Category: environment, activism

Urban Greens

by Marika Stone, posted in Carbon Footprint, environment, activism

You often hear people dismiss the option of individual action when it comes to impacting climate crisis now being previewed in the less developed part of the world. But you won’t hear that from me, the tree hugger of the family, though I can’t claim anything approaching a perfect record. I did, after all, spend at least a decade helping a client put those PET bottles and packaging into our shopping carts and refrigerators, not to mention virtually every jogger’s hand. That was after I helped another client promote a technology that most certainly contributed to over-fishing.

Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t making any big decisions. Just one of the little people on the team who wrote and placed stories, came up with new ideas for a trade show, in other words, contributed to business as usual. As a grandson recently remarked about a past event: there’s no changing that. Indeed. It’s only in the present that we make choices that affect the future.

Which brings me back to the title of this post. Some months ago, we stumbled upon Urban Greens Co-op Market in Providence, RI, where we escape from Florida’s summers (and hurricanes). As a former food co-op member, my inner hippie finds the Birkenstock-and-beards vibe familiar (and like family). So does the beautiful produce from local farmers, the free trade coffee, the pasture-raised meats, free-range eggs, nutraceuticals — you get the picture. Yes, Whole Foods (Providence has two) offers many of these items, and even occasionally someone helpful enough to check stock for an item missing from the shelf. But Urban Greens is an oasis in what is commonly known as a food desert of mom-and-pop convenience outfits offering sodas, bagged snacks, candy bars as food. Walking in that neighborhood at a hour when the high school opens, it’s obvious what many teens take for breakfast. Fingers crossed the cafeterias offer a hot meal, salad, fresh fruit.

As problems go, nutrition of children isn’t in the top ten these days, but guess what? It matters. A whole lot. To our future. On this, I’m with British chef, Jamie Oliver, who briefly imported his successful Feed Me Better school campaign to U.S. schools. I’m also a huge fan of Chef Jose Andres whose World Central Kitchen provides free meals during disasters, weather- and pandemic-related.

Membership in Urban Greens is (to us reasonable) $160/year or $40/year over 4 years and it also offers a Food-For-All Membership of $80/year for households that meet federal low-income guidelines. You don’t have to be a member to shop there, just pay more. And, it supports women- and minority-owned businesses.

Yes, this individual choice may seem a very small step in the wicked problem of how we adapt — mitigate isn’t even an option, according to most climate scientists — to our future on a hotter, dryer, less hospitable, planet. Perhaps not the equivalent of choosing to fly less, or not at all. Hold that aviation analogy in your mind for a moment: where we buy our food could be one of those choices that makes the difference between slowing down to a glide and softer landing vs. a nose-dive.

Something There is That Doesn’t Love a Tree

by Marika Stone, posted in environment, activism, poetry, So Little Time

I stopped once to hear a sitar
played in a leafy shade.
A carpet had been laid to soften
spreading roots, and when the musician
paused, he rested his instrument
against a sturdy trunk.

Felled for a utility pole, says the young gardener
with outraged face. Couldn’t they
have found another place?

Now, where just a week before
we gathered in uncommon grace,
a stump and side-lying trunk.
Growth rings slowly weep sap.
Severed branches collect in a heap.

Something there is that doesn’t love a tree,
that sees only expendability; sees logs,
split and stacked for firewood;
sees timber, 2 X 4’s, cash.

That looks at shade and wants full sun;
that wants to make way for a lawn,
a fairway, a putting green.

