Diary of the Sustainability-Challenged: Entry One - Riding the Bus

Last week I rode the bus to work for the first time. You might not think that’s a big deal but trust me. After the Global Footprint Network released its new report about how humans are overdrawing Earth’s resources, I decided to do more to reduce my own personal impact.

So, I decided to try riding Sun Trans to work one day a week.

I filled my back pack with jacket, book, bus fare, transit map and cell phone. To be honest, I was scared…scared of looking foolish, ending up in the far reaches of Pima County …being mugged. You would have thought I was riding in a third world country.

It had been only two months since I left a love-hate relationship with a composted toilet on a writer’s residency. Like I said, this story is no Walden. I learned I have an alter ego. I named her Priscilla.

Her response to living a more ecologically responsible life is a defiant “Not me, Girl Friend!” I am ashamed of her. She’s a manifestation of life-long exposure to American advertising about the Good Life.

As I prepared to ride one morning, she made fun of me: “Right. You’re going to impact global warming. Give me a break!” she hissed. I ignored her.

Diary Entry
Okay, just got off the bus. One of the neat things is the first guy I met at the bus stop actually worked at the Food Bank! His name is Bob and he was so sweet. He explained the nuances of riding the bus around town.

Where I pick up the No. 11 bus on Alvernon, I can get coffee and a newspaper. But you can buy one on the bus, I learned. The bus was clean and took only fifteen minutes to get to Ajo Way.

Across the street from where it dropped me off is the Ajo Cafe, one of my favorite places to eat breakfast. If I leave earlier, I can eat breakfast before work. How civilized is that?

Later at home: From the Food Bank, walking to the bus stop, riding to Alvernon, walking home and conversing with a neighbor, I am home in less than an hour.

The bus ride was pleasant. I noticed the driver knew many of the regulars. As they chatted I enjoyed listening and even joined in on one of the conversations.

This was an amazing awakening for me: that this has been near my home for so long and I never tried it. If I examine truthfully why I never tried it before, I’ll admit there is a stigma about riding the bus that kept the Priscilla part of me from choosing the bus as an option. Based on my first experience, I want to ride the bus MORE! Pricilla is busy planning her public transportation wardrobe and, for now, the two of us are at peace.

How to ride the bus: http://www.suntran.com/
Measure your resource footprint: http://www.footprintnetwork.org/

Human Tracks

This week the WWF Network and Global Footprint Network released a new report on the human ecological footprint. It shows that by 2050 humanity will demand twice as much as our planet can provide.

The sixth in a series of Living Planet Reports by the WWF, this report shows an annual increase of 4% demand for resources by the human species and states that by 2006 we will overshoot what the Earth can supply by 30%.

From 1970 to 2003 vertebrate species populations have declined by about one-third.

We have reached a point in our relationship with the Earth that our demands exceed the Earth's capacity to renew itself. That means that we have violated a sacred aspect of our planet - its renewing processes that keep the potential for life a reality.

What are the renewing processes? They are fundamental processes such as the water cycle, turn-over of matter, temperature regulation, and ecosystem dynamics like population control and biodiversity richness.

The Global Footprint Network is an international NGO working to make ecological limits central to decision making. See: www.footprintnetwork.org. Especially look at the Advisory Board and Staff. You will find leaders the world over are part of the network.

Then take your own footprint. I was shocked to learn that my footprint, even after adjusting to the least impact I can make, is 19 hectares! One hectare is 100 acres.) The Earth can provide 4 hectares per person at our current population.

Stay tuned to Composted Blog as I start riding the bus to work, and find out what a renter can do to influence a landlord to incorporate energy saving appliances and solar technology.

Take your footprint and share the site with family and friends.

Sobered.

Susan

My writing residency completed, I visited Bosque del Apache on the return trip home. I drove to the wetlands after a hearty breakfast, arriving on the Bosque by 5:30 a.m.

A glorious sunrise, announced by the trumpet of an elk and quavering voices of waterfowl waking on the glassy surface of the water, played in nature's symphony. I rolled down the window of my car to listen.

To think that there are still places on Earth where mornings dawn in this manner. My car's entrance probably ruined some duck's morning; I tried to be as unobstrusive as possible, grateful to join the community of life there even if I was uninvited.

Bosque del Apache is home to thousands of Canadian geese and sandhill cranes that overwinter on the fields and wetlands in south central New Mexico. In October, right now probably, the Rio Grande waters begin filling otherwise grasscovered mesas, a watershed now managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to mimic historical flows along the Rio Grande. There were already small flocks of geese swooping over the permanent lagoon. That is where I headed about 6:30 when the sun was overhead.

Here is my biodiversity list for that glorious morning, the only human being on the lagoon for hours: Golden Eagle; King Fisher; Pheasant; Western Grebe; American Coot; Purple Martin; Barn Swift; Woodpecker; White Crowned Sparrow; Great White Pelican;Turkey Vulture; Canadian geese; elk; cottonwood, willow, scrub oak; millet, smartweed, chufa (nut sedge), three-square bulrush grasses. Canadian geese like to nibble on the the bulrush and sandhilll cranes fatten up on chufa nuts.

I made reservations to return the weekend of November 16 when the Sandhill Crane Festival takes place. All humanity shows up, but at least we are outnumbered by literally hundreds of thousands of the North American birds! And, they attract predators like the coyote that hunts in packs on delicious fowl - all a wiley coyote can manage. Normally gaunt and scavenger of trashy morsels, the coyote on the Bosque are plumb with thick tawny fur. Life is full here in the late fall when the winged ones come to visit.

Frank Waters and his lovely wife Barbara are often on my mind these days. The Frank Waters Foundation is an island in the turbulent sea of modernity. I will always remember my time in the little studio on El Salto Road by the aspen grove, the surrounding countryside, a veritable cornucopia of fruit, berries and wildflowers blazing their last opulence before the mountain cold robs the vine.

Bears came down the mountain to visit Barbara's apricot and apple trees...and trash can. I never saw one personally, but their tracks were around. On my way home on highway 191 traveling south through Arizona's alpine forests, a large brown bear met me, zigzagging up the medium in what looked like a grand frolick, his thick fur rippling down his large back in the morning sun. We passed each other with a brief glance.

Apparently all is well in some part's of God's country.