October

Autumn view in mountains, Kanenori/Pixabay.com

2020.10.11
​Here is an article that gets at why air travel is so much worse than Earth surface travel in the short term. The issue is the timing of emissions and the type. Breaking emissions down into CO2e for ease of convo has a certain convenience, but the differences in each non-CO2 emissions is significant. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2010/sep/09/carbon-emissions-planes-shipping

2020.10.10
​The reason why agriculture is considered such a high carbon footprint is everyone participates in it. Infrastructure and agriculture are the two biggies in global warming. That’s why we only saw 20% decrease emmissions when people stayed home from work due to the pandemic. As for air travel, here is an article from Yale Climate Connections (great group) about the issues and nuance (multipassenger vehicle/type of vehicle/etc.) https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2015/09/evolving-climate-math-of-flying-vs-driving/

2010.10.09
An Own It fan asked about a groovy dish soap so here is what I found out to be the grooviest. Adding vinegar cuts grease:

Bottom line, the dish soap is simply dissolving a bar of organic glycerin soap in water and then putting it into a bottle for dispensing. You can either heat the water for a faster dissolve or just leave a bar in water in bowl for about 24 hrs to let it happen without spending carbon emissions. The greater concentration of soap in the water, the more cleansing action. Opt for thicker and richer for best results.

Links to the cleanest soaps I could find are below. The first is not olive oil, the second one is. A pound makes about 4 bars of soap.

It’s very important to buy organic ingredients with soaps because non-organic ingredients not only have in their wake pesticides, but also chemicals to extract the oil from the seeds.

Bonus about these soaps: they are melt and pour. You can buy a brick melt it, add scents or exfoliants, like sand, or a little floaty things even toys inside, then pour in a mold to make unique soaps for gifts or just conversation pieces at your home.

Also, if you really want to go there, you could make your own soap at home. It’s a bit of a chemical experiment, and maybe you would enjoy doing this. There are lots of instructional videos to give you an idea of the whole chemical process. I’ve decided to not make my own soap from scratch because I think other people making it in big batches is probably more carbon efficient even with shipping. Plus I like supporting vendors who do good work.

Regular soap base
https://www.mooseberry.com/product-p/msc-smb-11.htm

Olive oil soap base
https://www.mooseberry.com/product-p/msc-smb-09.htm

Importance of organic a—how oils are processed
https://www.google.com/amp/www.centrafoods.com/blog/organic-vs.-non-organic-oils-are-they-really-that-different%3fhs_amp=true

If you want to go even further and being super, super groovy, you could gather your gray water from washing dishes and put it in your garden to cut down on carbon emissions for cleaning water that is perfectly fine to put on plants when you use good soaps. My little video on my set up in my kitchen for this is below. Making grey water has caused me to cut way down on my water usage, which further cuts down on the carbon to get the water to me and also cuts down on the demand for water that’s often imported through artificial channels that take the water away from ecosystems. Plus, it’s a very sweet ritual to have as part of my dish washing the watering of plants and pouring back into the earth the water remnants of what fed me as well as what was used to clean my dishes. It feels like a lovely full cycle meditation every time I do the dishes. (Bigger food scraps go into the work bin.)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ol1wh2d1N5s&t=2s
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2020.10.08
​This article is over a week old—great news. China pledges to zero out emissions by 2060. Finally, a major player making a big statement. It’s not as ambitious as our plan, but hey, it shows a major shift in focus and we welcome it!!
​https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54347878

2020.10.07
​How climate change affects hummingbirds: their at rest states are not as deep and they don’t forage as much in the hot weather. https://climatechange.lta.org/risks-to-hummingbirds-an-important-pollinator/

Nicman/pixabay.com

2020.10.06
The bumble bee (a high impact pollinator) population is now 50% reduced since 1974. These are the types of negative feedback loops that are so troubling. Not getting connected to how much you can do to restore the Earth has dire consequences. All the news, all the anxiety, all the concern are calling cards to live in a deeper, more gratifying way. I am always happy to answer any questions and am of service to you with implementing Own It. Contact me. Here’s the article to read from February. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/02/bumblebees-going-extinct-climate-change-pesticides/?fbclid=IwAR2FgBHOxcHFSyzyC7uh_d6dtCJgAz4RF1ufzYvQPmUz2EUw7VwuLpqS7tc

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2020.10.05
Doing yoga on the deck in a P100 mask due to smokey air. Did the camel (a backbend) pose and was weeping in short order. Just four years ago we didn’t have the Northwest go up in flames. Australia hadn’t burned. And now fire season burns up the joy of summer. So we grieve. It hurts. Sure we can reverse it, but now it just hurts.

2020.10.04
Check our #23 podcast! They talk about “owning it” in the last part, so I had to write Josh and let him know about Own It. Looks like I’m gonna be in the podcast in November sometime. So honored!

​https://greenrootpodcast.podbean.com/

2020.10.03

if you’re wondering about how North America will fare with climate migration, check out this link. https://projects.propublica.org/climate-migration

2020.10.02
Looks like the tenets of Own It can restore humanity to be on a trajectory to compassion. Sure, this is five years old, but still relevant:)

2020.10.01
More fires in California leaves many feeling like the entire world is burning. Purpleair assures us it's not, but then again, have you seen other places' air quality? Look at the pic below. Yikes, we need more green.
This year is a year of learning to adjust to the horrific air conditions and still keep in shape, still keep on being proactive. We simply cannot give up, no matter how depressing global warming is. When entire regions are choked with smoke it's hard to imagine how one little life adjustment will really matter. Yet, the evidence shows that it does. It's not just about your world alone, it's about your influence on the world around you, while you're doing you. Your activism will be part of you and you'll easily talk about things differently, because you're living differently. Sometimes I feel like I'm not making a difference and then someone lets me know they're now watching their carbon footprint because of our friendship, or they shop for more natural clothing. You just never know how far the ripple out effect is most of the time. Stay with it, the world needs us.