Spring Cleaning of Too Much Stuff March 28, 2013

I normally don’t take spring cleaning to heart.  I try to keep my place as tidy as possible throughout the year so I don’t have to spend a lot of time one or two weeks in the spring playing catch-up.  However, this week I must have caught a de-cluttering bug, because I have been going through all my dressers and closets, paring down on clothes and shoes I hardly ever, or never, wear.  In just one night I filled one large trash bag with stuff to donate to charity, and another large pile of things to try and sell at a clothing consignment store.  That doesn’t include the shoes, purses and jeans, which I plan to deal with tonight.  I counted over 20 pairs of jeans of the same size.  I tend to wear the same three pairs over and over again.  What was I thinking?!

When all is said and done I’ll probably have three large trash bags full of still wearable and mostly still fashionable goods.  It will make a considerable dent in my closets but still leave probably more than an adequate supply of clothing.  I could get rid of more, but there’s always that slightly too tight shirt you think you’ll be able to fit into this summer if only you could talk yourself into working out more.  Who am I kidding?!

The reason I am blogging about my spring cleaning binge has to do with consumption, or overconsumption to be more precise.  It seems as if we are trained from a young age to want to buy, buy, buy and own, own, own as much stuff as possible.  I can remember back to junior high when if you were seen wearing the same shirt two weeks in a row (or even twice in the same month) people made fun of you.  If you weren’t wearing the newest designer labels you were marked as uncool. 

Unfortunately that doesn’t end once you become an adult, although it may be a more subtle pressure.  Now it’s the cars we drive and phones we hold in our hand that mark how far we’ve “made it” in life.  If you have a cell phone from 2010 you are so uncool, and if it’s a “dumb” phone, well than you might as well go back to the 80s with your bag phone, loser!  Keeping up with the Joneses has taken on epic proportions!

The Story of Stuff (www.storyofstuff.org) is an amazing website and I highly recommend that you check it out.  It’s full of resources, videos, blogs and tweets that help people worry less about having stuff.  Or, I should say, it helps people realize they don’t need quite so much stuff in their lives.  It is a very valuable resource. 

I do like “stuff”, I have to admit.  I enjoy getting compliments on a new pair of shoes and I can’t wait to start reading books on my new Kindle Fire, but I will start paying more attention to what I have, so that I can buy less unnecessary stuff and start filling my life with more of what’s needed.  Never again will I allow 20 pairs of jeans to pile up in boxes in my closet.  I will make sure they go to good, new homes (certainly not to the landfill or incinerator!!) so that others can buy used “stuff” rather than buy brand new “stuff.” 

Oh, and yes I am a “loser” with a “dumb” phone and proud of it!  And I still love CDs, don’t own an MP3 player, have a 9-year old car and walk to work.  So maybe you don’t want to take advice from me, but I’d be happy if you did! 

Thanks for reading.

Sustainable Bus Tours for 2012 August 16, 2012

I am going to make a few shameless plugs for three fall events that I am helping to organize.  As you are readers of a conservation-focused blog I have a feeling you might be interested in knowing about them…

The first event is a Sustainable Forest and Meadow Bus Tour in Lebanon County, PA.  Attendees will get to see various ways of planting, managing and maintaining warm season grass and wildflower meadows, food plots for wildlife, timber plots and tree farms.  The tour is appropriate for small and large landowners, municipal and park managers and anyone else interested in creating great habitats.  The price is only $35, which includes a meal, handouts and a spot on the bus.  To register, go to http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/ucmprd1/groups/public/documents/document/dcnr_010455.pdf to download the form or register online.  The deadline to register is August 24, so hurry!

The second tour takes place on September 20 in Luzerne County, PA.  This tour showcases a variety of businesses, parks and landscapes that have natural stormwater management features, native plantings, and green building practices.  Sites include Plains Animal Hospital, Nescopeck State Park, The Lands at Hillside Farms, and Kirby Park Natural Area, among others.  The variety of sites and the sustainable features you will see at each make this a great tour for just about anyone.  And the $30 price tag can’t be beat!  To register for this tour, call Vinnie Cotrone at 570-825-1701.  The deadline to register is Sept. 14.

 

 

 

 

Last but not least is the Stormwater and Sustainable Open Space BMPs tour in Montgomery County, PA on October 24.  This innovative tour will showcase places like Ursinus College, Shelly Square Shopping Center, and Cuddy Park – all places that feature green stormwater management solutions like native plantings around detension basins, swales, riparian buffers and more.  To register for this event, go to http://agsci.psu.edu/sustainable-landscapes/montgomery.  The price is $35 and includes continental breakfast, lunch, handouts and a spot on the bus.  The deadline to register is October 12.  Sponsorships are still available too.

