But I looked at the garbage bag. There was little over a fistful of garbage in it.

This is how much garbage I produced this week! I have been putting a lot of effort into reducing the amount of garbage I produce – but even so, I actually surprised myself!

Yes, it definitely takes extra time to not produce garbage. Just like it takes time to undertake other initiatives that are good for our environment, such as walking or riding a bike rather than driving. I am not saying that it doesn’t take time. It takes time.

But honestly, I am tired of hearing people tell me how busy their lives are, and how they just don’t have the time in their busy days to cook real food rather than heating up something from a package, or walk (or make their kids walk) instead of zipping around in their cars. Many of those people can talk about TV shows that I have never heard of, and keep up a pretty active social life online. It’s not only a matter of time – it’s a matter of priorities.

The garbage thing, the consumerism, the waste… to me, these are important. They are important to our future and, especially, if you care at all for kids, even more important for their future. So I make the time for it. It’s a priority.

I am not trying to be preachy here, or to say that I am perfect and you guys should all do what I do. I screw up too – you will notice in my garbage bag there are a few paper teabag wrappers that I should have put in the recycling… but I got lazy. I’m just trying to provide encouragement and inspiration by showing that each individual’s actions do add up, and the collective action of many individuals add up to even more. We each really do have the power to make a difference. But we have to exercise it.

So I am going to share some of the strategies that have worked for me:

Reject packaging, reject bags:
Remember we were taught the three Rs? Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Well there are actually four. Number one is Reject. Recycling is last on the list, the worst option of the four. It encourages the manufacture of single-use disposable items – plastic bags, plastic packages, metal tins, glass jars – exactly what we should be rejecting. All these substances required energy to extract the resources from our natural environment (trees, petroleum, rock, metal), and energy to manufacture, and energy to transport to your home; they will still use up more energy to transport away again and to recycle them.

I have posted before that recycling is evil; all it does is make people feel good about their consumption. It’s not actually helping the big picture.

So, Refuse. Refuse to buy anything that your grocery store over-packages – for example, when peppers or cherries are plastic-wrapped on a styrofam tray. Don’t buy it. And tell the produce department why you are not buying it. If your store doesn’t listen to you, find other sources.

I know a lot of people justify getting plastic bags at the grocery store because they say they use them for garbage. And fair enough, to use one or two a week for garbage (because hopefully you are not producing more garbage than that). But if you find yourself with a kitchen cupboard or drawer jammed full of plastic bags, well… here’s my way of remembering to take my reusable bags to the store….

Punish yourself:
Yes, it is definitely hard to change habits, or to acquire new ones. Like remembering to carry those reusable bags. But if you let yourself off the hook every time you forget, you’re not going to learn, right? You have to punish yourself.

Usually I am on my bike so I have a backpack with me anyway. But when I am in a car, if I have forgotten my bag, I punish myself for it: I do not allow myself to accept a bag. I make as many  trips back and forth, from the store to the parking lot – tomatoes  or limes or whatever tumbling out of my hands – as I need to to get everything in the car. And same thing when I get to the house, multiple trips. It takes extra time and it’s a pain in the butt. But by punishing myself, it reminds me for next time. It’s a way to change my behaviour. Just saying “Darn, forgot the bag again!” and accepting the store’s plastic bags doesn’t change anything.

Make garbage a hassle:
I deliberately make it a real pain in the butt to have garbage. So I don’t really have a proper garbage bag in my kitchen. Instead, I reuse some food packaging that I was forced to buy (no, not plastic grocery bags – we are not forced to use those, that is a choice). Usually it is something like a potato chip bag (you just cannot buy potato chips without the bag) or a bag that pasta came in, or one of those thin plastic bags from the veggie department (I don’t use them at all for large or dry things like tomatoes, beans or broccoli, but I do for small things like cherries).

The little bag sits on the counter, and it gets in the way. It makes me not want to have garbage, because it is just a pain in the butt to have around. And even more of a pain in the butt if it gets full, and starts tipping over.

The garbage bag on the counter is a hassle. It makes me not want to produce garbage. But look at the photo: it’s working.

The power of the masses:
I know that it can feel like all of these small actions hardly make a difference. But this is where the power of the masses comes in. For a bit of a humorous example of that, check out this article in the Onion from last year: ‘How Bad For The Environment Can Throwing Away One Plastic Bottle Be?’ 30 Million People Wonder.

This concept, how the small actions of many individuals add up, was demonstrated to me in reverse a few weeks ago. I happened to have a lot of house guests over a period of two weeks. They are all fairly environmentally conscious people. But still, each one brought a couple of plastic bags into my house. By the time the last group left, my kitchen cupboard was stuffed full of plastic bags! No one had gone overboard with what the amount of plastic they brought in. But when you added it all up, it was a lot.

