Tag: environment

activism, Choices, Take Action

How Carrying More Weighs Less

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girl carrying lunch pail

While little has the power to shock these days, 45’s evisceration of climate change rules still horrifies. Here in America, it’s a matter when-not-if we’ll start donning face masks to walk the dog. Also, when-not-if we’ll look back with something like fondness for such a quaint inconvenience as a face mask. This week marks yet another threshold moment we’ll someday read in history books about humankind’s relationship with its home.

Sweet notion, isn’t it? That we’ll have books? That anyone’s left to write them?

I understand that we need to fight back. Win at least one chamber of Congress. Jail another white supremacist or two, block the next attempt to gut the ACA, block the cops in riot gear with our cameras and bodies.

What I don’t understand is why we still insist on paper plates.

Continue reading “How Carrying More Weighs Less” →

activism, Uncategorized

Action 3: Out Your Lunch Box

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tupperware

Remember when water bottles and travel mugs were weird anomalies?  When you had  to clip your cup to your rucksack with a carabiner and then ask for special permission to fill it from the soda fountain?

Now even briefcases come with mesh pockets for portable hydration. Monday through Friday in every office in America, a rainbow of screw-top coffee mugs and metal-glass-plastic reusable water bottles clutters every working surface.

Far better than cluttering landfills, yes?

So what’s stopping us from doing the same with our food containers?

Continue reading “Action 3: Out Your Lunch Box” →

Adventure, community, Outdoors

Think Global, Hike Local

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CCT

You have no engagements, commitments, obligations, or duties; no special ambitions and only the smallest, least complicated of wants; you exist in a tranquil tedium, serenely beyond the reach of exasperation, “far removed from the seats of strife,” as the early explorer and botanist William Bartram put it. All that is required of you is a willingness to trudge.

– Bill Bryson, A Walk in the Woods

With a little vacation away from work and my kiddo off canoeing at day camp, it’s time for a fix of woods.  I pull up Hiking Upward to find something near enough to hit in a few hours but far enough for solitude.

This is the goal: solitude.  And its accompanying quiet.

Humans are social creatures, sure, and we need to be in proximity to people as much for a sense of connection as for all the stuff — the supermarket and hospital, the auto mechanic and school.  To survive, we need to be in community.  Even so, too much proximity to too many others can take its toll.  The buzz of engines and clang of machines, the soundtrack of urban and suburban life, can jam the signals.  When I start to notice myself too focused on the clock and task list, too alert, too aware of every demand and every passing vehicle, I know it’s time to seek out a forest. Continue reading “Think Global, Hike Local” →

community, Growing Up, Purpose

Resonate

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umbrella house

It was easier when the heroes were prophets. They stood just far enough forward that we had to keep moving to keep up. We had to lean in to hear. That was when tyrants wore names like uniforms. Good and evil faced off across chasms and we knew better than to tumble between. We stood firm on our side. Myth grew us a chorus of muses. They sang in every shade of green.

Over across the way, it was hard to make out anything but ruin. Rumor had it someone had salted the earth. The restoration was a long way off. We knew we could only build a bridge after the villains had been vanquished. Even if we could arrive sooner to begin the purge and planting, would our comrades welcome us? Would they even recognize us? Continue reading “Resonate” →