©July 29, 2020
#68 of my 100 Poem Pandemic Challenge

Revised 1/12/21 with Susanna Rich

Some Things That Happen…

by Marika Stone, posted in environment, activism, Joanna Macy, Work That Reconnects

For the First Time/Seem to Be Happening Again.
~ Where Or When, Rodgers and Hart

Skepticism is a service I could offer. Maybe I could put it on a t-shirt in my next life as a t-shirt artist. Seriously, I earned it early and honestly, a divergent path when I was about 12, reading The Diary of a Young Girl. School assignment or not, Anne’s journal and her terrible fate riveted me. How could it be, I remember asking my agnostic, worldly father, that the Pope who my Catholic faith preached was “infallible,” had done nothing to save Anne Frank and the other Jews of Europe? He looked at me, then away with sadness in his eyes: “It’s complicated.” For him, personally, at the time it was indeed. My mother was a devout Catholic and he had promised to let her raise me as one. He went on to say that a lot of good people could not, or would not, see what was happening in Hitler’s Germany until it was too late to save millions of people. Yes, we won that war, but it was, he said, “a very dark time.”

We are in a dark time now, for some of the same reasons: good people choosing to avert their eyes to and shirk responsibility for what is happening to our planetary home. The most egregious example of this is the forthcoming series of ‘debates’ — if it even deserves the term — where Democratic presidential hopefuls barely mention climate breakdown so widely reported in mainstream media. I have no words to describe the failures in this regard of the other party which, according to California Governor, Gavin Newsom, is finished.

I will support and vote for a candidate who runs against this incumbency, but I am deeply skeptical any candidate has enough street cred for the coming climate emergency in real time. I worry that, as Katrina made evident in New Orleans, it will again be people who have the least to begin with, who suffer the most. As climate impacts multiply, it will be those who can’t afford nutritious food, reliable shelter, medical care, let alone property insurance, secure neighborhoods, escape strategies, or the luxury of climigration (if it comes to that) who will take the hit first and hardest.

Blue Marble

This is front of mind because in my last Zoom class in Joanna Macy’s Work That Reconnects, we spent a lot of time talking about the appropriate humility and openness we must bring to our work with marginalized population groups. Think about it: for indigenous peoples, extinction isn’t exactly a new concept. As facilitators, we’ll need to listen deeply, put in the time to build relationships and trust before we can offer anything else. I am hopeful that, as an immigrant and person of mixed-race, I might have a helpful perspective.

There will always be those who say our current predicament is too complicated to understand. Actually, it is very simple: unwittingly perhaps but more willfully now (despite warnings), we have built a global civilization that, as Joanna Macy puts it, has made of the earth our ‘supply house and sewer.’ This is, as one of my grandsons wisely put it, ‘not a partisan problem’ we face. We got here together and if we are able to turn back from the brink, it will take all of us. May it be so.

Prayer for Future Beings

You live inside us, beings of the future.

In the spiral ribbons of our cells, you are here.  In our rage for the burning forests, the poisoned fields, the oil-drowned seals, you are here.  You beat in our hearts through late-night meetings.  You accompany us to clear-cuts and toxic dumps and the halls of the lawmakers.  It is you who drive our dogged labors to save what is left.

O you who will walk this Earth when we are gone, stir us awake.  Behold through our eyes the beauty of this world.  Let us feel your breath in our lungs, your cry in our throat.  Let us see you in the poor, the homeless, the sick.  Haunt us with your hunger, hound us with your claims, that we may honor the life that links us.

You have as yet no faces we can see, no names we can say.  But we need only hold you in our mind, and you teach us patience.  You attune us to measures of time where healing can happen, where soil and souls can mend.  You reveal courage within us we had not suspected, love we had not owned.

O you who come after, help us remember: we are your ancestors.  Fill us with gladness for the work that must be done.

Prayer For Future Beings

Adaptation (ad·ap·ta·tion)

by Marika Stone, posted in adaptive design, environment, activism, fossil-free, Joanna Macy, Runaway Climate Change
Photo by Bogomil Mihaylov on Unsplash

Noun / Biology. a change or the process of change by which an organism or species becomes better suited to its environment.

Whether we recognize it or not, adaptation isn’t a choice for living things; it’s an evolutionary mandate. It is how all life forms — humans very much included – have survived and thrived over the millennia. When, for whatever reason, this process is disrupted (dinosaurs meet asteroid), life ends for those that cannot adapt to the changed circumstances. If adaptation is a successful strategy for continuing, extinction brings it to a halt.

