Sustainability and SOPA

The good news is that after a long and rather crazy week last week, I seem to be once again relatively caught up on life, which feels new and novel.

The bad news is that I’m totally behind over here.

I need to properly thank the inspirational Canadian Doomer for passing along a Liebster Award, and need to point out a few of my favourite blogs in return (which is made all the more difficult by the fact that I would have chosen her blog, hands down).

I need to update on my plans to try to more actively take on Sharon Astyk’s Independence Days challenge again this year and, with a bit more free time on my hands, devote more of it to getting a bit more prepared for whatever comes.

I also need to think through whether I’m up for taking on the Riot for Austerity this year, and trying to cut back a lot of our consumption by 90 percent – a big number, but both worth it and necessary, I think.

Also, in somewhat less serious matters, I have two new books that I’m utterly thrilled with that I’d love to share.

But for now, the thing I want to talk about – albeit rather briefly, especially given the significance of this legislation – is SOPA and PIPA.

I’m based in Canada, so I’m a bit removed from all of this.  Only a very little bit, though.  The truth is, SOPA and PIPA – the current Stop Internet Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act, which are currently up in the United States – will affect Internet content and freedom around the world if they pass.

Some of my research and teaching is focused on digital communication practices, so this hits close to home for me in that respect.  But even more importantly, as I think and plan and dream about sustainability and self-sufficiency and all kinds of good things, I’ve come to hugely value this massive resource that we have in the internet.  Sure, it’s not without it’s problems.  But I’ve learned so much useful stuff from the Internet on this journey and on others.  I’ve gathered helpful information.  I’ve connected with wonderful people.  I’ve seen some truly motivating and inspiring content that’s helped me move forward in interesting and sometimes unexpected ways. I’d hate to see that change.

I think it’s important to be aware of what’s going on, because the implications down the line could be huge. These measures could be a significant threat to how we are able to use the Internet, and while I understand that there are some interests that perhaps should be protected, I worry that the measures currently on the table will do a lot of harm in terms of creativity, sharing, and connecting with others.  Other people have probably said it better, though, and this video provides a good, straightforward explanation of reasons we have to be concerned.

My hope is that people will increasingly inform themselves about these issues.  More and more, bills and laws and other legislation seems to be being passed that has significant effects on how we live our lives, and not always in ways that are positive, or in our best interests.  But for now, there’s still time to become aware, and still time to act and make our opinions known as best we can.  There are petitions to sign.  Numbers to call.  Awareness to be raised.  And, with some luck, change to be made.

A donkey day

I love animals.  I want them in my life.  My future dreams include at least a small barnyard.  But until I have the life and enough land that are appropriate for animals, I satisfy myself with what i can get.  I love dog and cat sitting.  I delight in random encounters with rabbits, frogs, ducks, geese, mice and whatever else happens to cross my path in the wild.

This past weekend, though, I got to fill some of that big, largely animal-less hole with creatures of a much larger variety.  With my mother-in-law and her best friend in town, and with a trip into a nearby city in the works, we decided to make a side trip to the Donkey Sanctuary of Canada.

For those of you who haven’t been, and are relatively local, well…I highly recommend it.  It’s really a grand time.  I’ve gotten some strange looks when I’ve mentioned it, but invariably when people go they walk away completely smitten with the donkeys and the other animals there.

The sanctuary is intended to be, as they say, a happy ending.  Donkeys taken in are well-treated, as are the animals they foster out.  But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t some underlying sadness.  While some of the animals are there because their owners had changed circumstances and dealt with it proactively, others were abused and mistreated in a variety of ways.  Although the donkeys are now well off, I find that knowing that changes the experience, gives it a bit more depth.

Someday, I hope to have a few donkeys of my own.  For now, I’m happy to visit them on the farm and rub a few ears while I’m there.

Riot for austerity

In one of her posts today, the inimitable Sharon Astyk is talking about revisiting the Riot for Austerity.  The riot for austerity was a project that aims to have people reduce their consumption and cut emissions enough to stabilize climate change.  The intimidating bit?  For most North Americans, this means a reduction of at least 90%.  The name, by the way, is taken from George Monbiot‘s assertion that people never riot for austerity.

