Sunday, May 2, 2010

Foods you can prepare without a kitchen

Making our own food is an important step towards sustainability, not because buying prepared food is inherently unsustainable but because much of the processed food available isn't currently sustainable- packaging, industrial agricultural practices, non-local ingredients, food ingredients based on unrealistically cheap corn, all these things make most packaged, prepared foods unsustainable and unhealthy. Our health is an important part of environmentalism and sustainable living not just because good health is intimately tied to more sustainable food practices like buying locally grown organic produce, but also because a healthy nation and a well nourished world give rise to healthy minds as well as bodies, and healthy minds empowered to make better choices for the future of this world. The healthy mind comes from the nutrients in healthy food as well as from a change in our relationship with food that leads to changes in our relationship with nature and the plants and animals we make our food from.

This guide is for people living in dorms and bachelor units or any other situation where a kitchen isn't available. With a little time and effort, (not to mention sneakiness) you can get away with making these food items without a kitchen, but you will need some inexpensive and basic items such as an electric hot plate, measuring cups and spoons,and a couple of pots among various other small items. I won't explain the details of each of the processes outlined below. Instead, I will give an overview and provide you with a link or links to learn more on your own. Making your own food empowers and liberates, enabling you to control your diet and therefore your health in all aspects as it relates to your diet.

Kombucha

My kombucha home brew and kombucha mother giving off a mouth
watering aroma of sweet and sour smells.

Soda is bad for your health. It is loaded with high fructose corn syrup and empty calories. Once you get out of the habit of drinking it, it doesn't even really taste very good. Kombucha on the other hand is a healthy, low calorie carbonated alternative.

Kombucha is fermented tea, usually black tea. You take sugar, water, black tea and make tea like you normally would. Then you add the kombucha 'mushroom' which is just a collection of yeasts and bacteria, and in about a week you have your own kombucha ready to drink. If you don't have a kombucha mother already, you can make one using store bought kombucha as a starter.

The resulting drink is virtually nonalcoholic. It will be sweet and sour, more sweet or more sour depending on how long you let it brew. Some find that it is an acquired taste, meaning it is strong and different until you get used to it. I liked it at once. If you've never tried it, you can get it at the mini mart tucked away in the back of the ASUCLA store in Ackerman. For more information on brewing Kombucha go here.

Yogurt
Making yogurt is suprisingly simple. All you need is any kind of milk (cow, goat, soy, whole, lowfat, fatfree), a small container of plain yogurt with live active cultures to act as a starter, a small electric burner ($15) to boil milk, a small electric heating pad, a yogurt or candy thermometer (or any food thermometer will do), a couple of pots (one without a handle that fits inside the other), a container to store your yogurt in, and some instructions. It only takes about a day to get yogurt.

Bread
Bread makers allow you to make your own bread almost anywhere. I found mine used for $8 at a garage sale and I've seen several at Salvation Army Thrift Store. In other words, they're not too hard to come by used and usually at a bargain price. Making bread with a bread machine is easy. Add water, salt, oil, flour, and yeast. Close the lid. Select the proper setting. Press 'start'. The machine does the kneeding, rising, and baking for you. In about 3 hours you have fresh bread.

Solar Oven Cuisine

A solar oven is ridiculously easy to make. By using mirrors, foil, or anything with high albedo, you can make a solar powered oven that focuses the suns raises on a pot of stew, beans, chicken noodle soup, a grass fed pastured pork roast, or anything else you think up. It takes longer to heat up compared but will reach temperatures between 350 and 400 degrees. If you're wondering where to put it and leave it for a few hours outside, look no further than the roofs over your heads. High rise roof tops are often accessible to tenants and make perfect places to cook a meal with solar energy. For solar oven plans and instructions go here.

Toaster Oven Cuisine
If you don't want to make a solar over, any small toaster oven, even an Easy Bake Oven, will work for making cookies, pies, and brownies or cooking small meals, chickens, or roasts. A convection toaster oven is even better because it uses a small fan to circulate air during cooking, using convection to increase efficiency and cut down cooking temperatures and cooking times.

Saturday, May 1, 2010

My response to Radical Simplicity

There's an old Johny Cash song called One Piece at a Time about an automobile factory worker who, over many years, steals an entire Cadillac by sneaking out the pieces in his lunch box...one piece at a time. The car he eventually ends up with is a hodgepodge of pieces from different eras, a one of a kind, all his own. This is my life- a patchwork of experiences, events, and dispositions; a history of ideas and goals, some completed, others forgotten; an ever changing taste in food, fashion, work and hobbies; a collage of memories of the things that have most shaped me; a current set of habits and things I do, of people I know, of desires and plans I have. In some ways I think we are all some strange car emerging from the pieces of our past that we pick up along the way, along circuitous paths- through childhood, at school, in relationships, on the job, from adolescence into adulthood... This is why I could never see before where I am now or where I am going with absolute certainty.

