sustainability – art, design and social practice

My carbon footprint at the beginning of the semester was 5.41 tons, most of which came from my electricity use and dietary habits. Therefore, I decided that my project would be twofold: first, I would not purchase any “new” food, and second, I would rely on existing, public electricity rather than contributing to my apartment’s electricity wattage. I was interesting in using all available resources use any “new” energy.

So, for the past few weeks,  I have not bought any food at the grocery store. My pantry and freezer had more food than I thought, and many of my meals consisted of lots of different variations of pasta, noodles, and brown rice. There were some instances where I was simply in the right place at the right time for some food, or I was working for a meal. I got a loaf of bread from OK Natural for free because it was going to expire the next day. I found food, such as fruit or bags of chips that people had left in classrooms. A friend gave me a bag of food that she bought but found unappetizing. Despite these , I did take a trip to the farmers market, and buy some sandwiches at Cafe Doris when I did not plan ahead and bring food to class and was pressed for time. I regret not taking the initiative and going dumpster diving, or volunteering with Food not Bombs. If I were to attempt this project again, I would most definitely do those things.

I came to the realization that all food, no matter where I got it, has a pathway. It is meant to be consumed by someone, and in my case, I was attempting to stop it from going to waste, which I define as the food not reaching its potential as a form of sustenance. Many times, I ate food that people bought but ended up not eating, or food that people had forgotten, such as the orange that they had left on a table. The grey area occurred when people would offer to share food with me. The calories I consumed would need to be replenished by the individual at a later time because I was taking some of their share. I got many of my meals this way, but always ate with a slightly guilty conscience because it wasn’t exactly in accordance with my intent. Nevertheless, my stomach prevailed, and I gladly accepted a plate of my room mate’s roast chicken.

I began the second part of my project by mapping out all the public spaces on campus from which I could obtain electricity and heat. These public spaces always have their lights and heat on, and unfortunately, it often goes to waste because no one is benefitting from this energy output. I spent a lot of time in the library, the Gateway, and the Cafes. It was an interesting way to experience the different ways that public and private spaces are defined on a college campus. I would be on campus until one or two in the morning, finishing up assignments under the bright lights of Cafe Doris, coming home only to sleep. I did my best to unplug everything in my room. Regularly, I only have two lamps plugged in. Certain things, like my cell phone and my laptop, needed to be charged. It didn’t really make any difference where I plugged it; they would use up energy anyways. As a result of my actions, my monthly electricity wattage did decrease slightly, even with the days becoming shorter.

Looking back, not only was my project reasonably successful in reducing my carbon footprint, it also saved me a few bucks, especially on groceries. I ate surprisingly well, and found that I often preferred working in public spaces. Writing this post a week after the end of the project, I still have not gone grocery shopping, but I am writing in the comfort of my own room, with one lamp on.

