We Bought A House!

Yesterday, Katie and I signed the deed on a house...a real, not-an-apartment house. Its adorable and wonderful and needs some work and we have SO much packing to do, but its ours, all ours. Well, ours and the bank's...but whatever. Obviously this shoots the "consumer goods" category of the 90% project to hell for this month, especially since we have to buy appliances and a new furnace and possibly a living room set as well, but we will actually be able to do what we want in terms of energy and water conservation, not to mention GARDENING! so it should balance it out. But anyway. i'm not in the mood to post too much more about it since I have tons o' stuff to do today, but yeah, WE BOUGHT A HOUSE!

How far is "too far"?

There is a discussion going on the the 90%Reduction list about what "going too far" means, how people's perceptions of what is too far out there have changed since starting the projects, etc. It really quite interesting seeing what people on that list view as "extreme" behavior or what they used to view that way but now accept as normal and necessary.

My perceptions and actions have changed a lot in the past year, in regards to a lot of aspects of my day-to-day life. Dietary changes are the first ones that come to mind; E2L is an obvious extreme to most people, as is veganism (or nearly) in general or any dietary change that requires severly limiting or eliminating the foods everyone takes for granted as "normal," i.e. white sugar, dairy, processed starches, etc. But its normal fo me now...not that I don't miss the junk and not that I don't occasionally indulge in it, but on a daily basis the way I eat is far different from most people in this country in many ways.

But the impact of 90% Reduction project and the ideas of the voluntary simplicity movement, permaculture, and peak oil have changed me even more. Things that I thought I'd never do, or that never occured to me to do, or never occured to me not to do, are everyday now. Using graywater for toliet flushing and plant watering, vermicomposting (not up and running yet but will be onc we move), urban-scale "farming", biking 12-15 miles in one day, putting up food for winter, farmer's markets, line drying clothes, using baking soda/vinegar for hair washing and toothbrushing, trashing picking/dumpster diving...plus a million other little changes. I don't see any of these as too much, though I know a lot of people would. And then there are the things I'd never have thought of or that I may have thought about but totally dismissed a years ago; cloth toliet paper, going fridgeless, going carless, going tvless, composting toliets, living "off the grid"...all those things are possibilites, not things that we have implemented yet, but that are theoretically in the future, whether we want them to be or not. And yeah, I stil think of them as "extreme," but the reality is, "extreme" is most likely going to become "necessary" within my lifetime and definatly within my children's lifetimes unless something changes dramatically.

I have this voice inside my head telling me what is and is not socially acceptable. It sounds a lot like my Aunt Janice, actually, who always seems to know what the definition of acceptable behavior, dress, etc is and is never afraid to voice her opinion. And I'll do something or, more often, admit to doing something, and I'll think of what Jan would say if she say me doing it or if I told her about it...and I have to stop and tell myself that what she would think doesn't matter. I'm doing what I think is right, what works for me, and I (and Katie) am the only one that has to live with the direct consequences. But the long term consequences? I much rather use a little graywater now, or grow enough in my own garden to survive through the winter, or refuse to buy produce shipped across the world, or bike everywhere and suffer a little social ridicule or at least be thought of as "strange" and know that, in the future, the little bit I've managed to reduce my footprint maybe made a tiny difference in slowing the destructive spiral humans are spinning down.

I don't really know what I consider "too far" anymore...the more I read, the more I try, the more that becomes part of my everyday life, the more reasonable all the "extreme ideas" sound to me. They may not be feasible in my life right now or I might not be quite ready to take those steps, but they don't sound too far out there. I'd like to hope that I'm able to do whatever is necessary when it comes right down to it...its just a matter of acquiring the knowledge and skills to d it.

stuff, stuff and more stuff

And I'm back (because thereare just thousands of you anxiously awaiting another blog, I'm sure). Sorry for the unplanned hiatus...i've been here, reading blogs, but rarely commenting. Things have been a bit crazy...see, we've been househunting..and housefinding, I guess. We found a house in Syracuse that we both fell in love with. Its cute, its in a decent neighborhood, its in our price range and it has a yard, both front and back, conducive to planting. It needs work, not a lot, but some...a new furnace (it has a gravity-heat octopus, probably original to the house, aka, 1910...), some rewiring in the basement, insulation in the attic, a little bit of roof work (though the roof is in general solid) and a few odds and ends. but yeah, in a year or so, its going to be a really nice house. The previous owners put in obviously a lot of money into the kitchen and living room, but didn't do basic things like fix a leak in the roof and replace the ancient furnace...priorities, people, seriously! But it is still a good deal and a solid purchase according to everyone we've talked to. Of course, there is mortgage drama and lots of waiting and worrying and stressing about the repairs but we're getting there.