We are in the Sixth Extinction now (see abstract of Elizabeth Kolbert’s book by that name), a culmination of decades of business as usual in the face of louder and more alarming warnings from the scientific community about greenhouse gases, resource depletion (oil, soil, water, forests), and biodiversity loss. Lately, the headlines are starting to catch up with the conclusions of peer-reviewed papers while emboldening the denialist camp (One Million Species Face Extinction). We are, the majority of scientists say, on the brink of societal collapse caused by us.

It is cold comfort indeed to learn that collapse is already occurring in our lifetime, just unevenly distributed. Says Vinay Gupta, software engineer, disaster consultant, global resilience guru, aka, The Man Whose Job It Is to Constantly Imagine the Collapse of Humanity In Order to Save It: “Collapse means living in the same conditions as the people who grow your coffee.”

When you bring to mind the existential struggle of the people of the Marshall Islands and Bangladesh or how sea level rise is redrawing the map of Louisiana (Elizabeth Kolbert: Louisiania’s Disappearing Coast) or watch how prolonged rain and flooding in the Midwest is threatening farmers’ livelihood and our food security (PBS News Hour), surviving to pick coffee for pennies sounds almost bearable.  Of course, coffee (along with chocolate, wines and many other climate sensitive foods) is on the endangered list. Sorry.

Starving for some good (well, somewhat better) news? Check out Leonardo DiCaprio’s HBO documentary Fire on Ice. It follows the trajectory of the previous Years of Living Dangerously documentary series by James Cameron (Avatar) in that it offers a raft of technology solutions. I have two reactions to these approaches 1. Apparently, we are capable of entertaining the most extreme ‘techno-fixes,’ while the real driver of biosphere destruction, that is, corporate capitalism and its bunkmate, consumption, get a free pass, and 2. Even if these solutions manage to keep us below the ‘safe’ PPM level of atmospheric CO2, the best time to have implemented them is, as is said of tree planting, 20 years ago. Further, I fear that films like these tend to do just the opposite of what Greta Thunberg and young people are demanding: urgency, even panic, both of which are commensurate with the facts and timelines.

OK, I’ll be 78 this year and Buddhist teachings about impermanence resonate with me. I am less concerned for my personal survival in an age of climate disruption than for those who will live more deeply into its unfolding, including my own beloveds. My adaptation so far is light on practical details, though relocation from South Florida seems sensible, and more about adapting in a spiritual sense and helping others to do the same. I’ve signed up for an online training in facilitation of Joanna Macy’s Work That Reconnects. More on that in a future post.

Going Deeper
New Climate Debate: How to Adapt to the End of the World

What To Do About Predictions of Imminent Food Collapse

Indies and Underdogs

by Marika Stone, posted in back to the future, environment, activism, localizing

I once lived over a bookstore. I know what you’re thinking, but this was in Manhattan and on the 11th Floor of the building that housed Barnes & Noble, then more famous as an academic book center that would buy back your books and sell you new ones. I doubt it had a cafe then (’88-90), or much motivation or room to permit private work nooks. But it was one of the greatest of indoor common spaces open late in the city to share with students of all ages, representing every race and culture. Melting Pot Manhattan.

B&N College division still operates nearly 800 stores at universities across the country. But the Barnes and Noble branch you may still have in your community if you’re lucky, is getting hammered by Amazon’s online advantage. But then again, who isn’t in the world of retail? True, the ‘big box’ discounter trend is nothing new. Sam Walton launched his first discount store in 1962. But Internet shopping, an answer to our addiction to convenience and speed, is the obvious accelerator. Driven by any darkened strip malls or once-thriving downtowns lately? I have, even in an upscale neighboring town. (Confession: although I’ve quit Prime and vowed only to use Amazon to read the free samples of books, then buy them used elsewhere, I do occasionally falter.)

