Publisher's Note: Look at the date this was written before getting too mad at Patrick.

After giving it considerable thought over the past few months, I decided to stop walking to work.

I don’t live terribly far from my job (just a few blocks, in fact), and so when I first accepted the job, I make the decision to walk to work each day. But I’ve been finding myself late to work many days, because of the time-consuming walk from my house to here. I often find my self departing my house at almost 9:00AM, rather than getting in at 9:00AM, and as a result I have to stay late, and work into my evenings.

Driving to work, I have found, also has its benefits. It gives me time to relax, to think about my day ahead and prioritize things. It also gives me time to reflect, on the mellow drive home, and listen to my favorite NPR programming. I can crank up the heat on cold days, to keep myself warm; or turn the AC on when it inevitably gets hot (as it does for about 5 months in the desert). No more sweating for this guy!

In addition, ExxonMobil has decided to help people commute to work! If you sign a pledge saying that you will drive your car to and back from work each day, Exxon will plant a tree in one of their oil fields. These will provide much-needed shade to oil drilling workers, and beautify the lands that we extract our oil from. That will make everyone feel good!

I’m looking forward to the freedom I’m going to gain by driving to work. Freeing up extra time in my day, saving myself from being a sweat mess after walking for five minutes, and a tree planted in my name… what could be better! Here’s to the driving life!

UPDATE: April Fools!

Just as important as voicing your views to the decision-makers on local issues (see parts One and Two of this series) is mobilizing support amongst local people in your community for Green Issues.

An easy and very important way to do this is through your local newspaper. Local news is where ideas are hashed out… Local media tends to be much less dominated by corporate interests than national or even regional media, and as a result can take firmer stances on pro-conservation, anti-development issues. Even if a local media outlet is unwilling to take a stand on an issue, they are often quite willing to give voice to that issue through involved readers.

That’s where you come in. Writing a letter to the editor is as easy as typing an email. Submissions to the Editorial page don’t need to be extremely verbose, or even well-spoken. They do, however, need to be well-thought out and respectful. Angry jabs or diatribes will rarely get printed in a newspaper. Well-reasoned arguments, however, laid out in a tactful manner, will almost guarantee a good look from an editor. Ultimately, editors are concerned with one thing: readership, and they will likely print any letters they think will generate a debate, and hence increase readership.

A good example is a letter I got published recently in my local, home town newspaper, the Hi-Desert Star in Yucca Valley, California. You can read the letter here. I wrote in regards to the proposed installation of big-game guzzlers in designated Wilderness Areas near my town. While it is a somewhat esoteric issue (OK, very esoteric), I wrote a thoughtful letter that carefully laid out the issues and stated my opinions. This is something editors will recognize, and often reward. The Hi-Desert Star decided to publish my letter, despite its relatively limited audience, and I got many responses.

If there is an issue that is important to you, I would encourage you to consider writing a letter to the editor. Be sure to include an action point at the end of the letter (in the case of above letter, writing a comment on an environmental assessment), or a contact or website for people to find out more information. This will only further help to garner support for your issue, as well as engage people in the issue.

Letters to the editor are a time-honored tradition in American media, and they continue to be an easy way for people to mobilize support on issues, particularly green issues, in local communities.

One of the toughest times of day to really kick the processed, chemical laden food habit is snack time.

Getting a craving for a snack midway through the afternoon can inevitably lead to buying some utterly disgusted product from Frito-Lay or Mars. Even those “natural” chips or organic cookies you got down at the co-op tend to have a bunch of unpronounceable ingredients listed on the package.

One way to avoid this is coming up with your own snack alternatives. I’ve achieved this, to a degree, using a food dehydrator. You can pick one up for $50 or so, but they are also a very popular item to find in a thrift store. I found mine at a Goodwill a couple miles down the road for $15.

