I Don't Want to Know

an excerpt from Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture by Ellen Ruppel Shell 

Few IKEA outlets in the US are accessible by public transportation and since the company does not support a home delivery service, customers willing and able to take public transport rarely do so. As a result, the traffic jams surrounding IKEA stores are so gnarly that customers are discouraged from shopping on weekends when lines of idling cars can back up for miles. IKEA touts its 'green side' by lighting its stores with low-wattage bulbs and charging extra for plastic bags while its clientele burns through gallon after gallon of fuel to buy disposable tables and lamps. Asked his assessment of company practices, MIT-trained urban development expert Wig Zamore said: "IKEA is the least sustainable retailer on the planet."

Bummer

song: I Don't Want to Know • artist: Fleetwood Mac

Down Under

At Mt. Cardigan we learned that the bottom layer of the forest - the opposite of the canopy if you will - is called litter.
I assume it was called litter before the advent of what we normally think of when we think of litter.
That means that it's entirely possible and probably likely that there are places in the woods where the litter is covered with litter.

song: Down Under • artist: Men at Work

Too Hot

Have we really become a nation of people who feel the need to leave their cars running at all times? I saw a man leave his car in the post office parking lot today and run into the P.O., not merely to quickly check his box mind you - but to stand at the window and await a transaction.
 suppose I should be gratified to think that we live in a town where this man feels his vehicle is save idling in a parking lot (Isn't Falmouth Nice?). On the other hand it was a company car so maybe he didn't give a hoot whether or not it was stolen, merely that it was still cool when he got back into it.
People sit in parking lots and idle in the winter in order to keep the heat on. In summer it's to keep the AC going. Come on folks, live a little! There's nothing like a little sweat or a good shiver to let yourself feel alive. It seems like we've all become a little to used to climate control while the planet's climate fluctuations continue to increase.

song: Too Hot • artist: Kool & the Gang

Lime Tree

I do not like it Sam I Am.


song: Lime Tree • Cassadaga

Walnut Tree

She stared at the grinch and said, "Santy Claus, why? why are they ruining my favorite picture book of all time, why?"

song: Walnut Tree • artist: Keane

Lemon Tree

I see the new Lorax movie has spawned some product tie ins.
In the immortal words of Dr. Seuss: "I laughed at the Lorax, "you poor stupid guy. You never can tell what some people will buy."
Someone's missing the point here. We're supposed to be on the side of the Lorax.
Right?

song: Lemon Tree • artist: Peter, Paul & Mary

Don't Stop

"Mom! He's putting those peels in the trash!"
I look and it's true. C was peeling a tangerine and his four-year-old brother was dutifully taking the peels and putting them in the trash bucket.
My older son was not, as you may think, praising his younger brother for his helpfulness, he was in fact pointing out his faux pas. Tangerine peels belong in the compost bucket, not in the trash.
I asses the situation. Yes. It's true. But for my preschooler, the compost bucket is up on the counter and out of reach, while the trash can is close at hand. Given the choice between having a helpful, if somewhat misguided, four year old or having to deal with the mess myself, I choose to let the transgression pass.
How often are other parents faced with similar dilemmas?
As parents we want to save the world for our children, but sometimes they don't make it easy.
There's the obvious problem of children: all the stuff they come with and accumulate, from diapers and wipes to the collection of plastic crap handed out at birthday parties, all the way up to the e-trash they will presumably leave in their wake as teens when they begin moving fluidly from one techno gadget to another.
Those environmental infractions aside, what I'm thinking about are the lapses I condone and even sometimes instigate myself, like driving over-tired toddlers around and around the block in hopes that they will fall asleep before the car runs out of gas.
Or, as someone who goes so far as to stick a bucket in the sink when washing vegetables and saving the water for the house plants, how do I justify letting my twins play in the bathroom sink, filling and emptying it over and over on a cold, January day?
Then there's the illusion that leads you to believe your kids will embrace a tiny LED night light in their bedroom but they want the big guns - the closet light - on all night. At least you've installed CFLs.
In these situations it's plain that the possibility of some quiet mommy time is more valuable than wasting a little non-renewable petroleum or even gallon after gallon of perfectly good drinking water.
What's more, I could lure the twins out of the bathroom and away from the running water by offering up a DVD. Given the option though I'd prefer to have them actively, rather than passively, engaged, even if what they're actively engaged in is wasting water. What this confession reveals is that I'm guilty of caring more about the cognitive development of my kids than about saving precious natural resources.
Yes, in the case of the faucet example I could just stick them in the bath tub which would, in the long run, waste less water but often there's a time constraint as in not enough time for a tubby before heading out to the bus stop to meet older siblings. At least most days we walk to the bus stop.
Is Mommy's sanity worth more than the health of the environment? There's the old saying that if Mommy's not happy, nobody's happy, and I suppose if I'm not catching a break here and there I'll be too mentally exhausted to dry our laundry on the clothes line or tend my plot at the community garden.
How about you? What environmental infractions do you allow your kids to partake of in the name of sanity or getting dinner (vegetarian I'm sure) cooked.

