100 Day Sustainability Challenge: Results from Week #8

Whew, intense week.

Recap of the past week

In last week’s post I chronicled my failure to do something every day that contributes to local and global movements for survival and liberation. This week my goals were to keep working on that by reaching out to the people who I know locally and have some kind of activist relationship with, explaining where I’m at and where I want to get to, and asking for help; doing some more searching; being open and seeing what comes up and not spending all my time on the computer (i.e., making time for actual engagement).

I started the week by sending friends the following message (via email and Facebook):

Hello friends. I am slowly and stumbling-ly getting back into grassroots activism after many years away and am struggling to reconnect. So, a question to those of you who do amazing work that I have been inspired by over the years as well as new friends who are involved in grassroots work – any suggestions for people doing good work here that might want volunteer/$ support? I’m particularly interested in anti-racism & anti-colonial organizing. Thanks for any suggestions you can offer! And thank you also for keeping me hopeful about grassroots work even during my most bleak, cynical, and unhappy times.

Am very grateful for all of the suggestions and ideas, thank you. It seems that there is nothing to instantly plug into but much that can be done to nurture old and new relationships and see what emerges. This week I was really happy to visit with a friend-of-a-friend who has been doing local organizing for a while, and next week will be reconnecting with an old friend who I worked with on anti-colonial organizing 8 or 9 years ago. It makes such a difference to spend time with other people who are committed to social and environmental justice, principled solidarity, and actual organizing (as well as wrestling with some of the same questions as the ones I have about how to use race & class privilege to be of maximum benefit).

While continuing to build relationships I have been wanting a framework to help me keep perspective on what well-rounded activism looks like and not go down an overly narrow, unproductive path (e.g., endless social media). The Commit to Racial Justice pamphlet produced by participants in an activist camp outlines 11 anti-racist commitments that I found useful in thinking about how, as a white person, to educate myself in order to see racism and then take action to end it.

  1. I commit to viewing mistakes as opportunities for learning.
  2. I commit to disrupting patterns of domination.
  3. I commit to working on my own defensiveness.
  4. I commit to including the interests of oppressed groups while making decisions that affect them.
  5. I commit to respecting the complexity of issues in my community.
  6. I commit to disrupting the status quo in order to share power and privilege to all.
  7. I commit to reflecting on topics that might feel uncomfortable.
  8. I commit to promoting cooperation over self-interest.
  9. I commit to serving the interests of people over my own personal objectives.
  10. I commit to recognizing the legitimacy of people’s concerns.
  11. I commit to educating myself and working to address the issues that contribute to oppression.

Thus far I’ve mostly been educating myself. Having been away from activism for a while it’s been pretty obvious as I take tentative steps back in that I’m out of touch with what is going on, and need to educate myself. And, that is not where it stops – as I’m well aware from Zen practice, reading about something is not the same as doing it; in the list above “educating myself” is half of one of 11 commitments white people need to make. But it is a place I can start.

So, I spent 3 days nursing a wheezy drippy cold and spending massive amounts of time online – reading articles and collecting future reading materials relating to decolonization and anti-racism and anti-colonial organizing, as well as specific things white people need to learn, challenge, and practice with respect to our own racism. Grateful for a public library system that makes so much accessible; it was great to read Sistah Vegan: Black Female Vegans Speak on Food, Identity, Health, and Society (edited by Dr. Amie Breeze Harper) — totally re-inspired me around food — and am looking forward to reading Tsawalk: A Nuu-Chah-Nulth Worldview and Principles of Tsawalk: An Indigenous Approach to Global Crisis (both by Umeek – E. Richard Atleo), Lighting the Eighth Fire: The Liberation, Resurgence, and Protection of Indigenous Nations (edited by Leanne Simpson), Black Girl Dangerous on Race, Queerness, Class and Gender (by Mia McKenzie), and The Comeback: How Aboriginals Are Reclaiming Power And Influence (by John Ralston Saul). Also looking forward to reading online resources Unsettling Ourselves: Reflections and Resources for Deconstructing Colonial Mentality (compiled by Unsettling Minnesota), Catalyzing Liberation Toolkit: Anti-Racist Organizing to Build the 99% Movement (compiled by Catalyst Project and Chris Crass), the Victoria Sexual Assault Centre’s core training resources, and the Anne Braden Anti-Racist Organizer Training Program 2015 Reader, and the archived articles on the Buddhist Peace Fellowship and Meta-Activism sites.

With all this reading material now piled up I have been trying to move away from obsessively looking for more resources (although your suggestions are always welcomed) and balance reading with practising taking action. Thus far it has been all spontaneous actions as things arise, for example practising “calling in” when white loved ones say things I feel are racist, getting the word out about RCMP and industry harassment of the Unist’ot’en Camp, sharing public support/solidarity requests from the Madii Lii camp and the Lax Kw’alaams Lelu Island camp, and contributing money where I can. Thus far all of these actions are pretty small and not world-changing, but through these small actions I am practising old skills that I’m rusty at, learning new skills, doing something that hopefully is of bigger picture use, and also taking tiny steps to build relationships with other people who also care about these issues.