That, in combination with a few trips, a general summer-induced laziness involving cooking anything creative and a focus on the 90% project and house planning, has made me feel a bit blah about blogging. I'm going to try to keep up though, at least once a month. I'll just have to post elaborate gardening plans when I get antsy in the middle of winter...

We interrupt this broadcast...

..for a cute Phoo-love picture. Gawsh, they're cute.
And to think Phina (white) wanted to kill Scooter (spotted) when we first got him.

Electricity...its not just about cfls anymore...

According to the numbers cited on the Riot For Austerity rules, the average American monthly kilowatt Hour (KwH) usuage per household per month is 900 KwH. This translates to an approximate total of 850 lbs of carbon per month or over 10000 lbs per year (this is using the very approximate estimate of .95 lbs/KwH from this site this site.) We are currently, according to National Grid, at an average of 435 KwH/month for the last 8 months, meaning 413 lbs/month, about 5000 lbs/year. Woohoo, we're ahead of the game. Well, are we?

Living in an apartment complex makes a lot of things about the 90% Challenge a bit more complicated than I would necessarily enjoy. On one hand, some things are easier. We have a smaller space to light/fill with noise/cool/etc. Our 2 bedroom w/ dining room is about 850 square feet. The dining room is essentially electricity-free most of the day, as the light only goes on in the evening when the Phoo-Bears (aka, bunnies) are being fed, cleaned, etc, or when one of us is using the sewing machine or, *gasp*, vaccuuming in there (besides the phoo cage, which gets shopvac'd 2-3 times per week). The rest of the apartment gets very nice light so, assuming its moderatly sunny or at least not storming, the lights are off until evening, when we turn on a bare minimum. We also don't have room for big KwH suckers, like a chest freezer, dishwasher, central air (though we do have a small energy star unit in the bedroom) and similar things. But living in an apartment also poses some difficulties in calculating our actual electric usuage, mainly the washer and dryer. They are downstairs and we pay for their usuage with quarters, therefore its not calculated in our electric bill. There is also the hall lights and porch lights, that, although we aren't directly using them since they are in communal areas, are part of our household usuage but aren't calculated into our bill. So there are the caveats in our lower-than-average usage.

But ok, if we want to get our usuage to 90% less than the happy 900 KwH/household/month, then 435 ain't cutting it, as low as it sounds. To really be kicking butt, we's need to get it down to 90 KwH/month, or 1080/year. I can tell you right now, that's not going to happen while we are here, but I'd like to see us closer to 200 KwH/month, both for the sake of the Earth and for $$ issues. There are some things that we can't disconnect in the apartment, such as the fridge (its actually in our lease) and the smoke detector, which is hardwired rather than battery powered. Also, there are a few essential-to-(non-human)life electronics that are running for all or for a good portion of the day. These include the reptile lights and fish lights/filters. Despite what the cats say, this does not include the filtered cat fountain water bowl, but Bahnu wants everyone to know that that was not a sacrifice she voluntarily made.

I made a list the other day of all if the electrical things that are turned on/plugged in at least once per week. Here it is:

Constant use (or at least 12 hours per day):

• Fridge
• smoke detector
• fish filters x 3
• fish lights x 3
• fish heaters x2
• reptile heat lamps x3
• reptile UV bulbs x2
• alarm clock
• answering machine

Used Daily

• TV
• Antenna
• computer
• printer
• speakers
• light bulbs x18
• stove starter
• window fans x2 (summer/fall only)
• pedestal fan x1 (summer/fall only)

Used at least 2-3 times per week:

• bedroom TV
• DVD/playstation
• vaccuum
• shopvac
• toaster oven
• stereo
• cellphone charger
• window-unit A/C (summer only, though less than that this year)
• blender

Used rarely (less than once per week):

• secondary stereo
• sewing machine
• iron
• yogurt maker
• regular toaster
• dehydrator
• dehumidifier (this goes into the 2-3 times/week category come winter)

As mentioned above, some things are essential. Other things, like lightbulbs, fans (this time of year), the stove starter and the computer are pretty close to essential. But here's what we are doing to cut back everywhere else.

