It's April! Poetry! Nirvana! Flowers!

Although the oft indecisive weather in April is not my favorite (I'm a June kind of girl), April always ends up being a special month because 1) the promise of spring has arrived, unfurling itself from the tips of tree branches, in the sprouting green grass... 2) it's national poetry month (we poets get really excited that there's an entire month dedicated to what we do!) 3) it's Earth day this month, and Earth day will always be cool, and 4) it's the month that Kurt Cobain died in. I'm an obsessive Kurt Cobain fan and will forever mourn the fact that he died so young, years before I even discovered him. Coincidentally, April is also the month in which my love for Nirvana flourished--when I watched the MTV Unplugged in New York show, replayed on the 10-year anniversary of Cobain's death. On other notes, April is also the month in which my parents met, the month in which they got married, and it's the month that I'll (hopefully) visit Seattle for the first time, to spend a weekend with my brother (more on that later. maybe).

SO, in order to honor all the things this month means to me, I'm going to be posting a bunch of shit that has to do with most or perhaps all of the above things.

First up, tree buds and gnarly grunge:

I just planted 25 trees!

Well, sort of. 25 trees will be planted because I just donated $25 to the Earth Day Network's Canopy Project, which strives to plant trees where they are most needed around the world, including Haiti, Mexico, Brazil, and the urban US. The Earth Day Network and its partners will plant one tree for every dollar donated today. Do you have a dollar or two to spare?

Green Beer

Yes, I know St. Patrick's Day was last month, and I know this month is Earth Month, although you may have been thinking that I must have forgot due to my lack of posting. [side note: It seems that if I promise to post, I am less likely to post (that's me shying away from commitments, I'm sure), so from now on no more promises.] But I'm talking about a different kind of green beer than the artificially colored stuff people drink on March 17. I'm talking about green beer, i.e. environmentally friendly beer. I was just doing some browsing and came across a few tips on Earth Share, some of which I've never thought to do, such as ordering beer on tap when you go out - even though many restaurants recycle, it's always better to reduce the amount of bottles used in the first place.  Now how come I didn't think of that?

Other tips include opting for beer in glass bottles over aluminum cans, but a bit more research reveals that glass is not always the more environmentally friendly answer. Although it takes twice the amount of energy to manufacture a can than it does a bottle, you have to consider that this is only if all new materials are being used. In America, most aluminum cans are made from 40% recycled material, while bottles are made from 20-30%. Still, it does take less energy to make glass, and it's also less hard on the earth's surface to make glass - glass is made from silica, which is much more accessible than bauxite used to make aluminum, which, according to Brendan Koerner's eco-guide to responsible drinking, "requires substantial, land-scarring effort to extract from the Earth; the United States imports virtually all of its bauxite from the likes of Australia, Guinea, and Jamaica, where mining operations have caused environmental controversy."

But then you have to factor in where your beer is coming from - as Koerner reports, an empty can weighs less than an ounce, while an empty bottles weighs almost six ounces, which means that beer in bottles emits more carbon emissions than beer in cans since the heavier an item the more fuel it requires to be transported. If your beer travels across the country in glass, it emits 20% more carbon than if it was in aluminum. The eco-guide says that the best thing to do is drink local beers, although "you might want to check where those nearby breweries obtain their containers—it's alarmingly common for empty cans and bottles to travel hundreds of miles from manufacturer to bottling plant."

Who knew there was so much research to be done on having a beer? (am I taking the fun away? I hope not).

Also, both aluminum and glass are infinitely recyclable (as long as they are clean), but, says Koerner, there's a weaker demand for recycled glass:

While automakers and other manufacturers crave aluminum, 90 percent of recycled glass simply ends up going back into bottles and similar containers. And sorting facilities usually separate brown, green, and clear bottles from one another before processing, a laborious and pricey endeavor. It takes a lot of energy to rid green glass, in particular, of the metals (such as iron and copper) that are used to tint it, and there's little market for the stuff once it's been recycled; as a result, a lot of towns don't even bother to recycle your Heineken empties.

 So clearly the best thing to do is get a keg, right? Well, the best thing would be for glass bottles to be refillable (the way everyone used to do with milk). I'll let Koerner explain since he does a better job of it than I could:

Glass bottles would make more environmental sense if they were refillable, as they are in parts of Europe and Canada. Yes, there are energy costs associated with trucking the empty bottles back to the brewery. But according to a 2001 study conducted on behalf of the European Commission, refillables still come out ahead of single-use bottles and cans. In fact, if we assume that a refillable bottle were used 20 times, and that the glass bottles used over that period were recycled at a rate of 42 percent, then the refillable would win over disposable options as long as the distance between the brewery and the local distribution center was less than 2,608 miles. (As myriad beverage-industry professionals have pointed out, refillable bottles would be even more efficient if they were made of polyethylene terephthalate rather than glass.)

