Spreading a little Sunshine

Daily Dose of Simplicity has received the Sunshine Blog award! It’s awarded to bloggers whose positivity and creativity inspire others in the blogosphere and a great way to meet new like-minded individuals. Thank you, Kelly at The Savvy Suburban for picking
The Simplicity Connection. (sorry I couldn't find the 2012 graphic!)

There are a few rules to follow in accepting the award: Thank this person who gave the award, and write a post about it, answer the questions that are posted below, pass the award along to 10 other bloggers, share their links, and leave them a comment to let them know that they received the award.

The Questions:
Favorite Color? Green definitely!
Favorite Animal? I have a fun cat who makes every day interesting
Favorite Number? right now 350 (let's hit that target people! www.350.org
Favorite Drink? Water... is that lame? I drink gallons a day, but when I'm not drinking water, then it's usually Red Stripe Beer
Facebook or Twitter? Facebook... I'm still have trouble really "getting" twitter...
Your Passion? Keeping it simple and helping others organize and make their lives more sustainable.
Giving or Getting Presents?  I have more fun giving, but if someone has taken the time to create something beautiful with me in mind, that is wonderful.
Favorite Day? any day I can get outside and enjoy nature.
Favorite Flowers? Gerbera daisies

These are some fabulous blogs that I find inspiring and creative:
350.org (THE best place for news and info about climate change activism)
Simple Living America (my old stomping grounds, great for keeping current about simplicity)
No Impact Man (Colin Beaven's site about his travels through life living with as small a carbon footprint as possible)
Psycho Mike's Domestic Journey (local LA radio personality's quest to spend a year only buying American)
On Hand Modern (cute blog about creative family projects)
Frugal Ecologist (A scientist in her late 20s chronicles her adventures in cooking, homemaking, and travel while staying green.)
Green Divas (site for the Green Divas podcast)
Grist (my favorite site for all eco-newsworthy things)
Off the Grid Home Energy (ways to get your home off the grid)
Rudy Amid's Blog (thankful for Rudy's blog for helping me find the community of Civic Hybrid owners!)

APATHY IS NOT AN OPTION!

I’ve had a few days to think over the Bill McKibben lecture last week. I wondered what I was going to say that hasn’t been said before, what was I going to take away from this experience that I didn’t already know. McKibben preached to the choir for about 2 hours on Friday night (it’s fair to assume James Inhofe wasn’t in the audience…[sidebar: why does “McKibben show up as being spelled incorrectly in Microsoft Word, but “Inhofe” does not?]) I mean I’m egotistical enough to think if everyone in America lived as I do, we wouldn’t have a problem with climate change. What else can I possibly do to make a difference? As someone who literally got hit over the head by global warming (and yes, I mean literally) I nodded appreciatively when McKibben talked about how Vermont, one of the greenest states (it’s right there in the name, people!) was devastated by rains and flooding from last year’s Hurricane Irene, and how there should be a whole lot more believers out there now. Is that what it’s going to take? A personalized hurricane for every James Inhofe out there? Frustrated at dire statistics and feeling like all I do is just to offset someone else’s emissions, I tried to dig deeper into this lecture and find the kernel that was going to move me from my own apathy into a new level of activism.

And then it dawned on me: McKibben, (who has been a hero of mine since seeing a Dateline interview with him in the 90s about Curitiba Brazil and his book Hope, Human and Wild—a catalyst that made me want to be a writer and an activist) is not by nature an outgoing person. He’s a writer, a college professor, he lives in a small town in Vermont, but by his passion for getting people to believe and act on climate change, he has become a powerful advocate and activist. And that’s what I need to do, what we all need to do. We need to set aside our apathy and move from our comfort zones. We need to stop saying it’s not going to get better—because it WILL NOT get better unless we do something about it and do it now. I see a glimmer of hope with the small but major activism victories of the last year: Occupy Wallstreeters braving winter, stopping SOPA, the President not caving to pressure to green light the Keystone XL pipeline. These are small victories, but they should be celebrated. They should be seen as momentum.

So McKibben’s next action with his grassroots organization 350.org, is to blow the whistle on Congress and the amount of money they receive from the petroleum industry. A good percentage of Americans do believe in climate change but feel powerless to do something about it because the people in charge of legislation are caught in a cycle of too much money. So January 24, 350.org is heading to Washington DC to call out the Senators and Representatives and how much each of them are receiving from Big Oil. And from here on out, I am going to make it my personal mission to get 500 people to join 350.org. And maybe those 500 won’t march in Washington the first week or call their Congressman but maybe they’ll sign an online petition and maybe they’ll think twice about driving somewhere they could easily walk to. And maybe they’ll look closer at their elected official and maybe, just maybe we can keep the momentum of change going. If you've made it to the end of this blog post and it led you to 350.org, let me know and I'll add you to my tally. Even better, pass it on and let's go viral. We're going to start slow, but I'm not going to rest until I hit 500 converts.

