The Autorockawasher 5000

A few posts ago I told you about my plunger and bucket low tech washing machine. Well, contain your excitement, there has been a major upgrade to the technology. I was doing extra wash today, it's raining so I get the wash water for free and I get an extra rinse just by hanging the clothes on the line, and I figured I'd put into action a plan that has been percolating in my brain for about week. I mentioned it to my nephew last monday as a joke. Today I thought that if I've got all this extra plunging to do I might as well try it.

 I just attached the plunger to the back of my porch rocker and raised the bucket about 6" off the floor. I spend at least an hour a day in that rocker; first thing in the morning I watch the sun come up with my first cup of tea of the day, mid morning tea break, mid afternoon tea break, and we often have high level household business meetings on the porch. This means I can do the wash at the same time without getting out of my rocker! No power cost, no water cost (as long as I use rainwater), and I get a little rest. Who could ask for more?

No Impact Man - The movie trailer

Living with less points out room for improvement

My wife and I are back after having walked the Coast to Coast path here in England and as I stated in a previous post I find backpacking, when done in a minimal impact style, to be quite a sustainable existence compared to normal life in the city. One additional thing I did notice was that by living with less I noticed the minutiae of what we did consume to a greater degree. For instance, when I unwrap and eat a granola bar I have to carry the wrapper until such time as I can dispose of it "properly". This is true of every item we consume or purchase. Usually we remove products from their packaging as much as possible when we buy them and immediately put it in the bin, recycling can be hard to find. But invariably there is some packaging we end up carrying. Wherever we can we try to buy flapjacks and other baked goods fresh from the bakery. These items are packaged less and usually with paper.

This attention to these details brings a greater awareness of the folly of this excess packaging and will hopefully carry over into our normal city life. There is always room for improvement.

Living out of a backpack

Jacqui and I are currently walking the coast to coast path in the UK with some friends. All our belongings, including cooking and camping gear are on our backs. We've done some camping and some nights in Youth Hostels. We wash our clothes in the shower when we have one. The hostels have drying rooms as the lake district is famously rainy so our wet stuff goes in there overnight. This effectively serves as a dryer for the entire population of the hostel, certainly more sustainable than individual dryers. When in the hostel we also share a kitchen or eat in the restaurant. Cooking for many is more efficient than cooking for a few. Much of the food is locally sourced and quite a few of the hostels are off grid. Two were renewably powered, one has a deisel generator. Due to the limitations of living off grid the buildings are designed to be very efficient with only essential devices staying powered as needed. I suspect that even a deisel generator is more sustainable than grid supply as it avoids the losses of grid transmission.

When we camp we use a military surplus stove with esbit solid fuel pellets. We tend to cook couscous or prepackaged rice or pasta meals. Waste is minimal. This mode of living is a real lesson in low impact living. We avoid purchasing anything because we don't want to carry it. We search for minimally packaged food.

Overall I think this mode of existence is lower impact if done properly. Some of the hikers have their bags ferried ahead so there is more automobile traffic as a result. Since we carry our own we avoid that impact. We also don't have a fridge (aside from the group one in the hostel kitchens, television, computer only occasionally, no clothes washer, dish washer, hair dryer, or cordless phone. We do carry a cell phone and an MP3 player but I charge them largely with a hand crank device built into my flashlight. We took public transportation, rail, to the start of the walk and will return the same way.

So, in conclusion I believe if done carefully, backpacking is a very sustainable lifestyle and has much to teach us about doing without.

Go Carfree on the 22nd

On the 22nd of September don't drive or ride in a car. It's that simple. The reasons are so obvious and the implications so momentous that I won't go into them here. If you need more information please see the website:

World Carfree Day 2008

Sheffield Star online post #3 - by Robb

Here's the next post from my Sheffield Star online Green Scene column.

Beyond Consumerism?

"We are at a stage in human history that is as monumental as changing from a hunter/gatherer society to an agricultural society and from an agricultural society to an industrial society. ...We need to face the way we used the world for our gains, pleasures, satisfactions. ... we need to change our view about acquiring things. We have the opportunity to take a great leap forward in these very challenging times. We need to change our institutions and ourselves. ...We need to launch our imaginations beyond the thinking of the past. ...That's how we change the world... because WE will be the change."- Grace Lee Boggs, 93, a long-time Detroit activist and philosopher.

2030, imagine a scenario where you live in a completely different way than you do now. Your home doesn’t generate bills it generates power. Your bin only needs emptying once every month because you generate almost no waste. The clothes you wear are designed for practicality and durability and are rarely replaced. The food you eat is grown very close to where you live, some of it by yourself, the rest of it by your neighbors or farmers you know. You work either from home or within an easy walk or bus ride. You don’t need or own a car. As a result of all of the above your bank account doesn’t hemorrhage your hard earned pay but creates income because you have minimal debt. And best of all your choice to live this way along with all of your neighbors has supported the worldwide grassroots movement away from crippling dependance on fossil fuels and has helped to significantly reduced carbon emissions, stabilizing global climate. All of this is possible with current technology and current knowledge. All of this is happening currently. Don’t wait for 2030. You can take steps towards it now.