 But until American breweries offer refillable glass bottles (which Koerner does not seem hopeful about, and who's to say enough Americans would keep their bottles to be refilled? Hell, only 25% of bottles are recycled!), one of the best things to do, if you are having a large gathering, is to get a keg, since kegs are reusable:

Draught beer is the greenest means of getting your hops-and-barley fix, as kegs can last between 15 and 20 years. Sure, they're heavy, but in terms of packaging per serving they're actually lighter than glass bottles—based on an empty weight of 29.7 pounds, a 15.5-gallon keg provides just 2.88 ounces of packaging per 12-ounce beer.

 So I guess you have some of your own research to do on which container your beer should come in. For someone like me, who doesn't drink much beer or often, I plan on ordering tap beer if I'm out (which is what, once a year? kidding...), and looking for as-local-as-possible beer in bottles if I'm buying some for at home.

P.S. If you were in Minnesota right now, you'd think you stepped out of a time machine or into a winter dream.....is it really April? The evidence suggests otherwise... 

because it's beautiful

The Mountain from Terje Sorgjerd on Vimeo.

How Could I Forget?

In the midst of my excitement for the beginning of spring and Earth Month, I completely forgot to mention that April is also Poetry Month (how could I forget to mention this when nearly every thought in my head tries to work itself into a poem? Maybe that's exactly how I forgot.....)

In the spirit of Earth/Poetry month, I want to tell you about Margaret Atwood - a Canadian novelist, essayist, and poet, who is also an active environmentalist. She invented something called LongPen™ - a green technology that allows authors like her to sign books at faraway conventions without having to travel there. It also provides

legally-binding methods to sign documents remotely. With LongPen™ hardware and software - including the unique RealWET™ pen-on-paper signature and the Transactional Masterfile™ for all-in storage and extra non-repudiation - the distance between signing parties becomes irrelevant. LongPen™ transmits an original signature via a secure network - instantly.

LongPen™ utilizes proprietary biometric handwriting technologies to provide users with a simple way of executing hardcopy and digital documents while complying with all regulatory requirements. All products can be combined with video conferencing for a full long-distance business solution, allowing users to interact in real time HD video and audio...

....LongPen™ provides the benefits of direct, personal contact without the cost, time, security issues, and carbon footprint associated with travel.

A member of the environmental organization Friends of the Earth, Atwood expresses deep concern for the state of our planet and the losses we have already incurred, and she says that, "The human species won't be the last go. The losses we are seeing now should act as a warning bell to us all." She also says that she and her husband are cutting down on the flights they take to literary conferences and such, doing what they can to minimize their carbon emissions. She's also the source of one of my favorites quotes:

"In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt."

This explains why my blogging has been more sporadic than ever (it seems to me anyway)--it's spring - time to dig in the dirt, prepare the garden, plant the seeds.... show Evelyn what it's all about...

"Spring is like a perhaps hand"

by e e cummings, poem found here

Spring is like a perhaps hand 
(which comes carefully 
out of Nowhere)arranging 
a window,into which people look(while 
people stare
arranging and changing placing 
carefully there a strange 
thing and a known thing here)and

changing everything carefully

spring is like a perhaps 
Hand in a window 
(carefully to 
and fro moving New and 
Old things,while 
people stare carefully 
moving a perhaps 
fraction of flower here placing 
an inch of air there)and

without breaking anything.

Changing the World One Staple at a Time...

We've been having to do some rescheduling around the house here.... last week Evelyn was sick for a few days, so that threw things off. And now she's entering the "I am almost two and you can't make me nap and I'm gonna throw fits every time you try to make me do something MOM." And, she's been waking up at 7, no matter what time she goes to bed, which means my morning time to get work done is significantly cut short. She already had her first temper tantrum this morning, before we even made it down to breakfast (not sure what sparked it, I think maybe because I changed her diaper? Bad, bad mom....), so she is having "quiet time" with toys in her crib, and I am stealing these few minutes to do a quick post. Flexibility, patience, and positive thinking are the keys to living with a toddler. These things don't always come easy, but I'm getting much better! Plus, the sun is shining! And I think we're supposed to hit a high in the lower 50's. This makes me so happy. Really, the coming of spring, the birds and the grass and the sun, and thoughts of summer, it all fills me with such a light and happy feeling. January, February, and sometimes March, are my least favorite months, so April is always so welcome...

