Coffee and the State of the Planet

Who doesn’t love a hot rich cup of Joe? Well, nearly most of us do but the impact our brown bean obsession has on the planet is pretty bad. No, it’s absolutely terrible. Every morning, millions and millions of people line up at coffee bars, shops, convenience stores, gas stations and hot drink dispensers to fill up on the nation’s most popular hot beverage.

The disposable Styrofoam coffee cup is a detriment to the planet and increases the size of any carbon footprint. Oh but what about the paper ones you say? Turns out most paper coffee cups are made from bleached virgin tree, meaning very difficult to recycle and not exactly sustainable. Bad bad coffee cups.

But when these unrecyclable coffee cups end up in landfills, things go from bad to worse. The plastic coating on the inside of the cups that prevents the liquid from leaking out? Well when the paper corrodes, the chemicals in the plastic coating off gas releasing methane into the atmosphere. Methane is an uber greenhouse gas that is directly related to the heating of the planet and climate change. Bad bad methane.

So what to do? How can we enjoy our favorite wake up liquid without harming the planet? It’s really quite easy: make your coffee at home. These days, you can find everything for a coffee shop style Joe in the supermarket. Get a coffee maker, a grinder if you must, a few flavored syrups and voila! Home made coffee.

Home made coffee has a much lower impact on the planet (remember to unplug when you are done), saves a lot of money and taste just as good as the planet killing stuff. But there are still areas where things can go wrong.

For instance, making your coffee at home is great until you buy beans from Arabia and carry the coffee around in an off gassing plastic container. We make coffee in the states. If you have to go further a field choose Mexico or Canada over exotic locales. This reduces the transportation footprint and reduces the chance of purchasing unfairly traded beans.

So choose a steel thermos or travel mug for your locally produced made at home coffee. This will lower your costs and your planetary impact. It may also help reduce the amount of trees destroyed each year for cups and force coffee shop owners to make wiser choices in their beverage containers. Remember consumer consume and smart consumers consume at home to instigate change.

Be a carbon reducing coffee warrior and do your part.

Anyone else thirsty?

Green: An Old Fashioned View of Living?

Over the weekend I made about 30 jars of apple jelly. I used glass jars I had collected from past purchases and about 250 fresh apples I got through the freecycle network. People think I’m dated because I like canning. It made me think about some of the old fashioned ways of living that work well with a green lifestyle.

Taking fresh locally grown organic produced and pickling it, making jelly or preserving it for future use is a great way to save money and lower your carbon footprint. Canning reduces the amount of prepackaged foods that you consume, reduces waste and provides a healthier non toxic diet.

Mending clothes seems like a phrase out of the dark ages but it’s a great way to reduce consumer spending and in turn your effect on the planet’s oxygen supply. The less new clothes that are produced the lower the carbon emission from factories. Sewing a tear, hemming pants and patching up jeans are great ways to save cash. Wear your clothes with a sense of green honor and keep the needle and thread handy.

Fixing things is another simple way to save money and reduce your footprint. When the bed rail breaks, don’t throw out the bed, repair the rail. Maintain your home with regular maintenance and clean appliances thoroughly to extend their life. Repair and reuse has always been the name of the game for the thrifty and the green.

Barter with friends and family rather than throwing things away or paying for things up front. Swap skills with neighbors and trade a mowed lawn for a new deck chair or a serviced boiler for a few jars of canned vegetables. This helps lower the community carbon footprint, extend the sense of societal unity in your home town and saves money for everyone.

Think before you buy or use something. Our grandparents generation lived through worst economic times than we are facing now and learned quickly what was necessary and what was frivolous. Before buying or doing anything, consider the real cost both in carbon and cash. Living frugally in a poor economy helps everyone.

It may be a little old fashioned, but it turns out, so is being green.

The Green Pumpkin

Everywhere I look, pumpkins are already for sale. This staple of Halloween can be an opportunity for waste or an opportunity for saving money. The green pumpkin is a great lesson for little ones.

