The Times are Changin' Tuesday

I alluded yesterday to a new series that I thought I'd work on for a while. Today I'd like to introduce "The Times are Changin' Tuesday". Catchy, right? Anyway, in my earlier writing about how we had seen the changes going on around us, I outlined a couple of the simple things that my wife and I had been noticing going on around us. It's been an ongoing conversation for us so together we thought it would be a good idea to document some of the things we see not only in our community, but in the world around us.

I don't want to get into too much analysis of the causes behind the things that I address, although some is inevitable. What I'd really like to get is some feedback from you on how you see them. Do you see these types of things in your neighborhood? What DO you see?

Well, enough intro, what did I notice this week? Something that in a slightly different version is prevalent here in my area.

It seems that, in the bay area at least, Thieves are getting to the recycle bins that are provided by the cities before the cities are. As costs rise, and the $$ return for recycling is increasing, recyclable goods are becoming more and more a hot commodity. Here in Utah, we've had a rash of robberies lately too. Not of recyclable aluminum or copper but of catalytic converters. It seems they contain a lot of VERY expensive metals and folks are stealing them and selling the metals.

Do you see more people recycling in your neighborhood? Have you ever seen anyone stealing recyclables? Do you think that recycling information programs have finally just really kicked in and everyone is concerned about the earth? Maybe, but I doubt it. The fact is, people are trying different kinds of knots to keep the ends tied. The world's changing folks. Keep up or get swept up.

More next Tuesday.

P~

The Times are Changin' Tuesday 7-21

The first week of this series and then again last week I outlined problems that I’ve been seeing locally dealing with the rising cost of fuel and how the cost of living increases have caused people to begin stealing recyclables. As I thought about this weeks update, I was conscious that I didn’t want to give the false impression that I am hopeless or fatalistic about the changes that I see coming down the pike; this couldn’t be further from the truth. With this in mind I wanted to share an observation that I made this week that I found to be very encouraging. Through the week, for some reason that is escaping at the time of this writing, my wife and I had the discussion of whether our parents generation had been able to enjoy some of the things that ours is. A~ was commenting that she felt like ours was really the first generation that has never know a time when things like oranges and bananas were not common, but we weren't sure.

Saturday afternoon we headed into town to my Aunt and Grandmothers house to pick up my son. As we sat and visited, the conversation turned to the economy and rising costs. We talked about some of the things that I had posted here on previous Tuesdays, and about what type of changes we had seen around town. This conversation offered the perfect opportunity to open the dialogue about what things had been like when my father was growing up since four generations were represented. They did get oranges it seems, at Christmas time and they had to share. Bananas were something that was seen far less often. We discussed whether we thought that we enjoyed having access to these fruits all the time or if they were more enjoyable only getting them once and a while. To a person we all agreed that having something only in season definitely makes it taste better, but there was some debate on whether is allowed us to be healthier to have this type of access. I can't answer definitively on that, but I have my ideas.

What was special about this, was the fact that it was one of, if not the first time, that I remember having a conversation of this sort. My family is not anti-green by any means, but to have a conversation about things people are doing to lighten their footprint or to cope with the rising cost of living is not the norm. I find also that I am engaged more often in conversations about the same thing at work, and "over the fence" with neighbors. No Impact Man posted an interesting question today on his blog and it got me to thinking. The question was what thing would you tell a friend that was asking about a good first step they could take to help the environment. The big point here I think is that this is happening more and more today than it ever would have only 6 months ago. For that matter, take a look around the blog world for a second. Nearly a year and a half ago when I first began this blogging adventure of mine, there were only a handful of blogs relating to many of the lifestyle changes that we are making, or to the sustainability movement at all. Now, it seems there's a new blog popping up every hour.

So as the times are changin' so is the context of our dialogue with the people around us. People are asking questions, looking for direction or just probing around perhaps; trying to learn about this movement going on around them. I encourage you to take the opportunities, if they should arise, to share your experiences with others. Many of us are already doing this anonymously through our writing, but taking time to sit down and listen to others and discuss things is one of those things that can't be replaced.

As the times are changing around us, I hope you'll not get to preoccupied with all of the negative press out there. Mind you things may get worse, but within all those clouds there are some silver linings.
The best to you all...till next time.
P~

Cars suck!! So, What can we do?