Deciding what you want to dehydrate is first. Careful selection of produce is needed to ensure a maximum benefit. For instance: I did a 3 pint packages of strawberries in my first go around, and ended up with less than a pint of dehydrated strawberries. Not the best value when you consider the cost. However, bananas make an excellent choice—they are inexpensive in their whole form, and they dehydrate into very tasty banana chips (much better than the sugar laden ones you buy at the store).

Veggies are also a great avenue to pursue. Almost any veggie dehydrates well. In particular, carrots, green onions, squash, and tomatoes are all good candidates. In addition to making veggie “chips” out of dehydrated veggies, you can also make killer home-made soup mixes. Just dehydrate your veggies, add some spices or herbs (which you can also dehydrate yourself), and voila—instant soup mix without a bunch of chemicals in it!

Utilizing a dehydrator can be very time-consuming. In particular, the chopping of fruits and veggies can take up literally an hour a day or more. Getting into a routine where you can find an hour a day to do so (while you’re in a big dehydrating period) is important. Most items take approximately 24 hours to dehydrate, so finding the same time each day to do your chopping will allow you to get maximum benefit from your dehydrator.

Surprisingly, dehydrators don’t really use that much power. I was running my dehydrator 24 hours a day for about 3 weeks, and my power bill went up maybe a dollar or two. And the added benefits of working towards eliminating processed snacks from my life have more than made up for the time and effort of chopping. My dehydrator has changed the way I think about snacking and storing produce. So go ahead, and give it a try—simplify your food chain and enjoy the benefits of dehydrating your own produce.

We’ve all been struck by the dilemma at some point in the past several years. A beautiful piece of technology, which we were so excited about initially, slowly faded, began to malfunction, and finally bit the dust.

Most of our modern electronics are completely non-repairable (or repair is prohibitively expensive—in many cases more than the cost of the item!), and so we dispose of them. But how?

E-waste is becoming a major problem in our technological society. When our electronics wear out, rather than getting them fixed, creatively reusing them, or at the very least recycling them, many people are simply tossing them into the dumpster. According to the EPA, computer monitors (amongst the worst of e-waste) contain an average of four pounds of lead, as well as chromium and mercury. When all of these toxic chemicals are deposited into our landfills, they slowly work their way down to our water table.

The mantra of Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle is more important than ever when it comes to e-waste. I’d like to focus on the Reuse aspect. There are several creative options for reusing our dysfunctional or dead e-waste, and there is much more work possible to be done.

A Geeky-Green Kind of Accessory

One creative solution to the e-waste problem is to use portions of it in a totally different way. Acorn Studios, a Canadian-based company, has been doing this for years. After working as a Waste Management Engineer, the founder, Nicola Harper, had seen enough e-waste piling up in the landfill to know that it was time to do something about it. She sees herself as “increasing consumer awareness of recycled content products”.

Acorn Studios makes cuff links from keyboard keys, notebooks bound with 5.25” floppy disks, clocks from old CDs, and earrings from circuitboards, just to name a few. They also have a whole section on their website devoted to DIY recycled crafts, like a car mirror bookshelf, or a tie wallet. And a tip section for ways to green your office or other electronic workspace.

Benevolent Green-Geeks

Another creative solution to reusing e-waste is the Free Geek movement. Free Geek started in Portland, OR and has the mission of “reusing and recycling used technology to provide computers, education, internet access and job skills training to those in need in exchange for community service.” They collect e-waste, recycle what cannot be reused, and reuse what can, using their geek skills to turn it into useful products for the community to use.

In just four years, Free Geek has collected e-waste from all over Portland, and recycled 360 tons of it, as well as refurbishing 3,000 computer systems that are now in use all over their community. There are a number of other Free Geek operations throughout the US, including in Arkansas, Chicago, and Tennessee. See Also: wikipedia on Free Geek.

Finding creative solutions to the e-waste problem is an important avenue we must, as a society, decide we are going to take. Reusing our used up electronics in a creative fashion, like Acorn Studio, or for the benefit of the community, like Free Geek, are two innovative answers to the e-waste problem.