If you'd asked me ten years ago what type of lifestyle I thought I would be living now my answer would in many ways reflect my current lifestyle because I still live in the same city, in the same society. But that's not precisely right either, because the city and society have been evolving all along. Environmentalism has begun to hit the mainstream. Ten years ago, in my eyes, organic produce was a novelty item strictly for those who could afford it. I had no notion of why people would go for something so hoaky a label as "organic". I scoffed at the small organic sections one would occasionally see at the supermarket. I refused to shop at Whole Foods or Wild Oats, even though the food there looked delicious, because I thought it was too expensive- a ripoff. I had heard of global warming but didn't know anything about it. I knew the rainforests and rest of the environment were in peril, that exotic and wonderful animals were going extinct around the globe, and I cared immensely.

Yet I also took for granted that unless I completely shifted course in life, there was nothing I could do about any of the problems our earth was facing. I accepted most of the things I'd grown up used to as obvious truths about the reality of modern life. My main focus in life at the time was graduating from college and going on to graduate school in Anthropology where I would go on intellectual odysseys. My free time was consumed by my first serious but ill-fated relationship and my love to travel, hike, and occasionally backpack took up leisure time. I just didn't give sustainable living much thought except perhaps in certain situations where it was an abstraction to discuss, an ideological topic and not a very pressing one. I don't think I'd even heard of the term 'sustainable' yet. I seem to recall that in very stressful, frustrating moments, I entertained casual thoughts about ditching my plans for grad school and running of with Green Peace, but I can't remember and now its doubtful.

I wasn't then nor am I now a green saint. But I was no Merkel either. The thought of working for the military industrial complex or worse, actually being in the military was unsettling because I'd always been a pacifist, more or less. Merkel recalls the pivotal moment of change towards radical simplicity as one in which he was faced with the brutal reality of his lifestyle and his work on computers in the defense industry. The catalyst and what startled him into consciousness was the Exxon Valdez catastrophe. For myself, I can claim no such moment of clarity. My interests in and transitioning towards a more sustainable and simpler way of life has been gradual and motivated by many ongoing situations and events in the world. The longer Bush was president, the more his anti-environmental stupidity got to me. I started rock climbing and spending several weeks a year out doors, in the woods, mountains, and desserts of California and the Southwest. I continued my studies but as I fed my love of the outdoors that love grew. I'd be a liar if I said this love for the natural world didn't outgrow my love of spending hours writing drudgery at my computer in the university research library. In retrospect it is a slow, steady shifting and maturing of beliefs and values that appears to have led me to the stage I am in now, a stage Merkel calls conscious unsustainability. To be fair, this stage is really about transitioning out of unsustainability, not just being aware of how you live unsustainably. I just received my Wonder Wash and Vortex Blender in the mail (both hand powered gadgets for the aspiring sustainability guru) but I have a long, LONG way to go still. My footprint? Well below the American average but far from the 4.5 acres Merkel advocates. So where to next? Where do I see myself in ten years?

Ten years from now I envision myself owning and living in an Earthship or something just as green and sustainable, perhaps with a child or two at most to raise and mostly free time to do the things that matter most- being sustainable, helping others to be sustainable, and spending plenty of time exploring mother nature. Part of this will of course be growing all my own fruits and vegetables and preparing and preserving all my own food. I will have chickens for eggs and maybe goats for milk and cheese or just for watching them do silly goat things. Rabbits? Oh yes several rabbits and a compost bin as well. I definitely do not see myself having a traditional type job- unless of course it is teaching. But before I settle on teaching as a career, I have a few other ideas up my sleeve. Before I read Radical Simplicity I assumed that in order to survive and have any of the things that I wanted, I would have to put up with the drudgery of a typical full time job, academic or otherwise. Now I realize how creative you can be with your own lifestyle, which means being creative with how you make money and how you spend it. Yet I don't want to promise or refuse to live as radically as Merkel or in precisely the same manner. I can't predict what problems or solutions I may discover on this path towards sustainability. Afterall, I am a strange car, building myself one piece at a time. Merkel evinces an entrepreneurial spirit in the way he has gone about making sustainable living his fulltime love, hobby, and job. And he has been very successful at it. That gives tremendous hope to anyone who feels trapped between their beliefs and values about the environment and social justice on the one hand and on the other hand, living in the most unsustainable society in the history of the planet. It provides hope and a model, not for a way out, but a way onward towards a better, more just, more fulfilling way of life.

Over the midterm, I have my work cut out for me. Next year, if progress towards my long term goals means taking my life in a new direction, you won't find me in grad school. In the mean time, I'm teaching this seminar and learning a tremendous amount about sustainable lifestyles. Progress towards sustainability comes in spurts. Learning to cook, learning what alternative technologies are out there and taking the time to make use of them (like the Wonder Wash), developing a disposition in life towards life that is most consistent with what I value and believe to be humankind's priorities- saving the planet and ourselves for future generations- these processes have a learning curve. They take time. We evolve gradually towards a better self, a stronger community, and a greener world, one piece at a time.

Epilogue, addendum, my response to others responses

One reason I like teaching this course is that my students think of things that I hadn't and that sheds some light on their perspectives and gives me ideas I hadn't thought of. The follow are some comments in response to several sentiments that my students had in response to Radical SImplicity that I may not have shared or may not have felt as strongly. I will summarize those sentiments as I understood them and then present my responses to those sentiments.

