Sparrows in Spain: The story continues

By Laureen Fagan

Patrick Gillooly/MIT

Five years ago. I started my project five years ago. 

Back then, when I thought about how I'd someday detail this journey, I think I truly believed I'd be talking in “greenspeak.” You know, that jargony insider language we all use to talk with each other in hip greenspeak circles, but not so much with other people: Carbon sequestration, carbon footprints, carbon credits, carbon offsets. Food deserts and food insecurity and food miles and food co-ops. 

Permaculture and transition and resiliency. Heirloom seeds. Photovoltaic panels. Flexitarian diets. Crowdfunding. Multipliers. Small business. Small wind. Among my random personal favorites, the “artisan pizza” – OK, but seriously, I guess that means you made it yourself? Uh, yeah, I do that too.

Five years later, I find that I just want to talk with “ordinary” people about a sustainable future, and that I've come to believe, in the most sobering way, that achieving that collective future is more about who we are  than what we do. Or who we tell on Facebook about what we drive or buy or eat. 

The project wasn't a foundational departure for me. I believe in a simple, gentle, contemplative life. Mine is a minimalist aesthetic, reflected in my home and possessions. I just started quantifying it.

So, back in May 2007, I wanted to answer this question: What can one ordinary person do, primarily through routine behavioral choices, that makes a real difference today and in a sustainable future? And I didn't mean those fluent in greenspeak or affluent enough to show off shiny stuff to their friends.

I meant, and still do mean, people on food stamps who obviously won't be installing solar panels or shopping local boutiques anytime soon – people whose food budgets I've electively adopted as my own for what will be four years now, and whose SNAP numbers continue to grow in post-recession America. I mean middle-class Americans who might have bought a more efficient or even electric new car before 2008, but couldn't after the economic and credit crisis. Mine is the same average age as theirs: 11 years. I mean, people who can't pay both the electric and the water bill this month, and struggled with the same thing last month and last year. And who can't buy a tankless water heater or Energy Star dryer.

But I also mean, middle-income people who aren't especially health- or fitness-oriented, and people who aren't especially “progressive” by some definitions. People just a little put off by what they often see and hear as too "hippie granola," or the pontification of an elitist, overzealous and all-or-nothing “community” that's not especially moderate or inclusive and that creates barriers for them. People whose own roofs are underwater, who might be a little offended by all those cute green rooftops, and aren't inclined to coo over the novelty of a Tumbleweeds house.

There are lots and lots of them. And in this city, every time the same 60 people show up for Green Drinks and nod sagely as they talk to each other? It means there's still more than 100,000 somewhere in South Bend in silence.

Sure, I love those who do go. But a sustainable future has to engage us all, and encourage wider vision and ownership too. So that's why I'm really excited to see Energy Week 2012 happening. 

And that's why I've spent the last five years measuring what can happen in one South Bend home, on one South Bend street, mostly without spending a lot of money – even when I could have.

That's why I started using the programmable thermostat and counted heating/cooling degree days for year-over-year improvements, arriving at realistic yet energy-conscious settings (65/80+) that work for me.

Measured the before-and-after difference when I changed all the lightbulbs over. Unplugged an old freezer in the basement that, insanely, didn't even have a thing in it except for a single bag of ice leftover from a 2005 party. Never really thought about it as it ran and ran and ran .... Hung the clothes out to dry, always, even in winter. Used other appliances only if full or needed. 

Stopped watching TV when that old secondhand TV finally quit – and was surprised to see just how much electricity the set, VCR and cable box siphoned off when I'd never measured it.

Not to mention my time.

Don't miss TV. Bought a vacant lot and planted a community garden – lots of exercise, fresh air, friends and food grown just six houses away. Went to the library more. Sat on the front porch swing. Planted my late mother's rosebush, the one I gave her in 1978. Played with my adopted dogs more and discovered that thing I used to dash through, to the trash can in the alley and back through the gate? It's called “the back yard.”

Stopped driving if there was any reason at all that walking or biking was possible.

There usually is.

Started cooking absolutely everything myself, and enjoying it more, in a little kitchen where everything simply says: rice, raisins, wheat flour, oatmeal, lentils, honey, noodles – because rarely is anything premade or processed if you're trying to do food, as healthy and locally as possible, on a food-stamp level budget. 