Think about how many pumpkins, which are a sustainable product, Americans buy every year. Millions of pounds of pumpkin are thrown into the garbage annually. Rather than just carving the pumpkin and sticking a candle in the center, there are a number of ways to green up pumpkin use this year and offset your carbon footprint.

Firstly, purchase only locally grown organic pumpkins. They may not be the largest ones available but they will be natural, sustainable and safe to eat. Buying pumpkins that are flown or driven into your area is bad for the carbon footprint and increases the amount of greenhouse gases in the air.

Hollow out your pumpkin in a responsible manner. You can use all of the pumpkin so there is no reason for any of it to end up in the garbage. Any pieces you do want to throw away should land on the compost heap.

Toast and salt seeds, use innards for pumpkin pie and pumpkin soup and place remaining pulp in freezer to be pureed at a later date for Halloween style beverages. And for those who want a zero waste lifestyle? Search online for a pumpkin rind pickling recipe. Yes, they do exist.

If you hate the taste of pumpkin, then don’t purchase one. Buying things for one night just to throw away is a very irresponsible way to live and it is a complete waste of money. If you can’t live without a craved pumpkin this season, give the remains to a family member or neighbor to cook with. And if that doesn’t work for you, consider a carbon credit for each pumpkin you purchase.

If we begin to approach holidays and get togethers as opportunities to help the planet and use our creativity rather than what they are now carbon footprint enhancers, we can make permanent lifestyle changes. Natural decorations, organic cotton costumes and of course, pumpkin rind snacks, is one way to help the planet this coming holiday.

A little More About the Freecycle Thing

Freecycle is a growing trend in both urban and rural communities. This great new bargain basement craze is one heck of a way to offset and reduce your carbon footprint. Today a friend of mine sent me invites to join two local freecycle networks and I was stunned at how fast the offers started rolling in.

As explained on their website, the freecycle folks are all about waste reduction and reusing items that have both value and worth. The rules are simple: no fee, no politics, no meanness just online postings of free useable stuff in your local area. The group is a non profit network operating nationwide with thousands of locally moderated branches for your convenience.

It’s all about lowering your personal carbon footprint. The more items that we keep out of landfills, the better off the planet. And throwing away stuff someone else may want and can use? That’s just stupid. And if like me you live in a town where the local thrift store doesn’t take furniture (they have no space) giving it away to strangers is much better than taking it to the local dump.

Freecycle seems like an honest bunch of folks, despite my husband’s reservations regarding the whole scheme. I mean really, in this day and age, people giving stuff away for free? Craziness! But the grassroots efforts across the globe to try harder to instill community, share with friends and neighbors and promote responsible discarding of unwanted items are all results of the growing green movement.

So here’s what you do. Write a small description of the item you want to give away on the forum post page. Include your street address and the location of the goods. I’ve learned that just for safety’s sake, most people leave stuff on their porch or sidewalk near their home rather than invite people inside. Better safe than sorry. Once the item has been picked up, you post to the forum again, letting everyone else know not to bother coming out.

A surprisingly simple and effective system. But here comes the uber green part. You can also ask for specific items that you need, cannot afford or don’t want to pay for. The one I came across today was a couple looking for lidded glass jars to make jelly with. They didn’t want fancy jelly jars just glass jars they could reuse. They soon posted a thank you after receiving more jars than they could ever use. And just think, rather than ending up in the trash, the jars were repurposed. How cool is that?

This footprint lowering, waster reducing, recycling phenomenon is bound to have its critics. Green socialism perhaps? The slippery slope to organic communism? Whatever, call it what you will. Personally, it seems to be a great way to reduce waste, help people out and reduce costs during these difficult economic times.

I can’t wait to see if I can go and freecycle the apples off a neighbors tree. Free apple pie is the best kind of apple pie. Talk about shopping locally.