 

 

 

 

All of these great events are part of the PA Department of Conservation and Natural Resources’ Sustainable Lands Program.  We work with a variety of organizations like the PA Environmental Council, Penn State Cooperative Extension, county conservation districts and more, to bring educational tours, workshops and publications to municipal officials, non-profit staff, landscape architects and the public.  More information about our events, publications and more can be found at: http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/conservationscience/sustainablelands/index.htm.

I hope you can join us for one or more of these great events.  And if you are interested in becoming part of one of the five the Sustainable Lands Partnerships across the state, please email me at jsprajcar@pa.gov.

Thanks!

 

Toxic Butts to Treasure? June 8, 2012

This morning I read an article about how TerraCycle, a company out of Trenton, NJ that is well-known for upcycling products, wants to recycle cigarette butts and turn them into plastic pallets and other items. 

My first reaction was, “That’s great!” since there are so many butts on the ground and in our rivers and streams.  Trillions a year to be exact.  The chemicals trapped in the filter can leach into water bodies and kill off aquatic life.  So if we could incentivize people to not litter with their cigarette butts and rather send them to a recycling plant, aren’t we doing a good thing?  Sure, it would be best if no one smoked at all, but I don’t see that happening any time soon.

And as someone who does trash pick-ups in her community several times a year, I know that cigarette butts account for the majority of trash in some areas (along with chip bags – which TerraCycle recycles, fast food wrappers, bottles, and of all things, small packets of soy and duck sauce from Chinese restaurants).  Why people do not think cigarette butts are litter is beyond me.  People I know who claim to care about the environment and would never throw a bottle out the window seem to have no problem throwing their used cigarettes on the ground.  Why is that?  Where did that mentality come from and how can we change it?

But I digress.  As the article points out, there may be a major problem with recycling cigarette butts.  If all those toxic chemicals are concentrated into the filter, how can you make a product out of them that would be safe for people to use?  And what happens when that product reaches the end of its useful life?  Will it then contribute its own form of pollution to the environment?  If used cigarette filters are essentially toxic waste, can they ever be safe to handle? 

I would like to think that we have the brains and technology to figure this one out.  If TerraCycle can recycle cigarette butts (and used chewing gum, which is another thing the article mentioned) then I will see a lot fewer of them mucking up my city.  If turning toxic trash into treasure is possible, then maybe it’s not impossible to hope that my dad will quit smoking.  I will cross my fingers for both!

Scientists Launch Assaults on Ignorance February 23, 2012

I ran across this quote recently, as I was researching for a story on science in society.  I thought it was such an interesting take on science that I wanted to share it:

“The fuel on which science runs is ignorance.  Science is like a hungry furnace that must be fed logs from the forests of ignorance that surround us.  In the process, the clearing that we call knowledge expands, but the more it expands, the longer its perimeter and the more ignorance comes into view. . . . A true scientist is bored by knowledge; it is the assault on ignorance that motivates him – the mysteries that previous discoveries have revealed. The forest is more interesting than the clearing.”  – Matt Ridley in the book Genome: the autobiography of a species in 23 chapters

Science is not always appreciated by society as whole, perhaps because it is misunderstood?  Open up any newspaper and you will read articles like the nuclear scientists in Iran being killed in car bombs, or climate scientists in the U.S. and Australia receiving hate mail and death threats.  Teachers in some southern states are verbally attacked by angry parents when they teach evolution.   Why all this hostility?  And why should we care? 

Because science leads to a better understanding of the world around us.  It creates new technologies that enhance our lives.  It fulfills us in ways that would not be possible without it.  There may be a lot of scientific ignorance out there, as Ridley refers to, but thankfully there are also a lot of scientists and educators working to assault that ignorance and bring about a better understanding of, and appreciation for, science.

Intrigued about science and society?  Read my article on the cover of the winter issue of Keystone Wild!Notes, due out on the internet by the end of February.

Looking into Novels as Windows into Society February 2, 2012

I dedicate this blog to Mark C., who is constantly pestering me to write more often.  I am willing to take cash bribes to do so, Mark! Just kidding… well…

Anyway, I want to write about a few books I have read over the last couple months, all by the same author – Chuck Palanhiuk.  He is most well known for his book, Fight Club, which was turned into a movie starring Brad Pitt and Ed Norton.  I haven’t read that one yet but once I started with one of his books, I couldn’t put them down.  While they are not intended to be environmental or conservation-related books, there are aspects of that in them, and that’s what I want to focus on in this blog post, along with some other general impressions.

