What to do about New York City

Greetings from the East Coast! I am currently chilling in my country house in the town of Monterey, Massachusetts, in a region called the Berkshires. I have been eating locally raised farm food, took a hike earlier today, and convinced my parents to buy a compost bin. I even collected my own eggs from the locally renowned Gould's farm. Last evening, three cows escaped from the farm and made their way into our front yard. This area is lush, humid, and relaxing. It has been a great weekend so far.

But the city I entered, New York, is a far cry from this picturesque, weekend cottage I am lounging in. I love New York. I love it so much that I want to change the habits and conventions that touch on issues of sustainability so it can be an even better, stronger, healthier city. The tools and facts our Sustainability FRINQ has equipped me with scrutinizing every minute of my stay in NYC. I have whipped out the words of Michael Pollan, Elizabeth Kolbert, Paul Hawken and David MacKay in many conversations the last two days.

I took a taxi from the airport and threw away lots of disposable, plastic cups, plates and utensils. The smog I could see lingering in the air looked worse than LA. Walking several blocks down 6th avenue from 34th to 27th, I passed and saw more people than I have in my entirety of living in Portland (this is a comedic guess). New York has a lot of people. Cigarette butts, smog, trash, trucks, and blocks of skyscrapers are all evidence of New York's huge impact on the planet.

One of the first things New York can do to become more sustainable is to emphasize public transit and biking over cars. Currently, riding a bicycle is very dangerous but Mayor Bloomberg is working hard to put in more bike lanes. Second, we can all reduce the amount of waste we create. There are so many plastic bags, disposable eating utensils, water bottles, coffee cups, and cigarette butts everywhere. Again, the mayor is limiting the amount of space smoking is allowed in which discourages smoking and will cut out waste. I would like to see more businesses and the city promoting the practice of bringing along more reusable items and making recycling easier and standard. Another huge step the city must take is reducing the amount of energy every building needs and making the energy we do need clean and safe for the environment. There is a lot of underutilized roof space that would soak up New York's constant sunshine.

New York is the best city in the world. It's also an island city in threat of melting ice caps. I don't want to see it under 20 feet of water because of laziness and greed. It's time for New York to lead the world in sustainability. New York's battle with the sea level depends on the actions we all make today.

I just got a compost bin!

While taking a break today from Zipcar at the Kenton Street Fair, I stopped by a tent called "Sustainability Now" and bought myself a compost bin! It's pretty cool. A quarter of the bin was produced from recycled plastic and compared to China it was locally produced in Canada. Thanks to its useful handle, I used it as a basket to collect some literature at various tents about sustainable projects and ideas from around Portland. When I got back to my dorm, I saw my floor RA in the common area making carrot juice for everyone. I asked for some but the machine she was grinding the carrots with was starting to malfunction. Once we took the lid off, we discovered the grinder was nearly full to the brim with carrot pulp. My RA proceeded to sigh, "If only I had a compost bin". Ian to the rescue! I retrieved my new compost bin and put it to use just hours after purchasing it. The bin is completely full of grainy carrot mass. We tried making small snowmen (I guess in this case carrotmen) out of the stuff. Tomorrow morning I will dump out the compost in my dining hall. I'm glad that my compost bin can be of good use from day one!

The Future of Society & Infrastructure

This week in Sustainability, we discussed the energy needed to power our homes, buildings, and cities. David MacKay’s “Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air” is revealing, chapter by chapter, how much energy is wasted in each area of modern, urban infrastructure and the most effective ways of solving our unsustainable energy demands. We over-consume and waste so much energy it is not even funny. There are so many small and big changes we could be doing that would lower our existing energy requirements and then change the remaining energy to clean energy. I have recently started emailing my family the link to MacKay’s website. MacKay’s book is free, it is important and I believe every modernized American should read this. 

We also watched the documentary “Deep Green”. I really enjoyed the parts in the movie that focused on Portland. Watching scenes of our city featured in a documentary on sustainability is expected but always heartwarming. I was pleasantly surprised to learn of the lessened energy demands by the OHSU building down on the waterfront. I was unaware of their LEED Platinum achievement. Towards the end of the segment featuring this building, the documentary narrator said something around the lines of “We need to stop seeing buildings as independent energy suckers but as a part of a network of buildings and people”. This concept really stuck to my brain. It got me thinking about cities and the future of green infrastructure.

We need to radically reduce the energy demands of every building and person. Science and technology will help us create solutions that lessen our energy demands. The thousands of already existing buildings and homes need to be retrofitted so their energy demands are cut by 3/4. For future buildings, there should be some serious energy standards that they are held to strictly so that off the bat, new buildings are consuming less and impacting less. What happens next is that we start putting solar energy collection systems and wind energy collection systems on roofs, outside, walls, and any structure that is vacant and available for energy collection. Once there is energy flowing everywhere, then we can just have free energy that connects everywhere. The next phase is reducing the amount of transportation vehicles that run on fossil fuels. Let’s embrace bicycles, public transportation, and electric vehicles like never before (electric vehicles will pay for their own energy). Finally, let’s transform any unused flat, horizontal area into greenery and tree space. Luckily Portland probably won’t deal with the projected flooding that is heading for New York and Miami, but every city should change its building energy demands, transportation style, and its relation to nature to mitigate and adapt to our changing climate. I am hopeful and optimistic for the future of cities. I will use my hands and voice to make cities greener everywhere.

