WUW - Fear is the First Step

I have noticed that the changes we have made in our home are being followed by my family, as well as myself, so that I really can say "we". I have also noticed that the rest of them don't quite have the drive to do everything I think we should do, or are easier on themselves when they slip up and forget to follow one of our new procedures, like when one of them uses the bathroom without the toilet cloth setup in it, or throws away a recyclable plastic item, or wants to turn the heat up instead of putting on a sweater.

I think I have figured out the difference. Now, I first want to say that I am not perfect in this area and I know I have a lot of work to do. I also want to say that I am very grateful that my family has jumped on board with the changes we have started to make. With that said, I think the difference comes from the fact that I am the one reading all the dire predictions about what is possibly to come and I am the one having her pants scared off her on a weekly basis. My husband is only seeing what is in the mainstream media and we all know how woefully behind the power curve they are nowadays. Not to mention inciting mass hysteria is not the politically correct thing to do. And the girls are only getting what I deem appropriate for them to be exposed to at their ages. I want to scare them only a tiny bit while I appeal to their higher natures to get them behind the changes. I don't want to freak them out totally and give them nightmares. We are unschoolers, after all, and letting our children have a childhood is HUGE on our priority list.

But, since I am the one that is scared, I am the one who feels the need to keep doing what we are doing, and to add more and more as fast as possible. I am seriously motivated. My family, not so much. Enough, for now, but I worry their motivation won't carry them where I see us needing to go. Now, I do understand a bit about human nature and I know that change is a tough thing to make. So, I figure that the slow pace we are setting is best in the long run, as the changes will be habits soon and more easily added to, more likely to stick.

Why am I telling you all this, you ask? Well, I found a little bit of information, packaged in a easy to digest way that might help get you all motivated to make some (more) changes. Scare you a bit, you might say. It is from the BBC News and it shows a good overview of all the possible effects of global climate change, worldwide. Now, it would be easy to read through this and not come away scared, because the language is very non-threatening. "Some regions are likely to experience water shortages." "Cities with a history of heat waves are likely to experience many more, with potential health impacts, especially for the elderly." No where does it say people are going to die from hunger, cold, heat or thirst, in those words. But that is what it means.

So, please go read the report from the link below and really think about the meaning behind the predictions. Read between the lines. Do a little more research. I hope it scares you a bit. I'm sorry, but it's what we all need to do, to get us off our butts and making changes. Changes that last and changes that make a difference.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/629/629/6528979.stm

First we need the fear, to get us moving. Then the hope that what we are doing is helping, will sustain us for the long road ahead. We need to be holding a vision of a new future, but until we are sufficiently motivated, we won't see the need to even think about changing.

SS - Dispose of Disposables

One of the first changes we made was to get rid of, or in some cases drastically reduce the use of, disposables. Things like tissues, paper towels, disposable plates, cups and utensils, napkins, toilet paper, and plastic wrap have become so prevalent in our society that we don't even give them a second thought. But, really, when you think about it, every time you use one of these things it is like you are throwing your money into the dump. Not to mention the energy used to make them, over and over and over, and the pollution caused by their production and disposal. Here is the post that got me started on changing over to reusable alternatives. Do check it out!


Some of the quickest and easiest changes we made were switching paper napkins to cloth, using cloth rags instead of paper towels, and going without paper plates and cups. I already had cloth napkins sitting in my dining room going unused, so pulling them out and stashing the paper ones away (out of sight, out of mind) was easy. Ever since the kids were little, I have had a drawer of washcloths on hand in the kitchen for cleaning up spills and wiping faces. So, again the paper towels went under the sink and out of mind and now I reach exclusively for cloth when the messes occur. OK, dog poop in my yard or cat puke on the floor gets out the paper towels, but other than that it's a washcloth. Doing without the disposable plates was simple. I mean we already had the plates and cups and utensils made out of more durable materials, right? So, I do a few more dishes and bring the little kiddie plates to the park for the picnic.


