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.
- 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…
- 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.
- 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!
stand up eko 