This week there were also opportunities for other actions:

  • Completed “Story of Stuff” Citizen Muscle Boot Camp
  • Helped my sweet spousey set up a drying rack for indoor clothes drying during rainy/colder weather (their engineering system for our cloth wipes is genius)
  • Harvested drying beans and had a mini-shelling party
  • Learned about the history of prisoner rights to vote in Canada as part of discussion about women’s voting rights
  • Started a discussion with my Zen teacher about a climate change-focused initiative within our sangha as my project for the upcoming One Earth Sangha EcoSattva Training
  • End of month is bus pass time – reminded of the insanity of throw-away monthly plastic passes I sleuthed transit systems in Canada to look at alternatives to disposable monthly plastic bus passes, then contacted BC Transit to request & suggest alternatives

Looking ahead to the next week

As this Challenge progresses I am struggling with how to do all the things I want to do, as many of the activities that I’ve started doing through this Challenge are ones that I want to continue to do for the long haul (for example practicing from the 11 anti-racist commitments listed above is a long-term commitment, and my volunteer work with a local farmer will continue till the work winds down for the winter). Because there are so many longer-term actions already on the go, this week I decided to go back to my list of more contained, one-off actions so I’m still stretching myself to try something new every day. Planned actions are:

  • Mark the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and learn more about the rebuilding of New Orleans by watching 10 Years After Katrina: ‘Resilience’, ‘Recovery’, and REALITY
  • Promote local food – talk with the farmer I’m volunteering with about ways to raise her profile and encourage community-supported agriculture (CSA) sign-up for next year, e.g., local “farm feast” event, neigbourhood flyers; contact friends who might be interested in CSA
  • Look into rain barrel setup for roof runoff: check gutter/downspout options for barrel placement, and source non-plastic rain barrels
  • Excursion with my sweet spousey to a local organic food store to try to source plastic-free alternatives to food that our usual grocery store only carries in plastic packaging (e.g., tamari, seaweed)
  • Finish reading The Pet Poo Pocket Guide and sort out what to do with critter poop (other than sending to landfill, which is what we currently do)
  • Mental health: Attend first session of BCALM’s Art of Living Mindfully course (an 8 week course that “provides participants with a firm grounding in mindfulness based strategies useful in navigating stress and in recognizing patterns of thought, speech and behavior that may be contributing to stress and suffering”)
  • Spiritual health: Attend trans* Buddhist virtual meditation and participate in post-sit video chat

And what about you?

I would love to get feedback from you. What do you think of all of this rambling? What resonates with you, and what doesn’t? Are you trying your own sustainability initiatives and if so what are you learning?

Have a great week!

100 Day Sustainability Challenge: Results from Week #7

As I started to write this I realized that last night I reached the halfway point of this Challenge (50 days done, 50 days to go). So, today starts the 2nd half of the Challenge.

Recap of the past week

In Week #7 I had two goals: (1) reduce computer use (with a gradual cessation of specific computer activities), and (2) use that freed up time to do something that contributes to local and global movements for survival and liberation. I already wrote quite a bit last week about the reasons behind these goals, so won’t recap that context here.

What I learned this week: The short answer — it can be a lot easier to refrain from doing an activity (even an entrenched habitual activity) than to actively do something outside my comfort zone. The long answer — read on!

My computer reduction plan for the week went mostly as scheduled. I went for 7 days without Netflix, 6 days without Facebook, 5 days without checking the news, 4 days without email, 3 days without YouTube or any other form of online entertainment, 2 days without internet sleuthing, and most of the final day completely unplugged from the computer (I ended the week’s challenge at 6:30 PM as without the ability to do any of the other stuff, I ended up unplugging a day early). There were two minor “life happens” glitches – did a quick internet sleuth when my sweet spouse needed help with something that could not be sorted out via phone, and computer problems prior to a planned Skype meeting required I shoot off a quick email to let my long-distance colleague know I’d be late. As I know already that it’s pointless to be perfectionistic, I didn’t stew about either of these.

The experience of being unplugged was really pleasant. I was shocked by how much time it freed up (a good reality check on how much I have been using the computer lately). I was also surprised by the cessation of the feeling that I am never doing enough to keep on top of things, always feeling pressed for time and rushing through each task – which speaks to the emotional and mental fatigue that comes from information overload. Definitely I enjoyed life a lot more the less I was plugged in.

As for using my freed up time to do something that contributes to local and global movements for survival and liberation…FAIL! This was a really interesting experience as it is the first time since this Challenge started that I totally hit a wall. Without the computer, I could not think of more than a couple things that I could do. And even of the few things I had planned out, I did not do most of them. Before I get into what I think was going on with that, I want to first identify the things that I did do, as there are some amazing initiatives that I hope readers will consider supporting:

  • Community Tool Shed (CTS): For many years a member of the Lekwungen community has invited Indigenous people and allies to work together in reinstating the Kwetlal (camas) food system. This food system has endured over 150 years of colonial impacts, and today the 5% of the remaining Kwetlal food system remains threatened and weakened through the suppression of cultural roles, land fragmentation, and proliferation of invasive plant species introduced by colonial settlers. Through the CTS participants come together for a couple hours once a month to help restore and caretake the Kwetlal food system, learn about the impacts of colonialism, and learn about traditional food systems and the land. This month we met in Meegan (Beaconhill park) and removed Scotch broom and English ivy. I’ve known about the CTS from its inception in 2011 but this was my first time actually participating.
  • Unist’ot’en coastal tour: As mentioned in Challenge Week #4, for the past six years Wet’suwet’en people from the Unist’ot’en clan and allies have been maintaining a community in Unist’ot’en yintah (territory) that is directly in the path of planned oil and gas pipelines that are opposed by grassroots Wet’suwet’en people. The Unist’ot’en camp is, in the words of the Unist’ot’en Declaration, “an expression of the continuing and unbroken chain of occupation and use of our territory by our clan”. This past week Unist’ot’en hereditary chiefs and the official camp spokesperson have been travelling in Coast Salish territories to share their experiences and also raise funds to support the camp. I had planned to go to the local event but was overwhelmed after having a bit of an adventure getting home from visiting sweet spousey’s campsite 28k from where we live, and decided to spend the night at home and just send a donation separately.
  • Equal Justice Initiative: From a friend’s book suggestion, this week I read Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson. The book is a beautifully written, heavy and important indictment of the prison-industrial complex and capital punishment, and the ways that racism and poverty tie into both; and also tremendously hope-filled stories of grace and compassion from the individuals and communities most affected. The author founded and still works for the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), and wow – the EJI does amazing prison justice, economic justice, and anti-racism work, including litigating on behalf of prisoners who have been sentenced to death, youth in prison, people wrongly convicted or charged with violent crimes, people living in poverty who have been denied effective legal representation, and others whose trials are marked by racist bias or prosecutorial misconduct; working with communities that have been marginalized by poverty and racism; advocating for reform of the criminal justice system; and raising public awareness about the impacts of mass incarceration, excessive punishment, and the ways that the prison-industrial complex both reflects and re-entrenches systemic oppression. As a starting point I donated money to the EJI last week and this week plan to work through the EJI’s other posted suggestions for ways people can get involved.
  • Catalyst Project’s Anne Braden Anti-Racist Organizer Training Program for white social justice activists: This 4 month political education and leadership development program is designed to support the vision, strategy, and organizing skills of white activists in becoming accountable, principled anti-racist organizers building multiracial movements for justice. I first learned about the program in 2013 when a dear friend and very inspiring activist, organizer, and all-round amazing human being took the training. The program’s course reader is publicly available and I had hoped to, at minimum, use some of my time this week to start reading from the 2015 reader. But I didn’t do this – instead I read 2 other books: Plastic-free: How I Kicked the Plastic Habit and You Can Too, by Beth Terry (who runs My Plastic Free Life, a great online compendium of resources) and re-read The 100 Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating by Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon.

