Two news stories...

this morning. One so upsetting I could barely leave the house. I nearly stayed curled up on the sofa all day. But the second got me off the sofa and out the door.

1) this year's red list is out.
32% of amphibians threatened or extinct.
Between 21 and 36% of mammals threatened with extinction.
38% of the world's species, overall, are threatened with extinction. That's
more than one out of every three species.
Welcome to the second largest mass extinction in the history of the planet, so
far. Just so you know, the trend is negative. It's going to get worse.

2) Google's Clean Energy 2030 proposal. Google has spent the last dozen years or so gathering up the smartest problem-solvers on the planet, and putting them all in the same place. Go, google, go.

I've done my part three of Google's five Clean Energy targets.

"We can achieve these results in 2030 by:

• Deploying aggressive end-use electrical energy efficiency measures to reduce demand 33%.
• Baseline EIA demand is projected to increase 25% by 2030. In addition, the increase in plug-in vehicles (see below) increases electricity demand another 8%. Thus, our efficiency reductions keep demand flat at the 2008 level."

We've reduced electricity demand at our house by 66%!

• "Replacing all coal and oil electricity generation, and about half of that from natural gas, with renewable electricity:
• 380 gigawatts (GW) wind: 300 GW onshore + 80 GW offshore
• 250 GW solar: 170 GW photovoltaic (PV) + 80 GW concentrating solar power (CSP)
• 80 GW geothermal: 15 GW conventional + 65 GW enhanced geothermal systems (EGS)"

Through Rocky Mountain Power's Blue Skies Initiative, we get ALL of our electricity (and some of our neighbors' too) from wind power. Yes, we pay a premium. Ok.

• "Increasing plug-in vehicles (hybrids & pure electrics) to 90% of new car sales in 2030, reaching 42% of the total US fleet that year"

Oops, no, not this one. Plug-in conversion not available for our year Prius. But if it WAS available, we'd do it. Someone convert the 2001 model, please!

• "Increasing new conventional vehicle fuel efficiency from 31 to 45 mpg in 2030"

We get 48.6 mpg on average in our 2001 Prius. See preceding bullet point.

• "Accelerating the turnover of the vehicle fleet from 19 to 13 years (resulting in 25 million new vehicle sales per year in 2030, a 31% increase over the baseline)"

If someone would sell me an electric car for less than $25K, I would buy it.

I'm ready for 2030. I did my part, twice over! I'm 66% more efficient! Now build me a plug-in for my Prius, or an electric car. I'll buy it tomorrow. I promise! Let's 'git 'er done', as they say around here. Time's a wastin'.

La cucaracha...

So yesterday, I made a huge pot of spaghetti, so I can have lots of leftovers this week. It's not that I'm saving time, but I'm trying to starve out the cockroaches, and making one big meal all at once (and then packaging it tightly and storing it in the refrigerator), means that I can use fewer pans, etc. during the busy part of the week. This means I'm less likely to leave any drips or crumbs for the nasty little pests.

I've seen five of them now. Three in the bathtub, one in the drain of the kitchen sink, and one on the bathroom floor. I seem to have inherited a thriving colony of all the various breeds from the prior tenant. Sigh. It's not that I'm not a generally clean person in the kitchen, it's just that I hate having to do the dishes IMMEDIATELY, EVERY TIME. It's tedious to not be able to leave your afternoon tea mug in the sink until dinnertime. It's also tedious to have to think so hard about how you store all your food. Roaches love paper and cardboard and glue---hence, I'm working to eliminate those from cabinets. What a pain, since lots of dry goods come packaged in boxes. And, of course, it's tedious to have to dry everything right away, including the dishes, the sink, the bathtub, the bathroom sink. Roaches need to get water every single day, so one of the best ways to get rid of them is to remove all possible water sources.

I'm hoping that when it gets cold, the roaches will decide to move into the neighbors' houses, which will almost certainly be much warmer than mine. (This is hope in the true sense of the word---I don't think this is really going to happen),

The next step is moving to active measures (like boric acid, aka Borax, or the combination of baking soda and powdered sugar that blows them up when they eat it---fun!). If they are coming in through the drains, I can keep them out mechanically, with plugs. But if they are coming in through the walls or floors (more likely, frankly), then I will have to step things up.

I had a lizard in the living room. But that didn't bother me. I tried to catch him to look at him more closely, but he ran out the door before I could get 'im.

A flock of quail live in the field next door, and I've seen two roadrunners! I also saw an enormous (maybe 4 feet long) green snake in the middle of the road. It was very dead. There's some crazy bird that makes the most astonishing noises just after the sun goes down, but I haven't seen it yet, so I don't know what it is!

Car-Free Challenge: Socorro

Week 1:

Most work days are easy. I can walk to work from home. If people are going out to lunch (a common thing around here!), they are usually carpooling anyway, so I just jump in with one of the others. Since I'm only here visiting, they are very kind about me not 'taking my turn' with the driving.

I DID have to get furniture this week, but I went to Aaron's furniture rental, rather than buying some, and they delivered it to me!

Weekends are a little more challenging, because there are so many errands to run! Saturday morning, I rode my bike to take myself out to breakfast at the local coffee shop, then hit the farmer's market. I filled my bike bag with produce and local honey, and found a gift for Trisha, who's caring for Trinket back home. I biked back home to drop all that off, and then loaded up my backpack with dirty laundry, and walked to the laundromat. Did my laundry, walked back home. By then, the wind had picked up, it was spitting rain, and there were tornado warnings around the state. So I used my 'new' couch for the rest of the day, reading and listening to music!