I began by comparing the results of several online calculators to ascertain an approximate idea of my carbon footprint; on average it was 3.7 tons, which is already quite low relative to the average citizen of the United States. Thus, with the exception of purchasing green power, there were not many single practices in my life whose doing or not doing would drastically reduce my carbon footprint; but since I was introduced to the urgency of the carbon dilemma only quite recently, it seemed that, somewhere out there, there were still a myriad of as yet unconsidered lifestyle changes on a smaller scale impatiently waiting for me to discover and adopt them. When examined alone, such small changes in daily habits seem relatively insignificant, but when taken together, these small changes can add up to tremendous proportions, especially if adopted by an entire community, from neighborhood to nation. The banality of many of these small changes is matched only by the effortlessness of their carrying out; in many cases this is simply a matter of changing old habits. So I began researching ways to change. One of the first things that I discovered was that putting food, such as rice for example, into the refrigerator while it is still hot pushes the refrigerator to use more electricity to maintain its temperature; thus one should allow hot food to cool to room temperature before placing it in the fridge. No sacrifices necessary in this situation, just a matter of waiting. Another strategy was boycotting plastic and packaging, especially bags, cups and bottles, unless absolutely necessary. In virtually every store, practically every solitary item larger than the palm of one’s hand is bagged; thus I had to be assertive. Countless times it felt like my item(s) had already disappeared into the bag before I could even open my mouth; but I was resolute and would request “No bag, please” or “Oh, I don’t need a bag” and the item was taken out. When lunchtime came around at school, I would never buy a drink in a plastic bottle, but turned to the water fountain instead. Which was no real sacrifice for me because only rarely do I drink anything but water (with the occasional glass of milk at breakfast and, of course, alcohol). Where food was concerned, I tried my best to buy local products, in order to cut down on the transportation required to bring the food to me. Naturally, this led me to local farmer’s markets. I walked out empty handed of several grocery stores whose complete range of produce came from international sources (mostly Mexico). As far as bags and logistics were concerned, I made a few exceptions when it came to buying in bulk, such as couscous and granola, for this way I could buy a long-term supply of something with only one trip and only one bag. The next sphere of change concerned my personal transportation, the best mode of which was obviously man powered, such as biking or walking. I live close to school, so I walk to class. I traveled almost completely by foot (making exceptions only when absolutely necessary), making use of my local stores for food and clothing. As far as clothing is concerned, the best route was to buy second hand. If the thrift store did’t have what I needed, there was always ebay, as well as several other online forums where people buy, sell and trade goods and clothes, such as Craigslist or Styleforum. When it came to electricity, I became a stickler for eliminating ‘ghost’ or ‘vampire’ power, that power consumed by appliances and devices even when they are not in use, merely plugged in; to combat this leakage of unused power I unplugged all of my appliances, turned off all of my power strips when I wasn’t using them; it was really easy. Another thing, I learned was that saving water also saves energy. I was surprised to learn that washing dishes by hand uses more water and energy than washing a full load of dishes in a dishwasher on a ‘no heat’ or  ‘energy saver’ setting. A key word there is full load: I never washed the dishes in the dishwasher until it was truly full. Speaking of water, I did do one thing that took me slightly out of my comfort zone; I have always been fond of taking voluptuously long hot showers in the winter (in the summer I take only cold showers, usually quite brief) so I thought I would push myself a bit and commit myself to taking only sponge baths in order to save water. In case one doesn’t know, a sponge bath involves filling a bucket up with water and using only that water to lather up and then rinse off.  I used a small red bucket, and it worked well. Eventually I got a little tired of it, so I decided to fill the bucket up via the shower head, in order to count just how long it took to fill up the bucket; that way I could know how many seconds of shower time I was allowed. It came out to about 45 seconds; thus I could hop in the shower, turn the water on only for a brief moment to wet my skin in order to facilitate the lathering process, then lather and then turn the water back on for a good 40 second rinse.  I found this more hospitable than the sponge bath. Last of all I set myself one larger goal to attempt: convincing my father to turn to a green power source. Somewhat to my surprise, he sounded kind of interested and promised to look into it; so I waited. When I never heard back, I called and he said that he was a little put off by a newspaper article which described green power as having a much larger portion of its price going to overhead costs than does normal power. We talked about the issue some more, and decided that we will conduct further research together; it looks promising. This would be a fairly big reduction if it succeeds!

Looking back at my microscopic examination of the carbon impact of my daily activities, I have two feelings. The first is one of satisfaction since I do believe that when taken together these small changes can make a difference; no one should overlook them. We all need to take time to examine the things that we normally overlook. On the other hand, I feel that these small reductions are not enough, even despite the fact that my footprint was already low to begin with.  For the next step, I would very much like to undertake a project of a nature less reductive and more pro-active.

PHOTOS

http://s171.photobucket.com/albums/u282/Jhowell_02/Carbon%20Footprint/?albumview=grid

Project1 is a link to the accompanying PDF presentation:

Project Carbon Removal From My Life

Carbon is not just affecting the environment, it is affecting our health.

