What I believe is what I do….
Sorry for the long hiatus. I’m back.
My friend Maria recently wrote a post called “Irreversible Damage” about things that anyone can do to help solve the global climate crisis. It inspired Dave and I to look at our own lives and think about things we do and things we want to do to minimize the damage we do to the earth.
On a quick side note:
I had an environmental studies professor in college who used to say that he did not like to use the word environment when discussing the idea of taking care of the earth; he preferred the word creation. His reasoning was this: environment means everything around us, it’s something that we are separate from. Creation includes us. It better encapsulates the truth that we are inextricably entwined with everything in nature; we are, in fact, a piece of it ourselves. Caring for creation is not the same as cleaning up your house, it’s more like making sure that you and your family are safe, healthy, and well taken care of.
And now, for a few tips. I will try not to repeat any of Maria’s, so please take the time to read hers as well.
Things we do at home:
1. Reuse - One thing we’ve been trying to do is reuse things, especially containers. I have become a collector of glass jars. Right now we don’t have much storage space, so they sit on top of our microwave, which is on top of our refrigerator. We use them for storing things like olive oil, coffee, popping corn, and homemade pizza sauce. We gave some homemade gifts for Christmas, one of which included a jar of pizza sauce - it was great to have one on hand to give away. Recycling is great, but reusing is even better - it saves all of the processing costs and energy required to melt down the old jars and make new ones.
2. Use things that last - we’ve switched from plastic storage containers to glass pyrex storage containers. They’re great for two reasons: one, we don’t worry about strange chemicals leaching into our food, and two, they last FOREVER. They don’t get broken down by acidic foods (like tomato based products) like many plastic containers do. They don’t start to stink when you leave your garlic pasta in them for too long. And they don’t bend out of shape when you put them in the microwave.
3. Avoid disposables - along the same lines as tip #2, try to buy things that you can use over and over instead of just once. We have been married for over 6 months now, and we’ve never purchased a paper napkin. However, we do use napkins with every meal. We have a set of cloth napkins, so we each have one at our “spot” at the table for when we are messy eaters. We throw them in the laundry once a week or so, whenever we’re washing anyway. Along the same lines, avoid paper towels at all costs. We’ve torn up a couple of old towels to use as rags. So far in our married life, we have used a total of one and a half rolls of paper towels. We’re trying to cut down.
4. Pool and combine - I live too far from work to walk or bike conveniently, but I have a coworker who lives nearby. We carpool regularly, which saves on gas - helping the environment and our bank accounts. Another way to save on gas if you need to drive is to combine trips. Don’t drive just to the grocery store - go on your way home from church, and bring along those overdue library books so you can drop them off on the way. This has the added benefit of saving time - plan ahead so you can make fewer trips.
5. Buy local - We have the advantage of living in California where this is convenient, but we do our best to buy local produce. Buying locally saves a lot of energy spent on shipping produce all over the country and world, as well as supporting local agriculture. We’ve also had the added fun of buying seasonally, which makes cooking a bit more exciting.
6. Air dry - whenever possible, hang your clothes up to dry. It’s not always convenient, but it’s usually more possible than you’d think. Our apartment is often full of clothes - small things on the drying rack, shirts on hangers hanging from the shower rod, T-shirts draped over chairs and lights and doorknobs.
7. Save water - there’s always room for creativity when it comes to saving water. Shorter showers and washing dishes by hand are some good ways, but have you ever thought about how much water you flush down the toilet? Most toilets take a gallon or two every time you flush. We jammed a milk carton into our toilet tank so it would take less water to fill - and it still flushes just fine.
Things I do at work:
8. Keep it cold/hot - We may live in sunny California, but that doesn’t mean that it’s always warm and toasty. I have control over the thermostat in my classroom, so I have decided to turn it off every afternoon when I leave from school. The lowest it’s been when I’ve gotten there is 40 degrees - the day I took this picture it was 44. That makes for a chilly start to the day - I hug my mug of tea as my frozen fingers tap the keyboard on my computer, and the kids often whine when they arrive. But things heat up pretty quickly, all the way up to 62 or 63, which is the highest I’ll heat it to. [I’ll have you know that this can be done in the frigid north country as well - growing up in Wisconsin our house never got above 64 in the winter, and it went down to 48 at night. Buy slippers and a thick sweater, it’s not so bad.] The problem in California is that by the end of the day the classroom is stuffy and hot. I do my best to open the door and turn on the fan in order to avoid the AC, and use it only as a last resort when I can see my students’ eyes start to glaze as they melt into their desks.
9. Reduce - the best way to save the planet is to minimize your consumption. An easy way for a teacher to do that is to make class sets of materials, instead of copies for each student. When copying a grammar packet, I made 36 instead of 180. This saves quite a few trees, but it can be tricky to convince students that packets need to be taken care of. I explained why I chose to do that in my sixth period class, and got a loud cheer from one corner of the room - maybe the other students will start to catch on.
10. Reuse - one easy way I reuse is to tear up paper that I’ve used only one side of (we go through a lot of paper in the teaching business) and use it as scrap paper for writing notes for myself or passes for students. This is an easy thing to do at home as well.
11. Recycle - My school does not currently have recycling. I keep a stack of papers and boxes in the corner so that I can take them home and recycle them there.
12. Unplug and shutdown - I want to reiterate this tip by Maria - it’s important to shutdown your computer at night (and especially over the weekend) and to unplug things that stay on standby when they’re turned off. I do this at school as well as at home.
Dave and I are still in the learning process on all of this. We are by no means experts. It is a very difficult to live out what you believe. I am reminded of what Don Miller says in Blue Like Jazz, “What I believe is not what I say I believe; what I believe is what I do.”
There are a number of things that I want to work on so that I can better care for creation:
1. Take shorter showers.
2. Put in more CFL bulbs.
3. Buy used, not new.
4. Buy smart, not cheap - the cheapest isn’t always the best.
5. Put care over convenience - don’t drive somewhere walkable, even if it’s a little bit faster.
I’d love to get some more ideas if anyone has any! Thanks Maria, for your inspiration. Let’s keep this conversation going.