New Address

Thank you for visiting inhabitant - please note the new blog address at:  http://ecoinhabitant.wordpress.com

During the transitional period, I will continue to post updates at both addresses, but http://ecoinhabitant.wordpress.com will replace this address as the primary location of the blog.

Thank you!

August Challenge: Week Two

Per K and my August Challenge we spent some time again this past Saturday enjoying the outdoors.  We were in Muskegon for the weekend so our outdoors time was a bit short to accommodate for time spent with family, but we did head down to the beach to inhabit a different ecosystem than the Chicago prairie.

I grew up on Lake Michigan, exploring the beach and water each summer with my sisters and friends.  Since I can rememer, though, our beach has changed many times with the significant rise and fall of the water-level.  The first beach I remember is one with “sea walls” that were installed by the previous property owners as an attempt to keep the water from pulling sand out into the lake to curb the erosion of the bluff.  These proved futile over the years as the water-level rose beyond them and at one point eroded the bluff to the extent that a new set of stairs had to be built because the old set had fallen into the lake during a storm.  The rise of the water and the constant erosion threatened to topple the house into the lake as well for a few years, until over the next summers the water-level rapidly fell.  Sand was re-deposited on the beach, first returning it to the state that I remembered as a child, then slowly rising even more to cover the sea walls that were once nearly impassable, and finally, for the first time since I have known the beach, creating a mini-dune with beach grass providing a steady anchor.  It was the beach with this maturing dune with which K and I spent time on Saturday.

I find it immensely interesting to examine the changes that can occur in an ecosystem over the course of a mere 20 years.  An area that was once unable to support plant-life is now thriving with a diverse array of grasses; that grass now provides food and shelter for insects and animals that would not have found any on our small stretch of beach before; and should the dune continue to grow, a completely different ecosystem will begin to form in the area between the dune and the bluff.

What living sustainably means to me

Living sustainably means redefining one's life to better align with what exists in nature and what nature expects of its inhabitants.  While it is important to recognize that our earth is fragile and commands our respect, living sustainably requires the understanding that a respect for the earth is not so much about the preservation of nature as it is about employing nature in such a way that it will continue to support human life; nature can exist without humans, but we cannot exist without the support of nature.

Living sustainably, then, means the deconstruction and re-actualization of the societal institutions that leach off of a one-way, negatively-impacting relationship with nature; it means slowing down from an industrial way of life and taking thoughtful action to renew a two-way relationship with the world.  This shift might start with individuals making choices in their day-to-day lives about what they consume, how they interact and why they propagate a particular lifestyle, but it is essential that these individual choices progress into the larger transformation of unbalanced and unsustainable institutions such as the current corporate framework, class divides, undemocratic political structures, etc. into organizations that include the wellness of nature among other human needs.

Truly sustainable living exists in a world in which a sustainable lifestyle is attainable and championed by all.  While it starts with individuals, sustainability requires the aggregate efforts of the entire world population.  A sustainable lifestyle will take different forms for different people, and it would be arrogant of me to pretend to understand each step that must be taken to sustainably employ nature, but I hope to engage in the ongoing discussion of living sustainably and to encourage others to enter into that conversation as well.  Living sustainably is a daunting but possible goal, and I am optimistic about our ability to achieve it.

---

This post stems from the APLS Blog Carnival, a call for entries answering the question of "what does living sustainably mean to you?"  See the APLS Blog for more information and to submit your own entires (no blog required).

Technical Difficulties

There seem to be some technical difficulties with the host of my blog template.  Please bear with me as I work to correct these issues.

Posts and comments should remain unaffected, so despite the lack of design please enjoy the entries and continue to share your comments.