- One sentiment is that Merkel expects us all to be just like him.
- Another is that he is unusual, wacky, a dreamer, out of touch with the mainstream, truly a radical.
- A third is that b/c Merkel's situation (when he decided to go radically simpler) was quite different from my students' current situations that this draws into doubt whether any of us can ever realistically hope to be wholly sustainable individuals.
- A fourth is that parts of the book where Merkel shares his beliefs about spirituality and nature make the reader feel uncomfortable (unless you already agree with him; and BTW I didn't, not exactly).
- A fifth is that if you want to raise a family, you can't live the simple, sustainable life like Merkel and a few others have tried to live.

Here are my unedited responses that mostly address these sentiments:

Just to be clear, Merkel is radical, not "a radical" (and not that you called him one). I don't think what he is doing is unrealistic b/c he's a culture creator. He along with others like him are part of a movement lead by cultural innovators, and he's one of the movement's many drivers. The work he is doing now, of trying to drive a society and its cultures away from one way of life and in the direction of another kind of lifestyle will have unpredictable results. I don't look at his model as an either/or option. We don't have to commit to living exactly like Merkel or dismiss any of his ideas because we can't predict when and if they will work for us. As more people adopt more sustainable practices, new solutions will be found that Merkel did not think of. Still others will be absent in which case a bit of radical simplicity will be necessary. Not everyone will be living in the woods off $5000 dollars. But most people will find that they don't need 5 cars, a ginormous house, 10 TVs and Playstations, an RV towing a Hummer stacked with motorbikes and kids toys. They will find instead that they get fulfillment out of doing things like growing all their own fruits and vegetables, biking to work, camping in a tent instead of purchasing an RV. If Merkel had only subscribed to a few of these alternatives, he wouldn't make a very good hero. In order to demonstrate that simpler living is doable and fulfilling, you need an extreme version as an example before you can get society to work the rest out for itself. If you have a family with children then you will have to do more than just read Radical Simplicity to get ideas on how to subsist greenly. The Dervaes family in Pasadena, AKA the Urban Homesteaders, make a fine model of how a family of 5 I believe can live entirely off of just $30,000/yr and not be poor and not be wanting. Initial investments may require making more money to get started, especially in a big city, so its up to people like you guys to figure out innovative solutions to the sorts of problems that Merkel doesn't deal with. Imagine a society that lies somewhere between LA and Kerala, but veering more towards Kerala, where people are educated and healthy, women have lots of rights, people grow a lot of their own food, and I think you'll be imagining a pretty interesting and exciting place to live. Another point I want to make is that we don't have to make all these changes to our lifestyle all at once, mostly because we can't. We don't have the knowledge or resources that someone like Merkel had when he wrote his book. As we gradually make the changes that we can, we will find that the things we value and the things we want out of life will evolve alongside our evolving lifestyle. You may be surprised to find yourself being more radically simple and sustainable 10 years from now than you thought was possible, without even realizing it, simply because your tastes, preferences, assumptions, your world view changed too as you evolved different ways of living.

As for Merkel's wackiness, spiritual or otherwise, I agree that he does seem a bit different by the end. But that is primarily a reflection of the fact that he has chosen a radically different path than most, has done so largely on his own or with just a few others, and so has developed a different sort of spirituality and a different way of articulating that spirituality than mainstream society. Any time someone truly lives radically (e.g. maybe becomes a nun or monk; joins guerrilla fighters; or becomes an academic- yes if you stay here at UCLA long enough you will in many respects stop being mainstream) you can expect to develop different world views than the masses. If you could see the sequence of events in his life leading to the development of those views as they were unfolding, it wouldn't seem as unjustifiable. Yet the unfamiliar always strikes one as odd or questionable at first, no matter if it really is or isn't rational and justifiable. I wasn't too concerned with his version of spirituality, nor am I very concerned with anyone else's for that matter. I didn't agree with everything he wrote either. But that's ok because he has a lot of useful tools for reshaping your own views to suit your own codes and values in such a way that while you probably will not, nor would you want to, become a carbon copy of Merkel, you will discover sustainable ways to live your own life.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Is the grass really greener? Rethinking UCLA's largest crop and the American dream

No, this article's title is not in reference to wacky tobacky, medical or otherwise. I'm talking about good ol' all American turf. The stuff you grew up skinning your knees on and rolling around in until you itched like crazy. This Wednesday, the Daily Bruin's headline piece was all about UCLA lawn care in the aftermath of the weekend long LA Times Festival of Books, which took place spread out across the many lawned quads in the heart of campus. The result of tents and people was most definitely bad for the lawns, but have no fear. They should be back in tip top shape in days or weeks- just in time for graduation most likely, when more tents, chairs, and people will mash down and kill the lawns. Use of these lawns is only intermittent and by departmental or adminstrative preference ("Wouldn't be nice to have graduation out on the lawn!?") not out of necessity. I pose the question, Is there a better use of these lawns than that of growing lawns?

