Tag: Green

As I sit here drinking my lovely cup of organic Shui Xian Oolong tea I can feel like I’m also doing a little thing for the environment. At least, if compared to the impact I’d make for the same amount of coffee. 

I saw an amazing chart in the February 28-March 6 edition of the Economist. It compared the amount of water required to produce certain beverages and household goods. They took into account the water required for the production as well as the brewing of the beverage: producing beans for 1 liter of coffee coffee takes an amazing 1,120 liters of water. Tea is only 10% of that, at 120 liters. Astonishing. 

The water needed to produce common goods and beverages | Thirsty work | The Economist

So, this fall I experimented with canning and freezing some of the local yummies. I canned tomato sauce and drunken fig jam, and I froze peaches (as well as excess hot peppers from the farm share).

I wanted to save these items past the fall, to meter them out so I had summer yummies through the entire winter. So I put them away and promptly forgot about them. I’m definitely behind in consuming my stored summer sunshine.

I started to haul out the peaches – I hack away a bit of the frozen mass and put it into a blender with some kefir and whatever else is around (honey, a banana) for a nice smoothie.

The drunken fig jam is a hit at dinner parties (still looking for more invitations…definitely burning a hole in my basement shelf).

And, after giving a few jars away as gifts, I have busted out the tomato sauce as well. It is very fresh and light sauce.

It has been lovely opening those freezer bags of peaches and the jars of tomato sauce and fig jam. It takes me back to the hot afternoons where I prepped them for storage, and I get a taste of summer. Luscious summer, that I know is returning, even though I’m huddled and snuggled up still in the winter cold.

Wiarton Willie says there are six more weeks of winter. I have several more cans of tomato sauce and bags of frozen peaches to get through. I think I’m going to make it back to the sunshine

So, I really do want to be green. But the recent upsurge of “please consider the environment, do not print this email unless necessary” type of signature lines in email is making me see red.

I typically don’t print emails unless absolutely necessary (like it includes directions to a house I have never visited before), so mostly they are just wasting my reading attention telling me to do something I wouldn’t do anyway.

But really, the part that I find annoying is that there’s something sanctimonious about telling me to do or not to do anything at all with the content that they gave me, freely gave to me, that I am reading now, through the courtesy I am extending by opening their note to me at all. It’s kind of…snooty, as if to say:

Here’s an email that I wrote you. I know it is the best, absolutely the best. It is so good, you’re going to be jonesing to print it out. But, I’m more green than you are, so I’ll think for the both of us and I’m going to instruct you not to print it, even though I know you want to, because the content is amaaaazzzing.

Living green is all about leading by example. Inspiring others with what to do  rather than lecturing others on what not to do is more promising.

Here’s the first thing I’m going to do to make this a nicer and a greener world. I’m not going to put junk like this in the sig line of my email.

There is a new gym in town, Joust Strength and Fitness, and a pal has been having a good time training there. Joust has a nice program of classes and one-on-one training. But, I’m not going.

Now, I know strength training is an important part of health and fitness. I also haven’t really been doing it. There are just too many things to prioritize, daily meditation, professional society participation, social life, knitting, cardio, yoga, blogging, etc. So, I was intrigued by the classes, and the promise that they’d work with my scoliosis and help me train better and more efficiently. I believe every word of that.

My limitation – I simply refuse to drive to exercise. I walk to work. I have many workout options within walking distance of my work and my home, three of which are already in my rotation (RussaYog, spinning at Vie, and the Ann Arbor YMCA). And, I want to keep a lot of options within walking distance, so I simply can’t add another gym, particularly one I can’t walk to, to the list.

I struggled with this for a little while, tempted and overwhelmed at the same time. And then I remembered the advice in The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less. Barry Schwarz argues that fewer choices are better, easier, and more satisfying. He advocated deciding what you’re going to decide. So, I recall that my choice is to live lightly on the earth, and driving to work out certainly doesn’t qualify, no matter how good the trainers and facilities. Joust is out, no regrets.

And then, I realized, I am not not doing strength work. In my rope yoga class, we use the ropes for balance, but also pull against them. Pull-ups on the ropes, while not a huge part of the class, is certainly strength work, and there’s a lovely mixture of release and effort that I haven’t yet mastered (not to mention the core work). When I heard myself explain my current workout situation to a friend, I realized that I was getting a lot out of the core work and strength work in that class.

So, I need to renew my commitment to the strength work I’m already doing, instead of adding a new commitment and car rides to my schedule.