Climate March: February. Turn Down the Heat!

In the Mid 1970s, Jimmy Carter installed solar panels on the White House and purchased some cardigans. “Turn down the heat. Put on a sweater,” he said. “Conserve energy.” We did. The Reagan took the solar panels off and the ideas of conservation fell by the wayside. But they are still valid—conservation is the best way to prevent Climate Change and save money. Energy that we do not use does not need to be generated. So, I am back to the original idea. Turn down the heat. But, when you do, you need to make some changes in your home so that it does not feel cold and unwelcoming.

Dress for the weather.

1.       When you come home, change your socks. They may not feel damp, but they usually are. Damp socks mean cold feet.

2.       Put on a light weight wool hat or a sweater.

3.       Eat warm, home made food for dinner.

Dress your house to feel cozy. Even as a renter, you can do these things!

1.       Have afghans and blankets around to pull over your feet or shoulders when you are sitting still.

2.       When you replace your lightbulbs, make sure that you are using warm light, rather than cool light. Many older LED lights are very blue, which makes the space feel colder. Pay close attention to overhead bulbs, especially.

3.       If you can, paint the walls warm clear colors, not shades of blue grey or bright white. If you can’t paint (and, as a renter, I painted regularly, not always with permission) then bring in warm colors in other ways.

4.       Light a candle in the evening.

5.       Close curtains at night to keep out the drafts. Open during the day for the light.

Insulate! Save energy and have a quieter home.

1.       Start from the top. Ceiling, then windows, walls, then floor. Plug the chimney.

2.       Weather-stripping is great to seal leaks around the doors.

3.       Clear plastic stretched tightly across windows helps keep the cold out.

4.       Curtains will also help keep the cold out.

Climate March: Menu planning to reduce food waste

One of my goals for the year, related to Climate Action. A monthly post, around a theme, of household actions to reduce climate change. Small ideas, it is true, but, “step by step, the longest march can be won.”

“No Food Left Behind” is the name of a local initiative which teaches people how to both store fresh food more effectively and compost the (hopefully limited) remains. They give out lovely countertop compost buckets. I have one for my classroom. At home, we use an ancient yogurt container. Both topics are important, but pre-planning is also essential, especially if you are trying to eat mostly local foods.  Reducing food waste and eating closer to home are two easy, effective, inexpensive, and positive ways to mitigate—and adapt to-- climate change.

I’ve always been a menu planner. My mother taught me, although she was more of a pantry cook, working from what she had on hand every night and doing semi-weekly shopping expeditions. I pulled the meat from the freezer when I came home from school before I tackled the dishes and she cooked when she came home from work around 6:30. I sat on the counter and watched. When I left for college, I was in charge of meals in the household. Every week, we decided what we were going to eat, I made the shopping list, and we headed to the local produce and meat market. I learned, several years later, that my roommate and I were known as the “Three Chicken Legs Girls” because we always bought three legs, never breasts or thighs. Two for a dinner and one for the Thursday night soup, which gathered all of the left over rice and veg from the week.  We ate well  within our 30 dollars a week for two budget. Years later, when I shifted over to local foods, especially veggies, I returned to that more formal planning system.

Step One: What’s out there?

Start with the question.  What veggies do we have to work with right now? This week, the list reads: winter squash, onions, and potatoes in the larder, a few tomatoes n the shelf, frozen peas and corn,   canned beans, roasted  tomatoes, and sauce, garden  collards, carrots, celery, and cabbages. Salad mix later in the week.  I could dig one of the parsnips in the back yard if I wanted it. I think there is a beet or two back there as well, if the rabbit hasn’t found it. List all of the options! Check the fridge for accuracy.

Step Two: Recipes

Although I don’t use a formal recipe for every meal, I do have a file where recipes are divided into six week segments, depending upon ingredients. It’s all on notecards.   Because I’ve been working on the file for several years, it is pretty accurate.  If you are shifting to local veggies, it is important to find tasty meals that do not require red peppers in January, unless you have them frozen from August.   There are cookbooks that have used this concept for years. Check out Deborah Madison to begin.  This is really fun; good  cookbooks make excellent reading at bedtime.

Step Three: Menu planning

Lay out the week, Monday to Sunday. Note the evenings you have to be somewhere before or after dinner, so that you are not making something long and complicated on those nights. Consider making a huge pot of soup for the week’s lunches.  Put the veggies that will go bad, like greens or something that was left from the week before, early in the week.  Consider the oven—can you bake bread, a squash, and dinner quiche all at the same time? Do you need a round of beans in the crockpot?  Move your dinners around to consider all of these issues.   We are more likely to have greens and mushrooms on Monday night and save the winter squash for Thursday. Write up the final plan and hang it on the fridge as a reminder.