Some reflections on these efforts: honestly, I’m disappointed in myself, and also curious about why I took this route. Having identified in last week’s post so many potential issues I could have learned more about and found ways to contribute to, why didn’t I actually do anything on most of them? Why, if I wanted to learn more about plastic, didn’t I look at social justice and survival issues relating to the plastic industry? There are many resources I found in a quick Google search, e.g., Van Jones on the link between the concept of disposability of plastic and the white supremacist ideology of disposability of certain groups of people, the Center on Health, Environment and Justice factsheet on the disproportionate location of PVC plants in low-income communities of colour, or the PBS documentary on North American/European countries dumping toxic plastic waste in Ghana, China, and India. Why then did I focus on a book that deals only cursorily with the intersections between social justice and environmental justice? Ditto re industrial agriculture – reconnecting food with place is super important on so many levels but why did I go with a book that is mostly a personal foodie journal by two white people, and a book I’d already read to boot (and how freakin twisted is it that I did that right after taking part in something specifically about Indigenous food systems?!).

There are some obvious answers:

  1. Individually: I’ve been racist and buying into white-supremacist thinking (dismissing, marginalizing and trivializing the expertise of Indigenous people and people of colour; positioning white people as more central, knowledgeable, and relatable to me; and not being consciously aware of this process).
  2. Systemic: On a systems level what I just described about individual thinking applies as well to who gets coverage in media, library $ allocation for book purchases, etc.

Both of these are I suspect true to some degree. But I think that in large part the answer comes from what I wrote in Week 6: “I was also reminded this week of how my race and class privilege gives me the option to decide if, when, and how I put time and resources into supporting certain survival/liberation movements, and the obscenity of that privilege when so many people are fighting every day for their lives and the survival of their loved ones.” That it is uncomfortable, painful, and challenging to confront the reality of one’s own privilege is not news to me, but my resistance to following through on it was a bit of a surprise.

I often clarify my own thinking by reading other people’s writing, so started by reading Noor Al-Sibai’s piece Privilege Discomfort: Why You Need to Get the Fuck Over It, and was struck by this:

It’s an enormously uncomfortable feeling to sit with — to be accused of racism by one’s simple existence, by the accident of birth and genetic pigmentation, or accused of sexism by being comfortable with the male gender one was assigned at birth. Most white people and men choose not to continue that line of thinking….But the fact remains that it is the discomfort and isolation of the privileged that stops them from recognizing and doing something about the oppression of others. I could lament all day about how difficult it has been for me to come to grips with my white privilege, but that struggle is nothing in comparison to the oppression faced by people of color.

That moment of discomfort and isolation is so essential to becoming a better ally and to becoming a better person, because it’s at that moment that, consciously or not, the privileged person recognizes that their whole entire life is based upon a system of inequality that is inescapable and wrong. It’s at that moment that the majority of “liberals” become turned off to race, gender, queer and disability theory. To look at oneself and claim that “I benefit from institutional racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia and ability-discrimination” isn’t exactly a walk in the park.

And it’s at that moment that we must remind ourselves that as dissonant and uncomfortable and perhaps even painful as it might be to admit that we perpetuate oppression simply by existing, it’s a hell of a lot easier than actually being oppressed.

Buddhist practice gives me lots of tools to work with resistance to a feeling of discomfort, to just be with it (not hanging onto it and not pushing it away), and the curiosity to investigate it and try to understand it more deeply. I haven’t used any of those tools this week. What I’ve done instead is to fill up my time with something that is less challenging and more comfortable, to try to move back into ignorance, to fall asleep again. Without the computer to give me busy-ness (and simultaneous feeling of accomplishing something), this pattern has been more exposed.

In Why it’s so Hard to Talk to White People About Racism Dr. Robin DiAngelo describes “white fragility” — stress/discomfort experienced by white people as a result of a challenge to the belief structure, cultural norms, expectations, centrality, control, and sense of entitlement that white people have (often unconsciously) as a result of living in a white supremacist society; and a corresponding push back when challenged through withdrawal, defensiveness, crying, argument, minimization, ignoring the challenge, or otherwise seeking to regain “our racial position and equilibrium”. As an antidote to this harmful brittleness Dr. DiAngelo suggests:

  • Being willing to tolerate the discomfort associated with an honest appraisal and discussion of our internalized superiority and racial privilege.
  • Challenging our own racial reality by acknowledging ourselves as racial beings with a particular and limited perspective on race.
  • Attempting to understand the racial realities of people of color through authentic interaction rather than through the media or unequal relationships.
  • Taking action to address our own racism, the racism of other whites, and the racism embedded in our institutions — e.g., get educated and act.