OK, so this one’s kind of a no-brainer, but it’s not something that people necessarily intuit on their own. For years, I proclaimed myself a dedicated environmentalist, and yet… every time allergy season rolled around, I would go out and purchase box upon box of “Ultra” tissues, or “lotioned” tissues, or “Super” tissues. All made from trees and going straight into the trash.

This isn’t to say that one isn’t a “true environmentalist” until you stop using Kleenex… but making the switch to a non-disposable way of blowing your nose is incredibly easy, and anyone can do it—and it will have a very concrete impact on the world. Paper companies will receive less money, cut down less trees, and less waste will end up in our landfills.

The Modern Hankie

The clear alternative to tissues are handkerchiefs, or their modern-day, budget equivalent: bandanas. You can usually purchase bandanas for relatively cheap at your local clothing or camping supply store ($1 a piece or cheaper). If you’re hoping to go the organic cotton or hemp route, the price can climb quite steeply ($9-20) but the tradeoff of a sustainably produced hankie might be worth it for you.

When you first purchase the hankies, they will be stiff and somewhat painful to wipe your nose with. Throwing them in each time you do a load of laundry can help to break them in. Soaking them in vinegar overnight is also a good way to soften them up. The more you wash them and break them in, the softer they will be on your nose.

Care and Feeding

Once you have them broken in, you can carry them around (I have one folded up in my pocket at all times) and use them each time you need to blow your nose. Again, this seems like a no-brainer, but think of how many tissues the average tissue-user goes through in a given year. Ten boxes? Twenty? Forty for the more stuffy-nosed out there? It is a tremendous amount of paper, at any rate, and using a hankie can eliminate all of that waste and save some trees too.

Of course, washing is important. I like to wash mine, as a rule, every week; but during high-usage times I will sometimes go through a hankie a day. And when I have a cold—forget it! I’ll go through 3 or 4 a day, as they slowly get sodden and… well I won’t go into it. Anyway it’s good to have a stash of 10 or 15 hankies, so you always have a ready supply even when your laundry pile is building up.

One way to start affecting some change in your nose-blowing world is converting your friends to hankie-using ways. An easy way to do this is to simply surprise them with a supply of 7 or 8 hankies. It makes a nice gift, and they will think fondly of you each time they blow their nose in a reusable, sustainable hankie.

Eliminating disposable paper products is an easy way to start changing your world. Tissues are pervasive in our society—and they are also utterly avoidable. Making the switch is easy, and not only will your nose thank you; the forests will too.

Over the months I've been slowly eliminating all sorts of unnatural and synthetic chemicals from my diet and my life. Processed foods and and unsustainable clothing have been thrown by the wayside. So why am I still smearing pesticides all over my body?

Mother Earth News has a fantastic article on Why You Don't Need Antibacterial Soap. While a simple google search will turn up dozens of articles and debates about this across the web (people seem to feel pretty strongly about their antibacterial soap!), for anyone who is serious about eliminating chemicals from their lives and our world, antibacterial soap has got to go.

Featuring a host of nasty chemicals, chief among them triclosan and triclocarban, antibacterial soaps are quickly polluting our water (up to 60% of US streams are contaminated with triclocarban, says Mother Earth News) and our food supply (as the chemicals make it into crops through biosolid fertilizer). Science-A-Go-Go reports on the surprising persistence of triclocarban in our environment. Overall, there is lots of damning evidence coming to the same conclusion: antibacterial soap must go.

There are dozens of options out there for the conscientious soap consumer. A quick search for organic soap turns up dozens of soap companies who are making all-natural, chemical free soaps that won't pollute our earth. After my partner Sam pressured me for months on the issue, I gave in; we've even found homemade natural soap at our local farmer's market!

Pertinent links:

wikipedia on antibacterial soap, wikipedia on triclosan, Worldwatch Institute on soap

In the first piece in this series, I wrote about finding out who makes decisions about issues that affect you on the local level. The next step is to attend meetings and public hearings.