Step Four: Weekly Shopping

We do a Big Shop once a month, filling in all of the bulk items, dairy, and cleaning supplies. The food co-op offers a monthly discount to encourage bulk purchases and we take advantage of it. We have a list that guides us, which I update occasionally. Because of this, our weekly shopping can take place on the way home from a walk, tucked into one backpack.  Vegetables are more complex. We raise our own, store what we can for the winter, buy direct from Sunbow Farm, go to the Farmer’s Market, and then fill in what few gaps there are at the co-op.  There’s no reason for all of this complexity aside from freshness and supporting local farms; you can purchase all of your veggies from Fred Meyer’s.  

This week’s plan:

Thursday: Pasta with tomato sauce, salad.  Also, bake bread and the winter squash

Friday: Cream of Squash soup, salad

Saturday: left-over soup, toast

Sunday: Mushroom risotto, cabbage and apple salad

Monday: Chinese Buffet (New Year’s Eve!)

Tuesday: Black-eyed peas and collard greens (New  Year’s Day)

Wednesday: greens and tofu and rice

Climate Challenge, Final Thoughts

Twenty-one days of focused climate action…the results? Mixed, but positive.

It was hard, some evenings, not to consider and take action, but to turn on the computer and record it. For 21 days, I engaged with social media and the internet world every day. Usually, I turn everything off from Friday evening until about half way through Sunday, to give my mind a break. Some days, after work and meetings, I wanted to just cook dinner and read for a bit before bed, rather than being on-line.  It was a more stressful month because of this.

There were times when I felt like I was shouting into the wind. Photos of cats get dozens of likes and comments; writing to your state legislators about climate change, not so much. Maybe December is not the best month for such a serious topic, but, with all of the news, I had to take action.

Overall, though, there were far more positive moments. I’ve checked some of our data and discovered that I walk far more than I drive, unless we are leaving town. We are still focused on local, seasonal foods, although some of our basics are harder to find. We turn off the lights automatically and we are taking fewer showers. It is good to check your daily rituals.

Both Mark and I have goals that are focused on climate action for the next year. Mark is going to take on some nega-watts investigations, like putting a heat pump into our rental so that it is not using electric heat. I am planning to continue my letter-writing campaign, writing at least one letter a week to state and federal offices.   These 21 days of action have informed our discussions all month long.

 I think the best thing that has happened is that people are talking with me about climate action wherever I go. “What are you doing today?” someone asked me before a meeting. The custodian dropped by to discuss moving the staff room fridge downstairs and moved onto my compost bin. I’ve met people at meetings and our letter writing evening who are also working on the same issues.

And so, it was worth it. Walking downtown, clutching the four inch think TSP binder to my chest on a rainy Thursday afternoon, tired from school, meetings, and this work, I found myself humming Pete Seeger’s song once more.

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

Climate Challenge, Day 21: cloth bags

            Twenty five years ago, I wanted a salad spinner, but did not have room—or the money—to buy one. So, I made one. I took one of the cloth storage bags I had made for backpacking (why buy fancy ones when you can sew them for free from scraps?), put the washed greens in it, took it outside, and swung it around my head by the drawstring. Voila— clean, dry lettuce with a pre-soaked storage bag for the left-overs. And it was fun.  I never looked back.

            Now, I have a whole series of bags. The old ones finally died, so I broke out the sewing machine last summer and made some new ones. I made several from old—or kind of tacky—dish towels that I was not using. The thicker terry cloth material works really well for salad greens. I have a large one from an old tablecloth with a hole in the middle that holds huge leaves of mustard and kale, as well as smaller cooking greens. And then there are some scraps of cotton cloth bags that corral carrots, beets, and mushrooms from market to table. I weave shoelaces through a tube in the top of the bag for drawstrings so that I can pull the bag closed.

            I have found that these cloth bags work much better than plastic. Greens rot and grow slimy in plastic bags because they cannot breathe. They dry out—or tumble out of the refrigerator at awkward times—when left unwrapped and held together by the wire wrappers, which bruise the stems. But in a dampened cloth bag, greens last for over a week—which is all I ask from a vegetable. Even root crops are happier.  If one does dry out, or grow nasty because it was pushed to the far back corner of the shelf, I toss the bag into the wash and use it again. And then, when we go hiking and I need one more bag to hold the last day’s food—there they are, ready and waiting to hit the trail.

Climate Challenge, Day 20: Meeting with Sara, our state senator

Sara Gelser came to CHS this afternoon to talk with us about climate change legislation at the state level and how to communicate most effectively with our representatives. It was a nice mix f long-term activists and AP Gov students, who came for the extra credit and stayed to ask good questions.

Notes from Susan!

Meeting with Sen. Sara Gelser Hosted by Charlyn Ellis

Wednesday, December 19, 2018, 3:00 PM, Room 232 at CHS

Introduction

Top priorities in the legislature this year include clean energy jobs legislation and education (new generation investment). Climate action is in the governor's budget this session, so her agencies can talk about it and determine what they need. (They can’t if it’s not in the budget.)