That said, if you’re as hungry for any bit of good news these days as I am, you might be pleased to learn that independent book stores are making a comeback.  The Book Cellar in Lake Worth just south of me, is the perfect example of what an independent establishment can do for a community, beyond featuring books and hosting authors the old-fashioned way. With its cafe offering coffee, wine and light fare, including many vegan and gluten-free choices, this cozy, friendly corner spot on busy Lake Avenue has become a meeting place for a number of organizations. As long as you reserve in advance and use their food service, there’s no charge for the space. How many little mom-and-pop coffee houses and taverns in Philadelphia served as launch pads for the designers of the American Revolution? You might well ask.

BookCellarI’ve hosted a meeting at The Book Cellar with my spoken word troupe and Emergency Medical Assistance, preparing for last year’s show of monologues on abortion. The Palm Beach County Chapter of Women’s March meets there regularly, and so does the Jazz on J Street group, well-known for its encouragement of young performers. The Book Cellar is open late, so you can stop in after a movie at yet another local indie favorite, the Stonzek Cinema, now the only screen in my area you can find good indie films. These include well-made international films that remind you there’s a much bigger world out there. One of their bravest choices in subject matter for 2018 was First Reformed starring Ethan Hawke, about a pastor confronting not only his own dark night of the soul, but religious extremism, corporate domination, and environmental apocalypse. Maybe it was too dark to make the cut at Oscar time, though early reviewers were predicting ‘Best Picture.’

OK, eye-rolls for my nostalgia for little book stores or for Saunders Hardware in my New Jersey hometown (especially after a frustrating search at Home Depot). Or when I fondly recall the barber who cut my little boy’s hair; or the laundry that always remembered you liked light starch in the dress shirts; or the shoe or jewelry repair places. Does anyone fix anything, any more? We are not better off today with the homogenized culture that has overtaken us like a tsunami, or with social media becoming a license to mislead and inflame. Already, we’ve become less interesting and interested; less engaged with each other, socially and politically, and in real-time; less open-minded, more tribal, risk-averse, fearful. Not to mention grammar-challenged. But the bigger question is, what will happen as we become increasingly afraid to speak up or challenge authority; when the hand that feeds (houses, clothes, and entertains) us, holds a big stick? Or a gun?

Granted, compared to the challenges we as a species will be facing in the next decade(s) on a hotter planet, to push back against Big Box World and switch our allegiance to the small farmer, artisan and craftsperson, family-owned business and so on, is a drop in the ocean. But maybe it could improve our lives and our communities in ways that count but can’t necessarily be accounted for. That’s worth the candle.

Fast Fashion, Landfill Forever

by Marika Stone, posted in environment, activism, Fashion and Climate

Outside my front door right now are three bags of perfectly good, wearable clothing, my latest donation to the Vietnam Vets. Do I feel slightly virtuous about recycling what we no longer need? Well, I used to until I realized that far more of my discards than I realized were winding up in landfill. Only about 20% of clothing discards is recycled, and countries like India and China are swamped even so. The remaining 80%  goes directly to landfill. Cotton degrades in 1-5 months. Nylon: 30-40 years. Rubber-based products, never.

Of course, that is not the focus of Marie Kondo, the declutter and organizing coach whose new Netflix show has single-handedly caused a surge in donations to Goodwill, Salvation Army and Hospice thrift shops. But maybe she could be paying more attention to what causes all those over-stuffed closets and drawers in the first place.

The Guardian addressed the front end of this worsening problem with an opinion piece well worth our attention:  How to cure the shopping addiction that’s destroying our planet. Heavy-handed? Well, maybe not. Dig a little deeper and up pops this quote from a BBC piece: “The environmental footprint of today’s fashion industry is extraordinary, making it one of the top five most polluting industries on earth, up there with the petrochemical industry.” This covers the whole process of textile production and the making of clothing, not just what happens in landfills. Fast fashion, the mix of demand-creation aimed typically at the young, and the response of retailers needing to ‘refresh’ their collections as often as every two weeks with inexpensive clothing  — much of which is manufactured in sweat shop conditions (another story) — is a significant part of the problem with The Fashion Industry, one it can no longer ignore (see Sustain Your Style).