Mother Earth to Earth Ship: Sustainable Living Concepts

Everywhere I look someone is doing something creative and inventive to conserve energy, help the planet and offset their carbon footprint. I watched a great documentary on earth ships the other day and decided to do a little research. These green homes not only save energy and work with the natural environment, they save money too.

As explained by earthship.net, you can use the term “earth ship” to describe your green home if it adheres to a set of six basic principles. These are: utilizing solar and wind energy alone to heat and cool the building, creating a contained sewage system, harvesting rain water consistently, building the frame and walls out of recycled and sustainable materials and having designated areas for self production of food.

The ships are built low or into the ground, offering subterranean living. They have solar panels on the roof and walls, have an assortment of rain barrels around the perimeter to catch run off room the roof and often have full fledged gardens growing on the inside of the structure. I’ve seen some with walls made from glass bottles and others made from reclaim rocks. They are experiments in green design which offer both a place to life as well as a sustainable lifestyle.

Earth ships are beginning to pop up across the States and Europe with some people building a single structure on private land and others creating earth ship communities. The carbon footprint of such communities and the amount of emissions their lifestyles incur compared to classic living quarters is minimal. Creating your own heat and food also cuts down on living expenses.

In practical terms, earth ships take a lot of time and care to manage so it’s not a feasible thing to do if you live alone and commute several hours to the office everyday; unless of course you hire a little green help. All told an earth ship, including labor and materials, costs about $200 per square foot to build. The labor is same as traditional construction, the difference in cost is earth ships have top construct their own utility supplies where in traditional homes to rent these from utility companies. Its one of those, cost effective over time things.

I love the idea of underground heating, growing my own food and having no utility bills. But in practical terms, it’s a lot of work. Good thing is for the lazy greenies like myself, there are rental properties available. Some earth ships act as educational centers so you can see the potential we have to make real change, reduce greenhouse gases and lower our carbon footprints.

Earth ships may be the home of the future but until then, a few carbon credits to offset my unsustainable lifestyle methinks.

Greening the Holidays: Considering a Reduce Carbon Footprint Halloween

It may seem a little early to start talking Halloween but for many of us, this coming weekend is when we start getting serious about making plans and buying costumes. And if you are trying to have a green Halloween on a budget, preparation is a must.

A quick scan through the cyber world shows a number of new options for those considering Halloween as another opportunity to reduce and offset their carbon footprint. And some aspects of this sugar fueled spooky holiday have always been green, so why change what works?

Trick or treating is a walking tradition; the door to door ritual is integral to the holiday. Choose local areas for candy canvassing and leave the car at home. Close parental supervision is enough to keep your kid safe and driving the car every block to park it at the end of the street is not just lazy, is a greenhouse gas nightmare. Keep fuel emissions low this year and wear good walking shoes and a warm coat.

Create your own Halloween costume out of used materials.A second hand white sheet is a majorly low impact approach. Browse local thrift stores and dress up boxes for the basics for a home made costume. In these harsh economic times, the budget approach is considered smart so don’t worry. You could even consider a “green” green costume and dress up like a recycling bin or LED light bulb, whatever tickles your fancy. Just avoid buying as little over processed packaged products as possible.

Speaking of which, how about natural decorations this year? The stores abound with an assortment of soy candles both scented and decorative and a bale of straw is a lot cheaper than the plastic emission emitting decorations from the made anywhere but here store. A number of online retailers are offering corn based treat bags or you could buy a canvas bag and use it for many years to come.

If you are giving out the treats this year use it as an opportunity to make a statement. Offer soy treats made from organic low footprint ingredients, collect candy wrappers for future craft projects and hand out candy in recycled packaging when you can find it.

Every holiday or occasion offers the chance to think outside the box. Halloween especially is a good opportunity to teach kids about being resourceful, making do and having lots of low impact fun.