The Urgency of Climate Change

Today, I was a part of my first protest march. Across the nation, young people are coming together under the banner of “iMatter” to take hold of their future and advocate for getting off of fossil fuels. I wore my “Go Green” tee shirt, held up several picket signs with images of trees and flooded cities on them, and chanted with a bunch of people who share my values of stopping climate change. It was really fun and exciting. We were standing near the Farmers’ Market near Cramer Hall and we must have reached a lot of people because several farmers and officials came up to us asking if we could be quiet. “No”, I responded, “We can’t be quiet, but we can be respectful.” 

This week’s assigned readings of David MacKay’s “Sustainable Energy - Without Hot Air” is really making me realize the urgency of climate change. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading Paul Hawken’s beautifully written “Blessed Unrest”, but the raw numbers and reality around climate change and fossil fuels that David MacKay has creatively hosted for free online is a much more real call to action. “Blessed Unrest” is in a way very last century. It’s a physical book I had to pay for, it tries to reach into my heart and place ethical descriptions, and Hawken himself is probably making money off of it. MacKay’s online text on the other hand couldn’t be more well-suited for the 21st century digital age. It’s online, it’s free, and it’s advocating for urgent, dramatic changes. 

At the end of today’s march, we came to a park where a couple people from our march would enter an amphitheater-like platform and give a small speech. After listening to some friends’ speeches about stopping the use of fossil fuels, it was my turn to get up and say something. Looking out at about 20 people in front of me, off the cuff I started to talk about spreading sustainability. I said, “Even though it is easy and more attainable to talk to our friends who already share the same green lifestyle that we all advocate for, we must go farther than just those people. The only way we will get off fossil fuels is if we start talking to everyone, especially those who don’t want to listen or change their lifestyles. This whole planet is in this together and we will all have to figure out how to get off of oil. This isn’t a democrat or a republican issue. This is a human issue.”

Hopefully, I will be a part of many more marches, protests, and movements to come. Until then, I will be talking to my stubborn family about riding bicycles more often.

Separation of Corporation and State

I am disgusted by the information I learned about corporations this week in the chapter “The Rights of Businesses” of Paul Hawken’s “Blessed Unrest”. The efforts of small groups such as the Luddites who were trying to ensure security in their field of work against the textile machines and child labor who were overwhelming their professional abilities are inspiring (Hawken 60). They fought against the profit-greedy textile giants and were framed by spies in burning incidents, which led to their deaths (Hawken 61).  The way this group was treated by young corporate giants in response to industrial changes in society is embarrassing for anyone who has ever bought clothing from an industrial corporation (all of us).

How should we approach corporations? What can we realistically do? Corporations are a major component of our everyday lives as Americans in the 21st century global economy. It’s awkward to cast all corporations in an evil light when some have different goals. It’s nearly impossible at this day and age to do away with all corporate influence in one’s life. However, if one corporation is capable of swaying the history of the USA and ultimately the fate of the globe for its own interests and profits, then anyone could possibly have influence. This is a serious problem to humanity and the well-being of life everywhere. 

I was very much struck by this sentence on page 67: “That person would question the rights of businesses and would ask that the concept of the separation of church and state be enlarged to include the separation of corporation and state”. Our country’s government is here to serve the interests of the people. We have removed the influence of the church (which is still trying to hold on as much as possible, *cough* gay marriage *cough*) and now we face the challenge of eradicating the influence, corruption and control by corporations and their never-ending flow of money. An America that only serves to better the lives of its people would rid itself of a fossil fuel-based economy because it would know how harmful and detrimental oil, coal, and the energy demanded by their presence is on the lives of future generations.

America is already starting to see less of corporations and their profit-driven quests. Today, my mother and I walked around Portland’s Saturday Farmers’ Market in the Park Blocks. We hopped from tent to tent where we picked up wild fiddlehead ferns, organic milk and cheese, and beautiful flowers for Mother’s Day. I inquired into the official Farmers’ Market tent where I learned that they are a non-profit organization of people and farmers who care about eating healthy, nutritional, and delicious food while not sacrificing the integrity and stability of the environment by spraying pesticides, seeping nitrogen fertilizer into the ground, and mistreating animals. They have asked themselves tough questions that pry at their values of health, community, and life. They have answered with a wildly successful, farmers’ market that serves the city and the land. They have made non-profit possible. 