With over 80% of US households maintaining a private lawn, grass isn't as green as it looks. Estimates vary but the total area of lawns in the US is somewhere between 15 and 30 million acres! Let's put this into perspective. About 10 million acres of cotton are harvested per year; 70-80 million acres of corn; 50 million acres of wheat; and less than 5 million of rice (more details). Harvesting these crops generates billions of dollars in revenue each year. Wow! Grass could be a major player in US agriculture right? Um...well not really because you see, here in America, we don't really do anything with our lawns except trample them, water them, mow them, and trample them some more. Until recently, all the mowed grass went to landfills. Now, some cities have composting programs but not nearly enough to handle the large crop of grass clippings that are wasted each year. And how many pesticides are sprayed and how many gallons of water poured into a crop with little value other than its use value? I have no idea, but consider this use-value next time you cruise through your neighborhood. Let's say your driving down your street...no wait...You're riding your bike down your street- there, that's greener- what percentage of lawns are actually being used for playing, lounging, pooping (if you're a dog) or some other activity? I have no idea but usually in my neighborhood there's nobody 'lawning' or whatever it is you call it, unless of course its Saturday afternoon and lawns are being mowed.

If you asked me, I'd say this situation appears to be a shamefully wasteful and destructive one. No one asks me though and when I mention it, it gets me in trouble. Why? Because people love their lawns. They are infatuated with them and hold and ideal image of home that includes a soft, poofy, 4 inch thick mat of green lawn framing the suburban abode and distinguishing one plot (and neighbor) from the next. Just to prove how much people adore their lawns and think of them as a necessity, I'll tell you a story.

I was once strolling across one of UCLA's wide grassy quads, talking with someone I'd just met when the subject of grass came up. I commented that UCLA should get rid of all of its unused lawns because they were wasteful and required constant fertilizing and upkeep. I might has well have insulted this persons family honor because they were not pleased with me at all. "What?! Are you kidding?! You can't get rid of this grass! Don't you love it? Why would you suggest such a thing.." The disbelief and offense in their voice betrayed such sentimental fondness. "Well, I won't go there- on that lawn- again," I thought, and we dropped the subject.

But here I am again, on that lawn, that big, green, and wide expanse of American dream dotted with doggy doody that many of us, myself included, share a fondness for (the grass, not the doody). Is it somehow blasphemy to say we should get rid of it? Part of some pinko commie liberal plot? I don't think so. It just seems like common sense: Keep the parks, the soccer fields, the baseball diamonds, but get rid of the lawns. And do what? Grow something else instead? Precisely. Grow food instead. A garden uses less water and saves you loads of money on organic produce. Grow food and share it or trade it with your neighbors because that builds solidarity within your community. If you want, keep a nice small plot of lawn in the middle so you can lie there surrounded on all sides by the bountiful fruits of your labor. These fruits are substantial, not aesthetic. You can live off them, as has the Dervaes family of Pasadena, a model of self-sufficiency, frugality, and innovation amongst Los Angeles's big city suburban sprawl. It doesn't get more local than picking food from your own yard. If you want to live the American dream with American ideals then take out the lawns and grow your own food. To my mind, the Dervaes are the quintessential all-American family- they are self-sufficient, hardy, and innovative like the pioneers; they are frugal entrepreneurs who make a living off of the goods they grow to meet local demand for healthy organic produce; they represent family and community values by the children they've raised (who still live at home and help out with the business of growing and selling produce) and by the community they've fostered through educational efforts and regular neighborhood potlucks. This could be the alternative to the American Lawn, if people would let go of their sentimental fondness for green turf and be open to more traditional alternatives.

So, at risk of offending grass-lovers all over again, I ask, "Is there a better use of UCLA's lawns than that of growing lawns for aesthetic purposes and the occasional book fair?" By now you should know what the answer to this is. We should tear out some, most in fact but not all, of the lawns and turn the remaining spaces into student run organic community gardens that produce fruits and vegetables for the dining halls and for a student run farmers market. I envision a hillside next to Janss steps, stepped with garden plots, park benches, and cozy patches of lawn where you can take a nap between classes and munch on a peach or apple while friends tend to their garden plots. I challenge anyone and everyone to come up with a good reason why this shouldn't be so. It would save UCLA loads of money on food. It would teach business and entrepeneurial skills to UCLA students. It would provide an opportunity for UCLA to become a leader in alternative, sustainable agricultural programs. It would create a strong sense of community and community values on campus that would spread to communities around the country as graduates went off to find their way in life, taking with them a strong belief in protecting the environment and building up local, sustainable, food economies. I don't know about you, but to me this sounds like a pretty appetizing recipe for success, for everyone involved...except maybe John Deere.

Monday, April 26, 2010

Rabbits as the more sustainable house pet


Bunelope and Ukku, best friends after a day of hard work shredding cardboard.

Rabbits are becoming more and more popular as house pets these days. Still, not very many people are familiar with them as pets and prefer the more traditional cat or dog. Of the many reasons people give for having rabbits as house pets, the environment is not typically one of them. Sure, they are adorable and soft, intelligent, playful, relatively odorless, easily litter box trained and highly social animals with loads of personality (or rather rabbitality), but they're also more sustainable than cats or dogs. Don't get me wrong, I love cats and dogs but did you know that the chicken and grains that their food is made from leave rather large footprints on this planet. In fact, by some accounts your medium size dog has a larger ecological footprint than your SUV, your cat, a footprint about the size of a VW Golf.