The next two, menstrual pads and toilet cloth, really deserve a post all their own, but I will save that for another day. Years ago, I switched to cloth menstrual pads, homemade from old flannel baby blankets, and have never looked back. Maybe someday I will think about getting a Keeper or Diva Cup, but for now the pads work great. The switch to cloth in the bathroom has been great! We decided to go easy with it, so for now we are only using it for pee. That means my husband is basically off the hook! The girls and I have gotten good at remembering not to drop the cloth into the toilet bowl and the laundry involved has been a simple load a week. All I did was rip up an old sheet or two and stack them on top of the toilet paper holder, sans roll of paper. Hooked onto the TP holder is a mesh bag that the used cloths go into. There is no smell, since they dry out pretty quick here in the desert. Really, it couldn't be more simple. I did not even hem the cloth. You all know how I hate to hem.

Two things I have not gotten rid of are plastic storage/freezer bags and plastic wrap. Now, I do wash and reuse the bags many times, only throwing them away when they hold raw meat or they rip, and I am only using the plastic wrap I have until it is gone and then I plan to never buy it again. I don't have very good ideas about what to replace them with yet, so I welcome ideas!

Go forth and rip up some sheets!

WUW - Plastic, Plastic Everywhere and Not a Drop to Decompose, EVER!

Out there in the Pacific Ocean, right now, is an accumulation of plastic garbage the size of Texas, 30 meters deep. It will not, ever, break down into inert organic compounds. Ever. The plastic will photo degrade into smaller and smaller pieces of plastic, to be eaten by sea life and eventually end up on your dinner plate. Yum!

Of the 15 billion pounds of plastic the US produces each year just 1 billion is recycled. The rest has a good chance of ending up in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. You might want to think twice before buying anything made of plastic ever again.

Don't take my word for it, check out these links:

http://www.theiff.org/reef/reef4.html#
http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Ocean/Pacific-Garbage-Patch27oct02.htm

The Road Ahead

A while back, I hinted at our future plans to move back east, closer to the land and family. It looks like we are getting firmer ideas of how that will work out. C has accepted a job back in the DC area and we are going to take it, as a stepping stone before the big life changes can occur. So, it looks like we will be moving around March, possibly into our old house that we rented when we lived there before. That would be so awesome! It was within close walking distance to the library and farmers market. It had a little back yard with a cherry tree, pear tree, and a lilac bush. I love lilacs! C could bike to work. The girls and I can haunt the Smithsonian museums now that they are old enough to really appreciate them. And we can travel north to visit my dad and look for land to buy for our next phase in life. I can't wait! It is all good.

Extreme Sushi

Lately, E has had an interest in getting in the kitchen and creating her own culinary creations. She saw a little feature on Disney Channel about food from around the world and declared that she wanted to make sushi. Not having any of the required ingredients around, we improvised. Later at the grocery store, we found sushi rice and seaweed sheets - I already had rice vinegar at home - and pickles. Yes, pickles. This was E's idea and she would not be swayed with other more traditional sushi ingredients like cucumber or avocado. And no fish! So, as soon as we got home, she had me cooking and preparing the rice. Nevermind that we had gone out for lunch at an Asian buffet place and had eaten rice (and sushi, for me) aplenty that day! She wanted to make her own. And she did. After one bite she declared the seaweed too fishy. Oh well, at least she tried! Now that I have the seaweed and the rice, I am going to see about making some sushi that she might actually like. And we have a new sushi place just opening up the street, so we might go check that out one night. Look at all this learning and exploring going on, all from a 1 minute thing on the TV. Who says you can't learn anything from television?!?

p.s. don't miss the new video down below Sunday's post...

SS - Now What?

Now that we all know what Peak Oil is about are you ready to do what is needed? OK, let me point you in the direction of some writings on the topic of what needs to be done.

http://poweringdown.blogspot.com/2007/04/so-i-know-about-peak-oil-now-what.html

These two are a list of 100 things to do to prepare for Peak Oil:

http://groovygreen.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=347&Itemid=57

http://groovygreen.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=349&Itemid=57

This last one is a great article about how peak Oil is very much a woman's issue. The bulk of the effects of PO and the solutions will rest on the homemakers who are overwhelmingly female.

http://groovygreen.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=294&Itemid=57

Now, I have given you a lot of information to absorb and process and it may feel like it is All Too Much. To much to do, not enough time, no guarantee that it will help. Trust me, I know the feeling. Want to know what helps? Jumping in and doing something! Just pick one thing and do it. Before you know it you are doing more and more and it all seems so easy and you can't believe you ever thought it was too hard. And you'll find that your life is better in small ways that add up. You feel connected to something larger than yourself.

