Inner City Farmer

We are in a severe drought.

Several weeks ago, I set up a rain barrel to catch what little rain falls on my roof.

Now that’s using my head for something other than a place to stick a baseball cap.

I took my son Zephyr to see Wall-E this weekend. Like most kids his age, he concentrated most of his attention on the central love story; the greater message was a bit over his head. But what a message it was: the world is effectively going to hell in a handbasket!

I think I deserve a gold star because my favorite part of the movie also happened to be the most important: the discovery of the plant inside the refrigerator. That simple splash of color introduced into such a bleak landscape came at just the right moment. If I had to stare at those brown mountains of trash any longer, I may have given into Zephyr’s request that I let him run up and down the stairs inside the theater.

For all the power of the movie’s message, I doubt it’s going to change our society’s twisted view of the environment all that much. At the latest G-8 Summit in Japan, the world’s most powerful nations devised an incredibly weak response to the increasingly urgent problem of global warming, establishing a goal of halving greenhouse gas emissions worldwide by 2050.

“At this rate, by 2050 the world will be cooked and the G-8 leaders will be long forgotten,” said Antonio Hill, spokesman for Oxfam International. “The G-8’s endorsement of a tepid 50 by 50 climate goal leaves us with a 50-50 chance of a climate meltdown. Rather than a breakthrough, the G-8’s announcement on 2050 is another stalling tactic.”

Perhaps instead of sitting around sipping bottled water and patting each other on the back, these so-called world leaders should have spent the afternoon watching a kid’s movie. They might have learned something.

Observing our collective reaction to rising gas prices, it’s clear to me how we got into this mess in the first place. Are humans incapable of looking any further ahead than tomorrow? Do we only care about ourselves? Are we the dumbest, most short-sighted animals on the planet? I hate to say it, but, “Yes, YES, YES.”

First, there was that whole gas-tax holiday gambit championed by old man McCain and Hillary Clinton. Two days ago, McCain jumped on the idea of overturning the 26-year-old ban on offshore drilling in this country, a glaring reversal from his previous position on the matter. A day later, Bush chimed in that he thought it was a good idea, which is all the evidence you need to know that it isn’t. I’m not even going to mention all the environmental damage such a move would cause. Nor am I going to harp on our infantile desire to keep things just the way they are (“I’m going to be driving this Suburban when I’m 95!”) when nature constantly shows us that everything is in flux. No, this plan doesn’t even make sense economically. A 2004 study by the Energy Information Administration found that drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would trim the price of gas by a mere 3.5 cents a gallon by 2027.

Another option I keep hearing about is using biofuels to run our cars. A bunch of companies (one is Sapphire Green in San Diego, another is Valcent Products in El Paso) are trying to convert certain strains of algae into fuel. This is fairly exciting in that algae doesn’t need fresh water to grow, and the carbon dioxide it needs to grow might possibly offset all the carbon dioxide it releases when used as fuel. But it still seems like a stop-gap measure when what we desperately need is a paradigm shift, an entirely new way of thinking as we enter a new era in our history.

As thrilling as using algae as fuel might be to some, I still don’t understand why we love our cars so much. What good have they done for our culture? They’re expensive, dangerous, and socially isolating. Sure, they’re an ideal spot to fool around with the opposite sex when you’re a teenager, but beyond that they’re just rapidly depreciating death traps. I still think we’d be better off in the long run just ditching them and fully embracing public transportation. To help people in Austin make that choice, Capital Metro is offering “Xtreme Transit Makeovers,” specific advice about which routes to take for commuting and other trips, as well as handing out free seven-day bus passes from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. today at 100 Congress Ave.

A big part of this journey I’m on is about eliminating the idea of waste. Waste is a human construct. In nature nothing ever gets wasted. In fact, the thing we humans view as prototypical waste, feces, is one of the most valuable resources in nature. If I had to pinpoint the day the train we’re all on ran off the tracks, it would be the day we came up with the idea for disposable products: plastic sporks, batteries, styrofoam cups, diapers, razors, and toothbrushes. From a marketing and sales aspect this is genius, but looked at from any other angle this is just plain stupid.

I recently discovered a viable alternative to tossing old sponges in the trash can. It’s called the EcoSponge (there are many others of this ilk; this just happens to be the one I’ve tried), and it does just what it purports to do: last. It’s made out of a durable fabric, something called viscose, so that it won’t fall apart like the average kitchen sponge. Even better, you can wash it. If hand washing a sponge seems redundant to you, you can also throw it in your washing machine. Sure, it costs five bucks, but like so many other “green” investments (photovoltaics, tankless water heaters, metal roofs) it will more than pay for itself over the course of its lifetime. It’s this type of thinking we need to start using when tapping into our power as consumers.

The many problems created by our throwaway society have been well documented by William McDonough and Michael Braungart in their book Cradle to Cradle, and they even offered a solution, designing products that can be fully reabsorbed by nature. I’m not sure if the EcoSponge quite meets that standard, but if it lasts a year or two and prevents me from throwing twenty or thirty sponges into the trash I will have to count it as a success. Only time will tell.

While everyone is bitching about their own personal “pain at the pump” (dumbest. phrase. ever.), I’m all smiles. Finally, the market price of gas is starting to reflect its environmental cost! I can’t wait for the day it hits $10 a gallon because that should force us all to make smarter choices like looking for an alternative fuel that is sustainable instead of grasping for stop-gap measures like eliminating the gas tax (dumbest. idea. ever). Our politicians remain hopelessly short-sighted so, once again, it’s up to us as consumers to make forward-thinking choices. Like using public transportation. Or riding bikes to work.

I haven’t talked much about transportation yet because, frankly, I’m still behind the times. I drive a gas-guzzling van. I don’t ride my bike enough. My only defense is that I have a three year old, and the easiest way to get him from Point A to Point B is to strap him in his car seat and hit the road. When he’s with his mom, I do much better. I will often go days without driving. I did especially well last week on my birthday when I hit the trifecta of alternative transportation: I took the bus to Wheatsville and back, I rode my bike to pick up some Thai food (and used my own canvas bag and refused their plastic utensils), and carpooled to Stubb’s to see Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings. Pretty good, but I know I can do better.

I hereby promise that I will never buy a gas-consuming vehicle again. When the van dies, I hope to go electric or, better, rely solely on buses and my bike. After all, that is one of the greatest reasons for living in a city; it’s so easy to get everywhere without using a car. I find it odd that when I visit New York City or San Francisco I almost solely use public transportation, but in Austin I rarely do. That’s going to change, and not just because gas now costs more than Makers Mark.

For those seeking an alternative to the car, I suggest checking out the Austin Yellow Bike Project, which promotes bicycling by teaching people how to fix their own bikes and offering free community bikes, and Austin Car Share, which hopes to limit the amount of cars on the road by allowing its members to borrow cars only when they need them.