song: Don't Stop • artist: Fleetwood Mac

Digging in the Dirt II

Immediately after seeing this I felt the need to mock it.
Sure, plants growing out of egg shells are cute, but the text touts this as a way to recycle your cracked egg shells. Of all the things we need to worry about finding a way to recycle - egg shells aren't one of them.
They recycle themselves, pretty easily in your compost, have been for years.
If you'd rather plant seeds in them by all means go ahead, but don't pat yourself on the back over all the egg shells you're keeping out of the landfill.
Then I thought - "you're such a curmudgeon Joanne, just let them have their cute seedings in egg shells - what's the harm?"
I suppose the harm is when we think that we can rest on our green laurels after recycling egg shells and therefore don't address any real issues.

song: Digging in the Dirt • artist: Peter Gabriel

Throwing it All Away

For the record I'd like to say that I, for one, cannot wait until Falmouth adopts a pay as you go trash disposal system. I think we should all sit on the floor and spill out the refuse in our trash cans aka Colin Beavan (Mr. No Impact Man himself) and really look at it.
Way back when - towns didn't collect garbage - and really why should they? Why is the town responsible for hauling away the styrofoam packaging from last night's take out? Way back when farmers had their own personal garbage piles on some remote corner of their property (Peter Rabbit's relations are always rooting around in it in the Beatrice Potter books remember?) There wasn't much in it, some composting newspapers, rotten rutabagas, shoe leather, and glass bottles.
Of course most of us don't live on farms anymore or have large enough tracts of land to accommodate our own personal Fresh Kills; and towns got in on the garbage collection action (wisely) in order to prevent diseases from spreading through cities and large towns when waste was left lying waist high in the streets.
I've heard the argument that pay as you go will create rampant littering but have you looked around lately? Look up in the trees and count the plastic bags, drive down Thomas Landers Road or Route 28 where the double lane highway ends as you approach town - litter is already rampant. People who don't recycle are just lazy - pay as you go isn't going to make them into illegal dumping criminals. If they haven't the energy to sort through their trash and separate, it what makes people think they'll have the energy to load it into their cars at night and drive around looking for a place to dispose of it? It's like the reusable bags. We aren't motivated to remember them because it's not costing us anything to forget them. Not yet at least.
In Sandwich this summer, where they already have adopted pay as you go, I saw more instances of people putting items in their front yards with sings on them reading "free." How great is that? Instead of throwing away something that could be useful to someone else - items are being offered up for free. Did everyone in Sandwich suddenly become altruistic, or by making it harder to throw stuff out (or more expensive) has the town given people incentive to consider (and take responsibility for) what happens to the stuff they throw out.
If it's easy. It's easy not to think about it.
Taking it a step further, why should our trash cans be laden with plastic twists ties, cellophane windows to cardboard boxes, the plastic clam shells that the batteries came in, the hard-to-remove plastic that tiny computer camera flash card come in - that you need the kitchen scissors to extract, not to mention what happens to larger items at the end of their life cycle, like TVs . The companies that make these products should be the ones to deal with all the trash that's created just by buying something and opening it up.
Maybe, when we're all left holding the bag (literally) we'll start holding corporations accountable. If corporations are recognized by law as having certain rights and responsibilities should they have to clean up the messes that they create?
After all, my kids have to clean up theirs.