The book that resonates the most with me from an environmental perspective is Lullaby, a book about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) and witchcraft.  Yes, that seems like an unlikely pairing!  Palanhuik likes to be tongue in cheek with his social commentary.  His books point out the hypocrite in all of us and the potential dysfunctional nature of humankind.  In Lullaby there are two hippie-type characters who constantly point out the invasive plant species taking over the landscapes through which they travel.  They talk about the over-consumption of ever-dwindling goods, especially by Americans.  They are disgusted by the factory farming and eating of meat.  They weep for the Native Americans and how they have been marginalized.

At first I was a bit insulted by Palanhuik’s portrayal of these two characters.  The woman had long ratty dreadlocks, the man liked to be in the nude.  It was a stereotypical portrayal of the granola-eating, tree hugging people that first come to mind when you think of environmentalists.  As a non-hippie environmentalist, I certainly take exception to his descriptions.  But the generalizations aside, these were characters that cared about the planet.  Sure, they might have taken some of their beliefs to the extreme, and were very judgmental about anyone that didn’t hold their views, but they meant well.  The fact that Palanhiuk mentions invasive species in a novel was enough to make me pay attention and get excited.  After all, how many people even know what an invasive species is?

 Lullaby isn’t the only one of his novels that mentions invasive species.  I seem to recall them coming up in two other ones.  But it’s not just the invasive species shout-outs that make me like Palahniuk’s stories.  In Invisible Monsters, a novel about a woman disfigured in a car accident, the vanity and narcissistic nature of our society is put on display.  Palahniuk presents plastic surgery and the quest for ever-lasting youth and beauty in front of our face so we can’t look away. 

Rant covers the spread of disease (in this case, rabies) through a population and the role the media plays in hyping someone up, even if they deserve to be vilified, rather than admired.  From HIV to ebola to Hep. C, Palahniuk runs down the viral messes we have made, both accidentally and intentionally. 

In Pygmy, a story about terrorism against the American way, looked at from the point of view of the terrorist, we see how our culture looks from the eyes of a foreigner.  Wow!  Things I think of from time to time, like the obesity epidemic, mass consumption of cheap junk, watching too much of the boob tube, etc. are dragged out into the light.  The book left me feeling guilty about where I live – at first – but somehow Palahniuk turns what could be a sad tale into a funny, heartwarming love story – at the very end. 

This reads like a commercial for his books, I see, but heck, I got them all out from the library, so you can too.  J  I would be curious to know your thoughts about his novels – does he have especially deep insight into human culture?  Does he see hope in humanity or a downward spiral into oblivion?  Can we learn from authors like Palahniuk and improve society before it’s too late?  Or are we fine as-is?  Those are good questions.

I’ll leave you with a few choice quotes from Palahniuk and his books.  If you want to read more of them, check out: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/c/chuck_palahniuk.html.  After reading them you might say to yourself, man, is he jaded or what?!

• Maybe humans are just the pet alligators that God flushed down the toilet.
• People don’t want their lives fixed. Nobody wants their problems solved. Their dramas. Their distractions. Their stories resolved. Their messes cleaned up. Because what would they have left? Just the big scary unknown.
• Maybe we have to break everything to make something better out of ourselves.

P.S. A warning – his novels can be graphic at times.  They are PG-13, sometimes R, so if you are easily offended, they might not be for you.

Looking Back Through 2011 December 19, 2011

This time of year, many people blog about how to have a more environmentally-friendly and “green” holiday season, or why we shouldn’t focus so much on the commercial aspects of Christmas, so I won’t bother rehashing those ideas here.  What I would like to do is run through a quick conservation year in review – what happened in 2011 that is worth celebrating?