They do! They suck-up gas, they suck-up time, they suck-up resources and they suck-up space. But what the heck are we supposed to do? You’ll have to forgive me, I had an “I hate cars” day today and it’s most likely of my own doing which is the most frustrating part. A~ called me this morning from the store while she was out running some errands to inform me that our Ford Focus was dead. This wasn’t necessarily a surprised since when we got it a few months ago we were told that the battery was the original and was getting a bit weak after 8 yrs. The frustrating part is that while we have been trying to nurse it along through the summer months I thought just last night, “I need to check that battery and make sure it’s good, I’d hate A~ to get stuck somewhere.” Sure as heck I didn’t, I got caught up in something else and forgot about it. (Yep…I’m human!!) So now I get this call from A~ and I’m at work not more than a couple miles up the road. But I ride my bike to work, so what good am I? I borrow my co-workers car and run down to jump her (the car that is, not A~ ;-)) and head back to work. By then she’s gotten home and calls me to say our other car, the one I normally drive, is also dead. No doubt from lack of use, since I’ve driven it so rarely in the last month that I haven’t had to fill its 10 gal tank since June 9th and still have half a tank left. (Hey, that’s like a gallon a week. Dang that’s pretty good!) Anyway, so now I have two dysfunctional vehicles taking up space in our garage, and a generally bad attitude. I’ll get a new battery for the Focus and that’ll fix that problem, and I can charge the Toyota to fix that one but geez, what a pain. How much time and money do we spend on these “conveniences”? And what other option do we have? It’s kind of a quandary isn’t it?
A lot of the people that read this blog have expressed a desire to get “back to the land” so to speak; to get a little piece of land somewhere and work it, to have a bigger garden and raise a few animals, and live more sustainably. To a great degree I put myself in that group. But what does/will that mean in the future? Land out in the country is, by its very nature, out in the country and being “in the country” means quick bike rides to the store are out, as are most of the professions that many of us are in. So now we are in the position of having to drive everywhere we need to go. Not the best of circumstances to either increase our sustainability or our independence. The other thing, as was mentioned by Meadowlark the other day in a comment on “The Times are Changin Tuesday”, is that many of us already own the dread gas sucking SUV. What are we supposed to do with them? She states, "It is a dream world to think we're going to melt down all the SUV's and they'll disappear from the world." and you know what, she's right. They're here, many of us own them, and it's not realistic to think that their just going to go away and everyone is going to ride bikes or drive prius's Not only that, but what kind of impact on the local landfills do you think it would have if they suddenly got filled with old SUV's? That's not even mentioning the impact to our already stretched pocketbooks but I'll get to that tomorrow when I continue this post. Be well folks.

P~

The Times are Changin' Tuesday 7-29

This evening we found a great article on our local news station about how local commercial builders are beginning to embrace "Green" building practices. Now I have to first go into my personal point of view on the whole "Green" catchphrase; I don't like it. I agree with much of what it implies yes, but the word has lost much of it's punch due in no small part to the mainstreamification of it. Which brings up an odd dichotomy. On the one hand, it's actually quite a good thing that "Green" has become a commonly used word. It means that the general masses are beginning to wake up to the fact that we've lived unsustainably for far too long and that they may have to actually take action in order to get away from the repercussions of that lifestyle. On the other hand turning "Green" into a word that either has, at best, little or no bite or worse yet is dismissed as being one of those nutty "liberal" ideas, takes away from the ideas and actions that are associated with it. I generally choose to use the term Sustainable (or unsustainable as it applies) because I personally feel that it better sums up the problem.

Back to the article. Whether or not they use the term "Green" or not, I believe it does good to have these type of larger local businesses putting themselves out there as role models and highlighting the benefits that come along with building sustainably. The more that businesses begin to see that they can actually realize real $$'s from these type of policies, the more the LEED services will become mainstream and the more it will begin to move into other areas.

It's all about growth. Managed, sustainable, smart growth. Hopefully this is another change for the good.

P~

The Times are Changin' Tuesday

Well here we are again, my little glimmer of sunshine... err, well, maybe there's a few clouds forming on the horizon.

This week we found an interesting news story from our local news that again illustrates the changing habits of my fellow Utahans. As the gas prices further reach for the stratosphere, some have been choosing to try to push their luck and see how far they can manage to go before filling up? The source for the report was one of the managers at the UDOT incident management team and what I find the most interesting is that not only does the report show that more people have been running out of gas on the freeways, but it's been happening with nearly 25% less calls. That's a big deal. According to an Allstate spokesperson, the rate of Utah drivers running out of gas is up 94% from last year. As we headed up to Logan this weekend for our outing, I actually saw someone exiting the freeway in their shiny new Ford Mustang GT at a full coast, flashers on and all. I suspect yet another "fumer". Isn't that a great name for them, the folks coasting around on fumes? Of course I can't say I haven't done it from time to time between the odd paycheck but generally we have our kids in the car so we try to keep at least a modicum of fuel in the tank.

So what do we do about it? As I said in the post that started this whole series, we change. We change our habits, we change our routines, and perhaps most importantly we change our expectations. Is it still prudent, or even for that matter logical, to expect that we can tool around endlessly in the biggest SUV that we can afford? I don't think so. Heck, just because we can make the payment no longer means that we can afford it. I don't have solutions for the issue, nor will I pretend to. I know what helps us; planning our trips, riding a bike to work, taking local "day-cations" instead of long road trips. For many, some of these things aren't possible yet. Perhaps they will be in the future, maybe not, the point is to look at what is possible and make the changes that you can. And mark my words, it'll be a lot less painful to make those changes sooner as a choice, rather than later as a mandate.

Just food for thought folks. Any thoughts from you?

P~