Buying into the addiction without selling my heart

The other day I fell in love with a car. Which to me seems strange. I am supposed to be Miss Eco-friendly, and yet here I am biking by a 1987 Volvo 240DL every day to look at it.

I think that it seems even stranger to me because I live in Portland, Oregon, which is ranked on some lists as the greenest or second greenest city in the world. It is the city of bikes and public transportation. We are paying tax dollars to build a bridge across the Willamette for bus, bikes, and pedestrians only. We have closed roads off to cars for bikes. It’s almost harder to park a bike in Portland than it is a car. So why on Earth would I ever need a car?

A typical day in Portland

The answer is not wholly justifiable. There are some things that simply need a car. For me, a portion of that is getting a job. Sure, I can bus anywhere in the city. But I can’t just bus anytime. If I get a job that is a night shift or in a part of town in which I don’t feel completely safe, a car is necessary. Also my adventures into the forests of Oregon easily accessible without a car (except Forest Park).

But this is not my resignation from travelling green. I am addicted to biking. I love biking in Portland. There is a culture here surrounding biking that I doubt I could find anywhere else. It can even be a tourist attraction to some. I worked as a volunteer at a concert festival as a bike valet and people were taking their pictures in front of the hundreds of bikes. People from other cities couldn’t believe that so many people rode bikes here.

I don’t even mind the public transportation that much. When I get passed up by a bus or it comes too late, of course I yell obscenities and curse the public transportation gods. Yet, I have rode buses and MAX’s my whole life. I only struggle with coming up with the $1.50 in change.

So here’s my pledge:

I, the Green Stump  pledge in the event that I purchase a car and gain my license, that I will only use it in circumstances that I cannot easily utilize public transportation or my bike.

Living in Portland, I don’t think that I will be able to avoid bikes or public transportation. I will always have a constant reminder of this pledge.

There is also a financial advantage of making this pledge. A bike doesn’t cost anything but upfront and maintenance. The bus only costs a couple dollars every two to three hours. A car costs fuel, maintenance, insurance, and more.

Falling in love with a piece of clunky machinery doesn’t mean I won’t forget my love of the planet.   

Saving the planet, military style?

As Blue August comes to an end in the next couple days, I wanted to get in at least one post about what we can do to help with water consumption.

I have been asked several times why we worry about water consumption when there’s obviously so much water on this planet. The answer may seem obvious to some, but many people wonder the same thing- even I have at one point. The reason that we need to conserve water is that with the 7 billion people on this planet, and First World lifestyles, we are consuming more water than the natural water cycle can replenish. We are polluting faster than water can be cleaned naturally and artificially.

While we talk about our carbon footprint, we should worry as well about our water footprint. The average American consumes 2,500 cubic meters a year (compared to 600 to 800 for the average Chinese). Now these numbers are nice and everything, but I can’t just picture 2,500 cubic meters in my head. To give you an idea, that water footprint we all make is, according to Treehugger, the same as an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Humans at our most basic needs only need a little over 180 gallons of water to survive. Of course, with our culture and society it would be impossible to live a high standard of living with that little of water because water goes into absolutely everything we make- food, clothes, appliances, etc. and etc. What isn’t impossible is recognizing that we need to cut down our water consumption and taking action to doing so.

Remember that Olympic swimming pool? That swimming pool metaphor for our consumption is equal to 660430 gallons of water – that’s over 3,669 times what humans need to survive! So next time you take a shower or leave the water running in the sink, think about that.

I have always been raised to not leave the water running in the sink; it cost too much money to waste. So when I see green tips on turning off the faucet while brushing your teeth, I think, “Well, duh.” But as I have grown older, I have seen way too many people that do not do this.

For Blue August, a month designated by the environmental protection community in honor of our oceans and water, I decided that I was going to make an adjustment to my lifestyle that would reduce my water footprint. I live in an apartment so I do not have the option of purchasing a low-flow showerhead (however, I do plan on speaking to my manager in the future about it). I started taking what I have heard as military-style showering. I get in the shower, rinse myself down, and then turn off the faucet. Once I’m all lathered and soaped up, I turn the shower back on and rinse off. This cut my water usage from 2.5 (estimated) gallons per minute at 10 minutes to 2 minutes. I thought that I wouldn't enjoy showers as much anymore, but it has not been a sacrifice at all. Some days, I can't help but run the water the entire time. I don't think that it is terrible to "spoil" myself every once in a while. The best part of it is that I feel good every time I shut off the water. 

Another great way to save water in the bathroom is to reuse towels. It may sound gross to some who wash their towels every time they use them, but for me it comes from a time when my family did not own a washer or dryer and had to travel 3 miles on the bus to get to a laundry mat. It saves water and hassle. Sure, shower towels won’t last forever without being clean, but if you wash properly in the shower you shouldn’t get them disgusting very quick. I personally use one towel for most of a week and then trade out.

When I thought about how much I do in fact conserve water (and of course how much I waste it in other ways), I wanted to find out how much water I truly use. I stumbled across this great calculator created by the USGS (US Geological Survey) that can roughly calculate just that. When I plugged in some estimates I came up with 61.24 gallons a day. That’s a third of what I human needs to consume in a year! I couldn’t believe it. If you want to find out how much water you use in a day you can follow the link: How much water?

As I could write on and on about ways to conserve water, here’s another great link that is useful for developing a water conscious lifestyle: 100+ Ways to Conserve Water. Although the list is definitely aimed for home-owners, much of the list can be applied to us young adults in dorms and apartments, and most definitely for those that rent a house.

The great thing about water conservation that we can gain as we look hopelessly at our low balances in our bank accounts is that water conservation saves so much money. That saved money- and that saved water- goes a long way.

Green Beginnings

There’s no need to define the green movement. It is everywhere around us- media, marketing, politics. But what a lot of people don’t understand about going green is how to do so without spending green. Life isn’t cheap in the first place, and with corporate involvement in politics, unhealthy has become affordable. Especially when you’re taking your first steps into the world as an adult. It’s not like you can afford a solar panel and most us barely know how to cook without using the microwave.

This is where I am at. I went through high school bugging my mother to make this and that adjustment to our lifestyles. (I wrote the green column for the school paper and I wasn’t going to tell readers to do things that I didn’t do.) And even though those changes were money-saving or costless, now I must strive to continue this green lifestyle now that I am on my own.

This isn’t a blog to just tell you how you can change your impact but an account of how serious the next generation is now that we are reaching an age where we can make a difference. Our parents’ generation asks if we are talkers or doers. This is my first step in becoming a doer.