Hedge Apples: A Natural Alternative to Pesticides

I was at the grocery store the other day on the hunt for some fresh mushrooms when I passed a box of odd looking fruit. The sign said “Hedge fruit: 2 for $1.00 not edible.” Huh? What on earth was it and what was it for? I picked up a piece of the strange bumpy looking fruit and as I was inspecting its strange surface, an old lady walked passed me and said “they are just great for keeping out the spiders.”

So of course, I had to do some research and discovered yet another to reduce carbon emissions and avoid the use of harsh chemical pesticides. And all I wanted was a few mushrooms.

Osage Orange, hedge apple, horse apple, bodark or more correctly Maclura pomifera is a small tree that was once used to indicate property boundaries in the days before barbed wire. They are a favorite of squirrels but not a good eating choice for humans.

Depending on who you to talk to, hedge apples deter spiders, crickets, bugs and cockroaches. It seems one university study showed that a natural chemical with the hedge apple to deter cock roaches. People put the hedge apples in dark corners, by doorways and porch steps to prevent insects entering the house. Everyone that uses them swears that they work.

Perhaps they are not the best natural insecticide out there (and I will continue to look for others) but they are a step in the right direction. And the cool thing is they aren’t anything new. People have utilized hedge apples for over a century in this capacity.

Sometimes being green isn’t a matter of coming up with new ways to do things, its about remembering how we used to do them.

Pesticides carry dangerous and deadly chemicals that give off carbon emissions during the manufacturing process. They can destroy farm side ecosystems and add unnecessary toxins to our food supply. So if an crinkly green apple thing in the corner of the room will reduce my dependence on such things? Well? I’m all for it.

The Bees Knees

So I overheard the other day that without bees, the planet would be a very different place. In fact, we would all probably be dead. Part of helping the environment, reducing carbon footprints and lowering the rate of climate change is paying attention to our animal and inset friends. Anyone into organic farming, buying local, fresh food, raw foods and natural ingredients has to know a little about bees.

So here are my green facts about bees.

They provide us with food. Every season, honey bees go out looking for their favorite thing: pollen. In the process they pollinate plants and flowers, providing us with crops to eat, pretty flowers to look at and more green things to eat up the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Bees can be used to grow organic honey and aid developing countries in lowering their carbon emissions and provide jobs for the unfortunate.

Bees are essential for the production of useful organic things like honey, beeswax, candles, soap, floor polish, creams and lotions and the vitamin supplement royal jelly.

Bees can increase domestic sustainability. By having a beehive in your backyard, you can reduce your consumer carbon footprint and make your own honey and candles. Homemade honey is much better for the bees and the environment.

So bees are cool and they only really sting when threatened or fighting for their life. Bees are our friends, our buddies, our planetary companions.

But we are killing them with global warming, pesticides, over development of land and the destruction of their natural habitat. Farming is great but organic, pesticide free farming that leaves land for the insects to live in is the only kind of farming that can reduce carbon emissions.

So there you have it. Bees are an integral part of our world but we are destroying them with carbon emissions and pollution. It’s just one more reason to buy carbon credits and offset your carbon footprint. And purchasing a jar or two of organic honey wouldn’t do any harm either.

Common Cents

You always hear that a dollar doesn’t go very far anymore. I have to disagree. I think part of offsetting my carbon footprint is living more responsibly by making green choices and paying close attention to where my money goes and I can make it go quite far.

I’ve learned the value of a dollar as I have learned how I affect the environment.

Wasteful consumerism is a major contributing factor to the rate of global warming. Things have gotten so cheap, especially foreign made goods, that it is easy to overbuy and over consume. The “made anywhere but here” stores make it easy to purchase a lot of things very quickly. The hidden costs (including high carbon footprints, unnecessary manufacturing, unsustainable goods, sweat shop labor, unsafe factories) hardly register when we have the opportunity to get a “bargain.”

But the short term impulse of the present has a long term impact on the future.

It doesn’t have to be like that. You can make your money go further by making economical choices that also turn out to be good for the planet.