Almost every meeting when a decision is about to be made, be it Town Council, County Commission, or others, will have what’s known as a “Public Comment” period. This is a chance for members of the public to stand up before the governing board and to share their views.

The sad reality is, most of the time the decision-makers have already come to their own conclusions. But sometimes, especially if members of the public present a good argument, or are particularly numerous, the opinions of those who make decisions can be swayed. It is important that if there is an issue going on locally that you feel passionate about, that you get to the meetings and speak your voice.

Getting Prepared

Usually when you first arrive at a meeting, there is a slip you must fill out if you wish to speak. It contains basic information about who you are and where you live. After giving this to the clerk (whomever is taking minutes for the meeting), you will be “in line” to speak.

When preparing your comment, it is important to focus on the specific issues being discussed, and to not get more broad or general. It is also key to speak on facts, and not emotional reactions. This doesn’t mean it’s not OK to be emotional; it is! However, having a well-reasoned argument is more important than sounding passionate.

Plan Your Comment

A good argument against a large new commercial development might be:

“This development negatively affects the rural character of our town.” or “This development will increase the traffic, light pollution, and groundwater contamination levels in our town without providing adequate funds for infrastructure upgrades.”

Whereas a less effective argument might be:

“I used to play in the field that this development is going up on when I was a kid.” or “All new developments are bad.”

There are two important things to remember when coming up with your comment. It’s important to find a theme and stick with it throughout. In addition, it’s important to try and make your comment individual and unique, not just echoing the comments of others. The more diverse arguments there are in support of a position, the harder it is for elected or appointed officials to ignore the position overall.

For instance, at a recent proposal for a sludge dump (see my previous article on it), 150 people showed up at the County Board of Supervisors meeting to comment against it. I wanted to make a comment that was different, and touched on a unique aspect of the negative effects of the dump. So I spoke on how the dump would affect the Wilderness values of several neighboring Wilderness Areas. This was a unique comment, and offered the Board of Supervisors a different angle to think about.

Stand Up and Speak!

When you’re finally called to the podium, it can be very nerve-wracking. No matter how many times I’ve gone up and spoken in front of the public and a governing board, my heart still pounds and my palms still sweat in anticipation. I find having written notes on my comment to be very helpful. However, for me, having my comment written out completely is actually a bad thing, because I then tend to just read it without adding much passion or feeling. Coming across as excited, passionate, and (if appropriate) angry can be very effective in communicating just how strong you feel about an issue.

Make sure you are courteous and polite, and also not too lengthy. A succinct, to-the-point comment can be far more effective than a long and rambling one. And one final tip: Make sure you bring a friend or two. The more voices there are speaking together, the more likely it is that those voices will be heard.

Democracy in action is most apparent at the local level. Standing up and speaking to influence the decisions of your elected officials is one of the easiest and most basic ways to get involved in the democratic process (other than voting of course). Go out, and take some action to make your world a better place. You will find that people will listen, and change is really possible!

While I tend to shave infrequently, when I do it has always been with the viciously harsh chemicals found in commercial shaving creams. Such lovely items as: stearic acid, triethanolamine, isobutene, diazolindinyl urea, and sodium lauryl sulfate, amongst others. Yes, the time honored tradition of shaving passed down from father-to-son (in my case) carries with it a legacy of toxicity.

In the process of greening my life, I have been especially reluctant to let go of my conventional bath + beauty products. I have a job that gets me especially dirty quite frequently, and so I like to feel especially clean. I guess I’ve always felt that harsh chemical cleansers got me clean. My partner Sam has been attempting to dissuade me of these habits.

Natural Shaving Soap

Recently, as a St. Patrick’s Day gift, she gave me a natural shaving soap kit from A Wild Soap Bar. It consists of a sassafras shaving soap bar, an old-timey bristle brush for lathering up my face, and a hardwood bowl. And best of all, the ingredients are so natural, I could conceivably make it myself: olive, palm & castor oils; aloe; clay; sassafras root and cinnamon bark; oats and sea salt.