Next week I will be getting into the steps we as a family have taken to do our part to help. Each thing by itself will not seem like much, but it does add up. The To Do list is much bigger than the Done list, but we are taking it one step at a time. After all, as they say, a journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step. Now, get out there and start walking!

And Away She Goes

My baby girl rode a bike for the first time today. A had been very hesitant about taking the training wheels off of her bike and we did not push it. We knew she would ride when she was ready and had no reason to force the issue. So, when she wanted to go to the park and try to ride without training wheels, we went. Daddy held on and ran alongside for a minute and then let go. And off she went, like she had been riding a bike all her life! She was one very excited girl, exclaiming, "That was easy!" She rode all the way home, sans training wheels and now wants to ride her bike everyday. I love how when you wait for when they are ready, they are ready and learning is effortless.

WUW - The Downward Slope

I'd like to assume that you all have heard about the concept of Peak Oil, but I know better. Since it is a bit complicated and many great minds before me have done a better job than I have at explaining it, I'll direct you to a few. Now, go read these two PO primers and report back here.

http://www.energybulletin.net/primer.php/

http://gailtheactuary.wordpress.com/2007/07/16/what-is-peak-oil/

(insert Jeopardy theme or other appropriate waiting muzak here)

You back? Good, just a little more to read...

Now you know the basic gist of the problem is that the supply of oil on this planet is relatively (within short geological time frames) finite and that our ability to get at that oil is limited by how easy it is to reach and by how many new sources we find each year, and that our demand for that oil grows more and more every year. So, basically you have an increasing demand and a decreasing supply. What happens when supply goes down and demand goes up? Prices rise, higher and higher as the gap widens, right? Eventually, it is no longer economically feasible to even be in the oil business as you have to price it out of the reach of the consumer.

Peak Oil is the beginning of the end of the Age of Oil. The question is not whether it will happen that we no longer rely on oil, but when and how that will play out. The issue is so complex, I don't think anyone can say for sure how this is going to go. But it has the potential to be tricky, to say the least. Personally, I welcome the end of oil dependency. But I don't relish the potential tough times ahead as we make the switchover. I am fortunate enough to be an upper-middle class citizen of a wealthy nation, and I expect that my family will weather the storms ahead pretty well. But I have friends and family who are barely keeping their heads above water financially, and I worry about them when the price of oil drives the cost of food and medicine and winter heat/summer AC beyond their reach. Let's not even get into the poor nations of this world (not today anyway).

I don't think most people realize how much of our world is made out of or using the energy from oil. This does not mean there aren't non oil based alternatives. Just that they are scarce and therefore dear, fiscally speaking. This is changing, thank God. The question now is whether it is changing fast enough.

See you Sunday for a rundown on the steps ahead!

I *heart* Ron Paul

Sustainable Sunday

Sunday is a day for rest. A day for reflection. And a day for flexing our faith and hope muscles. You get the bad news on Wednesdays and the good news on Sundays. A friend pointed out that if I only give the bad news without the hope, nothing will change. People need to feel that what they do makes a difference or they won't do it. I figure the fear of the scary stuff motivates you to want to change, but the hope that it makes a difference gets you doing it. And makes you feel good, too. So, every Sunday, I will give you ideas of what you can do and share our experiences. And hopefully, I can give you some hope that it will make a difference.

I have to begin this adventure, by giving credit where credit is due. Last winter, I discovered the blog Casaubon's Book, by Sharon Astyk. She has played a major role in educating me about the state of the world and waking me up enough to begin making changes. Back in May, she began a weekly series of posts about changes that we can make. I have gotten a LOT out of these. So, for this first week I am pointing you in the direction of her first post:

http://casaubonsbook.blogspot.com/2007/05/52-weeks-downweek-1.html

The thing I like about what Sharon has to offer is that she takes the time to give you a deep analysis of the issue. She puts a lot of thought into her posts/articles. This does mean they can be long, but they are worth every word! The one linked above is actually very short and very easy to do. When I first read it I was frustrated because it was something that we already do around here. I was ready for more!! Ok, now go read the post and see if you are ahead of this game, like I was.


