Go, Ohio! Arbor Day Plans March 4, 2007

“Ohio leads the nation in the number of certified Tree City USA communities.  The governor of Ohio proclaims Arbor Day each year with an official resolution.”

– Celebrating Arbor Day in Ohio

Hey, with Cleveland also leading the national per capita poverty rate, this is a sign of light that this ain’t such a bad place to live after all.  (Said in jest.  I’ve bought a home here and  actually give Cleveland a decent amount of respect for contributing to positive change, across the board, in my life.)

Arbor Day in Ohio is the last Friday in April.  This year we will be celebrating by planting a tree and/ or participating in other related festivities.  When we moved in to this house last year, we planted a small pear tree in the front lawn to signify our new life here.  I just hope the cute little guy survived the winter!  Maybe we’ll plant him a little brother or sister nearby to keep him company next year. 

(Thanks Tony for the idea for this post!)

Little Big Muffins February 11, 2007

Tonight we made organic, apple-cinnamon, mini-muffins.  A simple recipe, I just added a bit of diced organic apple and organic half-and-half to a mix I bought at the store.  Aria and I have been enjoying them already tonight, although we actually made them as a grab-and-go breakfast item for this coming up week.  Hopefully they’ll last ’til then!

This weekend has been one filled with cooking, relaxation and today, spiritual cleansing.  We heard the sermon of a substitute pastor at church this morning (he’s a friend of our pastor’s and was serving our church in her absence today).  Even at appearances, it was obvious the pastor’s message would be unusual today.  The substitute pastor was a tall man of African-American descent who spoke with a big, booming voice.  Our regular pastor is female, relatively soft-spoken and Caucasian.

I bring this up mainly because I couldn’t help being reminded of Martin Luther King, Jr. as the pastor spoke to the congregation this morning.  His message was powerful.  I was moved to tears more than once.  He talked – like Martin Luther King, Jr. did – about how the world is not as it should with regard to human equality and justice.  He said, the world is more ”inside-out and upside down” than it is anything else, where so much of our western culture idolizes celebrities with, at best, questionable public personnas and supports politicians with, at best, questionable agendas.  Despite this, we must, individually, consciously and continuously strive for an ideal (“a dream”) of divine justice by working to make this world a better place for the less fortunate.  We are called to care for those who cannot do for themselves now.  Not only for the sick and the suffering of today, but also for those who cannot yet do for themselves. This includes our children and future generations  - those who will be here long after we are gone.  To the children and generations of the future we have a responsibility to live right – or at least, to live a little more mindfully of others.

So as Aria and I eat our “mini” muffins this week, I hope I’m reminded that it’s the little things that matter.  It’s the little acts of caring about our environment, of reaching out a hand to open a door for someone else, of giving a little of our time and money - that will acumulate and grow into something much bigger.  It all matters, and it can lead to the change needed to preserve us as a people, to preserve our place on this planet we call home.

Green Sushi, Yummy Yummy January 21, 2007

My boss gave me a sushi book for the holidays this year.  (The two of us are sushi fanatics.  She and I both lived in southern California prior to moving to the midwest, and we seriously miss the fabulous West Coast sushi.)

So, this weekend I decided it was time to give making my own sushi a try.  And hey, being the new green-convert that I am, why not try making eco-friendly sushi while I was at it? 

I have to give props to Wild Oats market for having just about everything I needed to make “green sushi” on hand.  From organic nori sheets to organic soy sauce and organic sushi rice, it was relatively easy to go green with my sushi there.  The only challenge was, of course, finding organic sushi grade fish.  I am not sure if the meat and fish at Wild Oats are organic – the sign didn’t they were – but they are sustainably raised, which is definitely good.  They didn’t have sushi grade for me to cut myself at home (to anyone reading this who lives near the ocean, you may be thinking, “duh, you’re in Cleveland.  A-for-effort, but you won’t find much sushi grade there.”  And to that I say, “you are correct, but desperate times call for desperate measures – any self-respecting sushi addict will understand.”