And so on a recent business trip, I traded in my Barbasol in for all-natural shaving soap. I was a little confused as to the application process at first—without any pressurized goo spewing out of a nozzle, I didn’t know what to do. But after a little water and some swishing with the brush, a nice (and nice-smelling) foam began to appear.

I have to say that overall, the natural shaving soap didn’t provide quite as smooth a shave as the conventional stuff. But I’m OK with it. As I said earlier, it’s been tough for me to give up the trappings of the non-green world when it comes to bath products, and so taking a step forward with shaving soap is a big move for me. A little less comfort or smoothness on my face is worth it to know I’m making a statement with my dollars not to support the chemical-industrial world.

A Greener Razor

As another way to green my shave, Preserve Recycled Razors are a big step forward as well. Made from 100% recycled plastics (in the handle), the razors act just like regular ones, but are a way of making a statement with the dollars I spend. They are also reusable, as you can interchange the heads while keeping the same handle over and over. The EPA estimates that over 2 billion disposable razors end up in landfills every year in the US. Preserve Recycled Razors are a step in the right direction.

And so I’m excited looking forward: one day when I’m passing down the tradition of shaving to my (potential) son, I’ll be able to pass it down with a legacy of sustainability—a greener way to shave is a step in the right direction.

There are millions of issues that the conscientious citizen can sink his or her teeth into… It can become almost overwhelming to keep track of all the concerns you are passionate about, or problems that you find particularly vexing in this world. The key is to sort through the morass and find some concrete areas that you can get into and make a difference with. Gary Snyder once said that we must, “Find your place on the planet. Dig in, and take responsibility from there.”

The best way to do this is to start on the most local of levels. It’s easy to dump all of our problems on Dubya or Congress, but he’s not the one responsible for that new development plowing under the last pristine patch of land left in your town. Big-box stores, the loss of open space, sprawl, traffic congestion & pollution: these are all problems that ultimately can be most effectively addressed on the local level. Every action, from the opening of a new Wal-Mart to the construction of new condos, has to go through an approval process on the local level.

Civics, 101

The specific configuration of local governments can vary. Many people in America live in municipalities of some sort. Townships, Cities, Villages, and Boroughs are just a few examples of the various arrangements of government at this most local level. Other people live in unincorporated areas, which are typically administered by the county government. There is a very good wikipedia article on different structures of local government.

Getting involved starts by figuring out who is making the decisions that affect you. Typically, on the municipal level, there will be something like a Town Council; and on the county level, there will be something like a Board of Supervisors. Names and specific roles may differ, but in general they are directly elected bodies who make all manner of decisions related to zoning, land use, public programs, and transit, amongst other things.

Attend Meetings

Attending meetings is a great way to make your voice known. Almost every item that comes before a governing body has the opportunity for public comment. Don’t like that new 1000 home subdivision going in down the road? Make a comment against it. Not comfortable with a new toxic-waste processing facility opening up in your watershed? Let the government know that you don’t approve. Speaking during public comment periods on local issues can let local leaders know that people are passionate about something—it can very well influence their vote.

Attending meetings is also a great way to find out what’s coming down the pipe. A new Wal-Mart Supercenter doesn’t just pop up before a Town Council once. There is a whole planning process and a variety of approvals it must go through before it can reach the final vote stage. Frequenting local government meetings can clue you in early to new projects as they are first being proposed, which can allow sufficient time to mobilize local support against them.

Other Means

Writing letters is just as effective; while it requires a little more effort up front, it does free you from having to tie your schedule to that of the government. Personalized letters to elected officials with stories, anecdotes, or examples are the best way to sway opinions in your favor. Be sure to be literate, as well as to remind the official that you are a voter who holds their fate in your hands on election day.

