Sink or Swim: Sustainability by Necessity

Written By BC

Perhaps the biggest blockade to America’s own path towards sustainability is the fault of our country’s mainstream mentality: consumption without compensation, economy over environment, and the false notion that the United States of America is somehow immune to the global consequences of continued abuse of the world’s natural resources.
Creativity is often the child of necessity: when one has less, one simultaneously needs less and creates more with what little he or she has. In “the land of plenty,” however, the opposite phenomenon has occurred.
America’s own excess of material goods (the result of said stale mainstream mentality) has led its citizens to believe not only that the products that they buy and consume will never run out, but that the very wilderness that spawns every gadget, gismo and skyscraper under the sun – Mother Earth – is an inviolable and infinite resource as well.

Imagine a world where less actually was more – an isolated island somewhere, let’s say, blocked off from the majority of international trade and commerce. Due to the island’s necessity for self-reliance, its people quickly learned how to optimize their natural and manmade surroundings in the most practical, renewable and efficient ways possible.
Nothing was thrown away. Items merely changed hands, changing shape along the way. Simple improvements were sometimes made, but in many cases the old, original design turned out to be the best one. Life rolled on – less was more.
With this same approach, history managed to preserve itself. Instead of demolishing centuries of culture and architecture just to fill somebody’s pockets, the island merely let its buildings be. Year after year, the foundations remained solid and the roofs held out the rain. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right? Well, that one depends on whom you’re asking.

In the United States, the 40s and 50s were a classic period of automobile production. But, as is the American way, newer models came out, the masses were won over with the next big thing, and the only concern with those bygone clunkers was finding a landfill big enough to hold them all.
Suppose, then, that this hypothetical island had the fleeting opportunity to take on huge shipments of these abandoned vehicles for a fraction of their original cost. Being practical people with a good sense of value, the island’s harbors were soon overflowing with American cars. Some worked, others didn’t, but regardless of their condition, the people learned how to get them running – and keep them running to this day – through patience, persistence, and good old resourcefulness.

With little to no electronic distractions, the island’s art scene was thriving. In a magic ally, bathtubs were painted with profound, reusable words and inset on a cobblestone wall as an art installation; every century-old surface was smothered with thoughtful color; every doorway teemed with life; music filled the air.
And as all those American cars grew older, the more valuable they became…

Pack for a Purpose is a newly founded nonprofit organization dedicated to providing needed educational materials and simple medical supplies to children around the world in places without these everyday necessities. The organization was founded on the principal that every little bit helps, and all it takes to get involved is to reserve a small amount of space in your luggage for supplies when packing for a trip abroad.

The concept is simple. Pack for a Purpose recently launched a Web site, www.packforapurpose.org, which lists the location and contact information for lodgings and sites around the world that already sponsor or support legitimate educational and medical community projects for children in need. A contact person at each listed location has submitted some of their specific needs to the Web site based on the types of projects they sponsor.

All travelers need to do is visit the site, find a listing for a location near their destination for an upcoming vacation, honeymoon or business trip, and bring a few pounds of the requested supplies in their luggage to drop off when they arrive. Each listing on the Pack for a Purpose Web site has been notified about the program, has agreed to participate, and will eagerly welcome all contributions from travelers.

“Just five pounds of supplies can be as much as 400 pencils or five deflated soccer balls,” said Rebecca Rothney, a former North Carolina school teacher turned entrepreneur who founded Pack for a Purpose along with her husband, Scott, and several friends. “The first time we packed our suitcase with supplies, we visited a local school in Botswana and the kids were playing soccer with a ball of rags tied together with string. It’s startling to see just how little some schools and clinics have to work with,” she said.

“We can all find a little space in our luggage for a small bag of supplies and if enough people make small contributions, we have the potential to make an enormous positive impact. While crayons, Band-Aids and similar items are very simple things that most Americans take for granted, many people in the places where we have travelled just don’t have them. We can help fix that one traveler, one trip and one donation at a time,” Rothney added.

Prior to founding Pack for a Purpose, the Rothneys had already been taking supplies with them on several different trips to Africa. The idea to start the organization came to Rothney while talking to her travel agent regarding a trip to Kenya in 2008. She asked the agent why his other safari clients did not also use some of their luggage allowance for taking supplies, and the agent’s answer was her “aha” moment – “Because nobody thinks about it.”

Rothney replied to her travel agent, “Then I need to provide some way to make it a little easier for them to think about it.” From that conversation, Pack for a Purpose was born.

One of the first contacts Rothney established for the program was Michelle Puddu of Wilderness Safaris in South Africa. Rothney and her husband had personally worked with Puddu to bring many hundreds of pounds of school supplies to South Africa and Botswana over the course of several trips.

“The idea is a brilliant one – it costs almost nothing on the part of the donor, just a great deal of kindness and a small amount of effort,” Puddu said. “Rebecca has proven on several trips how so very little can affect those who desperately need assistance to improve their lives. This is the type of goodwill that nobody really thinks about, but makes a big difference.”