• CFLs- we have replaced *most* of the overhead and lamp bulbs with CFLs. There are a few that we still have to switch out and will next time we have a bit of extra cash. Even the fish tank lights are CFLs- actually better for the fish since its a bit closer to natural light.
• Unplug/turn it off- we are making a conscious effort to unplug/turn off lights, appliances, etc when not in use. Unplugging is a new thing, but this is because of phantom loads, so we'll see if it makes any signfigant difference in our usuage.
• Do we really need to use it? - The TV is a big one in this category. Most of the time, it is on as background noise for the birds when we are not home or elsewhere in the apartment, so not necessary. But we do watch a good amount of prime time and news, probably more than we should. The same goes for the DVD player...we watch several movies per week, though less than many people do, I think. We've been turning on lights later and later, turning off and putting away a bunch of things that we rarely used or that were unnecessary (i.e. the filtered cat water fountian, sorry Bahnu) and are generally watching carefully gratuitous usuage of non-essential appliances and lights. Though its not included in our bill, we only run maybe 2 loads of wash per week and hang dry almost everything. The A/C is a small, energy effiencient window unit that we use of cool one room and somehow we've only had to turn it on 3-4 times this year and only when it was honestly too hot to sleep. Otherwise, we just use the fan. The a/c does have an "energy saver" setting, but it is so loud as it switches on and off, it wakes me up every time and negates any sleeping benefits the cooler air creates. So we just run it at a higher temperature (76 degrees) after we get the room cooled down more.

I'm interested to see if the changes we're been making show up on our bill. Hopefully if the small things make a real difference, we can make some bigger changes.

Gasoline

In the Riot for Austerity/90% reduction list "rules", there are 7 categories; Gasoline, Electricity, Heating and Cooking Energy, Garbage, Water, Consumer Goods, and Food. My (our) goal is to make as much of a reduction in all 7 areas as possible. So the plan here is to, at least for now, list what steps we are taking and what our goals are for each category. For the sake of my sanity and the sanity of anyone who actually reads this, I'm going to break this up by category, get a baseline down for where we are now and where we'd like to be and then go from there with regular updates.

Today, Gasoline.

Obviously, the major source of gasoline use for us is the car. While technically we (read: Katie) own 3 cars, only one is currently being driven. The other two are kind of hanging around and are technically/legally undrivable (long story), though this will change as soon as tomorrow. The car that is staying is a 2000 Chevy Malibu, purchased used a few months ago. According to this site http://www.terrapass.com/, the Malibu puts out about .75 lbs of CO2/mi, slightly lower than average (1.09 lbs/gallon), but still, yuck, though better than some. Syracuse is not the most pedestrian/non-driver friendly city, so we do a lot of driving. How much? Well, I briefly considered driving around as normal for a week or two and then figuring it out from there, but we both decided to just jump in and start trying to cut back. More on that in a bit. Driving that we were doing on a regular basis was the approximatly 3 mi commute to and from Katie's office 5 days a week, shopping trips to and from the farmer's market and and grocery/pet supply places, plus the occasional (once per month or so) to Rochester to see my family or to visit Katie's family. There was also the semi-regular short trips to my "off-site" clients, though we were able to combine those with other necessary trips about 90% of the time. All in all, we estimated anywhere between 7200 and 10,000 mi per year, bringing the carbon emissions of the car alone to 5400-7500 lbs. Granted that's our household figure, but throw in the added weight of local bus trips, the occassional Greyhound, the occasional ride in Katie's father's Chevy Avalanche, Katie's bus/train rides down to NYC for follow-up Dr.s appointments, the very occasional drive to Boston, and my plane ride to Boston from Detroit (not to metion the drive to Detroit from Rochester) and those pounds really add up. I'm going to say, pretty much pulling this out of my butt here, but lets say 12000 mi per year, since thats the national average. So in order to comply with the 90% rule, we would need to bring that figure down to 1200 mi/year. According to the 90% rules, average usage in gallons per person is 500 gal/year, so we have to get down to 50/person or 100 gal for the household. Eek.

So what are we doing? First, we are tracking miles/month and gallons of gas/month on a handy-dandy notebook in the car. We missed the first few days of July, so the figures won't mean much until the end of August, but time to get in the habit. Every month, the numbers go into another, higher-tech handy-dandy spreadsheet on the computer. This will include any miles on trains, planes, buses, etc. (though I'm not sure what etc would be...scooters? motorcycles?). The figures I have come up with for non-car transportation methods, after about 2 hours of google searching and some kilometer to mile translation, are as follows;

• buses: .41 lbs/mi
• trains: .24 lbs/mi
• planes: .64 lbs/mi
• SUV/trucks: 1.47 lbs/mi