Although the content above is specific to racism, and there are unique features of each type of privilege/oppression that bear examination and consideration, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend similar strategies for cisgender people wondering how to deal with their transphobia, or straight people wanting to work on their homophobia.

And this brings me to the other element that this week’s experience pointed out for me — the importance of real life relationships. It is telling me to me that this week’s fail was during a week where, through my reduction in computer use, I could not do online activism. At this point, having been away from in-person activism for so long, I rely completely on the internet to hear about things that are happening and mostly on the internet to participate. Through Facebook I’m starting to be able to put names/faces to some local activists but do not have actual real life relationships with people who are doing local Indigenous resurgence, anti-colonial, and anti-racism work; although I kinda sorta know what is going on with anti-poverty work through friends who are involved in those movements, it is still not a real personal connection for me — in contrast with earlier decades of my life, none of the people in my life now are struggling with homelessness, addiction, imprisonment, criminalization, or working in the survival sex trade, and there is no immediately visible street community in the suburban neighbourhood that I live in. We’ve lived in this neighbourhood for 8 years and although it is one of the most mixed I’ve experienced in Victoria in relation to language, ethnicity, and culture, I only know my most immediate neighbours by name, and they are white, relatively affluent people. If someone asked me what the immediate survival issues are in our community, other than very general responses like “colonialism”, I honestly wouldn’t know. Showing up for one Community Tool Shed is the first real-life thing I’ve done to connect with local Indigenous survival and resurgence efforts in almost a decade.

So, reality check – I am a total beginner again, and need to continue to press myself (and set up accountability) to actually take the many uncomfortable steps necessary to move forward. And when I get uncomfortable, try to catch it as quickly as possible and do something constructive with it instead of staying stuck.

Looking ahead to the next week

I’ve been sitting here for an hour now staring at this screen, Googling various search terms trying to find local groups doing work on survival issues and figure out what the heck to write here.

Dr. David Leonard offers this pith advice in Challenging Racism and the Problem with White “Allies”:

I focus on words like those articulated @prisonculture, ‘JUST DO THE WORK. Don’t talk about, “reflect” on it, pontificate, Just ACT. That’s it.’ And while doing the work, be accountable.

This is a totally unsatisfying way to end this post. I want to have a plan, or at least a framework for what to do next. But I really am at the starting point, and don’t know what to do other than the very next step. So, my plan is this: reach out to the people who I know locally and have some kind of activist relationship with. Explain where I’m at, where I want to get to, and ask for help. Do some more searching. Be open and see what comes up. Don’t spend all my time on the computer.

And what about you?

I would love to get feedback from you. What do you think of all of this rambling? What resonates with you, and what doesn’t? Are you trying your own sustainability initiatives and if so what are you learning?

Have a great week!

100 Day Sustainability Challenge: Results from Week #6

Hello everyone! It’s been an interesting week, transitioning from a mostly opportunistic approach to finding things to do each day, to a much more structured/planned out approach.

Recap: Week #6

I mentioned last week that the theme for this week would be energy conservation and reducing fossil fuel dependence (and related greenhouse gas emissions), and planned the following actions:

  1. Look into LED bulbs to replace regular lightbulbs as they burn out
  2. Look into what kind of system we could use for indoor drying of clothes during rainy/cooler weather
  3. Finish reading The Pet Poo Pocket Guide and sort out what to do with critter poop (other than sending to landfill, which is what we currently do)
  4. Write local government about Bullfrog’s new biofuel option as part of converting to green energy
  5. Do research on how to make one’s home a net zero energy building (including looking into offsetting)
  6. Start compiling list of zero-waste resources and ideas for actions
  7. Check all electrical appliances in house and, where possible, reduce standby power draws (e.g., by setting up power bars or unplugging appliance when not in use)

How did the week actually go? I ended up doing 5 of the actions listed above (did not do #3 or #6), as well as a few actions responding to things that came up as the week went along that were not on the list:

  • contacted the maker and seller of our air purifier system (which helps those in our family with asthma as well as skin allergies) to press them on how to recycle HEPA air filters
  • inspired by a post by the ever-amazing Katie Loncke, co-director of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, read more about the recent actions involving Black Lives Matter activists interrupting Bernie Sanders’ speeches to draw attention to racism, anti-black violence, and black liberation, and engaged in discussion with other Buddhist Peace Fellowship members about the tactics and purpose of those actions
  • watched documentaries on addiction & the horrific mess that is the war on (people who use) drugs, and read book on drug war policy, decriminalization, and legalization

This mix of planned actions and room for spontaneity feels great. I like having a plan and not being overly attached to the plan. I was also reminded this week of how my race and class privilege gives me the option to decide if, when, and how I put time and resources into supporting certain survival/liberation movements, and the obscenity of that privilege when so many people are fighting every day for their lives and the survival of their loved ones. So, as part of Week 7 I decided to do a combo action each day – refraining from something that is a waste of time, and using that time to do something that supports survival/liberation movements. Which leads me to…

Looking Ahead: Week #7

Last week I mentioned my intention to use Week 7 to tackle my longstanding and sticky habitual overuse of the computer. I often pat myself on the back for not having an iPhone or even a cell phone, but lately I have been plugged into the laptop most of the day and compulsively checking email, Facebook, and local news. By interrupting this habit pattern I hope to really have a look at how I’m spending my time and using electricity, with the aim of, in the longer term, using the computer only when actually necessary (both to reduce my consumption and also make more time for deliberate and useful activities).

