Living might mean taking chances… Part I

I ended up going to the talk on peak oil like I’d wanted and I’ve got to say it was so much better than I had hoped. The focus, at least for me, in this eco-movement has for the most part been on global warming, on climate change and on sustainability. However, for the most part, I’ve ignored the inevitability and consequences of peak oil. Sure I knew what it was, the theory, the implications, I wasn’t about to deny that it was important, but nonetheless I mostly ignored it. I focused on changing my life and tried to encourage others to do the same. I didn’t spend a lot of time on the how’s and why’s and what if’s.
 
Until last night. Sitting there this little light bulb went off in my head, one that showed just how interconnected this all is. I’d always just assumed that peak oil would come and go but it wouldn’t matter because we’d all be dying in a hazy fog induced by global warming and pollution. I never stopped to think that the end of suburbia and urbanization means a lot of the problems we’re dealing with on the climate change front would be solved. What it means is that they have the same solution, and while we can’t stop the global warming that’s underway we can definitely stop it from worsening just like we can cushion the effects that peak oil will have.
 
But I’m getting ahead of myself, because you can’t understand the possible solutions until you understand the problem. Peak oil is the midpoint in oil production, meaning it’s the highest possible amount of oil that can be produced at any given point. After that point oil production decreases, producing less and less as time goes on, and in a world highly dependent on oil, this is a problem.
 
There’s a lot of controversy over when oil production will peak. Has it already occurred? Is it occurring now? How far in the future will it peak? No one knows, and in all reality, I’m not sure that it’s all that important. It’s going to happen, we know that much, and we know that right now oil production’s no longer meeting demands. As was said last night, “translation, surplus nations are drawing down their reserves”. Oil’s going out faster than it can come in, and that in and of itself is a problem.
 
One third of the top fifteen oil-producing countries are past their peak. Production’s declining, and eventually expansion’s going to have to stop and contraction’s going to set in. But what’s the big deal? You’re asking yourself. We’re investing in alternative and renewable energy, and with people going green maybe we’re cutting down on our energy consumption. That’s what I thought too, but it’s not that simple.
 
Oil, natural gas, and coal, our main sources of energy, are particularly energy dense. They create a lot more energy than it takes to produce them. Switching to something less energy dense is impractical not only because we’re used to using forms of energy that yield more power but also because many of these sources take more energy to produce than they create. Sources like ethanol and hydrogen take a massive amount of energy and infrastructure to produce. Hydrogen gives a negative rate of return, you can’t find it anywhere, you have to create it, and that’s inefficient. Ethanol faces a similar problem even as it’s being toted as the wave of the future. Furthermore, most alternative and renewable sources of energy make electricity, not the liquid fuel most of our economy is used to running off of.
 
What does this mean in the end? It means we’re headed for an energy crisis. We can already see it happening in places like Haiti with the food riots, in Mexico with the tortilla riots, and in the airline industry. It’s our warning signal that globalization’s not as efficient as we think; large economies of scale are impractical in a world with rising energy prices. It goes without saying that life’s eventually going to go a lot more local.
 
Conservation and community are going to become our main focus. We’re going to have to rebuild a collective understanding and begin to value life. We’re going to have to unplug and face who we’ve come as a species. We’re going to have to take a hard look at where our food comes from and what that means to us. We can do it but it’s going to take change, and a lot of it.

just a cage of rib bones and other various parts.

 
I attended a really interesting talk this morning on EFW (energy from waste) in this case they take solid municipal waste (the stuff you put out at the curb) and burn it to create steam that powers turbines to make electricity. It turns out to be a really great alternative to landfills (the process doesn’t create methane and takes up less space), and is a really great source of alternative energy. It’s hard to believe but for every ton of of garbage that’s burned it saves a ton of oil.
 
I know that this is old news in a lot of the EU, but it’s something that’s done on a relatively small scale in the states. Which is kind of sad considering we produce 25% of the world’s trash with only 5% of the population.
 
What I really liked about the presentation, was the fact that even though they (Covanta) rely on the use of our solid waste they really emphasized finding other forms of renewable energy and they put a large premium on recycling. Something like this doesn’t eliminate our waste problem, it just helps take the edge off of it.
 
What did kind of upset me was that although they did talk a bit about the three R’s (reduce, reuse, recycle). They didn’t really stress the second one at all, although given the fact that most people skip the first two I was surprised to hear them talk about reduction of waste. For the most part it was more of a overall reduction in packaging and the sort of stuff that can be done on a business level as opposed to a personal level, but it was still nice to hear.
 
Overall it was a really interesting talk. It was a nice reminder that all this stuff we’re buying ends up in those ugly methane-producing, toxic landfills and that we really do have to do something about that. Even as I’ve tried to cut down on the stuff I buy and reduce the impact I have on the environment I tend to forget about that part of the picture. I guess I always just assumed that it went away and that suddenly even though I felt guilty about throwing stuff out that somehow it all got taken care of. Well that’s not exactly true and hopefully I’ll remember that.