As an alternative you might try rabbits, but before you go ahead with that option, do your homework. I know from personal experience that rabbits are a lot of work, especially when you've never had them before and are unfamiliar with their "language". Their natural behaviors are very different from cats and dogs because they are prey animals. They also like to chew anything in their path or in their way- wires, clothing, books, mail... That said, once you learn to live with them and adapt your home environment to their mischievous ways, they are delightful companions with far more intelligence than they are usually credited with. But what makes them more sustainable you ask? Here's what:

1. They are vegetarian which means their food wasn't raised on a CAFO.
2. They eat low on the food chain- grass mostly. This means not as many resources like water and fossil fuels went into growing their food as raising your cat or your dog's food.
3. They don't eat grains or meat, which means no corn or corn-fed animals went into your bunny's diet. (OK so they actually love to eat grains but it's really not good for their tummies!)
4. They eat your veggie scraps, cutting down on your trash output.
5. They are natural composters. This is no joke! They take grass and turn it into dry little pellets that do great good for your garden or composting bin. A plus side is that their poops don't stink and they have superb personal hygiene.
6. They're small so they don't eat or drink much or take up much space. Note that rabbits should spend as much time as possible outside of a cage or penned area. A hutch rabbit is a bored, sad, and lonely rabbit.
7. They won't kill the wildlife (every year cats kill billions of wild animals).


Now if you already have a cat or dog and are thinking to yourself, "I don't care what he says, I'll never get a stupid rabbit!", you're in luck because there are ways to make owning a dog or cat more sustainable, like making your own dog food with organic, sustainably grown grains and organic pastured beef and chicken.

Monday, April 12, 2010

Which plastics should you avoid like the plague and which should you ingest with abandon?

In an ideal and sustainable world we might be using little or no plastic but in the one we live in daily, we are surrounded by it. Encased in plastic as our lives are, we sit on it, eat out of it, write with it, walk on it, drive in it, brush our hair and teeth with it, pack gifts with it, open boxes with it, eat with it, drink with it, and not only that but also eat and drink it and that's just for starters! Yes we eat and drink plastic although hopefully not on purpose. The plastic containers you store food in and drink water from, the saran wrap you smother your leftovers with, the plastic forks and knives that purveyors of fast food provide you with, may all leach little bits of plastic into the environment, your food and drink, your body. Recently there has been more talk about what these little bits of chemicals that leach into your water from that water bottle you carry clipped on your pack or that seep into your food when heated in the microwave might do to you, and what scientists are finding is that the ubiquitous plastics we take for granted, the garbage pile of plastics we have built our daily live-in environments from may not be so good for us, may not be so benign after all. There are different types of plastics and different recipes for making them. Some may be worse than others. Some may be carcinogenic or mimic natural hormones in your body so that they disrupt function of normal processes. Of particular concern are plastics that come in contact with our food and drink. So, according to current belief, which plastics should you avoid? I'll sum it up for you here to make things simple and provide you with some links if you want to read more.

To avoid:
Containers to avoid include anything made with PVC that leeches BPA or contains known carcinogens. This means plastic #3 (most cling wraps), #6 (styrofoam cups), #7 (polycarbonates used to make those clear, hard colorful Nalgene bottles), and possibly even #1 (used in single-use water bottles, ketchup bottles, and other food packaging).

Maybe OK:
Plastic #2, 4, 5, (and maybe 1) are not currently known to leech harmful chemicals into your water or food, which isn't to say that they are OK or healthy.

Bottom line:
Avoid plastics and use stainless steel or other materials as an alternative!

Links:

http://www.plasticsinfo.org/
This is the industry website and according to them pretty much all plastics are OK. Read with a healthy amount of skepticism, and remember how the lead industry responded to good science on lead poisoning- they desperately marketed lead paint to parents using images of happy healthy children!

http://www.mindfully.org/
This website is clearly biased in the opposite direction but you have to ask yourself what their motivations are- profit or public health. They list their sources so you can decide for yourself whether they are full of truth or just full of plastic.

http://www.washingtonpost.com Journalists are supposed to be unbiased, honest, and fair right? Here's a transcript of a Q & A up on the Washington Post's site. Decide for yourself whether this is a load of plastic and you want to continue ingesting BPA.

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Class Project Guidelines and Instructions

General guidelines

The class project is an activity-based assignment. That is, I want you to get hands-on with sustainable lifestyle issues. The key word here to keep in mind as you think about what you might like to do is "lifestyle". For this seminar, what we're really interested in are the ways most people currently choose to live versus alternative and more sustainable ways of living that most haven't yet experienced. Since there isn't just one sustainable lifestyle to fit everyone's needs, this predicament and its solutions can be conceived of in a variety of ways, depending on one's perspective and goals.

One of the goals of this seminar is to have you come away with experiences that will have taught you something about actually living more sustainably here in LA. So, your project should be something experiential. Each of you will submit a proposal at the beginning of week three, which I will go over with you in class. Week 4, begin your project, if you haven't already done so by then. Your project should take you on a month-long journey into sustainable living. During that time you are required to compose several blog entries that reflect on your ongoing project. These entries should be thoughtful, relevant, well written and perhaps reflective, critical, or descriptive of your experiences that arise from your project.