There are many benefits but perhaps chief among them is that this new style of life involves less stress, more time to spend with loved ones and neighbors, time for cooking and eating healthy food, exercising, and building a healthy community. It is a lifestyle based around long term sustainability, good health, and the development of human potential for all citizens.

Studies abound pointing out that the current cult of consumerism involves much less of the above, but who needs scientific research to prove what is evident to any who care to see it. Too many hours of the day are spent earning and spending money as our class based lifestyles rely on debt. Stress related illness is rife, obesity and ill health are at pandemic proportions due to poor nutrition and minimal exercise. The divide between rich and poor, educated and ignorant, healthy and sick is widening. And worst of all, the ecosystems that support our very existence are being sacrificed to support this short term pleasure based individualistic lifestyle. It is unsustainable. There is literally no future in it.

Every step you take towards a sustainable life is progress but small steps are not enough. As I pointed out in my second post of this series we are in a tight spot.

For more about that, download the WWF report “Weathercocks and Signposts”
We have a very short time to make very big changes.

In the next post I will look in more detail at some characteristics of a sustainable lifestyle.

For more about Grace Lee Boggs see:
http://www.milwaukeerenaissance.com/GraceLeeBoggs/HomePage

Free from Power Day

A monthly holiday in celebration of simplicity

This is an opportunity to express your willingness to consume less power in the form of electricity, fossil fuels, and products reliant upon them. It is also, a declaration of independence from the power of consumerism and media.

With a simpler life comes time to spend with loved ones, to exercise, to meditate, to work in the garden, to observe the rhythms of nature. With diligence you will discover how preferable is a life uncluttered by the superfluous trappings of the cult of consumerism.

By making this a monthly commitment you are more likely to adopt some level of these changes in everyday life than if it was less frequent, it stands to reason that adopting this action once a week, should you so choose, would be even more effective.

Thus on the first Saturday of every month:
1. Freedom from the power grid for entire day. Zero personal use of electricity delivered via the national grid.
2. Freedom from the fossil fuel use grid. Zero personal use of fossil fuels, no cars, buses, planes or trains fueled by fossil fuels. No cooking using fossil fuels or refridgerated food. No bathing or showering unless from rainwater heated renewably.
3. Freedom from Consumerism and media. No shopping, banking, television, radio, mp3, cell phone, land line phone, computer, or printed media usage.

This action developed out of a group discussion on the celsias.com thread started by John P. called “Can our economy grow forever?”. Everyone who commented on that thread has contributed to it’s development.

Choices

This is the next post from my series on the Sheffield Star online Green Scene section.

In my last post I presented some recent climate science to help establish the context within which we face perhaps the most important and yet mundane choices we will make. Important in that our choices will resonate down the ages just as those our forefathers made in choosing to build an economy based on fossil fuels. Mundane in that they involve the most basic of choices we make on a daily basis but which could move us beyond our dependence on fossil fuels. Whether our forefathers are to be held to blame for their choices is not at issue, whether or not we will be held accountable is, because we know the consequences of our choice.

In our own lifetimes we are likely to see major changes in our planet come about just from the damage we have allowed to occur up to now. If we don’t make major changes in the way we go about the business of our lives we will induce far worse changes to come about after we are gone.

So do we choose to address this personally or do we leave it up to governments and corporations? Will governments and corporations choose to address this if we don’t address it on a personal level? I don’t think so. The scale of the change necessary requires both. This means that each and every one of us must make changes in the way we live. We’ve done it before in the face of catastrophe,namely WWII, we can do it again.

On BBC’s Countryfile I recently learned about the scallop fishery of Lyme Bay. 60nm2 of the bay are being closed to dredging in an attempt to restore the coral ecosystem of the bay upon which the fisheries depend. A fisherman was lamenting the loss of a way of life he and his family had pursued for many years but acknowledged that he could change to another type of fishing. It will cost money to do so and the government should help with that, after all they allowed the damage to continue for so long that such drastic action became necessary.

This one instance is a microcosm of the choices we face. If we get lost in trying preserve a way of life that is destroying the ecosystems that support us we will fail. This realisation must pervade our every decision. It is going to be difficult. It will be hard for the politicians to do the right thing if we aren’t willing to demonstrate that we understand the sacrifices necessary.

"It is no use saying 'We are doing our best' you have got to succeed at doing what is necessary" - Winston Churchill



For more about the Lyme Bay issue see:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7464585.stm

Off grid living, well!

Life off the electricity grid, using renewable energy, with best selling author William "Bill" Kemp and his wife, living the good life with a low impact on the planet.



These folks live an average western lifestyle in a cold climate with all the comforts but they do it completely off grid; highly sustainable, low carbon (relative to the usual family in Ontario), and obviously quite happy and comfortable.