I started by mapping out 6 ways I use the computer, and staggered them throughout the week so each day I add something new to my “I’m not doing this activity this week” list and am thereby cumulatively reducing my computer use. I wanted to start with the ones that are most challenging so I can get more practice days on those activities. What the plan looks like thus far:

  • Saturday > Friday (7 days): No Netflix
  • Sunday > Friday (6 days): No Facebook
  • Monday > Friday (5 days):  No news checking
  • Tuesday > Friday (4 days): No email
  • Wednesday > Friday (3 days): No online entertainment (YouTube, TV shows, etc.)
  • Thursday > Friday (2 days): No internet sleuthing
  • Friday (1 day): Completely unplugged – no computer use at all

To be clear, I don’t think any of these activities are intrinsically bad or wrong; I primarily use Facebook, online news, email, and internet sleuthing to find out what is going on politically, stay connected with loved ones, and achieve other goals that have real meaning and value to me, and most of what I watch on Netflix, YouTube, and online TV has at least some educational value. Personal computers have made many good things possible in my life and in society at large, including mass-scale actions, increased accountability and transparency in corporate and government dealings, democratization of media, increased accessibility of information, improved communication and networking between marginalized communities, crowdfunding, production and sharing of creative arts, health and environmental research, etc.

But even “good” computer use is a form of consumerism with definite environmental and social justice implications. As electronic devices, computers require a wide variety of resources for production and operation (e.g., metals, chemicals used in plastic construction, and electricity), many of which are associated with social and environmental justice concerns. As an example, coltan mining is an unregulated industry and although coltan is found throughout the world, rich countries have primarily supported resource extraction from poor countries with extremely vulnerable populations. Accordingly coltan mining has been implicated in the development of slave labour operations, child labour, financing of dictatorships and military conflicts, destabilization of traditional economies and Indigenous cultures, water pollution, wildlife predation, and a host of other ills. Additionally disposal is a concern as computers contain components that can be toxic to humans and other animals, and the sheer volume of waste from consumer demand for new and improved models is staggering – according to Wikipedia, in the USA alone 30 million computers are discarded annually. There is a huge energy demand for electricity to make, transport, operate, and dispose of computers.

And if I’m being honest, not all of my computer use has any redeeming value. I find it strangely relaxing to watch movies where people blow shit up – arguably an immoral waste of resources, and often accompanied by misogynist, racist, militaristic, and otherwise hugely offensive plotlines, stereotyping of characters, etc. Less offensive but equally wasteful are the many hours I’ve spent watching videos of cute baby animals.

Additionally I’m not sure what computers are doing to our brains and bodies. In my own life, I notice that with my increased reliance on the computer, I have become rusty at old-school skills like having a face-to-face or telephone conversation with someone, looking up information in a book, or figuring stuff out on my own. The computer makes stuff way easier, and that is both a blessing and a curse – the more I opt for the easy path, the more I expect everything to be easy and the more resistant I become to doing something that requires even a little bit of effort, let alone actual struggle. Computer over-use has also been implicated in significant health problems including muscle pain, eyestrain, headache, stress disorders, and changes in how our brains process and respond to stimuli (as a result of the visual and auditory hyperstimulation involved in many forms of on-screen entertainment). Computer use can be highly addictive, with compulsive and excessive fixation on internet interactions, gaming, etc. persisting despite serious negative consequences in a person’s personal, social, or work life.

There is an obvious and urgent need for people like me who use more than a sustainable share of resources to use less – for the planet’s health, social health, and our own personal health. There is also an obvious and urgent need for all of us to use our time wisely, including meaningfully contributing to social and environmental justice.

And so, in Week 7 I’ve decided to do two types of activities each day – (1) refraining from some aspect of computer use, and (2) using that time to do something that contributes to local and global movements for survival and liberation. There is no shortage of things to do given settlers’ attempts to exterminate Indigenous people and cultures; legislated poverty and repression of people who do not have shelter; police brutality, particularly against Indigenous people and black people; deaths resulting from the drug war, criminalization of the sex trade, and the prison industry; refugees forced into dangerous migration attempts and squalid living conditions; communities of colour dying from disproportionately high rates of cancer due to environmental racism; farmworkers subjected to toxic agricultural chemicals; high rates of heart disease among people living in poverty who do not have access to nutritious food; people living in countries torn by conflict and civil war; people living in countries with past conflict where landmines and other unexploded ordnance continue to kill; people dying of treatable illnesses because big pharma will not make affordable medicines available…the extent of death and destruction is overwhelming but also means that there should be no difficulty in finding something useful to do! I have not planned out what each of the day’s “do something useful” activities will be as it has been a long time since I’ve been involved in this kind of work so it might well be that much of this week is just baby steps to find out what is going on, what I can usefully do, etc. Still, I am excited to be taking even these small steps, and curious to see what happens when I move away from the computer and into the world.

And what about you?

I would love to get feedback from you. What do you think of all of this rambling? What resonates with you, and what doesn’t? Are you trying your own sustainability initiatives and if so what are you learning?

Have a great week!

100 Day Sustainability Challenge: Results from Week #5

Hello everyone!

Last week, reflecting on being close to completing the first month of my 100 day Sustainability Challenge, I mentioned that thus far I had mostly been opportunistic about ways to do something new around sustainability (doing whatever came up in the day, rather than planning my actions ahead of time), and in the upcoming month wanting to experiment with being more intentional about it and also planning specific actions to take. In part this was because I noticed that I kept postponing more complicated actions that require a bit of planning, and often realized late in the day that I hadn’t “done my sustainability” thing yet and made it about checking the tickbox by looking around for simple/easy things I already do, just to be able to say I did something.

This past week I’ve still been quite opportunistic in my daily activities but also have started planning the week ahead, so thought for the next little while I’d use my weekly reflections to both report on the past week as well as sketch out ideas for the upcoming week. That’ll add a smidge of accountability, and also give me something to look back on when I do the weekly recap – what did and didn’t go according to plan, etc.

Recap: Week #5

Although this week continued to be relatively random & opportunistic, there were some definite themes.