I am letting you off easy this week, since it is our first week doing this and all. Next week gets a little, ok alot, more intense. Mostly, I want to give you the scale of this effort. A glimpse of the BIG picture. Then we can come back down to baby steps and I'll hold your hand as we take them together.

Ironic

As soon as I post something about global warming, Google decides to put ads on my blog that are for "global warming skeptics". Go figure. I am not allowed to ask people to click on the ads on my site to help me make some money, but I figure I can ask you NOT to click on the ones that are so obviously trying to get you to doubt the science and therefore sit on your butt doing nothing. I am all for reading both sides of a debate to make up my own mind about something controversial. But if the debate is about the future of my planet and the kind of life I am leaving for my children and grandchildren, I am going to err on the side of caution! Who cares if global warming is man-made or a natural cycle of the earth? It's STILL GONNA SUCK. AND it is far from the only problem going on here on this pale blue dot. We would still have the destruction of biospheres, the depletion of natural resources, over-population, going past peak oil, etc, etc, etc. Ok, off the soapbox. If you care about what I stand for at all, don't click on the skeptic sites, ok?

And I thought the "home"schooling ads on a UNschooling blog were bad....

Wake Up Wednesday

It's time to wake up!

I am starting a new venture here with what I call Wake Up Wednesdays. Every Wednesday there will be a blog post about vitally important issues that the people of this world need to wake up about. This week we are starting with climate change. I don't mean what you get regaled with on the nightly news or the Weather channel. I mean the hard core science and analysis provided by those not afraid to speak the scary and important Truth.

The quote below can be found here: http://www.energybulletin.net/36739.html

In a paper titled "Climate Change and Trace Gases" published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society earlier this year, six of America's leading climate scientists, led by James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, warned that the Earth is rapidly approaching a "tipping point" beyond which climate change will become unstoppable (www.planetwork.net/climate/Hansen2007.pdf). The authors discussed feedback mechanisms not included in the assessments of the IPCC and argued that unless effective measures are put in place to control CO2 emissions over the next ten years, the rise in the Earth's temperature could set loose self-reinforcing processes that would be beyond human control.

Some critics said Hansen was overstating his case. Richard Peltier, a University of Toronto physicist and the director of the Centre for Global Change Science, criticized the tone of the paper and the use of words such as "cataclysm," saying that Hansen had moved "dangerously away from scientific discourse to advocacy" (http://postcarboncities.net/node/1018).

But this was before the summer Arctic ice melt of 2007.

Please go read the rest of the article. It is time to get yourself informed about the state of the world and start doing what is needed. Speaking of taking action, on Sundays I will be posting about what we as a family have started to do to bring us closer to a sustainable way of life. I realized that most people who find out what I am doing are interested in knowing more about it. So, I will be going into detail about our efforts to show you how you can begin to make changes as well.

I welcome any and all feedback, and look forward to the discussion.

Halloween

After a very busy month, Halloween kinda snuck up on me. The girls were very into their costumes and E wanted to decorate, so they kept up the Halloween momentum for me. I am fortunate in that I have a bunch of creative, fun ladies in the Lifelearners who were glad to throw us a great Halloween party, without me having to do very much at all. It ended up being a lovely holiday, despite my burned out status! Here's the highlights:

The girls and I each carved a pumpkin. Mine on the left (see how much creative juice I just did not have?), A in the middle, and E on the right. I helped only a little with the girls 'pumpkins, and the designs were all their own.

E with two of her "darkness fairy" friends at the LVLL party on Tuesday. E's costume was designed by her, made by Mama.

My contribution to the party was the apple dunking. Here is E going in for the bite. I love how concerned her friends look about keeping her hair out of the way!

A, enjoying the spoils of her dunk. She couldn't find an apple with a stem, so she used the suction technique!

Wednesday night, we had our friends over for trick or treating. The girls had fun running around the neighborhood, gathering the goods. Here is A with her haul.

And E, enjoying the first taste of her bucket of sugar.

Bonus picture! Me at the party on Tuesday. I'm a hippy. I mean, I dressed the part, for once!
Hope you all had a fun day, too!