Sustainability in Downtown Living

Via Treehugger.com, I read an interesting article today from the upcoming edition of The New Republic called "Trading Places:  The demographic inversion of the American city."  The article outlines the growing trend among US cities toward a more affluent population within city centers with affordable housing options inverting toward the city's outskirts.  Treehugger points out the reasons for this "demographic inversion" - a term that author Alan Ehrenhalt uses to distinguish the trend from gentrification - as the deindustrialization of city centers, a disillusionment with cars and traffic, and a younger generation "expressing different values, habits, and living preferences than their parents."

What interested me about this article is the identification of a seeming shift toward a higher-valued sustainability within city design in the US.  Ehrenhalt points out that many European cities have long followed a structure of city centers being a central hotspot for arts and entertainment; with US cities moving toward a similar model and with residents living closer to the recreation they value, both inefficient transportation methods and the land-waste of urban sprawl are reduced.  Walking, biking and public transportation become more viable options for those who bypass suburban life for the concentrated efficiency of a well-designed city, reducing traffic congestion from polluting cars and increasing the healthfulness of more active residents.

With increasing value in downtown living, however, those who cannot afford the increasing housing prices are pushed to the outskirts of cities where car-free transportation does not seem as practical an option, and where - if one follows the model of many European cities - the poor risk being "walled-off" from the inner-city and largely ignored.  Ehrenhalt points out, however, that the affluent who are choosing downtown living do so in part in dissent of the separatist mentality of previous generations of affluent suburbanites, and that in some cases the inversion to affordable housing existing in the outskirts of a city would mean closer proximity to the service and industrial jobs that are also moving into the suburbs.  Whether this will be the case remains to be seen, but let us hope that the American city's demographic inversion will mark a time of increased community and sustainability rather than simply a new landscape of an unbalanced and unsustainable class-division.

Homemade Sauerkraut

A goal I have for myself as winter approaches is to preserve some of the fresh local foods I can get now so that come winter I won't be so dependent on supermarket food.  I had a brief introduction to canning last year when I made a batch of strawberry freezer-jam, and to further ease myself into the craft of canning, I recently made a batch of homemade sauerkraut.

The recipe I used for my sauerkraut comes from Alice Waters' The Art of Simple Food and was surprisingly simple.  After breaking off some of the tougher outer leaves of a head of cabbage, I chopped it in half then in quarters and then thinly sliced the cabbage to get thin strips.  I put the cabbage in a bowl with 3 and 1/2 teaspoons of salt and worked the two together with my hands.  After a few minutes, the cabbage started creating its own juices.  I then transfered the cabbage to a quart-size jar (might need larger depending on the size of the cabbage) and filled a smaller jar with water to hold down the cabbage to keep the brining liquid over it.  I covered the jar with a towel, left it at room-temperature and skimmed off any scum that appeared on the top of the liquid over the next week.

After a week, the sauerkraut is ready for tasting.  It can be left to brine for a few more days, or if it's to your liking, it can be stored in the refrigerator for about 6 weeks.  Though the smell of the sauerkraut initially worried me, my mom assured me that it's suppoed to smell like bad cabbage, and after tasting it I knew that I all had gone according to plan.  I'm pretty proud of my homemade sauerkraut, which K and I are enjoying on reubens for lunch this week, and will have with sausage and applesauce if any is left-over.

I'm looking forward to whatever my next canning opportunity may be.  I'm especially looking forward to tomatoes, which have been slow-growing in the area this year, and of which I plan to can an ample supply for chili and pasta-sauces throughout the colder months.  Do you have any canning tips, stories, etc. you'd like to share?  I'd love to hear some success stories or cautionary tales before my next project.

August Challenge: Week One

Per our August Challenge, K and I spent six hours on Saturday outdoors.  Before leaving in the morning, we both expressed a vague discomfort at the idea of spending most of the day outside.  It was supposed to be a mild day, and we had no other plans, but something about the prospect of being outside for such an extended amount of time made it seem like such a better idea to stay in and tackle some projects around the apartment we'd been putting off.  We did manage to get out the door, though, and we made our way south to Humbolt Park.

