Diamond-Cut Life

We researched ad nauseum what fuel-efficient, low-emissions car we should buy. We finally chose the Honda Civic hybrid for its great ratings all around, plus its state AND federal tax credits. We waited and waited for it to arrive at the dealership. Last night we finally brought it home.

 Not a car person by nature, I’m learning new things:

• pzev (our Honda is one) means ‘partial zero emissions vehicle’
• the Honda hybrid still gets the $1,050 federal tax credit while the Prius does not
• but both Prius and Honda hybrid get the $1,500 Oregon tax credit
• new hybrids get better mileage as you keep driving them
• (that is no excuse to drive any more than truly necessary)
• ‘magnetic pearl’ is near-black on paper and silver-gray on a real-life car
• car dealerships these days feature nice, high bistro tables and free coffee
• I advise bringing your own coffee instead

Ideally, the single car my husband and I own sits at home daily and acts as a watchdog that keeps burglars away while we take TriMet to work. But now I carpool to Salem most days. Tomorrow will be our new hybrid’s maiden voyage to Oregon’s capital. With four of us in the car, we can get about 160 miles per gallon when calculated on a per person basis. Can you beat that for fuel efficiency?

Wait a minute, yes you can. Walking and bicycling get infinite miles per gallon. And since our friend is coming for dinner tonight I have to fetch a few groceries. Definitely a bike errand. Our sleek hybrid will sit at home in the driveway in all its ‘magnetic pearl’ splendor.

The diamond-cut life is about more joy, more integrity and less consumption as we deal with global warming. The food-as-fuel track that the U.S. is on assumes unlimited consumption (driving alone, for instance) with no particular joy or integrity.

What are practical, concrete things we can do? Here is what my household is doing to use less gas and discourage the business of agrofuel (food-as-fuel). Please write in with your ideas too (click Comments at the top of this post.)

Put your household on a fuel or gasoline diet. For instance, how much do you intend to spend on gas each month? (average $3.65/gallon in Oregon at time of this writing). Having healthy limits is what adults do. Some ways we live happily within our fuel diets:

• Use public transit I am using only public transit today and not touching a car. To see the fun of this, read the 200-word piece Secret Lover, Secret Watchdog. (written before I started carpooling to Salem for my new job)
• Walk for errands of two miles and less
• Bicycle to destinations of five miles and less
• Post a handmade map on your refrigerator of all the cool things you can do within walk/bike distance of home. Spring and summer weather make this much easier.
• Post a list of all the fun things you can do AT home
• Carpool or vanpool, especially for long commutes. I have great fun with this. See Carpool Survivor

Check out Drive Less Save More as a good resource for driving less. By June 1st it plans to have a Trip Diary that we can all use to record our non-drive-alone trips. That which gets measured gets improved. I’m going to use it!

Tell your Congresspeople you don’t want food used as fuel. Say that we should be using less fuel, instead. Here’s an easy place to find their contact info.

When you have to drive, drive the most fuel-efficient car you can. But, even then, don’t use that as an excuse to drive more than necessary. Tomorrow I’ll write about the new hybrid we just bought. Is your money on the Prius or the Honda Civic hybrid?

Photo courtesy of “CaptPiper”, graphic added by Hanmi Meyer.

 While President Bush and the biofuel industry are happy with the growth of biofuel, Columbia economics professor Jeffrey Sachs is not. Neither, it seems, are millions in the world currently starving who weren’t starving prior to the push for biofuel. The food riots in at least eight countries over skyrocketing food prices may have been our first clue.

A full third of U.S. corn is now being used not for food but for fuels like ethanol. This is not about classic capitalism, the free market and Adam Smith’s invisible hand. The U.S. government subsidizes the growth of that corn.

President Bush and the biofuel industry deny a cause-effect relationship between subsidizing vast amounts of food crops to make fuels like ethanol and sharply increasing worldwide food prices. Economist Jeffrey Sachs has determined there is a cause-effect relationship between food-based biofuel, rising food prices and starvation.

Who is more objective in their assessment: a highly profitable industry and the politician subsidizing it, or a world-renowned economist and expert on poverty — a person not being subsidized, elected or paid by special interests to say or do anything in particular?

Sustainability has a triple bottom line: environment, economy and equity, as in social equity. Growing food for biofuel violates social equity altogether (and isn’t good for the environment or economy, either). In my view, growing and using food for fuel is wasteful, greedy and plain wrong.

Note that I said both growing and using. The greed is just as much on the part of consumers as producers — and we can climb out of our greed and consume fuels with more integrity and more joy. More on that in my next post. In the meantime, remember that biodiesel made from recycled restaurant vegetable oil is a different animal from the biofuel discussed here. See Heating Our House With Biodiesel.

Also coming up soon: our final decision on which hybrid car we’re buying.