OK, we get it. Apart from turning toward thrift stores to replenish our wardrobes, what can we do? The three R’s of how to minimize one’s stuff in general works perfectly for one’s clothing: Reuse — go shopping in your closet, or in the closet of a same-size friend, for that upcoming gala. Host a clothing swap for fun or charity. Or rent your next formal wear, like guys have done forever. Ditto, specialized gear for sports. Repair: one of the gifts my mother gave me that I most appreciate, is a love of sewing, both by hand and with an electric sewing machine. I can now speak hemming in two languages, and have become G-Ma go-to when jeans or Scout uniforms need shortening.

Recycle comes in last now that we realize the true cost to the planet. So what about a new slant on Refresh? This could be anything from altering your existing clothing in good condition so they fit you better — some cleaners offer this service for a fee —  or shortening or lengthening pants or shirt sleeves yourself. You can dye, or tie-dye, those tees that are so wonderfully soft with wear. Or, if slashed. distressed jeans are your thing (not mine), you could work magic with some sharp scissors applied in strategic places.

JacketsSince my spouse branched out creatively with a collection of weirdly wonderful masks (available as wall art or on t-shirts, cushions, mugs, totes, etc. from FineArtsAmerica), I got excited about putting versions of his original images on our old denim jackets.  Your local art supplier will sell you a medium to convert acrylics so that they can be painted directly on fabric. Now it occurs to me that jeans or cloth sneakers could also be perfect for this kind of customization. Wear your art! Here’s a bunch more ideas for DIY wardrobe hacks at Etsy  Who knows, your next side hustle could be a line of repurposed clothing.

Read more:

Top Apps in swap and trade

Remake — turning fashion into a force for good.

Worn Again new resources

It’s Too Late, Baby

by Marika Stone, posted in environment, activism, So Little Time

Carole King’s Tapestry, the concert based on her album and performed last year in Hyde Park, London, has been turned into a film and opened in theaters across the U.S. yesterday for a one night stand. We bought our tickets in advance online, imagining the show would sell out. It didn’t. In fact, attendance at the Providence Mall Cinema was sparse. As her fans know, King’s album transformed her overnight from a songwriter best known for writing hits for others to a star in her own right. If you missed the show last night, keep your eyes open.

As she launched into her opening number, I Feel the Earth Move, well, I did. Feel the move, that is. It has been that kind of week — New York Magazine’s The Uninhabitable Earth, the Guardian coverage of the sixth extinction, and then this morning, the news of the collapse of the Larsen C shelf, an ‘iceberg the size of Delaware,’ forming a new island. A small piece of the earth. Moving, we don’t know where or what else could change as a result.

For me, these events tend to crowd out the news about the G20 meeting, mounting cries of Impeach!, and anxiety over North Korea’s nuclear ambitions given the current state of our own governance. I know my own diplomat father who spent several months a year as a delegate to the Geneva disarmament talks in the late 50’s, would be turning over in his grave, if he had one. I put my trust in the quiet, behind the scenes, work of special counsel, Robert Mueller, to help bring a shameful chapter of our history to a conclusion.

That said, I found myself weeping when Carole King launched into It’s Too Late and the cameras panned over the faces of the immense crowd (estimated 65,000) of Londoners, many of them young, many of them singing along.  For the same reason, I feel rocked by the sounds of little children in the playground right next to the AirBnB where I am currently living, and when I think about our teenage grandchildren — all children — whose lifespan may expose them to decades of life-threatening hypothermia, water and food insecurity, disease we had thought vanquished, and the breakdown of civil life.  Maybe, as my friend (father, poet and blogger, The Green Skeptic), Scott Edward Anderson says (and not for the first time), “We’re toast!”

