Climate Challenge, Day One: Record keeping

               I am obsessive about record keeping. I’ll admit it. We track our solar production every week. I compare all of our bills to last year and spend hours quizzing Mark if they go up. I plan our meals, based on seasonal produce. Before we shifted over to local food, I tracked our groceries for a year; I knew that we needed about forty pounds of oatmeal for a year’s worth of breakfasts. I have tracked our percentages of very local, 100 miles, and distant food several times. I know what I have canned and dried each year. I keep a list of all the books I read (often rated).

I have systems as well. We use a daily/weekly/monthly cleaning chart. All of my recipes are divided by season.  We have packing lists for a backpacking trip as well as camping in the Ark.  I was trained this way. I poured over my mother’s 1957 Betty Crocker cookbook for hours; I was in charge of the weekly cleaning, laundry, and grocery shopping while I was still in junior high. My mother worked and cooked dinner. I did the rest, as well as my homework. It was a fair division of labor.

                I mention this because it has made a huge difference in our ability to reduce our ecological footprint.  Knowing what you are working with and where you are starting allows you to make clearer decisions and to track progress. It’s good to revisit tracking after a few years, just to keep yourself  honest! This week, I am going to track some data:  steps taken vs. miles driven, a trash and recycling audit on Saturday morning (cleaning day), and how far our food has traveled, for a week.

Options:

Track data. Consider food, gas, electrical use, trash…whatever you want to reduce. Knowledge is power.

If you have a smart meter, do online, create an account and start poking around....where are your peaks and lows? What creates them? What can you do to cut back?

The Rains

The rains arrived this week. Although it has been a lovely fall, with sunlight and dry air, we all breathed a sigh of relief. Rain in November is normal, but can be challenging emotionally. It's dark, and damp, and cold for weeks. What to do?

1. Go outside, even in the rain.
2. Wear wool socks and skate around the house.
3. Sleep a little later. It's normal to hibernate in dark cold times.
4. Visit.
5. Eat baked potatoes and sturdy green salads for dinner.

Step by Step-- Climate Challenge

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXwM3pJFqAc

We are moving into a dark time, both in the seasonal year, and, on a larger scale, the ecological realm. We have, very recently, received another report from the IPCC which states that we have 10-15 years to reduce our carbon emissions by 45 percent, and they have to be at zero by 2050 if we do not want to send the entire planet into climate disaster. If we do not heed this, our planet will be dark—and for far longer than the time between now and the Winter Solstice, when the light begins to return to the natural world. What do we do, what can we do, in the face of this disastrous report? I think Pete Seeger has the answer.

Step by step, the longest march
Can be won, can be won
Many stones can form an arch
Singly none, singly none
And by union what we will
Can be accomplished still
Drops of water turn a mill
Singly none, singly none

This is not an easy answer. It requires constant, steady, hard work. Long marches—not a circle around the courthouse— are both physical and emotional trials. Building arches with stones will bash and bruise fingers and souls in the process. Drops of water will not only turn a mill, but wear away the stones, given enough time. Building unions is the most difficult work I can imagine because it means reaching across battle lines, listening to others, working together, work perhaps best done while constructing the stone arches. This very necessary action  is our constant, daily work in the coming ten years, if we want a decent home for ourselves and our children’s children, as well as all other living creatures.

How to begin? For me, the light begins to return on December 22^nd, the morning after the Winter Solstice. After spending Solstice Night by candle and fire light, after a long, cold, damp walk in the winter woods, after a day of self-imposed silence, we turn on lights and music, eat whole wheat pancakes, and begin the celebration of Yule, that mid-winter pause when the sun is far away, but community is near. Between now and then is a dark time—Advent for some, as they count down the days until Christmas-- before  the return of the sun. It is a good time to take action, to establish the practices that will become our goals, set on the Solstice in our house, for the coming year.

So this is my plan. Every day, from November 30^th until December 21^st, I will take action on climate change. I will also note it here, so that I am held accountable! Every action, in and of itself, is a small drop of water against the wheel of the problem. I know that. But, I also know that, ”in union, what we will can be accomplished still.” So, this time, I am not wanting to act alone. The song is sung as a round; please join me in this work. Together, we can push back against the coming dark times.

November Days

My November Guest My Sorrow, when she's here with me, Thinks these dark days of autumn rain Are beautiful as days can be; She loves the bare, the withered tree; She walked the sodden pasture lane. Her pleasure will not let me stay. She talks and I am fain to list: She's glad the birds are gone away, She's glad her simple worsted gray Is silver now with clinging mist. The desolate, deserted trees, The faded earth, the heavy sky, The beauties she so truly sees, She thinks I have no eye for these, And vexes me for reason why. Not yesterday I learned to know The love of bare November days Before the coming of the snow, But it were vain to tell her so, And they are better for her praise. Robert Frost   Fig tree, November 4th             I have always loved this poem. It haunted me when I lived with maple trees in the back yard and watched the leaves fall in late October; it followed me West to  this cloudy, misty land where I live now. November can be a hard month as the darkness closes in, but, when I am outside, walking in the woods, she praises the world just as she did for Robert Frost one hundred years ago.