Doc Review: Fuel (2008)

In addition to my errands by bike this weekend, Josh Tickell’s documentary Fuel came up on my Netflix rotation and it was the perfect complement to a weekend where everyone wanted answers to what they could do about the Gulf oil spill. Made in 2008, there are some eerie statistics and images of Louisiana (did you know that an amount of crude oil the size of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill was released during Hurricane Katrina in the New Orleans area? No, that’s because no one reported it.) that seem quaint now compared to our current crisis. Tickell’s main sell is bio-diesel fuel, rather than ethanol or even gasoline-based hybrids. I got on board thinking ‘great let’s trade in the ‘brid and buy an old VW and get off oil dependency!’ but not so fast, Tickell puts the brakes on the positive side of biodiesel halway through the film by telling the audience that all the advances made to the biodiesel industry (the announcement that every single diesel engine in the country: buses, trucks, trains, could run on biodiesel today WITHOUT ANY MODIFICATION dropped my jaw) had all been shut down due to scientific studies and reports that biodiesel was not as clean and safe as everyone was led to believe. Definitely an interesting way to prove a point. In the final act, the documentary begins the uphill slog after these setbacks by giving updates on the biodiesel industry: companies that harvest used cooking oil, the planting of mega trees that have shorter growing spans and can be harvested for biomass fuel production, and the most intriguing: algae-based biodiesel farms which use waste water from other industries to grow algae quickly, cleanly and in a very small space. The film easily proves its tag line: change your fuel, change the world.

Book Review: No Impact Man

No Impact Man (The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet and the Discoveries He Makes about Himself and our way of life in the process) by Colin Beavan

I'm a sucker for any book that poses a year-long eco-challenge to itself (See my reviews for: Plenty, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Not Buying It (okay I meant to review this one, but it slipped through the cracks), A Year Without 'Made in China') but what makes Beavan's book unique, is that he combines all of the challenges posed by these other books and tries them all at once. While living in New York City. With a toddler. A grand undertaking indeed. Now I realize there are people out there thinking “what a presumptuous jerk! There are people who live like that every day, not because they want a challenge, but because they have to.” But the issue is that so many people do not want to consider live as he does—eating locally, not driving or taking mass transit, not using electricity (!!), (there was also some note about also not using toilet paper but it wasn't revealed how exactly they went about this). With the title of the book 'No Impact', it's pretty big boast, but on only page 22 he admits that having 'no impact' is actually impossible, but what you learn slowly is that he can lessen his impact so much that he can make up for what waste and destruction he does create with simple actions like picking up litter along the riverfront. He won me over by not only talking the talk but walking the walk. Shutting off the electricity? That's a pretty bold maneuver. Sure I've got the worm bin chewing up my scraps and I can make less than a plastic grocery bag full of trash a month, but this guy washed his own clothes in the bathtub and read by candlelight for months. And that's pretty cool. He's a minor celebrity now, with his blog and his documentary but I'm happy to support anyone who preaches the gospel of needing to simplify your life no matter where you live and finding creative solutions to do so.

Look, I like to consider myself a fairly environmentally sound person (in the grand scheme of things) but I also don't pretend that I'm something I'm not: we all have our vices and that's a great thing about simplicity-it's not about deprivation. It's about being conscious of your actions and not allowing those vices to get out of hand. I love In-n-Out Burger, and I don't want to imagine giving it up, so instead, I use it as a treat, a reward. I also try to keep learning about creating less waste and lowering consumption and staying mindful about my actions. I also am working on my strength as an activist, so that someday I'll convince those In-n-Out folks organic meat and vegetables are the way to go, or to recycle their paper waste, or to have non-plastic options for eat in service.

Kindred Spirit Series

Thought I would start a new blog series here about people I come across out there in the that I can totally relate to. So without further ado, please welcome the KINDRED SPIRIT SERIES. Our inaugural spirit is Jenna Woginrich, author of Made from Scratch: Discovering the Pleasures of a Handmade Life, a great little book about how anyone can homestead, regardless of where you live. Jenna wrote the book while living in apartment in Idaho and beginning her journey into homesteading by accumulating chickens, sled dogs, honey bees and a love for heritage music and instruments. She now apparently lives in Vermont and blogs from her new home The Cold Antler Farm. As someone who always wanted their own sheep and bees, Jenna’s story makes me realize that a connection to traditional ways is not impossible, no matter what your ZIP code is, what your job is, and no matter how much technological and sensory overload invades our lives.