C02 affects breathing rate and can overexcite and depress the central nervous system.

The Canadian Center for Occupational Health & Safety conducted tests on humans (1997), exposing them to various levels of C02. 1% Exposure = 10,000 C02 ppm parts per million.

Workers who were exposed to low concentrations (3.3% or 5.4%) felt their breathing rate increased.

7.5% experienced dyspnea (feeling unable to breathe) as well as headache, high pulse rate, dizziness, sweating, restlessness, decreased mental performance and visual distortion.

As you can see this is a big concern for me. (show picture)

So what can I do to limit the amount of C02 in my life?

1) go to parks more often.

2) get a bike & use it

3) use less energy ie heat elctricity

4) use public transportation/carpool

5) punch CO2 in the face

6) make a list of things I do, that perpetuate the use of carbon.

The list:

fly home by plane

drive a car

take the train

ride the bus / lightrail

play electric guitar

use an electric dryer

use indoor lighting & lamps

play hockey

use a computer at work

use a laptop

leave my appliances & chargers plugged in

eat a diet that is not local or conscious of distance

consume a lot of animal products daily

print frequently and use a lot of paper

Differences:

The two main ways I changed the way I used CO2 were:

1 The Students for a Sustainable Campus are starting a bike share. Mimi Cheng an active member of the club gave me a bike in the meantime.

(show bike pictures). I was the first beneficiary. Now I can bike to lexington/farmers market on a daily basis and regulate what I eat (like in Europe)

2 Eat less meat. It quickly occurred to me that I eat meat daily and having been exposed to a barrage of ethical concerns about the meat industry, I was swayed by the environmental impacts of meat transportation. If I take responsibility for the distance my meat has travelled to my plate, then I can conclude those CO2 emissions are my fault. After all if there was no demand, there would be no supply. Vegans will attest that there is no need to eat meat at all because all of the nutrients we get from our food is attainable from other non animal sources (however they frequently take supplements or hurt in the calcium, iodine, vitamin B12 and vitamin D department). Food activist Michael Pollan explains that the remedy to America’s eating disorder is to “eat food. not too much. mostly plants.” To make this statement more C02 friendly I will add “mostly local plants.”

As we’ve learned from documentaries like “Fresh” & “King Corn:”

Michael Pollan, New York Times Magazine (Food and Farming Spokesperson—Sustainability Advocacy)

“Subsidized monocultures of grain also led directly to monocultures of animals: since factory farms could buy grain for less than it cost farmers to grow it, they could now fatten animals more cheaply than farmers. So America’s meat and dairy animals migrated from farm to feedlot, driving down the price of animal protein to the point where an American can enjoy eating, on average, 190 pounds of meat a year—a half pound every day.”

(same slide)

Transporting the food as frequently as we do (show whole foods pamphlet) impacts the environment:

(next)

Even properly inflating tires can save 1% or 1.25 billion gallons of US gasoline per year, which is about the same amount of crude oil that is needed from offshore oil drilling. (Vital Systems)

A kilogram of beef is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions and other pollution than driving for 3 hours while leaving all the lights on back home. Akifumi Ogino of the National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science in Tsukuba, Japan, found this while evaluating the effects of beef production on global warming, water acidification & eutrophication, and energy consumption.

Daniele Fanelli, New Scientist Magazine (Media—Research)

To be more specific a 2009 New Science Magazine study determined that for every pound of beef produced in Japan, generated approximately 36 pounds of C02.

Comparatively driving a 2006 passenger car 40 miles would emit the same amount of C02 as that one pound of beef.

This was determined with a car that gets 22.4 miles to the gallon. Burning a gallon of gas emits 20.4 pounds of C02. Dividing these two numbers together yields the average C02 emission in pounds per mile (0.91) for that car.