Green Energy Jobs Legislation

The green energy jobs bill was introduced last year, too late for action then, but it was a “marker in the sand” for this session. It mobilized climate activists all over the state around a single focus. In addition, the legislators found new ways to talk to new people, especially low income people and those interested in the natural resources economy. Important theme: How can we use dividends from carbon to help with some of the issues those people face?

A joint carbon committee has been meeting and working on the bill introduced last session. That committee, separate from other environmental committees, includes both House and Senate.

Sara's big fear is that the alliance around clean energy jobs legislation is so broad that no one will like everything. There will have to be compromise. Implementation of offsets and credits might be a big issue. [Susan’ note: This might be one of those “don’t let the desire for perfection destroy the chance to do something good” concerns.] The tribes lead (indigenous people); they have some ideas we need to hear. The tribes want to do reforestation—looking at the timber industry and calcu­lating loss of absorption from trees that are cut. This might be a hard sell.

They are not using the term "tax." We don't know for sure what it will be called, but “offsets and credits” is a possibility. The idea is that over time, total emissions decrease. In explaining “offset,” Sara said that money could be returned to citizens or invested in other things less carbon intensive.

The bill number isn’t known yet.

There is bipartisan cooperation, and corporations are involved too. We need nuance and a level of detail that can’t occur when voters vote on something. If Oregon can pass its own climate legisla­tion, we'll be ahead when national policy is implemented.

Question: How do we help with clean energy jobs bill? Sara said to pay attention, keep writing letters, and making calls. All information about the legislation can be found online, as it becomes available.

Question: Do legislators have a sense of the climate emergency? Sara replied that some do, but not all. Many understand that it’s a problem, but they don’t feel the urgency.

Warning: Tax measures for schools and carbon reduction are sure to face opposition, with lots of outside money pouring in to influence decisions.

Surprise diversion: The legislature can't find an additional 2 or 3 billion dollars for anything without a tax increase. They are going to try to increase tax equity (reduce the inequity between low-income individuals and incorporations).

Jordan Cove: Someone asked about the legislature and Jordan Cove. Sara explained that the current situation is about permitting. The legislature doesn't vote on it.

Land Use and Building Codes

The conversation turned to land use issues and building codes for increased efficiency. House Speaker Tina Kotek is a fierce advocate for affordable housing. A big question: Are affordability and energy efficiency in opposition to each other? Also how does transportation efficiency relate? Sara wasn’t sure who knows the most about these issues—possibly Sen. Lee Beyer from Eugene.

New legislation would require cities to allow for non-single family homes on a lot—such as four small houses built around a common area. There could be single family and multi-family houses on the same lots. These strategies would allow for a lot of infill. It's false that "no one would be allowed to build single-family homes, ever."

Strategies for Letters and Email Messages

For those form messages, or even original ones, put in the subject line: [name] from [city] opposes (or supports) [bill number]. This allows staff to easily count and file messages.

A good strategy is to view the committee pages on legislative website, in order to write to all committee members.

You can sign up to get emails giving information about bills, their public hearings, etc.

How to find out what a bill’s number is: enter a keyword and the system will bring up related legislation. Remember to check both the House and the Senate.

Letter from organizations might be more effective than individual letters.

Related National News: On Wednesday, Sen. Jeff Flake (R - Arizona) and Sen. Chris Coons (D – Delaware) co-introduced the U.S. Senate’s equivalent of the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act.

Climate Challenge, Day 19: Small Fridges

We have a small refrigerator. Not a mini-fridge, like in a dorm room, but the size of appliances in the 1950s, when stoves were big and refrigerators were small. Because our house was built in 1931, the space to hold a refrigerator was small, with built-in shelves above. It is lovely, and, through all of its years as a rental, no one ever cut up the shelves and pushed a larger appliance into the space. We are lucky.  Small fridges are nice.

First, they use less energy, and cooling food is a huge energy suck. In fact, improving refrigeration is the number one action in Paul Hawkin’s book Drawdown. He’s’ not thinking on the household level, but still, we are more energy efficient.

Second, it takes up less visual space in the room. Our kitchen is small; we do not need that big blank wall of white.

Finally, and most compelling, food does not get lost in it. When I had big fridges, I’d lose leftovers in the far back corners. Tucked into an old yogurt container and they were gone. We threw out a great deal of food when we had extra space. Now, everything for the week fits in neatly and everything is touched and seen. If I am looking for the mayo, I have to move the canning jar of beans. Reminder—eat the beans!

  Occasionally, the space is filled, but that happens when we get a big old bag of greens from Sunbow Farm and I make a batch of soup.  When that happens, we put the extra food in the larder, an outside air cooled, heavily insulated space half way down the stairs. There’s already squash, fruitcake, and onions (as well as garden seeds and potatoes) in the space, so we will not forget about our greens.  Before we built the larder, we left the soup pot in the back hall.

I love the small fridge. In fact, when the big one died in our rental, we replaced it with a smaller unit.

Options: 

Clean out your fridge. A clean fridge wastes less food.

Use clear containers so that you can see what's in them.

Menu plan!

Does it NEED to be in there?

Do you NEED all of that space?