Began to write down meat purchases, by weight and kind, whenever it comes home for dinner. And made it come home for dinner a whole lot, lot less. Figured that, if three people eating meat at the national average each reduced consumption by two-thirds, you've created two numerical “effective” vegetarians out of people who aren't inclined, by preference or habit, to actually be vegetarians and who still want some diet meat. But you have reduced demand, and the inputs and impacts that attach, as well as increasing the health benefits.

Composted pretty much everything one can. Got a garden rain barrel. Aimed successfully for always keeping home water usage at or below the city minimum billing. Kept all the second-hand furniture and clothes I always had to begin with, recycled and reused and repurposed stuff ...

... And on and on and on.

Five years ago, I thought I'd be showing you a blueprint of the changes I gradually made to take my modest home from below the DOE/EPA average to its current 9.5 EnergyStar assessment rating.

Five years ago, I thought I'd be telling you how instead of living like an “average American,” my carbon footprint is closer to that of an American homeless person. Or a resident of Spain, but not quite France.

I thought I'd be telling you that it's not really austerity, and I'm happier. That it's not really that hard – seriously, just unplug the freezer – or expensive, but it does take a deeper kind of commitment.

That would all be true. I am telling you that. But a commitment to what exactly?

The other night, I was looking at comparative graphics of various carbon footprint sizes. Individuals. Businesses. Communities. Nations. Commitments to each other, in little footie shapes.

I realized the numbers don't work unless we make our ethical and spiritual footprints smaller too.

In Jewish tradition, these are the holiest days. It's a time of self-reflection, the “Days of Awe” shaped by Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur, the time to focus on your own soul, your own choices and behaviors and relationships and values. It's a time to look holistically  and critically at your soul's footprint on this earth:

So, how do I calculate the meaningful cost of “food miles” if other-centered sharing isn't part of the equation?

Am I waiting for “green tech” to close the carbon emissions gap – without also responding with a deliberate life that pleads for my own definition of downsizing, where the contentment of enough replaces more?

Can I contemplate a future and define it as “sustainable” when so much divisiveness is what characterizes our public discourse, mean politics and economics and vitriolic intolerance of diversity? Is this a scenario in which it even matters if I routinely check my furnace filters and buy them locally? How is that meaningful, really?

I wondered, what difference does it make if I have the smallest carbon footprint in the room, but with every footfall I leave a smug crater of arrogance, entitlement or oh-so-erudite self-absorption? Or if you do?

What difference does it make if I cycle my shoes to the shelf, and I read Michael Pollan and Van Jones, Rob Hopkins and Carl Honore, Glaser and Lappe and Cortese – but I still talk down at, and fail to listen to, the 100,000 creative souls in my own town with ideas, experience, empowered strategies and simple solutions?

Do I always “know”? Am I the “mover and shaker” who thinks it's “my thing,” so my shoe must always fit best at the ball? My quieter elders, walking with canes and common sense, may be surprised and amused to discover that I've single-handedly invented the tomato, improved air quality, discovered the windmill and greatly washed the huddled yearning masses.

Do I trip on that Natural Step because my ideological shoe stepped on your toes, or your ego stepped on mine? Is your heel higher, or my steel-toe shape too different from yours? It should be. But Americans can be competitive, and “green” becomes just another competition of keeping up with the Mother Joneses and their jargon if our spiritual footprints aren't humble, and our souls open, curious, thoughtful and welcoming.

Can I really believe in a “sustainable” future when there's so little grace extended to those “haters” who disagree with us? For any reason, ever, about (and this would be a typical Facebook screenshot): Monsanto, Fighting Irish football, feral cats, Romney, Samoan fire swords, reproductive rights, proper grammar, ugly dogs, Chick-Fil-A, uglier dogs, Obama, taxes, Islam, pie and/or Leonard Cohen?

I want “sustainable” to mean that no one becomes demonized, evil or just fatally stupid, in just 140 characters (!) for daring to disagree. People are different. It's OK. Otherwise, really, what difference does it make that I run the ceiling fan in the correct direction or instead of running the AC?

That won't be sustainable. Not until our footprints are firm but gentle. Secure in their sense of place and identity. Sure there's more to stepping lightly than you'll see on carbonfootprintofnations.com

So I invite you to join me in my journey, as I continue to co-create a sustainable future that respects the metrics but moves beyond them. And watch for more ideas here at my new “Sparrows in Spain” website.