Climate Chaos & the Raw Lifestyle...

Many people these days are considering their carbon footprint. I'm one. I have this beautiful image in the corner of my car's rear window. Each time I look in the rear-view mirror, it reminds me to tread lightly on this Earth.

I've been thinking this morning about climate chaos/global warming, and specifically my lifestyle choices in relation to it. Often I myself feel, and I hear it from others as well, that I am (we are) helpless to make any effective change that could mitigate the current trend towards climate chaos the world is experiencing. How often do we feel like nothing we do will matter? It's such a despairing thought.

At tai chi class this morning someone had an email from a friend in Australia, where they are experiencing a 13-year drought (are you kidding?!) and have recently had flooding in the north and bushfires in the south. I look outside where the wind is whoopin' it up and the weather is chaotic - for example yesterday we had high winds overnight, woke up to beautiful sunshine & (momentary) blue sky, to be followed by HEAVY snow for about 15 minutes, then overcast, then rain, then blue sky & sun, then HAIL for about 5 minutes, then overcast.... on and on the whole day. It's cold, too... the wind cuts through the many layers I am wearing.

I was thinking about how I had to drive 25 kms to get to tai chi class, how unsustainable that is. I was thinking about how MY lifestyle choices are affecting the environment. It is unsustainable to create (and live in) a community that is 25 kms from any amenities - from the post office, from the grocery store, from the library, from the closest town centre. We have nothing in our community, apart from a community hall, volunteer fire hall, and a corner store & restaurant that are only open 6 mos of the year (May - Oct). These are all within 3 kms of our home. That is not enough to sustain a community of 400 people. So all of us have made the choice to live in this community that is not sustainable, unless things change.

It's not reasonable to expect young children to ride their bikes 25 kms into town (each way!) to use the library, or to go to school, for that matter. There has been the odd person out our way who rides in, occasionally, but it's certainly not the norm.

Our long-term plan is to move 35 kms east, closer to the city. We'll still be 20 or 25 kms from the city's downtown (we're currently 55 kms), but we will be on 5 acres, with 2 more acres shared for farming with the neighbours. It's all in the discussions. Moving will put us within 2 kms of a long-distance bike trail - we will be able to bike into town (9 kms each way) for supplies along this relatively flat commuter trail. The trail hooks up with our current town (about 15 or 20 km ride one direction) and the next town east (about 10-15 kms in the other direction from the property). The bike trail also goes 80 kms in one direction, through the city, and out to the ferries to the mainland... so that infrastructure for sustainable transportation is already in place. The property itself has a corner store, restaurant, community hall, and school, and flourishing farmer's market, all within 5 kms. Compared to the carbon footprint we currently have, I envision living on the new property will drastically reduce it.

We have discussions, very preliminary, dreamy, Aquarian ones at this point, about what the future house might look like. Naturally I want to build a cob house and dh is of course leaning towards a more conventional, stick-frame home. I have gone on a few cob tours now, and I really like many of the features of Gord & Ann Baird's local handbuilt home...

It is sustainable and yet has many of the features most people are reluctant to give up when considering a green or sustainable lifestyle... one being size. As much as I'd like to downsize our family of four to between between 500 & 1000 sq ft, I can't see the others going happily along with me on that... not when our current habitat is very close to 2,000 sq ft. Yes, this is a lot more than the average family of 4 lived 100, or even 50, years ago. HOWEVER, I'd argue it's slightly smaller, or perhaps average, for the houses many families live in nowadays. A quick Google search comes up with the average house size (2008 figure) pinned at 2,412. So although our home may seem cavernous, it is, apparently, average. Check out architect Sarah Susanka's site for the Not So Big House, or check out her books from your library. Great concept - smaller home that is well-designed, no more McMansions. :) Or Jay Shafer's Tumbleweed homes - houses from 65 (not a typo!!) to 837 sq ft. Beautiful.