At the park, we wandered around the beautiful lagoon, then walked around the perimeter of the park, eventually finding a small wetland area where we sat on a bench to read and just appreciate the gorgeous day and the nature around us.  We saw many birds and watched the plant-life of the marshy area.  There was a gentle, warm breeze and we were shaded from the hot sun that shone through the mostly clear blue sky by the overhanging branches of a tree.  The park is large enough that we were mostly sheltered from the sounds of traffic, and we got to hear, instead, the rustling of the leaves in the trees, and the sounds of the insects in the marsh.  Humbolt Park is only about a mile's walk from our apartment, and we wondered at how we hadn't done this more often throughout the summer and why we had initial anxiety of leaving the indoors for this great experience.

We later ate lunch in the outdoor patio area of a nearby restaurant before heading to the much smaller Wicker Park where we set out our blanket and rested under a tree.  We had been outdoors for nearly four hours at this point, and we found we were getting very tired.  This was in part, I'm sure, because of the drain that the hot sun has on the human body, but in part too, I think, because we had been unplugged for the day from the computer, TV and radio - normal parts of our regular Saturday routine that we had left instead for our own thoughts and the decidedly low-tech activity of reading.  Though we had wanted with our challenge to replace an eight-hour workday with eight-hours of time outdoors, we decided that a shorter first time would be alright and made our way back to the apartment.  We stopped on the way for some iced drinks that we enjoyed at a sunny table, and returned to our apartment six hours after we had anxiously left in the morning.

The whole experience on Saturday was very rewarding.  Though difficult to depart from our normal information feed, it was refreshing to have time and quiet for our own thoughts and observations.  I was glad in the park to be spending time so close to the plant-life that has been so widespread replaced by buildings, roads, etc.; I wondered at how much of that nature is needlessly replaced, and for what?  We so often take for granted the habitat in which we live, viewing all areas of the world as equally inhabitable with a bit of human intervention, but on Saturday I felt very much an inhabitant of the prairie; I joined the long grasses, the birds, the insects and the trees which have been a part of this prairie ecosystem for years, and began to listen to their quiet summer song.

Friday News Roundup

Here's a quick look at some of the headlines from this week:

A video was released on YouTube this week documenting a police assault on a non-violent protester taking part in New York's Critical Mass last Friday:

The Officer, the Bicyclist and the Video

Police Investigate Officer in Critical Mass Video

The EPA has come under fire for failing to adequately regulate greenhouse gas emissions in coastal states:

EPA Managers Warned Not to Answer Inquiries

Senate Democrats call for EPA chief to resign

Earthjustice Will Sue EPA to Reduce Global Warming Pollution from Ships and Aircraft

A large ice-chunk this week broke off of the largest remaining ice shelf in the Arctic:

Huge Chunk snaps off storied Arctic ice shelf

Canadian Arctic sheds ice chunk

Arctic ice bigger than 2007, but thawing long-term

Officials are taking action in an attempt to reduce air pollution in preparation of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing next week:

Beijing may ban 90 percent of cars for Olympics

Beijing air improves with wind and rain

August Challenge: Get Outdoors

I've been thinking that a monthly challenge for K and I to change and reflect upon some aspect of our lifestyle might prove a gainful experience, so for the month of August we're challenging ourselves to spend our Saturdays outdoors.  We'll get up, get ready, gather our things, then turn off the computer and TV and head out for a day-long outdoors adventure.

The ideas behind this challenge are to get us out of the climate-controlled boxes we sit in all week at work, to actually experience what's going on outside, and to just enjoy the rest of summer while we can.  I'm sure we'll find some great festivals to go to, or we can just read or play games in the park near us.  I'll write updates as to how the challenge is going, and I encourage you to join us with your own outdoor plans on Saturdays this month!