For instance, take eating locally. In some cases, it can cost more. Some people produce local goods, but they cash in on the idea that organic and local means you can charge more. In fact, organically grown local produce should cost less. Look out for those manufacturers and farmers that don’t try abuse your good deeds. You can buy locally cheap. It’s a matter of taking the time to read labels and compare prices. Knowing a local producer or two doesn’t do any harm either. I buy local and still save money because I buy wisely and I buy from the same producers time and again building those consumer based relationships of the past.

Buying organically can save money too as long as you don’t opt for fine dining or quick fixes. If you cut out fad veggies you’ve never heard of and exclude overly manufactured products, it can be a real bargain. I opt for dry garbanzo beans rather than canned as it works out to be about two bucks cheaper. It’s a little more work, but the beans can be prepped the day before. If you save a couple of dollars on every product, that adds up quickly. Buy dry in bulk and watch the savings grow.

Another thing. Get over the designer labels. Usually they are produced in places where the workers are inadequately compensated and then the company owner charges you an exorbitant amount to be their advertising billboard. Get wise. I can buy a bag of clothes, designer label or otherwise at the local thrift store for a dollar, working out to about ten cents an item. No-one knows I didn’t spend 40 bucks on that shirt and it looks exactly the same as the shirt on the poor schmuck that did.

That’s just a few examples to be getting along with. Once you change your mindset you can start making economical changes everywhere. And for all those you can’t get to this year? Well buy a little carbon credit to help things along.

Carbon Neutral Kids

It’s not just us dissatisfied Gen-Xers and frustrated Boomers that have become a part of the green revolution. Many of today’s younger generations are living in a world where being green isn’t a phase or trend but a way of life, an integral part of normal society. What was a novel idea in the past has become an essential part of daily living and so learning about reducing carbon footprints and helping the planet should also involve the kids.

We should probably acknowledge that they know more than we do at this point.

I like to refer to my 6 month old as the “carbon neutral kid” as I strive to put what I learn into action to improve his quality of life. The little guy uses only organic products from sustainable containers, eats only organic locally grown foods and wears previously owned items and plays with well loved toys, all in my effort to keep his carbon footprint as low as possible.

And of course to encourage a lifetime of green practices.

Where before I would be accused of being cheap, I’m now applauded for being green.

Because when it comes down to it, we must not only reduce and offset our own carbon footprints, we must make green living a sustainable movement by encouraging the next generation to live better than ourselves.

But what am I saying? The kids are going green already.

Internet sites abound with advice for new moms on responsible and sustainable lifestyles and children taking ideas out of the classroom and putting them into practice in their communities. I recently saw a young man on one of the children’s channels being mentioned for starting a recycling program in his classroom that spread to the whole school and later the entire school district.

Kids put cans in the recycling bin without thinking and use the back side of paper without a glance. They ride their bikes in the park and walk to school when they can. They wear the hand me downs of their siblings and guilt their parents into choosing paper over plastic. Children plants vegetable gardens learn about the ozone layer and a truly worried and actively working towards solving the problems associated with climate change.

As we struggle to reduce our waste and offset our carbon, the future is working slowly and smartly towards a carbon neutral future.

Maybe they’ve been listening to us after all.

If we keep encouraging them, just imagine how far they can go.

A carbon neutral world? We can only hope.

A Little Dirt on Dirt

Waste weighs heavily on my mind these days. As I research how to live green on a budget, I keep coming across the recycling of food waste, namely the compost heap. Composting is a great way to produce nitrogen and nutrient rich soil for harvesting veggies in your own back yard, decreasing dependence on supermarket produce and lowering carbon emissions.

Well, the compost heap of my youth has transformed into a major new green industry that promotes sustainability, recycling and of course, offsets your carbon footprint. And you can even compost in your apartment these days. How far we have come.

So here’s a little dirt on dirt.

The range of composting bins offers something for everyone from large yard compost mechanisms that rotate and drain rain water to small indoor bins that fit under the kitchen sink. And the very latest carbon reducing, footprint offsetting trend? Vermic farming: a.k.a. harvesting worm poop.