For your final assignment, you are asked to give a short presentation about your project during week 9 or 10. An outline of your presentation is due Thursday of week 7. By now, you must be wondering what this is all about and what you could possibly do for a project, so without further ado here are your options to choose from:

Project Options

Option 1: Change how you live and then write about it

Use your carbon footprint calculation to identify the areas of your lifestyle that contribute the most to your carbon footprint and reduce them by making some significant changes in your own lifestyle. For example, if you are a heavy meat eater you would go vegetarian. If you drive a lot, you would reduce your mileage and commute by bike or public transportation. Several books/documentaries have been based on this sort of model- the family that only bought American for a whole year, another that tries to reduce their impact to zero (No Impact Man), a PBS reality series where families recreated early American life on the prairie, a guy who eats all the McDonald's he can for a month (Supersize Me), another guy who smokes all the weed he can for a month (Superhigh Me), a writer, Barbara Kingsolver, who moves her family out to a farm and grows all her families food for a whole year,... the list goes on I'm sure. These people do these radical living experiments to 1. Experience life differently and share that experience, and 2. To make some point (e.g. McDonald's is really unhealthy).

Option 2: Be an advocate of change, here on campus

If you choose this option, you have to come up with something very specific that you want to see changed on campus and embark on a mission to make that change happen, or you have to join an ongoing campaign for change that has been organized by one of the student groups (namely E3). If you choose the latter, you must take on responsibilities as a key player in that campaign.

Option 3: Design your own sustainable community

If you are a graphic artist and into public policy-making and architecture, design a sustainable, urban community. Your project should include drawings or models of the community as well as an explanation of all the features that make the community sustainable. This design should embody a philosophy of or perspective on sustainability and should also integrate form, function, and ecology. Go to the art library and look at some architects' books that already do this.

Option 4: Write a guide to sustainable living in LA for folks in the lower economic brackets.

Not everyone has the funds to shop at Whole Foods or savings to buy a cabin in the woods. Write a short guidebook that will persuade the average Jane or Joe Schmo that living sustainably is not only affordable, but healthy and fun for the whole family, or just plain cool. Put your devious marketing savvy to good use by selling sustainability to the masses.

Option 5: Devise an entertaining and educational performance or presentation about sustainable living for K-6, junior high or high school

If you choose this option you will have to perform it for your final presentation.

Option 6: Write your own cook book about sustainable living and sustainable cooking.

Write a cookbook on sustainable eating with sidebars about sustainable living. Cook something that embodies sustainability and feed it to us for your final presentation!

Option 7: Do your own thing

Propose something else to me and if I think it is 1. Doable in the time allotted; and 2. On par with the rest of the suggestions here, then go for it!

Timeline and Details

1. Email me a half-page description of what you propose to do for your project, no later than Monday morning of week 3.

(Note: If the project you have in mind is something that inherently warrants a multiparty effort, then you may work in groups of no more than 3. But if you go this route, your reasons must be well-justified in a joint proposal submitted by you and your partners.)

2. Email me a half-page description of what you propose to do for your final presentation, no later than Thursday morning of week 7.

3. Sign up for a presentation slot, week 8.

4. Present, weeks 9 and 10.

Monday, March 29, 2010

Exercise 4 (Week 8): Response to Omnivore's Dilemma

To be announced.

Due: Counts as one blog entry for week 8.

Exercise 2 (Week 2): Calculating Your Ecological Footprint

Calculate your ecological footprint (not carbon footprint as previously stated) for the month based on what you do in a week. Use the footprint calculator described in Radical Simplicity, pages 94-122, along with the forms and tables supplied in the appendix. Read the pages about the calculator carefully as you go through and make calculations, because they tell you exactly what to do. Compose a 1-2 page writeup that:

1. Summarizes the results of your footprint calculations and compares them to the average American footprint (see page 93 in RS).
2. Briefly discusses those results; sets short, medium, and long term goals for lowering your score; and indicates how you plan to lower your footprint to meet your short term goal by the end of this quarter.
3. Includes your calculations and all tables/forms from RS that you used (these don't count towards your page total).

Due: Tuesday of week 4.

Exercise 3 (Week 3): Response to Radical Simplicity

For one of your blog entries this week, write a one page response to Radical Simplicity. Make sure to address the following questions in your review:*

1. Now that you have read RS, imagine yourself and your lifestyle 10 years from now. What does it look like? How did you envision yourself 10 years from now, before you read the book? Has your vision changed? Your answers should include a brief characterization of your current lifestyle and a discussion of your material and immaterial goals as they relate to sustainable lifestyles.

2. Does the lifestyle that Merkel lives seem radical to you? Do you think he goes too far? Why or why not? Don't just answer yes or no. Be specific and thoughtful, utilizing the concepts from RS to reflect on your own willingness or unwillingness to live as simply as the author advocates.

Due: Counts as one entry for week 3.

* You can blog this in whatever manner you devise as long as your answers- regardless of what form they take- remain clear to the reader. In other words, feel free to get creative.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Course Syllabus







Exercise 1 (Week 1): Personal Trash Inventory Instructions

For this exercise, you will keep track of everything you throw away over the course of a typical school week. There are three stages to this exercise so please read CAREFULLY.