The next step is the drive as little as possible. Easier said than done around here, but we're making good progress so far. We got my bike fixed (new tires/tubes, a tune-up), Katie got her mother's bike from their house. And we are using them. Instead of driving the 6+ miles roundtrip to one of my regular client's homes, I rode there almost every trip last week (3 trips a day). Plus, as there are two grocery stores on the way, we got some shopping out of the way as well. Katie commuted by bike to work several days last week and will continue to do so. We also bked to the grocery store for a big chunk of our dry/bulk purchases this week, though we are going to have to drive out to the larger Wegmans to get the rest since the one closest to us doesn't have everything we need. As we both get in better shape and get more used to riding in traffic, we will be going farther and more often by bike. I am trying to get a luggage rack fro the back of my bike, though I'm trying not to buy it new, which is proving difficult. But when I get it, we will be able to make bigger shopping trips via bike, like regional market runs, without having to worry about squashed produce from being in the backpack. Winter may be interesting, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

When we do have to drive, we are combining trips as much as possible and going the most time/gas efficient routes as we can. Plus, better driving practices make a difference. No sudden accelerations, staying at a consistent speed, avoiding stop and go traffic as much as possible, avoiding a/c use as much as possible, checking tire pressure, etc. All these little things add up to better gas mileage.

For non-car transportation and longer non-local car trips, we are weighing our options carefully. Do we need to go to Rochester/New Berlin/Boston/wherever? Can we go another time and combine purposes (ie, go on a weekend where more people will be around, more family event are happening, etc)? If we need to make a trip, what is the best way to get there? I am planning a trip down to Boston next month, because I need to see my mom (yeah, I'm 25, but I need my mommy) and my dog on a semi-regular basis. Driving is not an option, as I don't have a license and Katie needs the car for emergencies anyway. So, do I a)take a bus, which is more reliable in its schedules or b) take a train, which has a smaller carbon footprint, but takes longer and is never on time and has a much less convienent schedule? Still debating that one. Katie is currently in NYC for a follow-up with her surgeon, but she took the train down and is riding back with her father, who would have been driving back anyway, so it is a combined trip. We have at least one more big car trip this month (we already went up to Rochester once for my cousin's baby's 1st birthday) and that is a trip to our cat vet outside Ithaca, but that also is non-negotiable, as we have special vet needs for our cats that only he can supply. But August should be a more average month, especially if we keep up with the biking.

Goals for the next 3 months:

• To stay under 70 gallons per month, including non-car driving/riding (not including biking, obviously)
• to bike as much as possible for work and shopping trips
• to track gas/mileage

Changes

Its been awhile since I've posted...I've been hesitant to post anything, not sure what to say, how to put to "paper" all of what has been running through my head. I've been reading a lot though, other blogs, websites, books and talking with a lot of people.

I think anyone who has been reading the past few entries in here, or whose blog I ahve commented on, or who has had any semi-serious conversation with me in the past few weeks knows that where my mind has been; sustainability. I started reading Food Not Lawns, which lead to books on permaculture and sustainable agriculture, which led to me joining several email lists that offered information on those topics. There is one, on yahoogroups, called FoodWaterShelter...not specifically a permaculture group but a sustainbility group...not exactly a fun, newbie friendly group either, heh, but I've still been getting more than enough info from it to keep me busy. And, as tends to happen on the internet, one site leads to another, leads to another, and another. And I found out about Peak Oil http://www.energybulletin.net/primer.php/. And I thought, holy shit, we're fucked.

And I did some more readng, read some more blogs. Mostly blogs, as more than anything, I need to know what others are doing. And then I found the 90%reduction group on yahoo. And I found a whole lot of people who agree with the above assessment, but who are trying their hardest to do everything they can to play at little part in that fucked-ness as possible. The goal is to cut back one's personal/household carbon footprint by 90% of the national average. When I have more time, I'm going to post some figures about this, but considering I have to walk a dog, oh, 5 minutes ago, that will have to wait for another day. Basically, we are sucking up far far more than our fair share and taking the rest of the planet down with us, quickly....within the forseable future quickly. And, because that scares me, terrifies me, I am changing things. A lot. Everyday little things that will hopefully add up.

Because, people, I want children, and I want my children to be able to experience some of the beauty of this world and I want them to be safe and secure and happy, even if its not by living in the same, disgustingly decadent and wasteful way we are now. So I need to change things now, before its too late.

So that's what I've been thinking about, that and a million other things that have to do with these changes and these fears and these impending realities. Expect a lot more from me about these issues in the next few weeks, because I have a whole backload of posts waiting to be written.