Our current home has some very advantageous design features (that I'd like to bring forward into future designs). One is the passive solar orientation (quite by accident, I think). Long and narrow on the south face, with large windows on the south, it lets in a good amount of "passive solar radiation" in the winter months. (If I had to redesign it I'd put even smaller windows than we currently have on the North side, and get rid of the 8' sliding door). So yes, passive solar design, very important (to me). Another thing I like about our home is that when you enter it, you enter the middle of the long side of the rectangle, and you can see diagonally nearly to each far corner, which makes the house appear larger than it is inside. I think our house has good flow, good energy. :) At some point I'd like to renovate the kitchen, pretty much the same cabinet layout except that I'd widen the "island" countertop to accomodate bar stools to allow an eating area right there. But overall, I do like the general design.

I keep daydreaming about a cob cottage with a kitchen designed specifically towards raw veganism. Maybe I'd use the cottage for Reiki treatments or for raw food consulting/classes, maybe I'd use it for a guest cottage, I don't know. But I do know it is something I definitely want to actualize & create in the next... let's say decade.

Thinking in terms of how do my food choices as a raw vegan affect the climate, it means asking Where does this medjool date come from? What about the organic California kale I bought at the health food/grocery store last week? It certainly isn't local, and the organic company is not small-scale agriculture. It's asking Where did these cacao nibs or young Thai coconut originate and what is their carbon footprint? Although I planted what I thought would be an abundance of dark leafy greens that I was planning on eating throughout the winter, the really cold snap 2 months ago destroyed so much of it. In 11 years we've never had it get to -18 at our place... until this winter. The winds have been unrelenting and the poly over the garden frame, making a make-shift greenhouse, has been somewhat uneffective at extending the growing season much. At 48 degrees latitude, am I too far North to expect to be able to grow greens relatively continuously throughout the winter? Eliot Coleman grows at 45, is 48 that much different? We subscribe to a local organic farm's CSA program, getting a box of fresh produce each week. I feel pretty strongly about supporting the local economy, especially with the values the farm holds. The farm has had to deal with the same weather as I have this winter and recent boxes hold few dark leafy greens and lots of root crops and frozen items such as tomatoes and berries from summer. My choice to consume local organics is dear to my heart, and I think it makes a positive impact overall on my carbon footprint, even though the farm is 13 kms from my house (it *is* the closest organic farm, btw).

My smoothie this morning:
1c spinach (org California) - if we hadn't had such a winter, it could've been local at this time of year
1 tsp spirulina (don't honestly know where it came from)
1.5c sunflower sprouts (org, I sprouted them at home, but where did the seeds originate?)
1 banana (org, but definitely not local)
1c froz raspberries (within 150 kms of our home)
1.5c frozen blueberries (also within 150 kms of our home)
1/4c raisins (probably from California) & a small handful of cashews (no idea)
2c of sesame milk (I made the milk, but where were the seeds grown? i have no idea)
1 tbsp cacao powder, 1 tbsp cacao nibs, 1 tbsp maca powder (none of those are local)
1 tsp goji powder & 1/4 tsp camu camu berry powder (neither local, though I'd like it known I *do* have two goji berry plants in my garden!)

Sure it made a delicious (and healthy) 1.5 L of smoothie - which fed me for breakfast & lunch, but as you can see, I have a LONG way to go in making my food choices more sustainable and local.

Anyways, I guess the whole point to this is that our lifestyle choices DO matter in regards to climate chaos. There are things we can (and HAVE TO) change, and the sooner the better. I'm willing to move. I'm willing to seriously reduce my car use, even dabbling with the idea of going without altogether. (I say that now, LOL) I'll bike or take the bus. I'm willing to go off-grid, either geo-thermal, solar, wind, or a combination thereof. I'm willing to drastically reduce my home's physical footprint, going for the smaller is more beautiful design. I'm willing to go without a dishwasher (gasp! did I honestly say that out loud?!) I'm willing to examine my food choices and choose local, organic, raw, vegan foods over things that come from further afar. I am dedicated to my raw vegan lifestyle - it has improved my health so dramatically - so let's see how sustainable we can make it.

I'd like to have a conversation with you on this one. What are you personally willing to do?