Red worms or tiger worms are the wriggly planet saver of choice. These blind and deaf surface worms consume their body weight in waste scraps everyday making them efficient compost machines. A little TLC and the right sort of debris and these little guys can live in a plastic worm bin under your sink recycling while you do the dishes.

The internet abounds with eco-friendly recycled plastic worm bins so there’s something for every budget, but I’m always a fan of a local connection. I visited the worms at the local rural water office here in little old Glenrock and found out first hand how clean the whole set up was. I mean it was a bit of a shock…because, well…worms and worm poop, in the kitchen. But, it was pretty cool.

The bin was one of those designed by none other than worm guru, Mary Appelhof who became quite the expert in the worm business, producing her own line of bins. You take off the lid and it just looks like a bin full of the darkest richest FREE compost you ever saw. Throw in your leftovers from lunch and way hey! You’re saving the planet.

So basically it’s a plastic tub with a lid, air holes and a tray on the bottom that slides out. You could buy or make yourself depending on how creative and energetic you feel. Put in some worm bedding such as shredded newspaper or dry leaves, add a little water, a little soil and some food scraps, put the lid on (the wriggly guys aren’t fans of the light) and wait for the magic to happen.

Depending on the waste and the number of worms, you can expect your first pile of compost to show up in a few weeks. The compost usually gets a little warm what with all that warmish activity going on but it shouldn’t smell bad. A unit costs less than a hundred bucks and if that seems like too much of a cash splash, try offsetting the office footprint first before investing in a home unit. Be sure to throw in coffee grinds, veggies and waterlogged cardboard but avoid citrus fruits and onions. You are now the proud owner of your own carbon footprint reducing worm farm. Bravo you.

It’s amazing the things you come across online and who ever would have thought 20 years ago we’d be putting worms in our kitchen to save money and help our planet.

It’s a funny old world.

Full of eco friendly worms.

You are What You Eat: Organic Foods and Carbon Footprints

As I continue to discover how my way of life can have either a positive or negative on the environment, I realize what a learning process reducing my carbon footprint can be. I decided to utilize the carbon footprint calculator to see how my journey was going. Surprisingly, I scored a good 30 below the national average. But a household footprint of 49 carbon tons is nothing to be happy about. The big plus in our favor was our daily consumption of organic foods. So it seemed appropriate to figure out why what we eat can make such a different to the planet.

So after a little research, the connection between carbon footprints and food consumption became obvious. When we purchase the overly packaged, chemically laden, not really sure what we are actually eating food from the mega mart, we support an industry that utilizes chemicals, plastics and transports goods over long distances using innumerable gallons of petrochemicals and releasing toxic fumes into the air which contributes to global warming.

Ah ha. Connection made.

So, why is organic different? Well for one thing, organic farming means naturally grown produce that eliminates pesticides from crops and toxins from soil. Many organic farmers use traditional sustainable farming methods that lower their carbon footprint which in turn lowers their consumer’s carbon footprint. The main similarity between organic farming and commercial farming is the transportation issue. Whether the goods are produced in an environmentally friendly way or not, they still get shipped long distances to get to consumers.

Carbon footprint lowering solution? Shop locally. We hear it all the time but its one small way to make a big difference. Sure, sometimes you may pay a couple of cents more for choosing to shop on your own doorstep but the cost to the planet is enormous, especially if everyone does it. Besides supporting your local community, shopping locally for organically grown produce is good for your health and can force change on the food consumption market as a whole.

The only reason mega marts and commercial food producers transport goods over long distances and put them in wasteful packages and fill them full of toxic chemicals is because they are filling a consumer need. They are only responding to the market. If people stopped buying it, they would stop making it. Its pretty logical when you think about it. We live in a consumer driven economy. We are the consumers. What we eat makes all the difference.

Our choices make changes.

And organic food produced in your own region is one way to get your voice heard while reducing carbon emissions.