And, speaking of April, which is Earth Month, here is another so-simple thing we can do to help out dear Earth (again, from 1,001 Ways to Save the Earth):

#174 Staple diet: If all the country's 75 million white-collar workers used one fewer staple each day, they'd make a daily saving of 5,500 lbs. of steel--that's about 900 tons a year. Scale down your staple habit, and use (and reuse) paper clips [or binders] instead.

And along with that, use less paper, and reuse paper. Buy recycled paper; print double-sided if your printer has that option; use misprints as note paper for grocery and to-do lists; and recycle or compost other paper you have no use for.

Okay, time to try and "restart" the day with little E. Hopefully we'll make it down to breakfast this time....

Lazy Day Words & Photo

"We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children." --American Indian proverb

Earth Month Tip II

I have about ten things I could blog about (the ideas have just been accumulating in my brain, going to start falling out soon....) but I need to devote my down time to school work today. Which I am excited about, since a lot of my school work involves reading and writing poetry and poetry-related essays. So today we'll just go with another simple Earth-helping tip from the book 1,001 Ways to Save the Earth:

#472 Keep the pressure up: Maintaining the appropriate pressure in your vehicle's tires will help to minimize its fuel use.

Again, so simple. There's a common misconception that "going green" takes lots of money, effort, and time. While there are green things that take money, effort, and time, there are so many green things that are require little to no amount of effort, money, and time, but those little things make a big difference.

poetry, earth, religion, beauty, science, Spring, etc.

The poet e e cummings touches on all of these things in his poem "O sweet spontaneous." I just started reading a collection of his work, which I am very excited about. He's a genius. The hard part is that it's difficult to share some of his work on Blogger because he uses so many indented lines and other spacing variations that Blogger doesn't keep the formatting for. And I can't get rid of the formatting - that's a part of his work. It's almost the same as cutting a line.... But, I did find a link to the poem, so you can read it in its original form. Please click on this link, it's so worth the minute it will take you. And then leave a comment about what you think of it.

If I was talking to you in person right now I'd be smiling.

Earth Month is Here

While every day is Earth Day, in that every day we should do what we can to minimize our pollution and destruction of the earth, and maximize our care for it, April 22 is the official Earth Day this year, which makes April Earth Month. I've mentioned before that I'm not big on holidays, in that I don't get overly excited and count down the days or anything, but I love Earth Day. I love what it stands for, and I love that it gets people to think more about how their actions affect the earth (now if everyone thought more about this every day....)

So, I have this book called 1,001 Ways to Save the Earth. It's one of those mini coffee-table type books, where each page has a few tips. My goal is to share a tip every day this month (yeah, we both know right now that it probably won't happen every day, but I will post 30 total tips), and some of these tips are really easy. Like this one:

#323 Use a glass at the water cooler instead of disposable plastic cups or paper cones.

How simple, right? Just bring a glass from home, and wash it out at the end of each day. And if you are home every day (like me), invest in a reusable water bottle instead of buying bottled water. Think of all that plastic (and money) you'll be saving... Even though most plastic water bottles are recyclable, "millions find their way into landfills every day in the U.S. alone," says the Berkeley Ecology Center. Plus, "the manufacture of plastic #1 [which is used for most disposable water bottles] uses large amounts of energy and resources and generates toxic emissions and pollutants that contribute to global warming."

Have I given you enough reasons yet?

EDIT: It seems that the business world is a bit further ahead in the environmental game than I realized. Here's my dad's comment, which had too many characters for him to post in the comment forum:

Great tip but might be a little obsolete, most respectable companies moved into this space in 2005 doing away with the traditional water cooler (Larger Plastic Bottle Type) in favor of the more environmentally friendly purification systems. Most business I have entered since 2005 (over 100 a week for at least 4 years around the Twin Cities) went to a workplace with user friendly carbon reduction solutions instead of the traditional water cooler. Most went to a two stage (reverse osmosis) or six stage dispenser that also reduces the need of non recyclable filters (again reducing carbon). Most employees are instructed to bring their own glasses/water bottles and the last two companies I was employed at, provided them to employees and guests alike. Now when we have to order paper products for larger events or guests who choose to use them (normally for hot products like coffee) we use products made from paper with PLA corn plastic lining which require less energy to produce than petrochemical plastics and are fully biodegradable/compostable in commercial composting environments. They are also ASTM D6400 Compliant, BPI Certified Compostable. And believe it or not we still make a profit. Now government buildings/offices are a totally different animal, big time waste and abuse of the environment. I won’t even get started on schools that have energy star rated windows and ventilation systems but waste more plastic shipping bands, plastic water bottles, paper, cardboard, the list is almost never ending. Side note, also the biggest user of the old school water cooler......

This makes me happy.

photo source