Short post this morning on the deaths of many retail stores recently in the U.S. First, I really feel for the people who are losing their jobs, and in many cases, their retail businesses. This is painful and scary for them, and I wish stability for all the people affected.

In the bigger picture, the retail industry has simply got to get smaller. It (with help from all of us) consumes way too much of the earth’s limited resources. We in the U.S. are 4% of the earth’s population, consuming 25% of what the earth has to offer. And the research by Juliet Schor and many others is clear that added layers of consumption after our normal needs are met brings very little additional happiness.

That said, I’m keenly aware we have to consume things in order to live. And I admit I struggle with my own addiction to used — isn’t the euphemism ‘pre-worn’– clothes (see Unclothing the Horse and Juliet Schor). I played this out with more fun than usual yesterday when I bicycled to a Naked Lady Party. We all brought clothes we no longer needed, tried things on and brought new-to-us outfits home. I’m wearing one now, it’s beautiful. My point is that we need economic transformation, including an emphasis on community and sharing resources. We don’t need a return to how the retail industry used to be.

And to cover my biggest retail experience of this or any decade, I’ll write later this week about the new car Thor and I are actually buying and bringing home, after all our extended debate. (Want to purchase a pre-used 1993 Nissan Sentra)

The New York Times has a front-page article today about Americans making a stampede to small cars due to rising gas prices.

I read it avidly since our transportation choices form such a high percentage of our national carbon footprint (and carbon emissions are the primary cause of global warming). It turned out that one in five U.S. car purchases in April were of a compact or sub-compact car, compared to one in eight a decade ago.

This is called a stampede to fuel-efficient cars? I’m underwhelmed.

I see a misguided but very human thing playing itself out around gas prices, cars, carbon emissions and global warming. Science tells us we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 70-85%.  Yet, media coverage and public behavior reveal a childlike desire for our lifestyles to change very little from what we’re used to — despite full evidence and knowledge that our lifestyles need to change a lot, based as they are on cheap, abundant fossil fuels.

My post on Our Next Car: Prius Or Honda Hybrid? has gotten almost as many hits as the next two most popular posts put together. Clearly, people are hot for green-tinged cars. But why aren’t we talking about cutting our driving in half, rather than having wet dreams about cars in different flavors and sizes? Where is the front-page NY Times story on how 82% of U.S. trips of five miles or less are currently made in cars, rather than on foot or bicycle? Using our bodies for transportation addresses national health and obesity problems as well as global warming. And exercise elevates mood and makes us feel happier, too.

The time when people reported the highest level of happiness in the U.S. was a time when they walked and bicycled more and drove less. Let’s not be impressed by the current so-called stampede to small cars. The transformation needed to effectively deal with global warming calls for changes in us more than in our cars.

Part of the diamond-cut life, in my view, is taking responsibility for our democracy by being politically involved. We need candidates who support sustainability. That plus my fondness for sociability and community is the reason I host a table of ten each year at the EcoProm, also known as the Oregon League of Conservation Voters (OLCV) ’s annual dinner for the environment.

City Commissioner Sam Adams has OLCV’s endorsement (also my vote) in the race for mayor of Portland. People say he tends to hold grudges, but I found him gracious and forgiving when I forgot to let him speak last summer at a transportation-options awards meeting. (I apologized profusely.) Sam’s my man.

Jackie Dingfelder, running for Oregon state senator, is on the left and Judy Steigler (center) of Bend is running for the Oregon house of representatives. I got to know Jackie a bit recently at a house party, and discovered she shares my passion for renewable energy, transportation options and green-collar jobs. Judy is on a similar page; they both have OLCV’s endorsement and my own.

I first met Scott Bricker, above, when he did legislative affairs for the Bicycle Transportation Alliance. Now he is its executive director, and Portland, with a whopping 6% of its population commuting via bicycle and another 10% using bikes as their secondary commute-mode, just earned the first Platinum rating in the nation for its bicycle-friendliness. Scott’s excellent leadership has much to do with that.

Chris Smith (aka Citizen Smith, above) is running for Portland city commissioner, and is strong on sustainability in general and transportation options in particular. I like both him and another excellent candidate running for the same seat, Amanda Fritz (not pictured).

Katherine Arnold, above, is a Beaverton city commissioner up for re-election, and has OLCV’s endorsement as another green elected official. She is one of the good folks who helped approve my motion for the Leadership Beaverton program to add a Sustainability Day to its curriculum. I had the pleasure of serving with her for a time on the board of Leadership Beaverton (until my new job and commute to Salem led me to resign from that commitment).

My cool blog assistant, professional photographer Hanmi Meyer, took all these photos. Thanks Hanmi!

The financial benefits of carpooling, featured in a front page story of the Oregonian today, are only one reason that carpooling is cool. I’d say its coolness is embodied in four C’s: cash, congestion reduction, carbon footprint and community.