And that is what I mean: the power of the masses. It all adds up. Individuals’ small actions make a difference in the big picture. For the better, and for the worse.

So there, that is the power that we each have, that you have. Your actions may seem so small that they seem to be mere tokens. But they really do add up. Yes, it takes time. But this is important. These problems are not going to fix themselves.

Use your power.

There’s this land-sharing cooperative that I’m a member of, up the coast. A few times, an email has circulated around the group because a recent clearcut* is visible from our lots. That bothers some property owners.

Whereas for me, that one clearcut does not bother me any more than the many other recent clearcuts in Clayoquot Sound (UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve – and please note, there is no “P” on reserve). To me, cutting ancient forest down is not an issue of aesthetics; it is an issue about processes. Whether or not I ever lay eyes on any one specific clearcut, I understand what each clearcut means:

• in terms of lost habitat for wildlife,
• in terms of affects on the ocean via anadromous species (those that live in both fresh and salt water such as salmon) and debris runoff,
• in terms of effects upon our atmosphere and global ecosystem.

I’ve been thinking about this issue a lot this week, because of Canada’s decision to block the listing of chrysotile asbestos as a hazardous material on Annex III of the UN’s Rotterdam Convention. Since the listing of hazardous substances can only be changed by consensus, it only takes one country to stop it.

And why would Canada do that? Because our government has some new, cutting-edge unpublished study that demonstrates that chrysotile asbestos does not actually cause cancer? Or because our Conservative government has already approved expansion of an asbestos mine in southern Québec, in a riding that they hope to wrestle away from the Bloc Québecois?

Yup.

But it’s not only on the federal level that this kind of decision-making is taking place. It seems to be the only way of thinking in the resource extraction industry: people employed in [fishing/logging/mining] don’t want to see their industry shut down because of what it would mean for their own personal jobs. (Intersting that they somehow avoid considering what kind of world their own personal children will grow up into).

But I see it here among the supposed environmentalists too. There has been a strong local movement on the west coast of Vancouver Island to block the proposed Catface open pit copper mine which, if it goes ahead, would be developed in the heart of Clayoquot Sound. I find it hard to rationalize the actions of people who use metals in their every-day life to block the development of a mine. Are we against mining? Or are we just against a mine in our own back yard?

I think these are important things to think about: every time we make a decision; every time we choose to take action, or not to take action.

And it’s not just about big industrial projects like logging and mining. There are decisions and actions that we make every day.

For example, plastic grocery bags: How could anyone who considers the issue, and not just their personal challenge of remembering to bring a bag (we remember our wallet and keys, how hard can it be?), not support the banning of unnecessary single-use items that harm the environment? (And don’t give me the “but I recycle” argument: Recycling is evil).

Personally, I don’t hold much hope for the future of humanity on this planet. And sadly, we’re going to take down a lot of other species with us (we already are).

But if we are to have any hope at all, we need to look at the big picture. We need to examine our each and every action, and make our decisions based on examination of the whole and looking out for the long-term – not on just how something will affect us, personally, right here and right now.

Where do you stand? Do you have any stories to share about your “big picture”?

*I understand the word “clearcut” has been redefined because supposedly BC no longer undertakes clearcut logging. As I understand it, these patches where the forest has been cut and cleared are now supposed to be labelled “openings”, so in this post I use the word “clearcut” informally.

This disconnect, between our knowledge and our actions, is really difficult for me to understand. To my way of thinking, when you see something that can go wrong in the future, you act to prevent it.

I finished my PhD in 1992, nearly 20 years ago. That same year, a group of 1700 of the world’s leading scientists published a letter warning humanity that we must change how we live if we are to avert disaster. That letter began:

Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course. Human activities inflict harsh and often irreversible damage on the environment and on critical resources. If not checked, many of our current practices put at serious risk the future that we wish for human society and the plant and animal kingdoms, and may so alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know. Fundamental changes are urgent if we are to avoid the collision our present course will bring about.

I don’t think that this week’s Guardian article will be “news” to any earth scientist or climate scientist. We have known all this for 20 years or more. And on some level, everyone – scientist or not – knows it.

So what I don’t get is how people can refuse to act.

I don’t even have children, but I look at the children around me: my little neighbours who knock on my door and ask me to ride my bike with them, my little niece in Ontario, my friends’ children. I want these kids to have happy lives, to grow up into a healthy world. I can only imagine the love that a parent must feel for their child – but in my imagining, that love is so strong that I would do anything, anything, to be able to promise my child a secure and happy future. But people aren’t. (OK, some people take feel-good steps like recycling – but I am talking about the steps that effect real and meaningful change).

