Off-Grid Lessons for an On-Grid Life

The following is a guest blog post I contributed to raisingthemgreen.com, a website devoted to helping to raise eco-conscious children.

I learned a lot from my year of living off the grid, but I learned even more from moving back to the mainstream. These days, on-grid with a husband, a two-year-old, and another baby on the way, I am faced with the same challenges as nearly all moms in America – most notably a severe lack of the free time I took for granted in Taos.

The question I ask myself most is how do I keep my commitment to green living when bombarded by ads for the copious convenience products – bad for the bank account, bad for the environment – that I can easily convince myself I need? More importantly, how can I teach my children the conservation lessons I learned when living off the grid?

I finally realized that the best thing any of us can do for our children is be a good example. Children learn from mimicking their role models, the most important of whom is their parents. Simply by continuing the low-impact-living habits I developed off the grid, I can teach my daughter and her sibling how to cherish the earth.

Sarah already knows to turn off the light when she leaves the room. She also knows to run water from the tap in a thin trickle, not full-blast, when washing her hands. When she is old enough to understand, we will articulate some more guidelines for other things she observes us putting into practice: only run the washing machine and dishwasher when they are full; wear your clothes more than once before declaring them dirty; recycle rather than discard; eat fresh food with a minimum of packaging; don’t go shopping unless you feel a pressing need for something, and stick to your list once you are in the store; play outside more and keep the TV off.

With the exception of the last one, the idea is to use fewer of the earth’s resources as a whole, rather than making a drastic change in any one area of our lives. But the last suggestion offers some important insight for keeping your ecological footprint to a minimum.

Television panders to our desire to buy things we don’t need. Unnecessary purchases not only deplete our bank balances, but they also have an environmental price tag. That’s because everything comes from the earth: every single item in Toys ‘R’ Us and Baby Gap began its life as part of the planet. Every time you make a purchase, you are consuming the raw materials that were extracted from the earth (sometimes at great environmental cost, such as habitat destruction) plus the energy it took to manufacture the item and transport it to the store where you bought it.

But when you turn the TV off, you cease to be influenced by the ads. You also remove yourself from the pressure to keep up with the fictional Joneses who inhabit your favorite shows. And when you send your kids outside to play instead (and possibly join them), you help instill in them a love for the natural world in all its wonder. There is no finer gift you can give them than that.

What Hath Man Wrought?

Starting in 1953, when Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay became the first people to summit Mount Everest, the world’s highest mountain was on its way to becoming the world’s highest garbage dump. Since that time, over four thousand climbers have followed, leaving behind fifty tons of trash, including empty oxygen bottles, discarded gear, wreckage of a helicopter, human waste, and an estimated 120 corpses. In the thin, dry air and freezing

temperatures, garbage simply does not decompose. To compound the problem, climate change is causing the glaciers to recede, uncovering trash from Hillary’s time that had been buried under the snow. It is ironic and tragic that in this remote region of the earth, inaccessible except to a miniscule fraction of the world’s population, trash has become a pressing problem. On both the Nepalese and Tibetan sides, there are ongoing annual expeditions whose goal is to remove the refuse left behind by climbers and trekkers. The Nepalese government recently required a substantial deposit in addition to climbing fees in order to compel tourists to pack out what they pack in so that the mountain sacred to the local people can remain a pristine symbol of the wonder that is the natural world.

What hath God wrought? The highest mountain in the world. What hath man wrought? The world’s highest garbage dump.

To see what kind of mess foreign trekkers and climbers have made of Mount Everest, go to extremeeverest.wordpress.com , the blog of one of the cleanup missions. On a related note, the late Sir Edmund Hillary set up the Himalayan Trust, a charity that benefits the Sherpas of Nepal. The trust’s website is www.himalayantrust.co.uk. 

A Thrifty Green Summer

In my previous, child-free life, summer was a time for intense playing. Maybe a trip overseas or across the country to a beach somewhere; definitely out of town every weekend. But now that we have to buy three airplane tickets and flying has become such a hassle, we are looking for other options. Besides, what is good for the bank account is good for the planet – in this case lessening the demand for jet fuel. We make a lot of decisions based on saving money, and it makes me feel good that they usually translate into conserving the earth’s resources as well.

This year I knew that if I wanted to feel good in the fall about How I Spent My Summer Vacation, I had to do some creative thinking up front. Whatever I came up with also had to address the question, “What is summer vacation for?”

The answer seems obvious: to decompress from the stress of daily living in the modern world. And if that’s the case, then it really doesn’t make sense to spend money we don’t have so we can stand in long security lines with a toddler, followed by desperately trying to get her to stay seated for several hours, only to disrupt her sleep schedule for a week before we fly home. It’s hardly an unstressful scenario.

What does make sense is coming up with low-cost, low-impact, low-stress ideas based on the Ten Essentials from last week’s post. You can do all of the following by staying at home, either on a week-long “staycation” or on a regular basis throughout the whole summer. Plus you will reap rewards far beyond those of a typical vacation, some that will stay with you for a long time.

• Develop a deeper connection to your natural surroundings. Take time to explore the parks, trails, waterways, and other undeveloped spaces where you live. You can do this by hiking, biking, picnicking, fishing, boating, bird watching, gardening, walking your dog, stargazing, camping, or anything else that interests you that can be done outdoors.
• Make creating or strengthening your spiritual practice the focus of your vacation. If you already go to church, become more involved. If you don’t go, start. If you prefer to meditate, chant, pray quietly by yourself, or read spiritual texts, make it a daily ritual. Maybe do some of it outside in Nature’s cathedrals.
• Use your vacation to show the people you love how much they mean to you. Call your grandparents. Take an interest in your children’s hobbies. Do something special for your spouse. Make yourself available to your friends. We all seem to get caught up in our busy lives: this summer slow down enough to appreciate all the people in your life who mean something to you.
• Ask yourself what hobby you have always wanted to pursue but have never had time for; then make time over the summer. Take an art class, join a singing group, learn to dance, make a quilt, recite your poetry at open mike night, audition for a play, build a birdhouse, take up tai chi, develop your cooking skills, try your hand at canoeing. Take a class or find other people with a similar interest. Whatever you choose to do, if you do it regularly for your vacation or the whole summer, it may become a habit you will continue afterward, or it may even turn into a new career.
• Grow some of your own food. Plant a garden, some container pots of tomatoes, or herbs on your windowsill. Learn how to keep bees or raise chickens. Or find the closest farmer’s market and buy fresh, wholesome food there every week. This is another way to deepen your connection to the earth, and you will eat more healthfully as well.
• Spend your vacation at home with no plans at all. It’s the ultimate low-stress, no-cost, environmentally-friendly option of all.