By dividing that C02 equivalent into the amount of C02 that was generated from the one pound of beef, you learn it would take 40 miles of driving to emit the same amount of C02.

(show the math in the slides)

I asked myself: “WTF” or what’s the footprint of the food I’m eating?

Timeline

For the last six weeks I have made efforts to eliminate meat from my diet. I could have bought local but the goal was to radically change my behavior.

In the beginning of the year I ate at the meyerhoff mainly because I don’t own and car and am often unable to coordinate shopping outing with friends when I need them.

I carefully documented my meat consumption for the last 6 weeks and attempted to understand WTF I’m making. If we assume that I ate anywhere from half a pound (the size of a large burger or medium steak) to a whole pound of meat per day, then quite simply I am taking responsibility for approximately 36 lbs. of C02 now in the atmosphere in production alone. If I add the C02 emissions from a meat distribution truck, I come up with even higher results.

The Union of Concerned Scientist claim that on average a truck will release 24 lbs. of C02 into the atmosphere. This amount multiplied by the amount of miles the meat has travelled from the farm to my plate plus the amount of C02 created in the production of meat gives me a rough estimation of my total meat C02 footprint. The reason I chose to do this, even though I knew the results would undercut the true number of total emissions is I wanted to know the extent of my impact and as I quickly learned how shocking a best case scenario could be.

I gave the product the benefit of the doubt and google mapped the distance I am from the farms the meat is coming from.

If you eat meat at MICA here is the breakdown:

Meyerhoff:

Chicken: Tyson

Beef & Roast-beef: Iowa Beef Processors

Pork: Hatfield

Sliced Turkey: Carolina Turkey

Gateway:

Chicken: Holley Farms

I also bought meat products from Whole foods:

Chicken: Miller Amish Country

Beef: Star Ranch

Pork: Montana

Will Harrison Georgia

Meyer Family Farms

Meat Timeline

September 16–22

W Chicken Creole

Th Turkey & Dill Havarti w/ apple wrap

F Chicken Chop Suey

S Organic free range chicken broth (Whole foods)

S Chicken breast (Whole foods)

M Fried Boneless Pork Chops (Lunch), Beef Fajita (Dinner)

T Chicken Scampi with Spinach & Cherry Tomatoes

September 23–29

W Organic free range chicken broth (Whole foods)

Th Roast Beef & Cheddar

F Thanksgiving Crepe from Sofi’s

S Bacon & Country Sausage

S

M Roasted Top Round Beef, Chicken Wings

T

September 30–October 6

W

Th Pepperoni Pizza

F Beef Stew, Classic Meatloaf

S

S

M

T

October 7–13

W

Th

F

S

S

M

T

October 14–20

W

Th

F

S

S Thanksgiving Crepe with Turkey

M

T

October 21–27

W

Th

F

S

S

M

T

Accomplishments

What I was able to do was eat like a pescetarian for almost 3 weeks. Simply cutting a half a pound of red meat from your diet per week for a year is the equivalent of not driving 1040 miles. So to not eat chicken, beef, pork, veil or lamb is not taking responsibility for that amount of C02. My footprint is shrinking considerably. Now I just need to bike instead of fly home Indiana and power my electronics with natural energy and I’ll be living like no impact man.

Ben Howard Carbon Footprint (Click its a link to the PDF)

Carbon Footprint Calculations

My carbon footprint numbers ranged from 16 to 24. The amount of energy I use in heating and cooling was drastically higher in comparison to the use of my truck, lights and household/studio appliances. I believe that this is due to my living in a warehouse with 4 to 5 other folks who all use space heaters despite our gas fueled heating system. The warehouse is a wide-open space with many big windows and brick walls. The vents are all at the top of the very high ceilings, preventing us from even feeling the heat, for it rises up to the loft space above. We all pay about $200 to BGE during the winter months due to the extra use of space heaters and the constant blasting of the 70 degree wasted heat. During the summer we each pay about $30 to $40.