There was an insightful article in the Sydney Morning Herald this week, too, by columnist Ross Gittins, who commented:

“It’s a sore test of faith when people put power bills before their children’s future.”

We know all of these things. We know them, but – just like the smoker who means to quit, or the diabetic who keeps nibbling on sweets – that knowledge always comes with a “but.” But I was in a hurry. But I don’t have a choice. But it’s too hard. But I like my [insert noun here]. But everyone else does it.

We have the knowledge. We know that we must drop our consumption of resources and our greenhouse-gas emissions dramatically if we are to survive. We know this, yet we are doing little about it, far too little. What is stopping us?

“But does it really matter, if I recycle?” Sharleen asks.

This is a big question. And my answer is YES it matters!

Our environmental problems are overwhelming. So overwhelming. And, once you start to grasp the overwhelmingness of it all, it’s really depressing. So people tend to focus on the positive – even if that positive is not actually representative of the big picture. It’s something to clutch at. Because the reality of the negatives – the very major changes we need to take make in in our lifestyles order to ensure that our planet is liveable for humans in the future – are mind-boggling.

So, instead, people focus on the positive things that we can do – things that, on the scale of the problem itself, actually have neglible impact – to the point that I think these “false-positive” messages are really damaging. Because now we can justify our consumption by letting ourselves believe that we are doing our part:
- oh, it’s OK if I consume manufactured single-use items that were transported to my home using greenhouse gases because I recycle them (consuming more greenhouse gases)
- and I can fly around the world because I’ll buy carbon credits to offset the fuel burned on my behalf (usually “credits” for projects e.g. tree-planting, that would have gone on anyway)
- and it’s OK for me to keep using energy because we are moving towards alternative sources – technology will save us!

Sorry if I sound cynical. I am. I am starting to feel that this whole feel-good thing about recycling is a huge fraud, perpetrated (by whom? I don’t know) to make people feel OK about consuming single-use items. Recycling used to be only the final last-ditch option of the three R’s:
1. Reduce
2. Reuse
3. Recycle
Now, recycling seems to be a source of pride. Look at the big pile of single-use items items I have at the bottom of my driveway this week! See what a good environmentalist I am?

Recycling is still throwing something out – and burning more fossil fuels as those items are transported back to the plant and remanufactured into another single-use item.

This is especially poignant right now, as it was just announced that there will be no more recycling of newspapers in BC. Newspaper for recycling will now be shipped to the US or to Asia! How can we feel good about that!

I am not for a moment trying to claim that I lead the perfect model life in any way. The way our society is structured now, it is impossible to – you’d have to truly eject yourself from society (which I am actually considering doing). But there is not enough room in the Canadian wilderness for 34 million homesteading hermits, so even that is not a feasible large-scale solution either (and even less so for most other countries).

What my mission is, at the moment anyway, is to try to encourage others to cut down their consumption. Of what? Of everything. It is very hard to remain in society yet cut your consumption by 100%. But it is quite feasible for most people to cut consumption by 10 or 20%. Rather than me cutting down by 100% just to make the point – if I can convince ten people to cut down their consumption by 10%, the net effect on our planet is the same as me taking the 100% eject-myself-from-society extreme route. So I encourage people to:
- get on their bike, or walk, and use their car 10% less
- eat 10% less meat (our high meat consumption is a huge cost to the planet)
- use 10% less plastic – get in the habit of carrying reusable shopping bags, and reject products that use excessive packaging
- use 10% less paper
- produce 10% of their own food
I think it would barely impact most people’s lives to make these 10% cuts. In fact, I bet that most people could cut all of these things by 25% without any serious suffering.

And what if I can influence 1000 people to make those 25% cuts? That would have the same net result as 250 times the effect of me going extreme and ejecting myself from society! So pass this info around.

We really can each make a difference. As individuals, it sometimes seems that what we each can do is very small – but there is a power in spreading the word, convincing others to do the same. That way we stand together. And, together, we do make a difference.

Sharleen, I do hear what you are saying about supporting the publishing industry. And I do so very fondly remember those weekend mornings, reading a real paper newspaper over a cup of coffee. But, for a long time now, I haven’t felt good about throwing that paper in the bin – even if it is a recycle bin. Every now and then I manage to snag someone’s old paper – sometimes weeks old – to relive that pleasure. (The second R).

But, to me, if I have to choose between supporting an industry (even one I work in!) and supporting the future of our planet, a place for our children, I have to choose our planet and our collective future. And that’s why I think we should – no, we must – get used to alternative financial models for many of our industries. The news(paper) industry is only one of them.