Despite the apparent difficulties of such a project (both in figuring out the values from which to work and then actually making the changes), I’m very excited about this.  (Really, is it weird that I’m excited about this?  It feels like it should be weird.)  I came to the original riot very late, and soon after I did, the site went down along with all of the numbers on it.  Given that I live in an apartment, I also found it difficult to track things like heat, which I can’t control, and water, which I don’t pay for, and the combination of the difficulty in tracking and the lack of community by the time I got to it meant that things fizzled on my end, although I never stopped trying to live in a way that used fewer resources.

It won’t be easy by any stretch, and I’m certain that there are areas where I’ll run into more problems than others (long hot showers, I’m looking at you).  But this is important to think about and to do, even if it takes some time and some work to get to the necessary reductions.

I get asked about climate change, peak oil, and a whole host of ills fairly regularly because people know that these are issues that I think and read about because I’m interested in them.  But at least some of the time people don’t (or, at the very least, don’t want to) believe that bad things are happening, or could very soon.  My standard response to this usually goes something like this:  if we go ahead and keep living as we do and something bad happens – call the something bad whatever you will, since there are a number of potential options from which to choose – we’re going to be in very big trouble.  If we go ahead instead and prepare for bad things to happen, and try to mitigate them as much as possible, we’ll be in a much better position if something does happen.  There will still be challenges, of course, but we’ll likely be better prepared for and able to face them.  And if we go ahead and make changes and nothing bad happens, nothing’s really lost except perhaps some effort.  So we’re better off trying to make those changes just in case.

On some level, though, I think that these are also just the right things to do.  Living more lightly on the earth.  Using only as much as we need, and only as much as can be used without taking away from or depriving other people.  Figuring out how to be less dependent on systems over which we have little control and more becoming more resourceful, skilled, and dependent on ourselves and our families and communities. Not putting the future in jeopardy for the sake of a more luxurious present.  Finding ways not only to live with less, but to actually be happier doing so.

Over 90% is a lot.  It sounds like a lot, and I imagine that the practicalities of getting down by that much will bring the significance of that number even more sharply into focus.  I anticipate that this will be a challenge, at least in some areas.  That said, I think it’s one that not only is necessary, but also one that is worth doing for a whole myriad of beneficial reasons beyond just the practical facts of reduction, and my hope is that a lot of other people think so too and will join up with Sharon and company as well.

Ecological footprint

Canadian Doomer posted her ecological footprint today, so I decided to do mine as well based on the same quiz (that determines how many earths it would take to support someone’s lifestyle based on a variety of things like food, housing, and electricity usage).

Not too bad, really, although that extra .17 could be construed as a bit of a challenge, so I’ll be thinking of ways to address that (more vegan, more farmers’ markets, and more gardening, I suspect).

The quiz can be found here.

Hope in hard times

It seems fitting to me that I start this blog on earth day. Although there are lots of things that I want to do, document, and ponder on this blog (with many different motivations) a great deal of what I do and think about these days is living more sustainably and in a way that’s less damaging to the earth. Not just on earth day, though. Every day. All the time.

I’ve started a few blogs. None of them really captured what I was after, I don’t think, although I’ve gotten closer every time. Perhaps this one won’t quite hit the mark either. But I hope that it will, because I think these changes – these modest revolutions, if you will, the idea after which I named this little corner of cyberspace – are important. They’re important for changing our lives, the lives of those around us, and with any luck, the state of the world.

As scary as it is to put out there, I believe we’re heading for trouble that is bigger and coming faster than we expect. Really, I suspect that we’re facing what some people would refer to as hard times. But this threat is only a part of what I want this blog to be about. I’m generally a reasonably positive person, and I believe there’s always room for optimism and even hope, even when things look pretty dire. I’m not convinced that hard times necessarily have to feel so very hard. Different, sure. Trying, possibly. A challenge to rise up to, definitely. But hard can be moderated and possibly even lessened by the things we do now. So, I think there’s room in all of the crazy that the world seems to be heaping on us not only for hope, but also to make changes now that, while they may seem intimidating or hard or even impossible in some cases, are useful and worthwhile and even beneficial and pleasurable in the end.

But more than that, there’s room for justice, and for making sure that people are better able to get the things that they need. We live in a world that isn’t known for anything even approaching equality for people, and as much as possible I’m aiming to live in a way that doesn’t just benefit me. There’s lots of room for good in there as well, for the earth, for our communities, and for us as well. That’s what I’m looking to find.