We are all very good about recycling and not making many purchases of plastics and packaged foods/goods. My roommates and I are all vegan/vegetarian. Some of us go to the farmer’s market or to Whole Foods to buy groceries. I personally, buy vegetables and fruits locally and buy packaged goods and snacks at Ok Natural or Whole Foods.

Only one of my roommates and I drive vehicles, but I am the one who drives my truck the most. Everyone else walks or rides the bus or their bikes based upon the weather. I depend upon my truck more during the winter and while in school, due to my always having to bring a great deal of materials to class. During the spring/summer I drive less and ride my bike more.

My Approach to Reducing my co2 Output

I insulated the windows with plastic and begged everyone to either turn off their space heaters or turn the heat off, proposing that we instead layer up with more clothing. We decided to layer up more, refrain from using our space heaters and to only turn the heat on at night. I also asked everyone to unplug every appliance while not in use or to invest in power strips, keeping them turned off when not needed. We all agreed and also became more aware in our turning off lights when leaving our rooms. Our individual BGE bills dropped to $124 this month. It’s a start, but I feel that it could be lower.

I would like to start growing my own food and composting. It bothers me that we all throw away so much scrap foods and when we juice, all of the meat and flesh of our fruits and vegetables gets thrown out. I am beginning to do research on composting and my roommates and I are interested in planting a garden on the roof this summer.

I am apart of a creative alliance group and I approached them with ideas of lowering our Carbon Dioxide output individually and collectively. We are making plans to start a vegetable garden this summer. We are going to give the food away to people in our neighborhoods and reach out to kids and encourage them to come and learn how to maintain a garden and the importance of developing a relationship with nature. We have been brainstorming ways to approach folks in our communities to become more health conscious and aware of ways that they can be eco-friendly in their consummation of household appliances and trash output.

Some of the ideas we came up with so far:

-Offering free workshops where folks can come and learn about the importance
of buying foods locally and recycling, how to start and maintain community
gardens and teaching ways of living more energy and cost efficient.

-Development of community sidewalk free stores, establishing bartering/trade
systems of skill/service and clothing and old appliance exchange amongst one
another within their communities and neighborhoods.

-Coming up with creative projects to do with kids, using recycled plastics and
other materials. Teaching them different ways of approaching art and at the
same time teaching them about how they can take part in preserving the planet.

As an artist, I have been thinking of ways to express my concerns with the state of our planet and the direction we are headed towards due to the way we live. I desire to visually send out messages that encourage folks to become more aware and responsible in their preservation of the earth. I feel that is important to start with learning about the materials I use: wood, paper and glue. I have decided to stop buying wood panels from Home Depot and rely solely on working on/with found wood/objects. I am now searching on Craigslist for materials to use in my art. I would also like to figure out how I can create my own archival glue and learn how to make papers. I am now consciously going to the wood shops and fiber classrooms to collect scrap materials.

I personally believe that there is a spiritual approach that can be taken in the healing of our earth. By consciously sending out love, thanks and praises to the earth for all of its beauty and natural resources, we can heal the earth. When we begin to apply creative visualizations of a healthy and abundant earth we can collectively and energetically bring forth healing. There are earth mantras and chants that I listen to and eternalize during my meditations that have been very helpful in my maintaining a positive outlook on the shifts that are taking place on earth. I have been listening to artist and healer, Jennifer Berezan, a great deal. Her album, Praises For The World, is a collaborative project produced with the intention of sending out love and healing energy to the earth. While listening, I think about how the earth functions naturally, sending thanks to the earth. I also visualize some of the many powerful and resourceful elements, thinking of how important they are and as a collective people using them properly and respectfully. I find it very inspirational, for it helps me maintain a healthy relationship with the earth spiritually. I have made copies for my friends, encouraging them to share it with others along with the knowledge of living in accordance with the earth and its needs, of which we are all continuously acquiring and applying daily.
Each one teach one…

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