I was in the process of pounding out a post more in keeping with Transition Tales (Tip, Tools and Ideas for a More Resilient Future), about how decentralized solar power is bring electricity and positive change to parts of Africa, when Scott’s social media comment attached to the said link popped into the screen.  Usually I ignore these, but I stopped writing and read the New York Magazine piece — “too scary,” “climate disaster porn, ” could spur cities into action or make people feel hopeless” — and that was that for the upbeat post I was working on. Even before the Guardian’s piece or today’s news from Antartica.

So, I put it to you readers: Do you agree it’s game over?  Are we toast?  Is it too late, baby? And if so (given that climate crisis denial is not an option here), what are you doing to keep your spirits up, to press on with your climate and political activism, to keep on keeping on. Seriously, I want to know because it has been that kind of week.  Whatever you care to share, my comment section awaits. I’ll be there, yes, I will.

Reskilling: Why it Matters

by Marika Stone, posted in back to the future, Carbon Footprint, environment, activism

If you’re unfamiliar with the term reskilling, perhaps it has a Small-is-Beautiful, DIY, hippie commune, neo-Luddite, back-to-the-land vibe. What you may not know is that reskilling is bedrock for the Transition Movement founded by Rob Hopkins which holds that: “… in a carbon constrained and localized world, communities will have to provide for many of their basic needs which means possessing the skills to do so.”

Of course, basic needs are open to wide interpretation. For some of us, it means fast, reliable Wi-Fi. Some of my most adored people would put shampoo, conditioner and a hot comb on their list of essentials, right up there with waterproof eyeliner (mine!). I kid, but seriously, we are so used to enjoying potable water, hot showers and plug in everything, we don’t think twice about what it takes to produce them, or what happens if they for any reason become unavailable.

I think of reskilling as a way of reclaiming the know-how that previous generations – parents, grandparents, trusted elders — passed down to us, along with values like thrift, making-do, cooperation. If even some of us embrace down-shifting, cutting back on our demands for generated power, it just might give the earth a chance to recover from decades of over-extraction.

A lot of people have been energized by recent events and in my area, weekly demonstrations along the motorcade route to/from the so-called ‘winter White House’ were a thing, along with Town Hall Meetings, and steady pressure on one’s Members of Congress when s/he doesn’t speak for you. All good, all the time. But I believe quieter forms of resistance to consumerism and the damage it is doing, belong in the mix. Reskilling IS Resistance.

So, could you make fire if you had to? Milk a cow? Forage for wild food? Sharpen tools without electricity? How about capture wild yeast to make bread? Mend or repair clothing? Could you distinguish between edible or poisonous mushrooms, or navigate using a simple compass? If these sound like Boy Scout badges, bingo! The point is, there are as many ways to reskill as there are people willing to teach what they know. But don’t take my word for it.

Check out the Firefly Gathering (thank you, Dylan Ryal-Hamilton), in Asheville, NC which begins June 29 and goes for four days. Everything from Archery and Blacksmithing Basics to Zen and the Art of Wood Splitting, over 100 classes and still growing at this writing, are being offered. No one is saying this specifically in the FAQ’s but it seems obvious to me that people go there eager to teach, AND learn. I am excited about experiencing  this event first hand…maybe next year.

More reading on this topic here:

What Is Reskilling Anyway?

Green Hand Initiative. Blogger Clifford Dean Scholz has a stunning article on Navigation.

http://www.skills-for-life.org/

http://greenhandsreskilling.weebly.com/

Post-Consumer Waste: What to Do?

by Marika Stone, posted in Carbon Footprint, environment, activism

Until I assembled this random assortment of stuff from around our house, I thought we were doing pretty well as an environmentally-aware couple: rejecting plastic straws, carrying our own bags, going meatless, driving an EV, all things about which we’ve gotten diligent and even a touch self-congratulatory.  Now, I’m not so sure. How to dispose of these items without sending them to The Great Pacific Garbage IMG_1077Patch has become an obsession of mine.  So please forgive my attempt to infect you with the same.