1. Take inventory
While following your usual habits and routines-that is don't try to change what you do, at least not yet- take inventory of everything you throw away or recycle (if you normally recycle). Carry a small notebook wherever you go and jot down a description of every item you throw away or recycle for each day.

2. Organize a tally
Once you have a raw inventory, sort it into larger categories like "plastic bottles" and "paper items" and decide how you want to present a total tally. Then, enter this information into a spread sheet and email it to me.
Your record should be organized by date and the types of items you throw away. It should also include grand totals for the entire week. Details and embarrassing or confidential information need not be conveyed to me nor to the class; however, during the initial recording stage, do keep detailed descriptions to aid you in your organization of the data. For example, we don't want to hear about "36 squares of toilet paper at 8 AM" though you should write that in your notebook. Instead try to come up with larger categories of materials that include particular items and ways of quantifying them. You might estimate quantities in number or area. So, instead of "1 dirty tissue" or "1 empty Coke bottle" you might create the categories "Sq. footage of paper items" and "#'s of small/med/or large plastic containers" then do the math. You won't know exactly how your spread sheet should look until you have completed part 1 above.

3. Blog it
In a blog entry titled "Personal Trash Inventory", reflect on and answer the following questions as best you can:

1. Do you think you throw out a lot of trash? Did you consider yourself wasteful before this exercise? What about after?
2. If you can identify an area of particular wastefulness, what is it and how can you reduce your waste in that area?
3. What aspects of your current lifestyle are reflected in your trash inventory? What did your inventory reveal about your own personal, familial, and cultural values, beliefs, and practices as they relate to sustainability and the environment? [For example, why is it that in the US we tend to take for granted and not questions the availability and consumption of disposable items that we use on a daily basis- cups, bottles, packaging- when we could use the same cup or bottle and no packaging at all in most situations. In fact, reusing vessels or containers over and over again has been the rule not the exception throughout history, across different societies. Why is it that we toss valuable and limited resources with little or no second thought then?]
4. What did your inventory reveal that you did not already know? How does this lifestyle that you see reflected in your trash inventory compare and contrast with one advocated in the first few chapters of Radical Simplicity?

Due: Tuesday of second week.

Grading Policy

Participation = 33%
- This includes attendance and participation in class and on fieldtrips. It also includes reading and commenting on your classmates' blog entries and completion of any readings and exercises assigned in class.

Blog = 33%
- Assessment of your blog is based on the quality of writing, originality and accuracy of content, its informativeness and whether you complete all blogging assignments. If I: 1. enjoy reading your blog, 2. learn something from it, and 3. can see that you are learning something too, well, then you're doing an awesome job!

Project = 33%

- This includes whatever you decide to do outside of class for your project as well as your final presentation of that project.

A mid-quarter report will be available sixth week, so you can track your progress.

Resources and Links

UCLA and other organizations
- Sustainability website: www. sustain.ucla.edu; lots of resources and links.
- Ecology. Economy. Equity. Student group dedicated to environmental and justice issues.
- http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/002924.html (link takes you to article that talks about Europe's footprint, but check out the rest of the site too).
- Organic Gardening Class Article about a 6 week gardening class at UCLA that happens on Saturdays with Rosa Romero.

Farms and Food Stuff
- http://urbanhomestead.org/ Check this family out! And here's a short video about them.
- Polyface Farms; These folks are talked about in Omnivore's Dilemma.
- McGrath Family Farm; Field trip destination.
- Slow Food LA; "Supporting good, clean, and fair food production and consumption in Los Angeles."
- Cool Foods Campaign; "The Cool Foods Campaign educates the public about how food choices can affect global warming and empowers them with the resources to reduce this impact. Join our 'Cool Foods' Campaign and help take a bite out of global warming by changing the way you eat."
- Eat Low Carbon; Estimate the footprint of particular meal items by dragging and dropping them onto your plate.
- How to go green in the kitchen This page offers lots of useful tips.
- http://www.eatwild.com/products/california.html Pastured meats directory for California.

Restaurants
- Govinda's 6$, all-you-can-eat vegetarian buffet at the Hare Krishna temple in Palms. The food is very delicious!
- Lucques Gourmet, seasonal, local, organic, sustainable cuisine by Chef Suzanne Goin, who trained at Chez Panisse. Treat yourself and a special someone to a very memorable meal!
- Ford's Filling Station This is another locally renowned restaurant specializing in artisinal, organic, seasonal cuisine. Don't let the prices intimidate you. Wait for a special occasion and treat yourself!
- Chez Panisse Often touted as the place where the organic food movement and California Cuisine were born, Alice Waters' seasonal, local cuisine proved to be a major historical force driving and inspiring the growth of farmers' markets, first in the bay area, then all throughout California and across the country. Located in Berkeley, CA. For more info watch "Food Fight", a documentary about the organic food movement in the US.