Reflection: Leave No Trace

On Tuesday April 26, my film group and I had the opportunity to interview Nastassja “Staj” Pace, the chair of the Portland chapter for the Surfrider Foundation. This foundation is an environmentalist group that strives to preserve healthy and clean oceans and beaches, free of pollution and destruction. Surfrider was started in the 1980s by a handful of surfers who were outraged and disgusted by the physical litter and pollution, mainly plastic that was washing up on their Californian shores and muddling the very waves they were riding. Staj herself is a surfer who was affected by the presence of litter she was discovering on beaches in South America. The plastic and other forms of waste weren’t coming from the native populations. Where was all of this junk coming from? It is coming from us, all the wasteful consumers in industrial, consuming societies. One thing we can do without: single use plastic bags. Surfrider is pushing the “Ban the Bag” campaign, along with other groups. They are working hard to make our beautiful oceans clean, safe, and plastic free.

When I was 16 years old, I came to the realization that my life was not heading in the right direction. I wasn’t fulfilling the greatness and outreach I wanted to achieve. I was unhappy. Parties and silly teenage activities can only go on for so long. This all changed when a man named Danny O’Brien came to my school and talked to my class about leaving everything we knew for a junior year semester away program. He had traveled all the way from the High Mountain Institute in Leadville, Colorado. He told us about backpacking expeditions, leadership, adventure, community, and personal discovery. I was sitting on the edge of my seat.  A lightning bolt had hit me.

I don’t think I really understood what backpacking meant when the day of the first expedition finally came. I had never carried a large backpack before, let alone prepared for a 2-week expedition into the Rocky Mountains. I was in for the ride of my life. There were other concepts and activities that were new as well: community, responsibility, and leadership, to name a few. I had never really understood the full scope and importance of these values before. There was another important area that I hadn’t encountered: Environmental Ethics. The most important ethic, which we were taught on this expedition, was “Leave No Trace”. Usually applied to hiking, backpacking, and camping, LNT is a mindset and group of rules that aims to leave a small impact on the environment traveled through and maintains an amazing outdoor experience for all who come to visit. This concept has stayed with me ever since. To not leave a trace…could it be applied beyond camping? Could I use this concept back home in New York, not just on the summit of a 14er? 

LNT is a guiding principle in my life today. Listening to Staj talk about how she got involved with Surfrider and previously the Leave No Trace Center inspired a real dedication and commitment in my soul to sustainability and impact reduction. Once the interview ended, I inquired into the volunteering possibilities at Surfrider. Tomorrow afternoon I will attend my first event as a Surfrider volunteer. Leaving no trace is not just a concept that applies to the mountains of Colorado. It can be applied to the shores of California, the forests of Oregon, and the marshes of Louisiana. It must be taken farther. Cities, towns, suburbs, malls. All of these centers of human interaction need to lower their impact and leave no trace. I am committed to joining and even starting social and environmental activist groups that will lower the impact we have on the planet, reduce our wasteful practices, and preserve the happiness, health, and security of all creatures on this Earth.

How I will change the world starts with three little words: leave no trace.

Earth Day

It is Earth Day 2011. What a glorious day it is here in Portland, Oregon. The sun is shining, there are people out in the streets, and the park blocks at Portland State University are hosting a few dozen environmental groups working hard to make our world more sustainable. I talked to many of these groups, all having goals ranging from wilderness certification and energy conservation to banning plastic bags and ripping invasive ivy out of Oregonian forests. They all differ in experience, popularity, and knowledge but they all have a vision of a healthier and greener Earth that they’ll stop at nothing to make a reality. They’re changing the world, one mission statement at a time.

The practice of infuriated and empowered citizens advocating to improve humanity and the planet started not so long ago. This week in my Sustainability class, I learned about the Anti-Slave Trade, Abolitionist, and Congo Reform Association movements. These movements were initiated and carried on the backs of men and women who had no physical connection to the exploited and abused Africans they were advocating for. In the case of the Congo Reform Association, Edmund D. Morel and many other supporters never even traveled to the Congo. Although regulations and realistic travel abilities held those advocates from entering Africa, human empathy and dedication were able to seep into the minds and conversations across Europe and America. This stirring in the globe was able to release the Congo from King Leopold’s torturing grip. The Congo Reform Association stood up to an injustice and made the world a better place.

How can I make the world a better place? What injustice lingers in the world today? I am going to dedicate my life to reducing waste. The common garbage landfill is evil and represents a dark side of our consumer culture. I believe that all of the materials humans use should be recyclable, bio-degradable, and/or compostable. The three Rs in the waste management triangle are essential and important: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. The use of petroleum and other non-renewable resources must be seriously regulated. Singe use, disposable plastic items make no sense. A popular campaign happening currently, and one that I have personally worked on, is the “Ban the Bag” campaign.  Plastic bags are polluting natural environments like the ocean. They don’t break down, they are killing animals, and they are completely substitutable. This campaign represents a progression in campaigning and ethics: we are now fighting for the rights of non-human animals, non-sentient plants, and non-human ecosystems. I am excited and inspired to see what will happen over the course of my lifetime.

I will end with a quote from one of my favorite philosophers, Aldo Leopold. "A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise." Humans have an amazing position as being the only organism on the planet that has the power to stop and consider the impact and ethics of our choices and actions. We can all choose to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community which we are all apart of. Edmund D. Morel improved the biotic community in 1904 and I shall continue this beautiful practice today in 2011. Thank you.