Scientific Ink

Tag: Green

  • Sustainable (green #2)

    heart originally uploaded by nodie26

    I have learned how to exercise sustainably. I use a heart rate monitor when I do my cardio, and it helps me calibrate my workout. It keeps me honest when I’m slacking, and more importantly, it keeps me from burning out by overdoing it.

    I’m afraid that I’ve noticed that happen. I have a habit of getting all intense about whatever it is and then overdoing it. I might either stop having any fun because I’m unprepared and ambitious, and I might need to take time out and recover, and then in the lull, I wander away to another activity.

    Lesson learned, at least for sustainable exercise.

    So, how to approach sustainable living? It seems tempting to create some feedback loop, a scoring mechanism by which I rate my activities: points for walking to work, points for taking the stairs instead of the elevator, points for shopping in walking distance instead of driving, points for composting and recycling and reusing and not buying. It’s just, I’m not sure what the units and the score should be.

    So, maybe I need to make it simpler. Set myself a quota for doing certain activities:

    • Walk up to the 5th floor office instead of taking the elevator (good for me, saves energy)
    • If I’m going out for lunch, eat lunch at the People’s Food Co-op cafe instead of somewhere less conscious of the environment and local foods.
    • Let myself “score points” by research as well as doing.
      • For instance, I live in a wonderful old house (built 1912). It has miles of character, but it is not well insulated. I saw an insulation service truck at my neighbor’s home. What if I researched the costs and benefits of adding extra insulation to the house – said to offer 20-30% energy savings…

    Essentially, I have to start small and do-able, so I can maintain the momentum to keep going.

  • My 2009 theme – not a green roof but a green life (green #1)

    "Green" Roof_5-29-08 originally uploaded by jimbrickett

    So, after a few conversations and some reflection, I think my vision of a green roof in my “what is your life’s work” post was metaphorical rather than literal.

    • Do I quit my job as a project manager and Director of Happiness and go back to my “roots” in ecology? Farm a bunch of roof turf? Evangelize strengthening supporting beams? Develop a new variety of roof turf? The action items weren’t flowing. So I decided to be less literal.
    • Was the vision of a green roof really about aligning myself with my yearning to live in greater harmony.

    Although I had one flight of fancy in which I shocked a friend when I described an ecosystem including bears and wolves on top of our homes and offices, I think the realistic goal is the latter. So, if my work to align with my green instincts manifests as a rooftop garden, fine (though the pitched roof of our home and our backyard shed are going to make that a particular challenge), but it is more about greening my life up in all aspects, not just the rooftop.

    So, my new theme is green living, little ways to align better with my years old resolution of living in a more sustainable and healthy manner.

  • Garden visitor (gratitude #27)

    So, I’ve been contemplating doing some landscape work on the backyard. The grass is dying (grubs, I think), the deck is too small for the table and the grill we have on it, and the random plantings (my fault) and the bi-level deck and backyard (inherited from the previous owners) feels like there’s too much going on in a small space. I’ve had it.

    So, I called in the professionals. I am getting quotes from a couple of different landscape architecture firms to redesign our backyard. A representative of one came out today, and we discussed several things. I got excited. Finally, the backyard of my dreams was about to hatch. However, translating this to my skeptical and more financially responsible husband didn’t go so well tonight. So, I felt a bit bruised and sulky, but the two of us went to our backyard and wandered around our small downtown yard, trying to think about next steps.

    I was fretting over this and that, weeding here and there, and then Dave said “is that a real moth?”. There was a huge Cecropia silkmoth, Hyalophora cecropia, just hanging out on our bee balm. It gripped the bee balm stem delicately in its full regalia -fuzzy striped russet, black, and white body, gigantic russet, brown, grey, and white wings, glorious feathered black antennae. And of course, the engineer saw it, not the biologist, cause the biologist was all bent out of shape. And it was sitting there, with grace and beauty, quietly yet quite firmly directly refuting my assertion that my backyard wasn’t terrific.

    Moth on Monarda
    Cecropia moth on my bee balm

    I still have a few ideas about improving the yard, but the moth drove the sulkiness away. Hard to complain about the garden when it is pulling in such lovely fans.

  • Catalog Choice – Eliminate unwanted catalogs you receive in the mail

    catalogsTis the season to purchase gifts. It’s also the season for carrying a pound of catalogs to the recycling bin each day. Those catalog folks do have my number – they know I purchase clothing, and shoes, they know I like wine, like outdoorsy stuff, yoga, and workout gear. I get pounds of catalogs at my house.

    I feel guilty about the catalogs that do have me pegged, like I somehow asked to be papered in catalogs offering hiking boots, backpacks, and yoga gear. The ones that never fit me, though, simply annoy me. And, for those stores I like, I’d rather let them store “my” catalog on their Internet rather than store a printed copy at my home.

    So, I was grateful to read I can rid myself of unwanted catalogs by stopping them at the source, instead of recycling them at the end, after someone has printed, mailed, and then walked them to my door. I signed up for Catalog Choice and entered in this week’s batch of unwanted catalogs. I’ll keep declining catalogs as they come, and then wait for the day I don’t have to toss them (apparently about 10 weeks away).

    Catalog Choice – Eliminate unwanted catalogs you receive in the mail

  • Gifts in lieu of gifts

    Every so often, I get into a fit about how much stuff we have. I just purchased another set of shelves for our basement (buying stuff to hold stuff), just dropped off a bunch of cast-off stuff to charity, and of course there is all the stuff we just bought ourselves (renovated bathroom, new TV).

    I have everything I need: my health, my mom’s health, a terrific husband, loving family, smart, funny, and talented friends, a world class feline, a wonderful home…So, I’d like to declare a moratorium on stuff, at least for a little while. So, I’d like to propose a truce with those who give me gifts and to whom I give gifts: hold the stuff and spread the love a bit wider.

    I propose to give $ to charity in lieu of a gift. For instance, I just got “The Most Important Gift Catalog in the World” from Heifer International, and instead of a tchotchke to my mom, I can give a share of a water buffalo or honeybees or llamas or rabbits to a family in need. I have a short list of charities, but it seems like anyone who wants to “play” should use their own short list, or maybe we could exchange charities (I give to yours, you give to mine).

    It doesn’t seem quite fair for me to give to charity if you expect a gift instead, so I’m proposing to do this only with folks who agree. LMK!

  • Owl Scream Social

    Young Bald Eagle

    Guy invited us to his house tonight for an ice cream social. He had all the usual trimmings: chocolate sprinkles, almonds, various ice cream flavors (strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate), chocolate syrup, neighborhood kids, and raptors.

    Ummm…raptors?

    Yup, raptors.

    A woman from the Leslie Science Center brought a kestrel, a barred owl, and a juvenile bald eagle. All the birds were injured (kestrel, owl) or imprinted on humans (eagle) and so would not survive in the wild. The birds were wonderful. The day reminded me of the amazing Raptor Trust in New Jersey. And, of course, the Onion article about owls.

    You should have heard the birds in the nearby trees all twittering away “Do. Not. Want.”