When All We Need Is Just Enough by Cara Cadwallader
The first quarter of another new year has come to pass and Daylight Savings Time has sprung us forward, adding an hour of light to our busy, after-work schedules. Spring is in the air. Here in Southern California, a cornucopia of blossoms—from purple Arroyo Lupine to yellow Bermuda Buttercup, and Baby Blue Eyes, Yellow Tidy Tips, Dandelions, Red Maids and more—fill our nostrils with their sweet, pungent scents. During a daily commute, visions of swaying California poppies and blankets of lush, green hillsides dance, illuminating the main thoroughfares of the I-5 and 15. An unusually wet winter has brought with it an Earth bursting into life.
To the east, the towering peaks of San Gorgonio, Mount Baldy and San Jacinto twinkle and glisten as an emerging sun’s rays now begin to slowly melt the snow, turning it into runoff and fresh water. Across the nation, the winter of 2009-10 brought with it snowstorms of historic proportions and record-breaking cold. “Everything was extreme. There was no run-of-the-mill storm this year,” said Expert Senior Meteorologist Bernie Rayno. According to AccuWeather, it was because of this combination of cold and moisture that snow covered a portion of every one of the 48 continental United States, including the Florida Panhandle. On February 13, sixty-eight percent of the nation was covered in snow. “It was the worst winter some people will see in their lifetime,” said Rayno. Indeed, the unusual cold, resulting in flooding and mudslides, and blizzards of mammoth scale, required massive cleanup and repair efforts, cost millions of dollars, and disrupted daily life for thousands of people.
Ironically, many politicians, pundits, and shock jocks were quick to argue that the severe weather was irrefutable proof that global warming is a hoax. However, the loss of ice covering the Great Lakes, (a reported 30 percent decrease over the past 50 years,) has created an abundance of moisture in the atmosphere. Also responsible for this phenomenon is the 11.2 percent of Arctic Sea ice that has melted over the last decade, according to the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC.) In lieu of a great conspiracy theory, it is exactly as Newton’s Third Law of Motion ascribes: “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction,” and as gravity dictates: what goes up must come down.
Yet, what we have experienced here in the United States, which only covers about two percent of the Earth’s surface, has been an anomaly. Brenda Ekwurzel, a climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, claims, “We’ve just completed the hottest decade around the world, and the oceans have reached their hottest records ever.” The planet, the only home we have known for hundreds of thousands of years, is heating up—a direct result of the heat-trapping emissions that are released from our cars, from our power plants that burn fuel, and from our consumption-based way of life. If we continue down this same path, then we will only accelerate the warming and continue to experience these radical climate shifts.
“It is these extremes that matter to people because you have to dig yourself out of snow; weather-related fatalities are occurring more frequently and businesses are being shut down,” says Ekwurzel.
At a time when we are in the midst of an economic downturn, the quick-fix solution of increasing governmental expenditures on snow removal as well as on road and bridge replacement costs, is no longer an option. If we don’t plan our infrastructure accordingly and increase our understanding of how our cultural norms impact our planet, then it will be more costly to all of our day-to-day lives down the road. As our education and health bills continue to soar, is this a gamble still worth taking?
In his book, Just Enough: Lessons in Living Green from Traditional Japan, Azby Brown draws a parallel between today’s environmental predicament and 17th century Japan. Prior to entering the Edo period in 1603, Japanese society was on the brink of collapse due to similar issues that we find ourselves confronted with today—degraded watersheds, deforestation, soil erosion, and a diminishing supply of natural resources. Rather than follow a business-as-usual mentality, the Japanese of the Edo period adopted and embodied a sustainable philosophy in which taking “just enough” from their immediate environment led to meaningful and satisfying lives. As a trained architect, Brown hopes it is this model that we will now use as a blueprint for greening our lives.
By applying ecological thinking to their urban and rural development, the people of the Edo period learned how to integrate the natural elements into their building design; discovered how these fed into and supported each other and created solutions for solving many problems at once. In other words, Edo Era villages and cities mimicked an ecosystem—the water supply, food production, material procurement and energy provisions functioned along with the physical factors of the environment, which, in turn, created a flow of energy that clearly defined structures, diversity and cycles.
Working with the environment, rather than against it, examples of this ecological thinking in action included the use of: trees and other plantings as a means to help modulate the interior temperature of a house; climbing vines for creating shade; and ponds for cooling the air. A gravity-fed water supply naturally moved stored masses of snow and ice down from mountaintops and into feed rivers, and crucial habitats were preserved directly because of the regional diet—rice paddies have always functioned as person-made wetlands. The use of livestock for food was minimized as well, so that arable land was not devoted to feed production.
Cities were sited in places that provided optimum solar exposure, near moving waterways in which the transportation of people and goods required low energy and below extensive tree canopies from where birds sung, insects hummed, fruits fell and nuts were picked. All in all, Edo was a brilliant example of intentional city planning that maintained an intimate connection between the Earth and a civilization. This natural integration inspired in the Edo people a belief system in which waste was considered unethical and ugly, conservation was status quo and any changes that might affect the biological balance of the environment were cautiously and judiciously approached.
At its peak, Edo was a pedestrian city with a high population density. Limits were established for the size and number of wheeled vehicles allowed on city streets. Self-sufficiency at the community level was a goal, and institutions for monitoring the long-term viability of the environment, particularly of forests and watersheds, were held sacred. The result was a people who were, on the whole, well-housed, well-fed and economically robust, and who left behind an enduring legacy of ingenious design and simple beauty. It is this ideal of sustainability that I am now hedging my bets on.
However, transitioning into a new way of providing for our needs will not be easy, or without hardship. An overhaul of our power infrastructure must be undertaken and the use of most fossil fuels must be eliminated. We need to halt deforestation and start massive, global-wide replanting. Here in Southern California, it is especially important that we conserve and hold holy freshwater and rainfall. It is also essential that we again learn to enjoy what we are eating. Most importantly, though, we must re-pattern our thinking about where the things we use come from and where they are going once we are done with them. Reuse and recycling with a goal of zero-waste should be a requirement for all states and regions. Yes, we can begin today. All we need to do is start paying attention and consuming responsibly.
Contrary to popular opinion, greening our lives is not solely situated within a commercial marketplace that touts eco-conscious products. Rather, it is about making the most of what we have and shifting our perceptions. Greening our lives is about celebrating and honoring this Earth while tossing out antiquated notions about “saving” it. After all, the living organism that is this planet could swallow our human race up whole, if and when it decided to do so. Most pressingly, stating that the Earth needs saving indicates a premise of lack and, thus, a denial of our humanity. Instead, let’s think like an ecosystem while adopting and embodying a premise of possibility.
Truly, this is the most direct path to greening our lives now: by learning to notice with new eyes the sparkling branches outside your windows, the bending grasses, the trees and rocks, the singing birds, and the waving spring blossoms; by honing the ability to perceive your own thoughts along with the thoughts of others as a wider view and believing in the notion that everything is in its proper place, including you. Look out, around and say, “Yes, this is it. This is enough – it is just enough.”
Deepen your understanding of how to integrate sustainable practices in your day-to-day life at the Cultivating Food Justice Conference, a free weekend event at SDSU, April 24-25. For more info, please visit www.sandiegoroots.org. or email cara@visionmagazine.com