Pack for a Purpose has identified 75 locations where travelers can drop off donations in popular tourist destinations across Africa, Central America, South America, Asia, and the Caribbean. The goal of the organization is to identify all appropriate locations on every continent and in every country where vacation travelers are already going and can make a difference. To facilitate this, visitors to the Pack for a Purpose Web site can go to the contact page and submit an appropriate location for consideration, which will be investigated and verified before being posted.

“As word spreads and more travelers participate, we have the potential to deliver several tons of needed supplies each year directly to the people who need them,” Rothney said. “Everyone wants to make a difference–vacation travelers, honeymooners and business travelers–and Pack for a Purpose was created to make it easy to contribute in a simple, but meaningful way.”

For more information about Pack for a Purpose, travel locations, lists of needed supplies and other ways to get involved, visit www.packforapurpose.org or email packforapurpose@gmail.com.

By Scott Martelle via LA TIMES

Our mission — beyond celebrating our 22nd wedding anniversary — was to spend a weekend in San Diego in as eco-friendly a manner as we could, given two realities. One: Southern California’s transportation system was designed by car salesmen. Two: We’re really cheap.

Both realities landed the trip in the “nice try” category, and I’m sure there’s a polar bear somewhere grousing about us. The experience also revealed a frustrating reality about trying to plan an eco-friendly weekend getaway: It’s expensive, the kind of disincentive that suggests “eco-friendly travel” may still be more marketing gimmick than a trend that will do the world some good.

My wife, Margaret, and I live in Irvine, on Amtrak’s Surfliner route, which we chose on a recent Friday instead of driving the 85 miles to downtown San Diego. With a AAA discount, the two round-trip tickets cost $75.60. Our car gets about 22 miles per gallon, which would’ve meant a gas tab of about $30 at the time we took the 190-mile round trip. (It would be even cheaper now.) Advantage: driving.

But then, if we had driven, we would have missed some of the prettiest stretches of beach and ocean on the West Coast, between Dana Point and Oceanside, where the train track crowns a bluff above surfer-specked breakers. Advantage: train.

In planning the trip, we looked into several hotels, hoping to find one that was eco-conscious but didn’t have room rates set for a chief executive’s budget. Not much luck.

The best we could find was Kimpton’s Hotel Solamar, near the Gaslamp Quarter, that touts its use of environmentally friendly cleaning supplies; soy-based inks and recycled paper; in-room recycling separation; and even a parking discount for hybrids.

But with rates beginning at $240 a night, we looked elsewhere and wound up at the Holiday Inn downtown, which edges up against Interstate 5 well north of downtown. The rates began at $144 a night for a 15th-floor room with a great view of the bay and harborside airport.

Unfortunately, the hotel didn’t do as well on the environmental checklist. The room had eco-friendly fluorescent lights — which benefit the hotel’s electric bill as much as the environment — but didn’t offer even the usual option of reusing our towels. And the old-style in-room air conditioner had to be a drain on the power grid. (The only window that opened didn’t let enough of the ocean breeze in to counter the hotel’s stuffiness.)

The selling point was the proximity: four blocks to a stop on the city’s trolley system, one of San Diego’s many lovely gems, even if it isn’t without its flaws. The system, for instance, doesn’t connect with the airport, which is close enough to downtown that you swear the landing planes will clip a roof. And it doesn’t connect to Balboa Park, one of the city’s tourist magnets with its array of museums and the San Diego Zoo, or to SeaWorld, another top destination.

But the trolley gets to enough places to make it well worth the $9 for a two-day pass.

So with our base set up, we decided to take a walk — eight blocks down to the harbor front, then a long, curling stroll past the Star of India sailing ship, the Midway aircraft carrier and on through Seaport Village, the obligatory cluster of waterside gift shops and theme restaurants.

As we veered back inland near the Manchester Grand Hyatt, we spotted a sign for the Top of the Hyatt lounge, slipped inside, found the elevator (mass transit, good) and zipped to the 40th floor. My wife doesn’t like heights. OK, she’s paralyzed by them and will drive four days cross-country rather than fly five hours. (How big a carbon footprint is that?)

After a little consoling and a promise of an Amstel Light, we settled into a window seat and, once she stopped shaking, we spent half an hour watching over the harbor and a ribbon of ocean beyond the Point Loma peninsula that helps form the famous bay.

Refreshed, we sliced through the Gaslamp Quarter then on up 5th Avenue to C Street and the trolley, which we rode back to Little Italy, a place we hadn’t explored in earlier visits.

We hadn’t been missing much — it’s just a few blocks of Italian-themed restaurants and, incongruously enough, a sushi joint and a British pub, the Princess Pub & Grille, which was part bar and part museum to the late Princess Di.

After a pint there we moved on to Zagarella, an Italian restaurant with a back patio and a better-than-expected meal of bruschetta, grilled shrimp over a bed of string French fries topped by marinara sauce.