song: Throwing it All Away • artist: Genesis

Far Away

And here's another thing about plastic bags. At the Windfall Market (our town's independently owned grocery store) they deduct a nickel off your total for every reusable bag you bring in. Let's just say up front that a nickel is not much of an incentive to begin with but - I would argue that when I do remember to bring in my canvas bags I can fit four times as many groceries into them as I would be able to get in one plastic bag. So shouldn't I get 20¢ per bag instead of just 5¢? Shouldn't the policy be a nickel for every plastic bag I am saving the store by not using?
I do not know the answer to this but last time I was in Windfall with my bags I had three bags but only enough items to warrant the use of two. The bagger argued to the cashier that I should get 15¢ off my order, a nickel for every bag brought, not a mere 10¢ for actual bags used.
If that's the policy I could start bringing my entire reusable bag collection into the store, which is upwards of 10 bags, plus the half dozen my husband keeps in his car.

song: Far Away • artist: Nickelback

Hot Stuff

me: "What do the people who got 42" televisions for $199 on Black Friday do with the 40" sets they got last year?"
him: "Put them in their bathrooms."

song: Hot Stuff • artist: Donna Summer

Hot, Hot, Hot

When there's day after day of plus-60°F weather during November, we say "Shhhhhh. Don't jinx it."
But when there's a cold streak in May the right-wing pundits are quick to sarcastically say, "and the scientists claim there's global warming."

song: Hot, Hot, Hot • artist: Buster Poindexter

Why We Can't Save the Planet (a haiku)

Like fated squirrels
Plastic bags waft past my car
I hit one dead on

Big Shot II

Him: "Why don't they just shoot all our garbage up into space?"
Me: "I'm sure they're working on it."

song: Big Shot • artist: Billy Joel

Built to Last

Last Friday I was at Wal-Mart, dodging the go-cart people and feeling as if I was on the set of a live-action remake of Wall-E, on my way to the bedding department for a dust-mite cover for a new pillow. 

I get my pillow protector and get in line.

The woman in front of me has only a few items, one of which is a cast-iron skillet.

The cashier rings her up, bags everything but the skillet, then turns to the woman and says that it wouldn't make sense to put the skillet in a bag because the bag would break.

She offered up double bagging the skillet but even then she was dubious about the bags holding up.

The customer paused. She pondered these choices for a long time.

The cashier offered to put a sticker on the skillet - one that would say, "sold."

"No one will question you," she assured the woman. I felt that the cashier was sincerely pushing for the no-bag option.

Still the woman hesitated.

Finally she said, "I would feel more comfortable with a bag."

So the cashier bagged the skillet and told the woman to carry the skillet by its handle not by the bag's handle, which she did.

More comfortable? Really? "I'd be more comfortable putting my purchase in this toxic piece of non-biodegradable plastic." Really?

And I know I'll never reach a state of inner enlightenment if I can't stop judging people all the time but please - help me out here - if you don't want to be judged - don't take the unnecessary plastic bag! Don't do it. Just say no. 

I suppose it could have been worse. She could have been buying a Teflon frying pan.

song: Built to Last • artist: Grateful Dead

I Saw the Light

According to the Globe, a North Andover mom "wants to leave the earth a healthy place for her three children. But what good is a thriving planet ... if her kids are forced to live in a home lighted by bulbs that are energy efficient but ruin the look of the dining room chandelier...?"
To spare her kids from poor lighting, the mom is hoarding incandescent bulbs in anticipation of their scheduled "fade out" as it were.
Really? Are you kidding? F*ck the chandelier lady, you've got a planet to save!
What will you tell your three kids 20 years from now? "Sorry about the polar bears kids, but look, I've still got some lightbulbs from 2011. Nice shade of white don't you agree? Almost the same shade as a polar ... Oh never mind."
I know, there are some great reasons for wanting to hang on to traditional bulbs. How will kids spike their temperature on a thermometer in order to stay home sick on test day with only a 15-watt bulb? Whatever will they use to melt wax crayons on? Oh the humanity.
This is why we'll never be able to save the planet. Because even though we want to save the planet - and we really, really, want to save it - we just don't want to be inconvenienced in the process. Not one little you'll-have-to-pry-these-incandescents-from-my-cold-dead-hands bit. And saving the planet will be inconvenient. I guarantee it. First we will have to believe in climate change. We will have to drive less. We will have to commute more. There will be wind turbines to contend with. We will have to be accountable for the garbage we create (pay as you go may be here sooner than compact fluorescents) We will have to actually remember to bring all those reusable canvas bags into the supermarket instead of just smugly keeping them in our car. New Englanders won't be able to eat fresh strawberries in January. We'll need to stop buying yearly new wardrobes full of cheap clothing made in China and wear last years fashions instead.
Luckily, on account of the bad lighting, no one will notice.

song: I Saw the Light • artist: Todd Rundgren