Energy Future

The US Senate this week failed to move forward the Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act of 2008 (H.R.6049), a bill that would provide renewable energy incentives and carbon mitigation provisions.  Introduced to and passed by the House in May of this year, the bill has since been at a standstill in  the Senate despite majority support, with a third vote on Tuesday falling just 9 votes short what would have been needed to to move forward with legislation.  Fortunately, the bill can again be brought to a vote, though not before a month-long August recess beginning tomorrow.  

With more voices coming forward in support of the clean and efficient energy use that this and other stalled bills would promote (Al Gore's voice as one of them, calling for 100% renewable energy in the US by the year 2018), and with evidence rising that our current energy practices are unsustainable, I sincerely hope that come September working on solutions for these issues will take higher priority within Congress, and that conscientious voters will make their voices heard in November that we want new leadership that will take environmental stewardship seriously and work with us to find solutions to our unsustainable practices.

Meanwhile, some groups are taking action based on the call for emissions-free energy, such as the proposed 909 MW Shepherd's Flat Wind Farm of north-central Oregon and the proposed 2,000 MW TransWest Express Project wind farm in Wyoming.  Co-op America has issued a call for the generation of 10% of the total US energy from solar power by 2025, a goal that their research indicates is very realistic, and grist explains the booming job market in the wind power industry.

With Congress at a standstill, however, and renewable energy generation dependent on investors, what can individuals do in their everyday lives to jump-start our energy future?  I won't pretend to have the answer to this, and I'd love to hear your thoughts, but I will propose two things:

(1) Even with more renewable energy generation from wind, solar and other innovative ideas, most people in the US are using more energy than sustainably available.  Lifestyle changes will need to coincide with the generation of more renewable energy, and those changes can start now with CFL and LED light bulbs, energy-efficient appliances, turning off and unplugging electronics when not in use, challenging yourself along with friends and family to go one day a month "unplugged" from the grid and from that challenge finding a way to permanently remove some of your unnecessary energy consumption.

(2) Make your voice heard:  Talk to friends and family about reducing energy consumption; tell your congresspersons that you support bills such as the Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act of 2008; contact your utility company to see what steps they're taking to invest in renewable energy for the future; think about what you support and what you want in your life and make purchases based on those ideals to make your money speak to corporations.

The Recyclable House

From the Chicago Reader this past weekend was an article entitled "The Recyclable House" about house "deconstructionists" (as opposed to "demolitionists") who carefully take apart structures so that most of the materials can be salvaged and reused instead of simply demolishing and sending the whole heap to a landfill.  I found the practice to be exactly the type of cradle-to-cradle forward-thinking of which society needs much more in order to sustain our existence on the planet.  You can read the article here, or just move on to my further discussion:

When a house or other building is demolished, the life of the materials that were used to build that structure often end, as they are trucked away to a landfill where the structural integrity of the materials is ruined.  A correlation might be drawn between demolition and throwing away a piece of paper instead of turning it over for re-use and then finally recycling it.  People like Ken Ortiz, however, see that the materials used in the construction (like the used paper) still have life left in them, even if the original intent of the material does not (take a vacant building that has gone into disrepair, for example).  Taking this into consideration, then, the building is deconstructed and the materials re-used for other purposes.  The procedure might be initially more time-consuming and costly, but the sale of the salvaged materials often makes up for the added cost, and the invisible benefit of keeping trees growing and other resources in the earth more than makes up for the extra time.

A potential downfall of deconstruction comes if it is used as an excuse to expend additional energy to take apart still-sound buildings at whim simply because that type of demolition has become a more environmentally-friendly option.  I would hope, instead, that buildings are only deconstructed when the integrity of the building makes it unsafe for inhabitance, and that as the practice of deconstruction gains popularity that the construction of each building would make more use of salvaged rather than virgin materials, that structures would be built to last as long as possible with repair rather than replacement coming first, and that new buildings are built in such a way that deconstruction would be a readily available option should the time eventually come that a building is beyond repair.