I was, however, able to find pre-cut sushi-grade fish in the sushi department.  The chef was nice enough to give me a good price on several pieces of salmon sashimi. 

Subsequently, I used this to make salmon/cucumber/avocado rolls and Nigiri-sushi with salmon.  And oh, was it tasty!  I have posted a photo of my creation.  Please keep in mind this was my first attempt at making sushi.  I still need work on rolling the rolls into round shapes, as you will see.  The best part:  it was a “green” effort, it was delicious - and I had a blast doing it.

The Best Marketing Plan Ever January 19, 2007

The “Inconvenient Truth” DVD has totally inspired just about everyone I’ve talked to, to get on board with the movement to stop global warming.  For example, another new convert’s post can be seen here.  It tells a passionate story of a woman who hadn’t worried about the issue really at all, until she saw the DVD (hmm, sound familiar?). 

Now that is great marketing.  It proves that what you really need in a marketing plan is a great story about your product, and that story should be true, and that story should make the person who hears it want to go out and tell everyone they know.  And when you want to take action  (buy the product, get active in your community to support it, etc.), the tools should be right there at your finger tips, so you can do so immediately.  Climatecrisis.net, the DVD producers and everyone involved in bringing this campaign to the masses so effectively, are to be commended.

I was the same way.  The DVD moved me, scared me, incited me to act and tell my friends (and anyone who would listen for that matter) about the dire straits that our planet is in.  Al Gore’s movement is divinely inspired if you ask me, and I’m not afraid to say that.  The way people are catching on is exactly what should be happening.  It took the perfect medium to communicate the message and just the right time to do it.

I’m excited to see this happening… to be a part of the generation that will, I believe, take a bite out of this threat – if not stamp it out completely.

Let’s keep it going!

On top of old grassy January 15, 2007

A couple of the green bloggers out there are writing about a new “green roof” which actually is green, and are made out of - you got it - grass.  This grass roof is supposedly as easy to install as carpet, is self-irrigating and only has to be cut once a year.  Those are just some strong points to acquiring it and installing it. The benefits to the environment sound even better:  the grass actually absorbs CO2 from the atmosphere and gives off oxygen, they provide natural cooling systems and help to conserve energy through thermal insulation. 

Wonder what it would look like to see a bunch of urban roofs made of grass?  All I can say is I’d much rather be “on top of old grassy” than “on top of old smoky” – which is where we’ll all be – if we don’t see ginormous changes in worldwide (specifically American) thinking on the subject of global warming.

No Come Down (Not a Song by the Verve) January 8, 2007

A recent commenter to the “Second Epiphany” post (motherearth) stated something which is an unfortunate truth.  The change that needs to take place before normal, middle class people can actually afford to go green has to come from adoption by the power and the automotive industry, and most likely that will require policy change, a change from the “top, down.” 

While what we are doing to the atmosphere as individuals is a problem, it is only one small part of a much larger problem that big business and our government must face – and face now, wholely and absolutely.  Half measures will only lead to more apathy/ more shrug-offs, and we’ve been taking that path too long.  It’s what got us where we are today.  

Trying to effectuate voluntary cut-backs in energy consumption, based on what I’ve encountered thus far in terms of people’s willingness to act in this manner, won’t work.  As mother earth says, it needs to mandated.

Organic schmorganic January 4, 2007

Went to the grocery with the thought in mind that I’d like to try organic foods and environmentally conscious products this time.  After all, that’s what Mr. Gore’s website, climatecrisis.net, said was one of the things we can do to help combat global warming.  I didn’t even get past the first aisle (produce) before realizing I was going to ring up a much higher bill.  The vegetables and fruit were small, unappealing in appearance, and to top it all off, grossly more expensive than regular produce.  Still inspired to go green at the supermarket, we made it to the dairy aisle:  organic milk, a dollar more per half gallon.  And to the cleaning supplies aisle:  recycled trash bags, twice the price of the kind I buy regularly.  Recycled paper towels, on sale – but skimpy looking and still expensive comparatively speaking.  By the end of the trip I was pretty affected, especially when the cashier told me my total.  I’d reduced the number of items I normally purchase and still came out with a hefty bill. 