Sunday morning, I rode my bike down to the Obama headquarters, to sign up as a volunteer. Then I headed over to the locally owned market to pick up lightbulbs, a new kitchen sponge, etc. Back home to drop all that off. Out on the bike again to the bike shop to pick up a pump (I forgot to bring one), and a bigger bike bag. ; ) By then, I had changed my mind about dinner, so I stopped at the Smith's (chain grocery) to pick up a couple of rolls to go with my spaghetti. I was back at the house by 2 pm, which was plenty of time to use the couch some more!

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle...

What a beautiful book by Barbara Kingsolver. She's a lovely writer, with a turn of phrase that often surprises the tears lurking in the corners of your eyes. But in this book, she's done an amazing job of bringing everything that's wrong in our food supply down to earth and close to home.

Lots to think about in there.

Away in New Mexico... a top-ten list.

For the next six months, until the end of March, I'm on leave in Socorro, NM. This means that John (poor guy!) is holding down the fort at home, and I'm living in a very small A-frame house. Our numbers will suffer, no doubt, as we inhabit two different homes for the interim.

But, while I'm here, I'll continue to blog about what I'm doing right here, in this spot, to try to reduce my carbon footprint. Here's my top ten list, as of today.

1) I don't have a car. At all. Socorro is all of five miles in diameter, and most people here are horrified. I suspect they are trying to figure out how I'm going to keep from going stir crazy! But there's work, a library, a small University, a movie theater, about 20 restaurants, a grocery store and a laundromat, all within a 1-mile radius. We'll see how it goes! Maybe they are right. But maybe they aren't!

2) I have rented furniture for my stay. This will go back to the rental place, and move on to someone else after I've used it. While I did not consider things like the source of the wood in the furniture, etc., when I rented it, I did rent from a reputable company, that builds long-lasting furniture. Given that the options are severely limited by my car-free status, this is a pretty good solution!

3) I am continuing my mostly-meatless lifestyle, except for breakfast burritos from the burrito lady (more about her in a moment), and occasionally on Thursday lunch. This is the CASA lunch day, when the whole group goes somewhere for lunch. If there is a meatless option, I will most likely order it. However, I will not ask the group to bend to my will on this. Wherever everyone wants to go is great. Hopefully, over the course of the 6 months, we will visit every hole-in-the-wall Mexican place in town! I DO want to cover the full range of excitement in local Mexican flavors, so will be open to all kinds of things I would not ordinarily make at home.

4) One of the big reasons that I'm concerned about the environment is that I'm concerned about social justice. It's unfair that the poor should have to bear so much of the burden of the lifestyle of the rich. This is shockingly apparent in New Mexico, where the dividing line between rich and poor is not so much a line as a canyon. A grand canyon. So I feel there's a balancing act between reducing carbon footprint, and participating in the life of the town.

Let me give an example. Here at the AOC, there's a woman who comes every morning at 8 am to sell handmade burritos. Most of these burritos contain identifiable meat. All, probably, contain lard, at least in the tortillas. Most of the ingredients are not organic. But most of the ingredients are local. The labor is local. The money I exchange for these burritos stays in the local economy, and helps this enterprising woman feed her children, care for her parents, and gain independence. Am I simply finding justification for what I want to do anyway (eat luscious burritos)? Or is there really a balance to be struck here? I don't think I'm rationalizing. I don't think...

5) Socorro has a farmer's market twice a week (Tuesday at 5 pm and Saturday at 8 am). I plan to go tomorrow, and report on what I find!

6) I have no television or internet service at the house, although I can load tv shows and audiobooks from iTunes onto my laptop and iPhone at work or at the library. I'll be interested to see the bill when it comes! The radio keeps me company, although KUER is a WAY better public radio station than KUNM and I miss it.

7) I bought some potted herbs to grow in the window. But then I also bought some fish for company. Their little tank filter runs 24/7. These two things probably more or less cancel each other out... But I'll look for more things to grow over the next few weeks.

8) I have not turned on the air conditioner (swamp cooler, actually) since I got here, even though a couple of days have been quite warm in the house. But it's New Mexico. As soon as the sun goes behind the mountain, the temperature drops 20 degrees, and I open the doors and windows and all the air swaps out of the tiny house in about ten minutes. Judicious use of blinds helps out a lot. I'm not sure I can take any credit for not using the swamp cooler. But the people in the other three A-frames are using theirs, so maybe I can.

9) Water. Oy. This is a place where water really, really matters. So I have set up a minimal water use dishwashing plan, dropped my showers to one every three days (we'll see how that goes---it's dry, but maybe not that dry!), and started measuring out the water BEFORE I boil it for tea. (I'm not sure why I don't always do that, come to think of it!) But there will be more to be done, I'm sure. I kind of felt bad about the fish, but they will use the same water for a long time! The nice thing is I'm paying my own utilities, so I can keep track.

10) I plan to leave the house better than I found it. That won't be hard, even if I only wash the floor. ; ) But there are lots of obvious, cheap, easy fixes that will go a long way to weather-proofing the house. A little caulk here, a little spray insulation there, and the next tenant will be more comfortable, and spend fewer emissions, without even having to think about it.

There will be more, I'm sure.