The carpool I’m in makes my commute between Portland and Salem a joy instead of a grind. But the cash part first. The Oregonian’s simple chart states that driving alone would cost each of the six of us $12,344/year (including depreciation, etc., besides gas). Parking fees would be $756/year individually, but are just $104 as part of the group. So, by carpooling rather than driving alone, my carpool partners and I each save more than $10,500 per year.

We’re also each reducing our carbon footprint significantly by carpooling, and also our role in traffic congestion. With all that virtue, you would think we are martyrs, sighing pitifully as we make painful sacrifices. But no, the opposite is true. We joke around, take naps, share news and books, debrief from work, read, grab each others’ last-minute concert tickets, team up for Pub Quiz nights. I played a great prank on them for April Fools Day that I think they’ve forgiven me for. Carpooling can be community.

Especially if public transit isn’t available to you, you should give yourself the gift of carpooling, too. Living here in Oregon, I found mine through Carpool Match Northwest. Keep in mind that joining a carpool doesn’t mean you have to carpool every day; it can be flexible.

Coming up soon: report and pictures of the EcoProm: Oregon League of Conservation Voters Annual Dinner for the Environment that just happened last Friday night.

I just received a nice comment from Klara on “Why Bother? Three Great Reasons“. She is moving here to Portland soon and like many Portlanders, new and old, she is passionate about sustainability.

I imagine that also like many, she wants to find green-collar work, i.e. a job in sustainability. I’m going to refer her to a certain career counselor, Vicki Lind, the town’s unofficial maven of jobs in sustainability.

I used Vicki’s services frequently in the several years it took me to transition my career to the cool place it is now, promoting transportation options. Besides doing one on one counseling and job-seeking clubs, she does a one-day workshop for people seeking jobs in sustainability, through The Oregon Natural Step Network. She’s asked me to speak on the panel of people who successfully transitioned their career.

My job in transportation options has taken me, in a new Prius, to the high desert town of Bend, Oregon (recently named by American Cowboy magazine in its Top Ten list of wild-west towns). The Prius, mud-splattered from the Santiam Pass, is now dusted with snow as well, so it reminds me of an Appaloosa pony.

photo by emokidsdontcryx3

Oh, don’t I wish. Horses are cool.

So my Prius (actually my employer’s, not mine) informs me it is getting 46 miles per gallon on this trip. Excellent mileage compared to SUV’s, and of course with every gallon of gas we burn creating 20 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions, I’m saving a few hundred pounds of emissions over driving an average car. Also, this hybrid handles and performs beautifully, front-wheel drive and all. The Prius is so popular in our motor-pool that I couldn’t extend my use of it to a third day.

The downside of not just the Prius, other hybrids and actually all gas and energy conservation measures is that if we don’t stay conscious of the reality of peak oil, we can easily offset our conservation measures to some degree by then driving or consuming more carelessly. The irony of our nation’s overconsumption is that it does not make us happier. Juliet Schor, the Harvard economist, shows this clearly in her body of research.

Bearing that in mind, I am parking my Appaloosa-colored Prius this afternoon and taking a vanpool with about ten colleagues over to Redmond, saving a few hundred more pounds of emissions. Kind of like taking a stagecoach in the days of the old West. I wish.

Of all the good pieces in today’s Green Issue of New York Times magazine, “Why Bother?” by Michael Pollan is the one that helps us see that lower-consumption lifestyles are crucial in dealing with global warming, Inventors and legislators cannot rescue us.

1.) Pollan points out that being a role model is powerful. As various citizens like you and me consume significantly less, especially in terms of fossil fuels, other people will follow our example. Social change tends to happen exponentially (much faster than linear growth). I would add that people will especially follow the example of us diamond-cut lifers as they see we are happy in our simplicity, with a high quality of life (different from a high standard of living, which is measured just by volume of consumption).

2.) Acting ‘as if’ can make amazing things happen. Pollan cites how Vaclav Havel and Adam Michnik were instrumental in bringing freedom to the Soviet blok by acting as if they lived in a free society. We need to act as if we are living in a sustainable society, one that intends to still be existing seven generations down the road.

3.) A reason of mine that Pollan did not address: we sustainability artists who live well by consuming less are working out the kinks in all the new systems and ways. I really mean the old systems and ways: growing a good percentage of our own food; skillfully using public transit, biking, carpooling and walking for transportation; sharing valuable items within a community instead of one-item-per-person. We are blazing the trail so that when various collapses start happening, these survival skills will be in the social knowledge-base.

Me? I’ve been working in our food garden and enjoying a car-free weekend, using my legs and a TriMet bus to get me everywhere I’m going — church, the film “End of Suburbia” at the Bagdad on Hawthorne, and a dinner party reunion of our cross-country skiing group. Fun!