Saturday was open. We decided to hop the Blue Line and make for the border — the end of the line at San Ysidro — just to see what we could see.

Answer: not much. Think gated windows rather than gated communities, with the occasional war ship in dry dock as the trolley rumbled south through National City. We didn’t cross into Tijuana so we turned around and took the trolley back north.

After a nap, we headed out for Petco Park, one of my favorite places to see a game — even when you don’t care which team wins (as a Baltimore Orioles fan, my serious baseball watching ends in June, along with the team’s playoff hopes). It was a good night for the home team — the Padres walloped the Philadelphia Phillies, 8-3, although, as we now know, the Phillies went on to win the World Series.

Then it was back to the trolley and the hotel for the last night before heading home, happy that we at least were able to use mass transit for our little eco-friendly getaway, and wondering about a society determined to use baby steps to solve a giant-step problem.

Martelle, a freelance writer, is the author of “Blood Passion: The Ludlow Massacre and Class War in the American West.”

Image Source: nathinsandiego

By Kimberly Via Go Green Travel Green

With going green on the rise, cities across the world are attempting to become more sustainable. That’s great news for the green traveler because it means your options are constantly expanding. But it’s not always easy to tell if a city is really cleaning up its act, or if it’s just for show.

Here are 7 things to consider when choosing a green travel destination.

1. Check Public Transportation Options

If your destination is a city that you’ll want to explore extensively, make sure there is a good public transportation system so you won’t have to take cabs or rent a car. Most cities have decent websites about their public transportation systems. You can also check travel forums and talk to other travelers who have been where you’re going. Better yet, rent a bike and use it as your primary means of transportation.
2. Look for Greener Accommodations

Choosing a low-impact place to stay is not only greener, it’s often less expensive. If the weather is nice, look for camping options. Otherwise, make sure there are hostels. If you’re looking at hotels, research the country’s hotel energy/environmental standards, then find a hotel that meets those guidelines. For more info check out Finding Environmentally Friendly Hotels through Green Accreditation Directories.
3. Scope Out the Area for Green Space

Are there nice parks in the town, or at least within walking or biking distance? What about lakes and hiking trails? There’s nothing better than waking up in the morning and walking out the hostel door onto a hiking trail. Of course, that’s not easy to do in all places. But if you love the outdoors, make sure your destination has options for green recreation.

bikes-on-beach-netherlands.jpg

photo credit: celesteh
4. Think About Walkability

Will you be able to walk from your hostel to restaurants and entertainment? If the town is spread out, see if there’s a concentration of places you want to see, then book a hostel near those places to make your trip more walkable. Walking is one of the easiest ways to reduce your impact.
5. Look at Chains Versus Local Business and Restaurants

Are there a number of local businesses you could visit? Or is the city overrun with McDonald’s and KFCs? Going to local grocery stores and restaurants is one of the easiest ways to immerse yourself in local culture. And part of the fun of traveling is experience new things, which is hard to do if you stick to what you know and what’s available back home.
6. Check Out the City’s Recycling Policy

With all of the plastic building up in landfills across the world, a solid recycling policy is increasingly urgent. Even some small towns and villages recycle, so pick a destination that has a policy in place. If you really want to visit a place that doesn’t recycle, avoid buying plastic and other recyclables while you’re there; stick to reusable items instead.
7. Decide if You’ll Really Get to Experience the Culture

A big part of being a green traveler is striving to understand different people, cultures, and history. On the surface, it seems that traveling inherently facilitates cultural understanding. In reality, it’s far too easy to live in a bubble, even when you’re traveling. See if your destination is one that seems to exist exclusively to cater to tourists. If it is, pass it up and look for something that will get you out of your comfort zone and into the culture of your destination.

What else do you consider when you’re deciding on a green travel destination?

Image source: Celesteh

So many of us are getting in our cars or hopping on planes for this year’s holidays, I couldn’t help but think that posting an article about green travel would be appropriate.

Via Kimpton
Before You Leave Home

Try packing light. Every additional 10 pounds per traveler requires an additional 350 million gallons of jet fuel per year
Pack a reusable water bottle that you can refill to reduce waste and cost
Turn your water heater to “vacation” or lowest setting
Turn off AC/heat or adjust the thermostat to protect plants, etc.
Turn water off at outside connection (to prevent flooding should a pipe break while you’re gone). When you return, turn on the water slowly and check for problems
Appliances, such as TVs and cable converter boxes, should be unplugged because they can draw or “leak” as much as 40 watts per hour even when they’re off
Turn your icemaker to the “off” position by lifting the wire. This can prevent flooding should it break while you’re away

During Your Trip

Take a shuttle bus or public transportation from the airport to your hotel. If you’re traveling to a major city, take a walk or bike to your appointments, shopping, and local attractions
Rent a hybrid or natural gas vehicle. Many car rental agencies offer alternative fuel vehicles

Image source: Tawaintiger