  1. Right livelihood: In the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths, he articulated a way to live life that would lead to the end of suffering. This framework, the Eightfold Path, includes right (sometimes translated as correct) livelihood. There have been many interpretations of this; the ones that resonate most for me explore what it means to make one’s living in a way that does not cause harm and that is ethically positive. Appreciating that living in a capitalist, colonial society all forms of making a living involve some form of exploitation and it is not possible to have completely pure ethics around any type of job on stolen land, I have been exploring what would be an at least OK job. What keeps coming up is:
    (a) I want to work.
    (b) I want to do work that fulfills a real need, not a need manufactured primarily to perpetuate/sustain the dominant culture.
    (c) I want to do work that actively brings into being the kind of world I want to live in.
    (d) I want to be healthy in my job, with enough time to do the things I need to stay healthy as well as enough energy to actively contribute to my family, sangha, and the community at large.

    So, a few weeks ago I applied for a part-time job (point d) that would be supporting work I believe is valuable and meaningful (points b and c). I didn’t get the job, so this week sleuthed websites that list local job ads as well as websites, and did a daily search. A local environmental group posted a position that seemed like a good fit for my skillset so I did a bit of digging to find out more about the organization, and asked friends for feedback on suitability. It became clear in talking with friends (and especially my very insightful spouse) that although the organization does good work, a full-time job that involves moving paper around – even moving paper for a good cause – is not a good thing for my mental health. Part-time admin work for a good cause is still something I want to consider as a way to use my skills and privilege for maximum benefit, but there is something in me that also wants to do something more hands on and immediate.

    Enter farming.

    As I mentioned in earlier weeks of this Challenge, food is an awesome place to look at sustainability as the agriculture system is linked to so many environmental and social justice issues including water consumption and pollution, fossil fuel and other energy use, deforestation and other destruction of natural habitat, GMOs, farmworker rights, pollinator mass die-offs, exploitation of poor countries by rich countries and big agribusiness, commercial patenting of seeds and traditional knowledge, expropriation and destruction of Indigenous peoples’ lands, and inequities of access to healthy, nutritious, affordable, culturally relevant food. For me it’s also been coming up repeatedly over the years as work that meets a real human need, in striking comparison to much of the paper-pushing I’ve done over the years.

    I’ve worked with my housemates to create food gardens in almost every place I’ve lived for more than a few months in, and for a number of years have been thinking about growing food as a potential vocation. Small-scale farming is a world apart from big agribusiness; locally grown, fairly traded organic food offers significant environmental, social justice, and human health benefits. It is the only viable option for a low carbon world. But there are a lot of questions – am I physically strong enough to do it, can I do it without a car, how would I find land, am I willing to put in the kind of hours required, what would I do in the winter, is it really possible to make a living doing this, etc. The only way to answer these questions is to actually do it but I am too scared to just get out there and start doing it on my own, I want to learn from someone who has made a go of it. Many of the farm internships I’ve looked at in the past are on lands outside the Victoria area and require living on the farm, which isn’t compatible with having responsibilities in my own home. A hefty commute also isn’t sustainable.

    So, this week I did some sleuthing on farm internships in general and scouted farms that are realistically bikeable from where we live. I had a specific farm in mind that is a few blocks from us, but wanted to look at other farms just in case. Happily, things are looking pretty good with the farmer who lives and farms in our neighbourhood. She’s got a great sense of humour, we have shared political values (e.g., she has donated a portion of profits to help cover legal costs for First Nations fighting oil & gas companies seeking to build pipelines without consent on Indigenous lands), and does much of her work by bike. Best of all, she’s open to having someone work with her and pester her with questions! So, this week I made arrangements to meet with her to discuss volunteering on a part-time basis to receive mentorship in how to structure small plot intensive (aka SPIN) urban/suburban farming. Our first meeting is next week and I’m pretty excited! Even if all I learn from this is that farming isn’t right for me, at least I will have tried it, instead of just thinking about it.

    I also (finally) did some work removing invasives from our home garden/mini-farm, and clearing paths to facilitate food harvesting. This year the harvest timing has been really different than past years with the hot and dry weather, and we have a ton of food ready right now, so lots of harvesting quite a bit earlier than usual…

  2. Government lobbying: Even though it’s highly problematic to participate in settler government machinations (which often serve to legitimize colonial BS), as a settler I do feel responsible to challenge and otherwise attempt to rein in my government. So, this week I took part in the current provincial government climate action consultation process both to be able to learn more about how the BC government is spinning things, and also to provide comments that challenge the fundamental assumptions embedded in the consultation (e.g., the purpose of the economy is to make more money for BC, make more stuff, and create jobs). I also wrote a letter to all Canadian federal party leaders & environment reps/critics, as part of the ClimateFast campaign (writing them on the first day of each month to ask them to make combating climate change their top priority, i.e., put climate change first). This is the 10th month I’ve been doing this and each month I write a new letter identifying something that happened in the past month relating to climate change – it’s a great way for me to keep on top of what is going on in this field.
  3. Assessing & planning: Upon receiving our water bill, I checked our water consumption stats in the most recent quarter compared to previous years – we are using less water than last year despite significantly hotter and drier weather – yay! Not sure how much of that is a measure of our water conservation measures vs. slightly less intensive food gardening this year, but whatever the reason is it going in the right direction.Also, this week I sleuthed ways to reduce fossil fuel dependence and made a list for future actions. As part of my “first month of the Challenge” completion I’ve been thinking a lot about the “do something new every day” structure I built into this Challenge. I set it up that way deliberately to make myself stretch outside of my comfort zone, but now that I’ve done 35+ days can really see that there are different kinds of tasks and some of them are ones that need to be done repeatedly over time to have a cumulative effect (e.g., tending our garden so we can eat 0-mile organic plants) vs. one-offs (e.g., participating in government public consultation re climate change priorities) — and for the ones that come up again and again, I need to decide what to prioritize for my time and energy, as I can’t do all the things all the time. I don’t know how to evaluate effectiveness/impact — whether it is better to spend the time catching and distributing water from doing the dishes and showering, or let that go and ride my bike instead of taking the bus, or…? Even though I am not sure what is the most effective use of my time, I sure do notice how much I try to squeeze into the day and how shortcuts/time-savers often involve some level of irresponsibility/unsustainability. So, some of what I’ve been thinking about this week is how to, in addition to doing something positive, refrain from doing something negative (to free up the time to do things that are more positive). Which leads me to…

