James the Homeless Vet - A Reflection

I met James while working at the 18^th Annual Free Community Party put on by the Co-op. When asking him what he thought his neighborhood could use, he said “more housing for the homeless and more low-income housing.” At the time I could not really tell that he was homeless although he did carry a large backpack. This sparked a conversation between us given that I was working on started the Food Recovery Network at Western. He was very interested in getting students involved in advocacy work such as attending city meetings and voicing interest in affordable housing, given that homeless people are most often marginalized and ignored in government decisions. We exchanged contact information as have been in contact through email since then.

He has CC’d me in all conversations about the severe weather/overflow shelter for the winter. I have become aware of many unfair, unethical, and inhumane practices and treatment of the homeless population. It has become clear to me that there they have created a business out of homelessness. They help the homeless survive, providing meals and overnight places to stay, but there is not enough emphasis on housing or help for transitioning people into become a part of society again.  

Whatcom County has the least amount of affordable housing in the state of Washington. There are not enough resources directed towards this, yet they pay the Homeless Outreach Team 70,000/yr salaries out of the housing fund. This type of work is usually done (and can be done) by volunteers, and this money could be used more effectively.

James is a very smart man who has found himself in an unfortunate situation. He has been homeless for five years, and to apply for housing needs to have had a permanent address within the last two years. As a veteran James knows how to survive. He always states that he will be fine, but there are many others on the streets that will not be. The severe weather overflow shelter is opened when temperatures outside reach 20 degrees --- TWENTY DEGREES?!! That is insanely cold! Way past the danger of hypothermia and death! James is fighting for them to open at 45 degrees. Still cold, but much more reasonable. As someone who is not homeless, I cannot imagine sleeping outside in such temperatures. Never having to deal with such a problem before, I had no idea that this is how the homeless have been treated. It must be easy for them to hide the treatment of these people and disregard their lives and voices. This is no longer something that I will ignore. I will be working with James extremely hard this winter to help them get people off the streets.

Tips/Advice from James:

“Think of yourself as an old person, and what you want to look back and say you did during your life. If you know what outcome you want in life, it will be easier to identify steps to get there.”

“Ditch your wallet and home for two days and sleep outside on the streets. See how hard it is. This is what you need to do to fully understand the problem of homelessness.”

Time to Put a Price on Carbon!

"Research shows that curbing climate change and growing the economy can and must go hand-in-hand. A well-designed carbon price can help the United States achieve its climate goals while improving economic efficiency and fostering growth."

This is an excellent article promoting carbon pricing, which I thought was especially interesting because I have been working on Carbon Washington's campaign for a carbon tax in our state. Carbon Washington's approach is basically the same policy as the one in B.C., which has full support of their residents. The article states that "as a result of the revenue-neutral tax swap it implemented, the province used carbon tax revenue to reduce other taxes. It now has the lowest personal income tax rates in Canada and one of the lowest corporate income tax rates in North America."

Hopefully we will see a similar implementation and results in our state and hopefully the U.S. as a whole! This article makes it seem like there is no reason not to get on board with carbon pricing.

Read the rest of the article here

Lowering my Ecological Footprint

While my results were still generally shocking/disappointing, I did manage to lower my footprint!
However, it will still take 2.15 Earths to sustain the population if everyone lived like me.

Certain changes were difficult to make, others were harder. Not eating meat was difficult, but things like changing my power sources to 100% renewable energy was an easy transition. The hardest changes to make were the ones that changed my daily routine. However, after getting used to it, things like unplugging everything at the end of the night was not too bad.

Compared to my original results, I have managed to lower my footprint by a little over one earth by making a few small changes. This amazes me because although the dietary change was difficult at times, most of the other changes I made were fairly easy to do. Below are my original results so it is easy to visualize which sectors I made the greatest improvements.