Of course, our voluntary behavior modification falls into the category of First World problems and may be of little or no impact on global warming that is already locked in[1].  So, why bother? One answer is, if enough of us to whom so much is given do something, perhaps we can buy some time for solutions that will benefit all. Case in point, this week, Floridians overwhelmingly voted Yes on Amendment #4[2] that supports affordable solar power in the Sunshine State.  This is an excellent shift with legislative muscle, but there’s another side to this that gets short shrift: we are still not doing enough to train ourselves to live within planetary limits.  As the saying goes: to live more simply so that others — and not just our own species — might simply live.

No matter how you look at it, dealing with First World consumption and waste is a wicked problem that isn’t going away without a huge movement — individual, local, state, and national. If you need convincing about how this issue deepens the have/have not chasm, you must read Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity.  For the design perspective, try William McDonough’s Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things.

Fortunately, there is no shortage of information about addressing the issue of post-consumer waste — it turns out there’s money to be made in reclamation of many materials  — and you’ll find some helpful links below.  But let’s state the obvious: the best place to tackle waste is to begin at the beginning: “Think before you buy or toss,” advises Bridget Johnson of Green Girl Recycling.  And that second thought should include not only the item purchased itself but how it is packaged.  This is a special interest of mine as I used to write for both the manufacturer of a popular clear bottling plastic and for a packaging trade publication.  So I should know better than to find myself in this dilemma: true, clear containers make salad greens look inviting and maybe keep them fresh longer.  But can the plastic be recycled back into pellets?  In most cases, the answer is No, though some come close to that ideal, and may wind up in other value-added products, e.g. PET bottles to construction materials.  That said, I’m better off choosing loose greens and vegetables as I do when the farmers markets are in full swing in my area, or those with minimal wrapping.

Hearing aid batteries.  They are small, but you may go through a lot of them in a year.  Best advice from the experts: look for those that specify Mercury-free. These can be safely disposed of with household waste. More info here: http://www.seniorcitizensguide.com/articles/pittsburgh/hearing-aid-battery-disposal.htm  green-recycling-iconPackaging (paper and blister plastic) should also carry some version of the familiar chasing arrows recycling symbol.

Durable Packaging.  The handsome heavy case you see in the photo did a fine job of protecting the mini-speaker that works with my Bluetooth-enabled smart phone, but what a bear to recycle!  A month after I purchased it, I haven’t figured out how to recycle the various heavy-duty plastics it came in, or even if I can at all. Maybe I can use it for storing cotton balls or pens.  My electric toothbrush, an appliance I have come to rely on for optimum cleaning, is another puzzle. What to do with the so-called disposable brush part which is made up of so many materials, molded plastic being just one?  Anybody?  Of course, nearly all plastics are petroleum-based, so we’re basically supporting an industry whose negative environmental impact is well documented.

Health and Beauty Aids.  The lipstick, tooth picks and bug sprayer are similarly problematic because they are either made from or packaged in more than one type of plastic.  True for most HABA items whether bottles, tubes or jars.  The containers themselves may carry a recycle # designation, but the caps almost never.  Even if every part was designated recyclable, I honestly cannot imagine the municipal facility that would separate them appropriately, so chances are these will wind up in landfill forever.

“Doggie Bags.”  Time was, you got a little brown paper bag for leftovers. Today, not so much.  So here’s how it goes.  Styrofoam #6 is cheap to manufacture and has many uses, from life rafts to ubiquitous fast-food containers.  It cannot be recycled with other plastics.  Restaurants are not going to stop using those god-awful styrofoam clam shells until we 1. stop ordering more than we can eat (a whole other problem), and/or 2. start bringing our own packaging for leftovers, or 3. municipalities start banning the use of the material as San Francisco just did.