There’s another talk tonight on peak oil so hopefully I’ll get to go to that. If not I’ll probably be here reading Kitchen Literacy since I’ve got to get it back to the library in two weeks and I only got it this morning.

You can’t dream for me now.

 
 
I spent a lot of time this week poking around homesteading and gardening sites. I looked at everything from square foot gardening, to container gardening, and building houses on rural homesteads. All in all a very interesting bit of research, I learned a lot but I still haven’t decided what I want to grow. I know I want to start some herbs inside on the window sill, basil, parsley, thyme, coriander and some stuff for my tea, mint, lemon balm, chamomile, maybe some stevia. Thing is I haven’t decided what and how I want to grow stuff outside. All I know is I want to grow something, and badly. I’ll figure it out eventually. I’m not too worried, although I’m hoping I don’t get sick of it the second the temperature gets into the high eighties.
 
I also spent a lot of time this week on etsy looking for birthday presents for a couple of friends. I haven’t found exactly what I wanted, but I found a bunch of really cool stuff in the process.
 

Jack – Swirl Bubble Pendant with Onyx Bead by enca
I love the sort of French style curve in this one, especially with the contrast between the two colors.
 

life is bitter, but sweet by nanako
I’m not usually a fan of Polaroids especially when the processing can totally ruin the original effect, but all of the prints in this shop are breath taking.
 

Wine by eclecticchaoscreated
 

Grilled Cheese Pendant/Charm by OneElf
I love OneElf’s collection of spunky charms. There’s everything from ice cream sandwiches to robin eggs and bird’s nests. They really look like miniaturized objects, it’s the neatest thing.
 

Moonstone Necklace with Charm by eastsidejewels
This was actually the first necklace I picked out of the bunch that I was looking at.

 

Earth Day aka “Green Love” 2008

Leafy Tree Pendant from OneElf
 
  

Earth Day’s fast approaching and I’m super excited. My ‘hug a tree’ shirt’s ready and waiting and I’m impatiently counting down the hours. Yes I’m a giant geek, but it’s the one day where spreading the green love is totally socially acceptable. Although I will still try and refrain from yelling at people who chuck plastic bottles in the trash; I will not refrain from rolling my eyes at people who look at me funny when I remove perfectly good rolls of wrapping paper from the trash.
 
It’s going to be fun. However since it is Earth Day I know everyone’s being berated with things like ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ and ‘turn the water off when you brush your teeth’. Important, yes, but I think there’s a bit of a bigger picture that gets missed in all that, so I’m going for something different. I’m not going to talk about it, at least not today. Today I’m talking about worms.
 
Yes, I’m finally writing a real entry about something, and yes it’s about worms. I happen to think they’re cute, most people don’t, but that’s not the point of this whole thing. The point is that they’re very useful little creatures.
 
They help aerate the soil and provide nutrients in forms more useful to plants. They also are quite useful in composting. Composting is important in so many ways from reducing the amount of trash that ends up in landfills to providing nutrients to plants that you grow. It can, however, be difficult for people who live in apartments or in houses with small or nonexistent yards.
 
If you’re in the above group you can go the indoor composting route, invest in an indoor composting unit, or try bokashi (which is awesome if you’re looking for ways to compost meat and dairy products) or you can go the worm route.
 
Vermiculture, or composting with worms is something of interest to me; not only because I love worms but also because I hate throwing things out. Long before I found out that landfills produce methane, a greenhouse gas, I thought composting was cool because it took something you couldn’t use and turned it into something that you could. Worms it turns out are particularly good at this. Plus you can put together a bin for little to no cost.
 
First you’ve got to fine an empty bin, something the size of a dishpan and add bedding, worms, and a little bit of dirt. The worms you can get from your backyard by laying out a piece of wet cardboard overnight and harvesting the worms in the morning. You want the ones that live near the surface, not deep down in the dirt, so don’t start digging. Then all you’ve got to do is start feeding them.
 
Simple, yet effective. If you want some more information try a google search, or check out a couple of sites that I really like:

• Worm Composting with Earth 911
• Red Worms
• Vermicompost on Treehugger

Shopping for Plastic Soup

Bring Your Own posted this really great video from zaproot and it got me thinking about reusable bags (again) so I figured I’d share some of my favorite etsy finds.
 
I’ve been using reusable shopping bags like this hot pink one (which is oh so cute) for awhile now, but some of the rest of these are new to me.
 
 

by parischicboutique
I love this bag, because it’s sassy and pink, plus it’s the perfect size to use for other things. They’ve also have canvas totes and one with poka dots.
 
 

by quirkybags.
I had a really hard time choosing between all the bags in this shop. They’ve got everything from quilted bags to bags with bicycles. This one I really liked because of the coloring, it’s springy and cheerful without over doing the pastels so that it looks like an estar bag. Plus like the rest of the bags in the shop it’s lined with a complementary pattern so the bag feels more like a bag and less like something you’d use to haul groceries around.
 
 

by gnomeclothes
I’d seen these with plastic lining before, which while that was a step in the right direction I kind of felt like it was missing the point. These sandwitch bags are not only made totally from fabric, but they also look cool.