Finally, plain old verbal communication with local officials can be the easiest and most effective way to communicate your views. Get on the phone; visit their office; say hello to them before a meeting… Showing that your personally care enough about an issue to contact them face-to-face can mean more than a thousand letters.

Get Involved!

It’s fairly easy to get plugged into government at the local level. A simple Google search for your town name and state and the word “government” should pull up any websites that your municipality may maintain. The same search for your county should direct you to your county government. Most websites will then have meeting dates and times, as well as names and addresses of elected officials for you to be in touch with.

The key in getting involved with local government is not to be overwhelmed by all the issues out there… Find one or two that you are particularly passionate about (in my case, it’s been new housing developments and ORV use) and do as much as you can on those issues.

Becoming involved in local government decisions can help you to feel empowered—like you can really make a difference in your world and your voice is heard. This, in turn, can help to motivate you to continue the good fight for larger scale causes… “All politics is local” as Tip O’Neill said, and getting involved on the local level is the foundation of citizen-activism.

Each day, millions of Americans sit down to a meal, and coat it with a variety of condiments that have their origins in the Southwest of North America. Salsa and hot sauce are two of the favorites, and are a mainstay at dinner tables and restaurants across the country and the world. However the traditional salsa or hot sauce is a mass-produced mess, loaded with preservatives, “natural” and artificial flavors, and other chemicals that are wholly unnatural in our food.

You can easily, however, remove these toxins from your life, as well as support your local farmer's market or organic farmer, by making your own salsa and hot sauce. And furthermore, just an hour’s work one day can give you enough condiments to last you months—and they can be to your taste and up to your standards health-wise and sustainability-wise.

Ingredients

(all to be purchased organic and locally produced if at all possible):

Salsa

• 20 mid-size tomatoes
• 5 tomatillos
• 4 green bell peppers
• 2 white onions
• 1 head garlic
• 1 bunch cilantro
• 3 limes
• ½ cup apple cider vinegar
• Salt + Pepper
• Optional, for heat:
  (medium) 2 jalepenos
  (hot) 2 serrano peppers
  (very hot) 1 habanero pepper
• Optional, for fun:
  mango
  pineapple
  black beans
  basil

Hot Sauce

• 25 serrano peppers (or 1 habanero for extreme heat)
• 5 jalepeno peppers
• 1 large white onion
• 2 cups white vinegar
• 3 limes
• Salt + Pepper

Preparation:

Salsa

1. Chop ½ tomatoes on a cutting board into ¼-1/2 inch squares.
2. Blend or puree remaining tomatoes in a food processor.
3. Dice onion, bell peppers, garlic, cilantro, hot peppers.
4. Combine all above ingredients into large mixing bowl, with vinegar and salt + pepper.
5. Juice limes into mixture.
6. Spice to taste, adding brown sugar for mildness or tumeric for a twist.
7. Mix vigorously until a uniform texture is achieved. Taste with a chip!

Hot Sauce

1. Stem all hot peppers, peel and section onions, and put into food processor.
2. Blend on high speed, adding vinegar slowly to facilitate blending.
3. Juice limes into mixture.
4. Add salt + pepper to taste.

Storage + Serving:

Salsa

1. Put into glass jars or Pyrex containers, and leave about 1” of room from the top.
2. Freeze with lids loosely on the top (to allow for the salsa to expand as it freezes
3. After twenty four hours, tighten lids and store.
4. When you want some salsa, simply transfer the jar from the freezer to the fridge 24 hours in advance.

Hot Sauce

1. Allow to sit for 48 hours, to let flavors to thoroughly mix with vinegar.
2. Should keep in refrigerator for about a month.

Making your own Southwestern Condiments can accomplish a number of green goals. It can help you eliminate various preservatives and other chemicals from your diet; it can provide a new avenue to utilizing locally grown and organic produce into your life; and it can provide the satisfaction of a tasty food item that you can customize and make your own.