Recommended readings and videos:
Because social justice, economic, geographical, cultural and other issues are so integrally tied to our relationship with the planet, I've included a variety of books on this list that aren't strictly about the environment or sustainability.
- Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (credited with starting the modern environmental movement)
- Walden by Thoreau (classic account of simple living)
- A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold
- Radical Simplicity by Jim Merkel
- Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown This is about the genocide of native Americans by US govt. and pioneers. An important and interesting but not very happy read.
- The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein This about how free market reforms have been made and what their consequences have been around the world.
- Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond This was made into a pretty good documentary that helps explain some of the economic and technological disparities between developed, technologically advance societies and other not so advanced societies
- Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey This is about Abbey's time in Southern Utah in and around Canyonlands and Arches National Parks. He's an excellent writer. These two parks and the surrounding desert are home to some the most magical and otherworldly landscapes on the planet.
- The Monkey Wrench Gang also by Edward Abbey This is a fictional account of radical activism.

Nature and outdoors:
- National Parks (link to interactive map of all the parks and from there to each park's website)
- Sierra Club "...America's oldest, largest, and most influential grassroots environmental organization."
- Online John Muir exhibit "America's most famous and influential naturalist and conservationist". If you haven't heard of Muir you must check this out!
- Restore Hetch Hetchy! "...a wonderfully exact counterpart" of Yosemite Valley -John Muir; but unfortunately it was dammed in 1923. This site is dedicated to the ongoing fight to restore Hetch Hetchy Valley.

Technology and designs for sustainable living:
- Earthship Biotecture Mike Reynold's company that designs and constructs Earthships.
- Green Home Building Really cool site that summarizes lots of techniques and provides many links for further reading.
- Composting Toilets On the Cheap This guy shows you how to build your own or if you don't feel inclined to do so, how to buy his. Has interesting instructional videos.
- Composting Toilets on the Steep Envirolet's official looking website to sell their toilets. Their systems really are well designed, just too expensive for most.
- Solar ovens Solar ovens use reflective surfaces at different angles to concentrate light from the sun onto a pot of food (beans, soup, roasts, etc.). They are easy and practically free to make.

Energy use:
- Energy Information Administration This is part of the Department of Energy. This link takes you to a summary of statistics on electricity usage for the average American household for 2001 and several other years. There is a VAST amount of information and stats on energy consumption in the U.S. available through this site.

Lifestyle: These sites cover social justice, environmental, and lifestyle choice issues related to sustainable living. They are holistic in that sense. They overlap a bit but content varies surprisingly so check them all out.
- Santa Monica Green Office Buying Guide It says "office" but most of this stuff could work for a home as well.
- Earth Easy Information, suggestions, and products for more sustainable living. Very comprehensive source and quite well organized, but not always scientifically rigorous.
- Mother Earth News News and how-to articles, links and other resources all related to greener living.
- Resources for Life Yet another interesting site about better (more sustainable) living. Lots of links to all sorts of other sites.
- Sustainable living guides A database of several dozen different guides published at different university and college campuses around the country.
- Self Sufficient Living Site about homesteading, gardening, making things you normally buy.

Pets:
- Reduce your dog's footprint Unfortunately this article missed out on an opportunity to address what's really at issue- what your dog eats. Dog food contributes the most to Fido's footprint b/c of what it's made of- chicken and corn. This article focuses on important but less consequential aspects of your mutt's human run lifestyle.
-

Blogging assignment

Everybody will keep a blog related to this course and sustainable living. There is a minimum of 10 blog entries- 4 accompanying exercises 1-4 and 6 related to your project. This covers the writing content of the seminar. The rules are below. Read them VERY carefully:

1. Content of your blog should be course-related only. There are 4 assigned topics and 6 open-ended entries abobut your project. Each posting should be self-explanatory and complete- that means assume you are writing to an educated audience that knows nothing about this course. In other words, entries are not to be rants or ramblings but clear expositions of well-organized thoughts and responses to course content or related topics. You are encouraged to bring in outside sources of information.
2. You must blog about your project during weeks 3-8. That's 6 blog entries, at a minimum about your project. Each entry should be well-edited and presentable before it is posted. Credit for entries is counted at the beginning of each week, which for our purposes will be Mondays. So make sure to entered by the end of every Sunday.
3. Entries should address your ideas, observations, discoveries and experiences that you want to share with others. When you offer opinions, make sure a rationale is clearly given and explicated and that you provide support for them as well.
4. Each entry should be between 300-500 words. That's about 3-5 paragraphs or 1-2 pages of double-spaced, 12 point font in Word.
5. Each entry must strive for quality! That means you have to put some effort into making your blog interesting, creative, informed, and readable. Here are some better examples of blogs that are out there:

http://jeffdhungana.blogspot.com/
http://www.treehugger.com/
http://icanhascheezburger.com/
http://crooksandliars.com/

7. Also, I won't be the only one reading these. Visit and read each others' blogs and leave comments, critiques and suggestions. This will count towards 10% of your participation grade.

8. Assessment of your blog is based on the quality of writing, originality and accuracy of content, its informativeness and whether you complete all blogging assignments. If you think I will: 1. enjoy reading your blog, 2. learn something from it, and 3. see that you are learning something too, well, then you're on the right track!

9. Now that you've read the rules, open an account, then send your classmates and me the address to your blog.