• Two organizations in Philadelphia received Environmental Protection Agency “Environmental Achievement Awards” – the Upper Merion School District for reducing energy consumption by more than 30 percent and recycling 50 percent of its solid waste, and the Tookany/Tacony-Frankford Watershed Partnership for restoring more than 13,000 feet of stream, training nearly 9,000 volunteer watershed stewards, and giving more than 60 school lessons.
• Governor Corbett announced the 2011 “Environmental Excellence Award Winners”.  Especially significant projects include the Schuylkill Headwaters Association implemented several acid mine drainage treatment projects to protect water resources, and the Allegheny Land Trust’s work with the Mount Washington Community Development Corps. to improve and expand the park system on Mount Washington in Pittsburgh.
• Black Rock Sanctuary in Chester County won the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources’ Green Park award for their native meadow plantings, interpretive trail, invasive species management and stormwater wetlands.
• The FrackTracker website is keeping people informed on the Marcellus shale industry in Pennsylvania.  It provides a non-partisan look at where the wells are, where the violations took place, etc.  It can be accessed at: www.fractracker.org.
• This fall, over 10,000 acres were added to State Game Lands in Centre and Clearfield counties, bringing the total number of Game Commission-protected acres to over 1.4 million. 
• Wind energy manufacturer, Gamesa, shipped its 1,000 wind turbine nacelle from its plant in Fairless Hills in southeastern PA.  That plant was sited on a former U.S. Steel brownfield.
• Three Pennsylvania colleges were awarded EPA “Green Power Leadership Awards” for their use of clean, renewable energy sources.  These colleges are Franklin and Marshall, Mercyhurst and Allegheny College. 
• Hundreds of nonprofits and municipalities throughout the state have come together to support the renewed funding of Growing Greener.  You can see a list at http://renewgrowinggreener.org/supporting-organizations. 

There’s been a lot more to cheer about certainly, but the work is never done.  Let’s keep up the good work in 2012!

Choices: Blessing or Curse? November 21, 2011

Today’s blog may be a bit more introspective than previous posts.  A lot is going on in both my personal and professional lives that have caused me to stop and reflect about what it is to be a conservationist.  How does the calling fit in with my life goals? Am I on the right track? Could I be doing more?  I have a feeling a lot of environmental professionals stop and think about those questions from time to time, so I wanted to share some of my thoughts and uncertainties here with you and maybe get some feedback.  When you’re struggling with issues like mine, what do you do?  How do you come to a decision?  I’d welcome any input.

Things in Pennsylvania, and indeed in the world, are changing, and not necessarily for the better.  The Occupy protests, unrest in the Middle East, the retirement of long-standing politicians in Europe, the divisiveness of the Republican candidates for U.S. President – all of these examples and more highlight the level of financial and political instability common throughout the world right now.  The conservation world is also in flux – protests over the Keystone XL pipeline and Canadian tar sands, the Solyndra solar loan mess, oil spills all over the globe, climate change denial (mostly in the U.S.), and the list goes on and on.  People are up in arms over inequalities both economic and environmental in nature.  The feeling of helplessness is pervasive.

I too suffer from that feeling of helplessness, although probably to a lesser extent than many.  Unlike many of the Occupiers, I have a job with benefits.  Unlike many of the people in the Middle East, I enjoy freedom of speech.  I am certainly thankful for all that I have, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t sympathize with them.  My helplessness stems from uncertainties.  It’s tough to picture exactly where I will be six months from now because of circumstances out of my control.  Some days it looks like my future will be brighter, while other days I can’t tell what my future will look like.  All I know is that the uncertainty is unpleasant.  I need to take more control of my future, but how?

No one can predict the future but we can try to shape it.  What does the ideal future look like to me?  The passing of an extension of Growing Greener funds would be nice.  Expanded influence of the Wild Resource Conservation Program sounds good.  A tax on Marcellus gas extraction that benefits both the communities where it is taking place and ensuring that larger-scale environmental impacts will be paid for by the companies that make the messes, not taxpayers, is essential.  More respect for the environment and all the benefits it provides for us, by all, not just a minority.  Real action and legislation in the U.S. on climate change.  I could go on, but you get the picture.  Some of those items may seem far-fetched but lately I have begun to think more optimistically about the future, even as uncertain as it is.

But that leads me to my personal future.  Where will I be a year from now?  How much say do I have in the outcome?  I love my job and feel like I am helping to expand the conservation message to a wide audience, but could I be doing more?  Will my next role be as a non-profit director, an author, a Foreign Service Officer, a Broadway singer (I wish!)? So many choices; I guess I should be happy to have all those options.  During this week of thanks I am truly thankful to live in a place where almost anything is possible if you work at it, but it can be overwhelming at times too. 

Writing this has helped me see that although I am living in uncertain times, with many diverging paths ahead of me, I am grateful to have the luxury of choice.  Too many people out there are not as lucky.  Unfortunately the environment is not as blessed either; it cannot defend itself from poor policy choices and overzealous economic practices.  So I ask every one of you reading this to spend part of the holiday season protecting the planet and conserving our vital natural resources.  Let’s leave some choices for future generations.