Obviously it’s not reasonable to expect people to pay twice as much at the grocery just to go green.  If you can’t afford it, you can’t afford it.  I know I certainly can’t.  I’m still hopeful though, and I believe that there are enough future-focused, compassionate and environmentally conscious people out there (albeit many of them still apathetic and inadequately informed) for enviro-friendly products to come down in price soon.  That way hopefully the majority will be able to afford and actually purchase them on an ongoing basis.

At least Wal-mart is trying with their marketing campaign to support fluorescent light bulbs. 

So much for that hybrid SUV I’ve been dreaming of… January 3, 2007

Today I test drove a Saturn VUE Green line, hybrid SUV.  The car seemed really stripped-down to me, and the sales person told me that this is the first year GM’s made the hybrid – after I asked him if they were selling well.  He said that they’d sold a couple of them since September.  In other words, they’re not doing smashingly by any means.  I guess I can see why:  they don’t come in All Wheel Drive (a necessity for me living in the Northeastern Ohio snow belt), they have basic upholstery and no real fancy features (excepting expensive add-ons), and for the price I could get a much snazzier conventionally powered SUV.  It’s just a shame that this car is, from my perspective, being “thrown” into the market as a test case for hybrids by GM.  A shame because it was the only hybrid SUV in my price range, and since it doesn’t come in AWD and doesn’t appear to have a heck of a lot of support by the auto maker, it seems almost doomed to fail. 

To me it’s sad because my criteria in searching for a hybrid vehicle didn’t seem to be that outrageous:  4 wheel drive, less than 25K, and… nope, nothing else, that’s it.  So far, there’s nothing in the marketplace for people trying to meet these criteria.  Guess we’re actually not ready for the middle-class American to own a hybrid SUV. 

Second Epiphany January 2, 2007

The eve before New Year’s Eve in 2006, my mother and I watched “An Inconvienient Truth,” the DVD on the global climate crisis featuring Al Gore.  I guess you could say watching it caused me to “wake up,” pretty shockingly and astutely.  I awakened to the idea that apathy and ignorance, can actually do catastrophic harm to people.  The apathy “disease” is also inclined to tell you, “don’t worry about it.  This isn’t a real disease.  You don’t really have to do anything about it,” while it cunningly eats away at your very existence and the resources you use to stay alive. It’s taken three years to come to what I believe is my second life epiphany-slash-resolution.  But in short it goes like this:  It’s not OK to lie dormant and satisfied with the status quo when it comes to the world climate crisis.  It’s time to understand that my personal apathy absolutely affects more than me.  The contagious and ficticious thought that “I don’t matter” is wrong.  I matter because I’m a human being, living with way too many conveniences which are actually harming our environment.  As I watched the DVD I kept finding myself thinking things like “this is crazy.  This ought to be like the number one issue in government and business.”  I was blown away by the urgency and magnitude of a HUGE problem I now embarrasingly realize that I, like so many others, have been pretty much ignoring.  For whatever reason (and there are reasons – like the media), I didn’t choose to see global warming as a “real” problem which affected me, much less one that I could do anything about. But now I know that there are things I can do which can little by little, add up to decreased CO2 in the atmosphere, decreased threat of cataclismic environmental disasters and increased likelihood that my daughter might actually live out a full life and get the chance to raise children on this planet. I made some small but passionate first  steps at going green tonight.  The steps may not be “major” at this point, but they do matter, and from now on my new resolution is – to continuously illustrate that what I do with the environment – matters. 

Just for the record, my first attempts to combat global warming were:

1) Researched hybrid SUVs – more on my findings to come soon

2) Changed the lightbulbs in three of my house lamps to CFUs – After I did this I realized I bought the wrong kind for indoor lamps: the light they’re putting out is pretty harsh-looking now, so I plan to get some “warmer” ones tomorrow.

3) Turned the thermostat down by a couple of degrees I really believe this is just the beginning of a longstanding resolution which will produce more satisfying results than I can imagine.