thrives on the underlying insecurity of living in a world that is always changing. We experience this insecurity as a background of slight unease or restlessness. We all want some kind of relief from that unease, so we turn to what we enjoy–food, alcohol, drugs, sex, work or shopping. In moderation what we enjoy might be very delightful. We can appreciate its taste and its presence in our life. But when we empower it with the idea that it will bring us comfort, that it will remove our unease, we get hooked."

What sort of guidelines should one follow while consuming? Joseph Goldstein writes in his essay, "the first and most fundamental principle to apply is nonharming." That is, if a product we buy causes harm to someone or something we should not consume/buy it.

The essays in the book are written by practioners of various Buddhist sects…thus each of their suggestions in dealing with consumerism reflects their particular sect in some manner. For example under Soto Zen there is a five line verse that is used by their monasteries before a meal:

Five Verses to Living the Green Plan in Everyday Life

1. Let’s Protect the Green Earth. The Great Earth Is the Home of All Life.

2. Let’s Use Water Sparingly. Water Is the Source of All Life.

3. Let’s Limit Our Use of Heat. Heat is What Propels All Life.

4. Let’s Maintain Clean Air. Clean Air Is the Open Space for All Life.

5. Let’s Live in Harmony with Nature. Nature Is the Buddha in Form. 

Overall I really enjoyed this book and have read the essays many times over. I’ve had the book for over a year and decided to re-read it before giving it away. So….

M: I know you wanted me to do the review…if the book sounds interesting and would like my copy of it, let me know. If M doesn’t want it, I can mail it out to anyone else that is interested. Just leave me a comment. 

I finished reading "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver a few days ago. While this certainly means I read this at the expense of studying, I realized that I am behaving no differently than I did when I was in Junior High: I just love reading books not assigned by academia. My journey toward eating local food has been gradual. For much of my life I did eat local, I didn’t have any other option. After I moved to the U.S. I didn’t eat locally as much, only because the food industry can make it a bit tricky to do so. So while I noticed that stuff tasted different I had no idea why. Slowly I learned about the animal food industry. Then I learned about the prevalence of food additives, and corn syrup. Then I decided to go vegetarian and then when I learned about the milk industry, vegan. Eventually I began experimenting with raw foodism. But its not easy to be vegan and/or a raw foodist when you are working for 12-18 hours per day (attending school and work and other stuff). I then came across an article by Michael Pollan that knocked my socks off. I had to pick a topic for speech class and decided to focus on the food bill, the subject matter of Pollan’s article. During the course of the class I learned everything and more I ever wanted to know about the Food Bill, initially passed as part of the New Deal package. After the class was done, I found myself reading "The Worst Hard Time" by Timothy Egan. This book set the stage for events that would more or less come about in the form of the AAA, The Agricultural Adjustment Act, eventually called the Food Bill. "The Worst Hard Time" was about the events that led to the Dust Bowl. Its a book I consider required reading. Kingsolver’s book however, is a bit more positive and hopeful. That its not necessary to eat terrible food dictated by marketing and profit. Food is a basic necessity and to someone like me, taste is equally essential. Food is something to be enjoyed and savored, and Kingsolver writes beautifully on how her family accomplished that in the first year they grew the majority of their food. I am no where close to growing my own food. I am interested in it, but worried about the practicality of going about it. While I do grow some herbs and a tomato and red pepper plant is currently in the works, how does one go about eating local food in a city? I’ve been to the farmer’s market more this year than any previous year. The ability to have truly fresh and organic food is amazing. Trying to eat in season is fun, as it really makes me look forward to new seasons and appreciate what we have or had. I am not sure how to conclude this, but read Kingsolver’s book, its worth it.