Where can you turn to?  Your local municipality’s solid waste authority usually has a website (mine: http://www.swa.org/) with a ton of information of what can be brought to the facility, often translated into short handy guides.  Most take CFL bulbs. Many take large appliances.  We may eventually see a roll out of  the Extended Producer Responsibility that makes the producer responsible for the entire life-cycle of a product. Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_producer_responsibility  This goes well beyond Product Stewardship, though that is also a hopeful sign: http://productstewardship.net/products/mercury/resources/programs/business

Incandescent bulbs cannot be recycled, but since they contain no toxic material, you can safely add to household waste.  Retailers will often take back fluorescent bulbs, printer refills and even a variety of electronics.  Best Buys has been a leader in this and has won awards for the service.  See Electronics Take Back: http://www.electronicstakeback.com/how-to-recycle-electronics/manufacturer-takeback-programs/

There is even a strong Business Case for Product Take-Back: http://www.triplepundit.com/special/circular-economy-and-green-electronics/is-there-a-business-case-for-product-take-back/

And finally, my favorite FAQ’s from Grist’s green expert, Ask Umbra: http://grist.org/article/umbra_faqs/  Many layers of information by simply clicking on internal links.

___________

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2016/aug/15/climate-urgency-weve-locked-in-more-global-warming-than-people-realize

[2] http://miami.cbslocal.com/2016/08/30/amendment-4-would-make-solar-cheaper-for-property-owners-2/

Women + Climate Activism, Clearly

by Marika Stone, posted in arts activism, environment, activism, Joanna Macy, women and climate

It’s time to bring these two together in my life: my passion for women as spoken word artists and climate activism.  No surprise, Eve Ensler is out front on this: the woman who made it ok to say vagina out loud is doing the same for climate change.  Her new one-woman show, In the Body of the World based on her acclaimed 2013 memoir, is being performed in New York City right now, and I would give much to be there.  But I will have to be content — and I am — to host a meeting of Women Aloud at my home tomorrow, to begin preparing for The Vagina Monologues 2017 at The Brewhouse Gallery, Lake Park, Fl.  And a new opportunity could be on the horizon for me/us.

no-gender-justice1This morning, I wrote this proposal to artist/activist colleagues who are co-curating a show in my area:

Proposal for The Box Gallery, The NEW American Patriot: A Climate Action Exhibition, July 1, 2016 through July 10, 2016

Vision:

Some of our most beloved poets and spoken word artists have been and are taking the role of shaman on behalf of climate crisis and our endangered ecosystem. Their prophetic, urgent warnings were being issued before the scientific community reached consensus that human-caused climate change threatened all of life. Their testimony about the living world of which we are a part, are a necessary act of patriotism for our times. These men and women express rage, despair, grief, and surprisingly, what Buddhist sage and teacher, Joanna Macy, calls ‘active hope,’ — the very act of creating art that we take into ourselves and act from. We should be putting their words on billboards, creating community service announcements from them, slipping them under every door, and reciting them to all who have ears to hear.  Because, as poet Greg Delanty’s book puts it, we have So Little Time.

Mission:

To create and perform a script of poetry/monologues/rants, both original and from derived sources (as permission is granted), for a series of live, 15-minute performances during The New American Patriot: A Climate Action Exhibition, at time(s) and location(s) to be determined and mutually agreed upon, for a maximum of three performances. Material will be organized thus:

  1. How we came to this
  2. What we risk losing
  3. What do our hearts say
  4. What we must now do

Logistics:

Performer(s) will need a designated performance space, high stool(s) and audio support for each 15-minute show. Recorded incidental music may be used to introduce and close each segment.

Respectfully submitted: Marika Stone, producer The Vagina Monologues and You Can’t Say That!, 2015, founder, Women Aloud, “a troupe of spoken word performers interested in exploring ideas and issues relevant to women of all ages. We are nonprofit. Proceeds from our shows will go to registered women’s charities.”

This is new territory. I’m both excited and terrified at the thought that my proposal could be accepted, which is a great place to be. Stay tuned.

The Box Gallery

Women Aloud

Wendell Berry on Climate

Green Writers Press