Compared to my original results, my carbon footprint slightly decreased. I definitely walked and took the bus a lot more this quarter. Cutting meat out of my diet lowered my food footprint by nearly 50%, which is really shocking to me but is a very good incentive to keep up a vegetarian diet. I love meat, so I may have to change it to only eating meat once a week, but I am definitely going to keep this in mind when making future decisions. My housing footprint decreased by very little, which I was surprised by because I thought switching to PSE's green power plan would make a dramatic difference in my impact; apparently not. My goods and services footprint was cut in half as well, mainly because of my attention to packaging and sourcing, as well as not purchasing any new items (only second-hand).

While I have taken this Ecological Footprint quiz before, this assignment was a lot more informational because we actually had to attempt to lower our impact over time. Making changes versus listing the changes you could make was a lot more beneficial because it made realize that there actually are easy ways to make a big difference in reducing your impact. However you do have to think about it. It is easier in the US to live a very wasteful lifestyle than a sustainable way of life, so you must be aware of what activities your impact is coming from.

Walmart and Sustainability

There is a lot of skepticism about if Walmart and sustainability can co-exist. While their lowest price strategy may seem to interfere with traditional sustainability values of true cost, it also caters to sustainability values of equity and opportunity. 

I was impressed to read that Walmart has an effective green marketing strategy, that rates suppliers based on a multitude of criteria and recognizes that most problems lie within the supply chain. While it's not perfect, it is a great start and I hope to see continued effort from the world's largest retailer.

Check out the article here


Footprint update: I accidently broke down and ate meat at a Mexican restaurant, but I have never tried enchilada mole before and it was amazing...... Other than that I have not purchased any meat at the store though. I am currently looking for a way to buy bread that does not require plastic packaging but won't go bad right away because I don't have time to buy fresh bread daily... 

U.S. Initiative to help coal workers transition to clean energy jobs

This was an exciting headline to see and article to read because it is actually the US GOVERNMENT taking action to support a transition for worker to move away from coal jobs that have many known negative health impacts. Even though this action was taken because of the already declining industry, the fact that they are moving these workers to work in renewable energy production is a great start to government support for a cleaner economy.

Learn more at:

http://www.greenbiz.com/article/new-initiative-help-coal-workers-transition-clean-economy-jobs

Re-evaluating my Ecological Footprint Goals

For the most part, I have been fairly successful in reducing my footprint in my goal areas of water and energy consumption. Turning the wifi/cable box off is the most difficult part of the energy consumption area. 

Food consumption is where I am having a tough time. When evaluating why I am not making the progress I would like to, it came down to a few things: price, convenience, and accessible alternatives.

I have not been eating meat, which will reduce my footprint, although this has mainly been out of price.

I have not been buying at the farmers market because Saturdays have been inconvenient for me this month. However, I have consistently stuck to only organic produce.

With certain items with plastic packaging, like bread, the reason I haven't moved to another type of packaging is because of limitations. Fresh bread comes in paper bags, but does not stay good long enough for me to finish it. In this case, I have to choose to get the one that keeps the best fresh the longest so that I am not wasting.

Unfortunately, my property manager has not gotten back to me about a compost bin. I will have to take further action on this goal.

If I had the time, I would re-evaluate my goals to buy less food at a time, so that I could buy the fresh, ready-to-go products from bakeries and whatnot. I think I will try this over the summer, but right now it is not realistic. 

New goals for food: Eat everything I buy, don't let things go to waste. Buy fresh bread whenever I can. Continue to avoid plastic packaging as much as possible, and record the items that are packaged in plastics and search for alternatives.

A Credit Card that Helps the Planet

So this is a very interesting concept. Sustain:Green hopes to use customer rewards structures that are usually offered by credit card commpanies, such as cash back, but direct these funds toward purchasing certified carbon offsets. This is the first opportunity for the individual consumer to get involved in carbn offsetting, and in a convenient and free way. They are not charged for these rewards, they are simply giving them away to a good cause. Cardholders can also vote for projects they want to fund, and the card itself is biodegradable/compostable. I'm not sure this card will attract the majority of the population, but I do think that it is a great idea to bring responsibility and action for offsetting carbon to the individual consumer level.

Read more here: http://www.greenbiz.com/article/credit-card-offset-your-individual-carbon-guilt