My objective in writing this blog was for me to hold myself accountable for pursuing my sustainability goals and to share my progress, but it has also become a platform for me to share why I am doing a nothing new challenge in the first place, which stems from what I believe. I don’t ask you to agree with everything that I share, but I ask that you at least think about what I have to say. With that, I am going to start with story time and then follow up with the progress of my goals over the past three weeks.
It keeps me up at night worrying about what the future holds. So many questions race through my mind, like why didn’t we act fast enough, why do we continue to wait on taking the drastic measures that science shows we must take, and am I personally doing enough to contribute to the solution of this global problem. I distract myself by working, volunteering, and engaging with the arts, like making music and watching musicals. As with the nature of global issues, there is a lot out of my control, but life happens on a micro-level for each of us. If I can take responsibility for my personal choices and share what I believe is right, then at least I will have done my part in the crisis that we as humanity face.
The previous sentiments may resonate with you in regards to how you are currently feeling about the coronavirus, or COVID-19. However, these are not my feelings about coronavirus. These are the feelings that have plagued me for years regarding the climate crisis. Fear from knowing that people are dying because of this crisis, especially vulnerable populations. Fear that our elected officials (especially Trump) are not prioritizing the public interest in their policy and economic decisions. Fear from plain old uncertainty about how this is going to end. These fears apply to both the pandemic and the climate crisis, but the difference is that fear for the former is now much more widespread.
As I have done in the past, I acknowledge that I am a very privileged person in various ways, and that I do not take it for granted. I am young and healthy and probably would survive if I got the virus. I have the financial privilege to miss a paycheck and still be fine. Because of these things, I am not personally living in fear about the coronavirus. However, I understand the simultaneous need to be informed and the mood depressing effect of staying up-to-date on a global crisis, as I have closely followed climate news, especially in the past year. In spite of the uncertainty and fear, I see so much hope in the current chaos we are experiencing. If we can mobilize everyone on the planet and come together to fight against a virus, we most certainly have the ability to mobilize everyone to fight for a livable future for all life on this planet. However, the climate crisis has not been treated like a crisis because people with unimaginable amounts of wealth don’t want to relinquish their source of wealth, which is the expansion and continued dominance of the fossil fuel industry, a.k.a. the cause of global heating. It also goes to show that we need to start re-framing the climate crisis as a global health crisis, as that is very much what it is. Air pollution from the burning of fossil fuels was identified as a carcinogen to humans by the World Health Organization in 2013, and according to the American Cancer Society, lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths at almost 25 percent. Imagine how many hundreds of thousands of people would be saved from lung cancer in a world powered by clean energy rather than fossil fuels.
Back to the coronavirus, in spite of all of the costs associated with the pandemic, I believe there is a silver lining in which the environment is benefiting. Because people are not working and traveling, air pollution has drastically fallen over Italy and China. People have stopped flying, so airlines aren’t contributing their normal 2 to 3 percent of overall carbon dioxide emissions. With all the lockdowns, greenhouse gas emissions are in sharp decline, which is great for the climate crisis, even if it is temporary. Finally, to tie it back to what my blog is actually about, some shops are closed, which means people are not buying luxuries, at least. Panic buying is another issue I won’t discuss, but you can bet it is not sustainable. Now for my goals.
Goals that I implemented:
- Tool 1 Stop Shopping goal: no new things except food and gas/try to buy local if new
- Update: Naught added to the fund.
- Tool 2 Grow Some Food goal: plant beans in a pot
- Update: Beany babies are flowering.
- Tool 4 Buy Local goal: buy from local restaurants and no chains/fast food
- Update: Ate at two local restaurants. $6 in fund for frozen chai teas from Wawa.
- Tool 5 Turn Off The Lights goal: no phone until after breakfast and computer off by 9:30pm
- Update: I had my computer on later than 9:30pm four times, with two of those times much later, so $6 added to the fund.
- Tool 6 Consume Less Plastic goal: $5 fine for any disposable plastic utensils/straws/plates/cups
- Update: $35 for four small plastic cups, a plastic lid, and two plastic containers I got as a result of having to take out for a meal. Ugh.
- Tool 10 Track Your Trash goal: turn off water in shower when not rinsing
- Update: Naught added to the fund.
- Continued tracking time volunteering and interning and working.
- Update: I just reached 700 hours of volunteering at Give Kids the World with my last shift before it closed. In the past three weeks (and a few days), I worked 80.25 hours and volunteered 64.75 hours for a total of 145 hours, not including commuting, which is why I was three weeks behind on my blog.
Goals that I still need to implement:
- Tool 3 Eat Local goals: look into IDEAS for Us farmers market; start tracking meatless day/part-time vegetarian – here is a great article about the relative importance of eating plant-based rather than local
- Tool 6 Consume Less Plastic goal: consider a mini-goal of only buying products with recyclable packaging for a certain amount of time
- Tool 10 Track Your Trash goals: research waste collection/recycling in Orlando and Kissimmee, look into visiting a landfill, look into composting, consider doing a waste/water audit and carrying trash, research reusable feminine products – I have worked on this and plan to report more in my next blog post, consider not using paper towels for personal bathroom trips for a certain amount of time
- Tool 11 Guzzle Less Gas goals: begin tracking gas usage and train usage, calculate my carbon footprint, ultimately donate to offset fund at the end of the four months, conduct cost-benefit analysis of trading in my RAV4 for a hybrid or electric car
- Additional goals: find and apply to interesting summer opportunities/beyond, determine motivation months based on larger-scale goals
Nothing New Fund for the past three weeks: $47; Current total: $105
As an introvert, I am enjoying the time off as a result of the coronavirus. I was starting to burn out from working so much, and with schools going on Spring Break, I was considering requesting time off to relax. I will certainly miss volunteering and working and especially the people with whom I did those things, but I have plenty of things to keep me occupied in the meantime. I can catch up on a long list of movies and shows I planned to watch when I finally found some time (which I never would have found if not for the pandemic), read books on my to-read list, learn and practice songs on the piano, do more research and start taking more action as a climate activist, write my blog and pursue more sustainability goals, learn dances for exercise, and maybe even write a few parodies along the way. Create art and make music and may thee use naught new.
Naught New 