Looking ahead: Weeks #6 and #7

In Week #6, I’m going to focus on energy conservation and ways to reduce fossil fuel dependence (and emissions). Planned actions are:

  • Look into LED bulbs to replace regular lightbulbs as they burn out
  • Look into what kind of system we could use for indoor drying of clothes during rainy/cooler weather
  • Finish reading The Pet Poo Pocket Guide and sort out what to do with critter poop (other than sending to landfill, which is what we currently do)
  • Write local government about Bullfrog’s new biofuel option as part of converting to green energy
  • Do research on how to make one’s home a net zero energy building (including looking into offsetting)
  • Start compiling list of zero-waste resources and ideas for actions
  • Check all electrical appliances in house and, where possible, reduce standby power draws (e.g., by setting up power bars or unplugging appliance when not in use)

I don’t want to map things out too far in advance, but there is a longstanding and sticky habit for me that I want to tackle in Week #7 — overuse of the computer. I have already shifted away from the excessive entertainment that I got caught up in earlier in recovery when my cognitive function was so crappy that watching MI-5 on Netflix was about all I could muster, and am not longer playing solitaire online, but am still plugged in most of the day (and still compulsively checking email, Facebook, and local news). In the past I’ve done unplugged days and a “no online entertainment” month, so I know I can do this, and it feels like it’s time. Not entirely sure what form it will take but am thinking at this point no Netflix or Facebook for the week, and also taking some time away from email (probably not the whole week) and from the computer as a whole (definitely not the whole week as I have some volunteer obligations that require computer use). Am hoping this will help kickstart some overall changes in behaviour around when and how I’m using the computer, ideally limiting it to a set number of hours per day (both to reduce electricity use and also to make time for other positive things).

And what about you?

I would love to get feedback from you. What do you think of all of this rambling? What resonates with you, and what doesn’t? Are you trying your own sustainability initiatives and if so what are you learning?

Have a great week!

100 Day Sustainability Challenge: Results from Week #4

Wow, it’s already been nearly a month since I started this Sustainability Challenge. Cool! Seems like a good time to reflect on the Challenge as a whole, as well as reporting back on lessons learned from week #4.

Week #4: This week it really felt like a lot was about relationships and starting to take some baby steps around connecting with people and building principled community. I know in theory that relationships and community are important for sustainability, health, and creating positive change, but a lot of my experiences of political community have sucked. Rather than working to improve my skills to be in community I have mostly dealt with my disappointments and hurts by holing up at home. So my relationships have dwindled over time and I have become quite rusty at community-building skills. To change this I will need to actually get out there and practice being in community, and developing relationships with people who, however shyly or clumsily, are also interested in the same kind of issues as I am. And on that note, some actions from Week #4:

  • Unist’ot’en solidarity. Six years ago Wet’suwet’en people from the Unist’ot’en clan set up a permanent community in their traditional territory that is directly in the path of planned oil and gas pipelines that are opposed by grassroots Wet’suwet’en people. The Unist’ot’en camp allows Unist’ot’en people and allies to continuously monitor the roads through the area to protect Wet’suwet’en lands from incursion (the road leading into the territory has been closed to all further industry activities and a protocol is in place to ensure that anyone travelling through the territory has consent to be there). In addition to protecting Wet’suwet’en lands there are also efforts to build a healing camp to help extend the leaning, healing, reconnecting with nature, and decolonization work that happens every day at the camp, with Indigenous youth as the main focus. This week I attended a solidarity action (banner hanging from a local highway overpass) and connected with a couple people at that action about ways to provide ongoing support. I was very embarrassed that I have been away from Indigenous solidarity work for so many years but glad to take some small steps towards this again and to meet other people with similar interests.
  • Trans community. Since burning out in trans community work many years ago and dealing with a lot of hurtful criticism by other trans people related to the work I was doing, I have for the past 10 years avoided trans community events and now do not have many trans people in my life. Impressed by the Alt Pride parade that we went to a few weeks ago, this week I went to the Alt Pride All Bodies’ Swim and connected with other trans people for the first time in a long time. It was an amazing thing to have my shirt off in a public setting, scars and all, and to be in the presence of other people who have experienced shaming around their bodies but are determined to love themselves and each other, and to build a world where all bodies are valued and seen as beautiful. This week I also connected with trans Buddhists in Vancouver and New York. All of a sudden after many years of hiding from trans people, there are a whole bunch of trans people are coming into my life and I am grateful!
  • Housing. There has been heavy local controversy recently about Victoria City Council’s exploration of setting up a tent city, micro-housing village, and other band-aid solutions to homelessness. Many people have pointed out how ineffective these initiatives are in addressing the root causes of homelessness, such as poverty and lack of affordable housing, and have called for the provincial and federal governments to step up around providing housing funding. In response to the proposal of setting up a tent city in a local park there has also been the predictable NIMBY (not in my backyard) poor-bashing, stereotyping and fear-mongering about people who are homeless being a danger to children and home-owners. So, this week I wrote Victoria City Council to express my support for their efforts to improve things for people who are currently sleeping outside and to ask for their input on the idea of a network of safe houses (more on this below), and more generally ways to build non-exploitive, genuinely mutual relationships between housed and unhoused people where together we can think about how as a community we can make sure everyone has a safe place to live, instead of waiting until government provides money to build more housing.
    More on the safe house network idea: For some time now I have been thinking that the problem is not that we don’t have enough physical buildings for everyone to have safe shelter, but rather that we have collectively created a culture of fear, mistrust, isolation, hoarding, and individualism, and have lost practical skills around how to look after, relate to, and share with each other. Definitely there are some people who need solo living options as they are currently too traumatized to be able to live with other people, and homeless people should not be forced into housing that is not of their choosing, but for people who are open to sharing space, if everyone who was housed shared their resources with people who do not have housing, there would already be more than enough to go around. (This is like the situation with food. Hunger exists not because there is not enough food, but because there is inequity in food affordability and distribution.) This kind of informal sharing of space already happens, between people who know and trust each other (family, friends, friends of friends, etc.). Sometimes these arrangements are horrible, exploitive, unsafe, and totally substandard; it is not uncomplicated, but sharing bathrooms, kitchens, sleeping space, and storage space is a possibility if there are genuine relationships between people with and without housing.
    And that is where I see a big gap. Currently the main ways that housed people get to know people without housing is typically through some kind of formal service relationship – whether as a paid professional or as a volunteer. And in those relationships it is considered unprofessional and unethical to have a real mutual relationship that might include people who are “clients” coming to the house of the person who is the “service provider”.
    For some time I have been kicking over the idea of having a voluntary safe house network, where people with housing agree to share what they have with people who need space. That sharing might take the form of having people be able to come have a shower, or share a meal, or stash their stuff, or put up a tent, or stay in a spare room, or use a computer…there are many possibilities.
    When I think about the kind of neighbourhood I want to live in, I want my neighbourhood to be very diverse, connected, and caring. I want to live in a neighbourhood where we can not only borrow a cup of sugar, but someone could go to someone else’s door and ask to use the bathroom, or where there could be an open invite to come over and share dinner – that is the way I remember my grandmother approaching the world and I have seen examples of this throughout my life that have really moved me. When our next door neighbour’s bathroom wasn’t working they came over to use our shower, and they let us use their washing machine when ours was busted. How can we extend this concept of “neighbour” to include people who do not have housing but have many other things they can share? This is something that has been restless in me for a while, living in this beautiful house and not having shared it with many people, and is an ongoing conversation with my sweet spousey about how to make sure he gets what he needs in terms of safety and privacy and home as a place of refuge from the world, which is something I value but also have some different feelings about. No doubt this will be an ongoing discussion…I am grateful he is willing to have these conversations!
  • Learning. This week I completed week 1 of the “Story of Solutions” 4 week Citizen Muscle Boot Camp program. Week 1 is about figuring out your purpose and the course uses short creative exercises to help clarify your skills, interests and passion. I wrote: “My purpose is to use my writing and problem-solving skills to, working with others who are engaged in a contemplative practice, inspire and empower people to challenge and change the ways we think about our relationships to ourselves, each other, and the earth!” The wording is clunky but I found the process of working on this helpful not only in thinking about how to focus my activist efforts but also giving me some ideas of what I want to look for in paid work.
  • Visiting family. This week I visited my sister, who is living up-island on K’ómoks traditional territory. It is the first time that I have travelled in over a year and I was pretty nervous about it, so didn’t set any particular sustainability goals, but aimed to travel as lightly as possible. I made the trip by commercial bus, and the bus was not very full, so was likely a heavy fossil fuel use per person – next time I will look into taking a smaller shuttle bus instead. Both going there and returning, I brought healthy home-made food in a reuseable container and a refillable bottle for water, instead of buying unhealthy over-packaged food/drinks. I also continued water conservation practices, not difficult to keep in mind as up-island they are also in a drought, and their local government has, unlike ours, put signage up everywhere and has implemented appropriately stricter restrictions around water wastage. Under the terms of this Challenge actions that I’ve already written about earlier don’t count as actions this week, but I was proud to do them in another location. My sister set up a rain barrel to help collect roof water for her garden and I checked out her setup as part of thinking about how we could set up a rain collection system here to divert water from the storm sewer system and into the ground. We also did some work around garden planning and problem-solving around how to keep her garden soil healthy while minimizing invasive weeds. While at her place we also talked about how to do food and decided to home-cook meals instead of eating out, and then planned and made healthy delicious vegan meals using local produce as much as possible. Yay! It was great to talk with someone else about sustainability and find things that we could do that required a bit of effort but were simple and satisfying.

This week I have also been reflecting on the connection between my mental health recovery and the collective state of deep disturbance that we are in. After two glorious weeks of being free of agoraphobia and not having any panic attacks, this week I had several days of great difficulty (with repeated panic attacks, both out in public and at home). It was deeply upsetting and disappointing and made me question what to do around work, volunteering, and other out in the world stuff – am I doing too much, or am I just having rational and sane feelings arising from breaking out of denial and getting more in touch with the disconnect between my values and the really sick culture that I live in? How does one stay sane in a suicidal culture, and move from shallow level actions into deeply nourishing, transformative work? I don’t know what the answer is but still feel that to recover integrity of self I need to keep going with this path of using my time and energy to work on things that I hope will help create positive change in the world, just keep going and see what happens…

General reflections on the Sustainability Challenge thus far: In this first month I have mostly been opportunistic about ways to do something new around sustainability. I have made lists of ideas for actions to take, but haven’t actually mapped out when I will pursue any of them. And thus far there have been many opportunities to do something each day so it has, for the most part, not been challenging to find things to do. But I would also like to experiment with being more intentional about it and also planning specific actions to take so that the more complicated actions that require a bit of planning do not get forgotten, and I’m not just looking around at the end of the day for simple/easy things I already do, or things that may not be particularly effective, just so I can say I did something. Ideas? Suggestions?

Thanks for reading! I look forward to comments 🙂