Link: Future Vision

[sonia]

Future Vision by sushux, a hopeful three-page comic about climate change and getting ready for an oil-free future.

via conuly

I'm doing what I can. I haven't owned a car since 2002. I get around mostly by bike, occasionally by transit or a ride from someone. I do my best to reduce, reuse, repair, recycle. I don't know if we're collectively gonna make it, but I might as well live according to my values along the way.

On a "repair" side-note, I've been taking clothes to be altered, mostly to replace or add waist elastic, and to shorten tights, where I don't want to deal with zig-zag stitching to keep them stretchy. I've always thought of it as making the item cost more, but really it's like getting a whole new wardrobe (that fits!) for not nearly as much as buying new clothes, if I could even find clothes that fit me in the waist and are the right length.

Plus I'm helping keep the alterations shop in business. I like the Hmong woman who runs it. I think a lot about supporting local businesses and getting local food at the farmer's market and weaving stronger community with my dollars.

How are you dealing with climate change? Are you ignoring it? Adapting in some ways? Doing your bit to help fight it?

Comments

[rosefox]

I like that comic a lot. I do tend to despair and it helps to remember that there is that work/community middle ground between personal and national/global.

In NYC it's so easy to be carless and take transit that I don't even think of it as a thing I do for the environment. It's just a natural state here. But I haven't been on an airplane for seven years, and I'm not looking to get on one anytime soon. I love travel and I miss seeing other places, but we take trains for most of our vacations (sometimes with a car at the far end) and it works fine. J and I would never have discovered Alexandria if we hadn't gone into our vacation planning thinking "What's a cool place to go along the D.C.–Boston rail corridor?", and our memories of that trip brighten us up at least a couple of times a month. The only time we drive the whole way is for Readercon, because gear for four people for a week, with only one fully able-bodied strong person among the four, is more than we can haul on the train.

I am very serious about reusable bags, water bottles, and hot and cold cups. What I need is a solution for carrying my used hot chocolate cup in my backpack. I got a supposedly waterproof bag from an Etsy seller but it leaked. :/ If I leave my shopping bag at home, I stuff things in my pockets or carry them by hand if possible, to remind myself to bring it next time. The other day a friend whipped out a portable silverware set and that might be my next purchase.

I hate all the reusable straw options, and Kit needs soft bendy straws that aren't destroyed by chewing. I was so thrilled to find a bendy silicone straw at Stimtastic that's designed to be chewed on! I just ordered one and I hope it becomes a regular part of our gear bag.

I am not looking forward to the end of natural gas because cooking on an electric stove is so inferior to cooking on a gas stove. But I did it for a few years in California (no gas lines in earthquake country) and I survived, I guess. We do use our electric pressure cooker and toaster oven a lot, which significantly cuts our use of the gas oven and stove. I'm gradually converting all our stew and soup recipes to use the pressure cooker.

We did a farmshare for a while, and we shop at the farmer's market a lot. When I'm buying fruit in the store, I try to get it from within the U.S. and ideally from within the region.

On the work/community front, I supported Readercon moving to a more transit-accessible hotel (it's possible for people to do it carless now!). And when I started at PW all the way back when, I was shocked to learn that we recycled finished books as well as review copies, so I arranged for a local charity bookstore to pick up the finished books from us instead. It's a tax write-off for us, and countless thousands of books have been saved and sold to people who will read them. Thanks for the reminder that those are actually pretty large-scale things that were achievable without a lot of effort—just the right people nudging in the right direction.

[sonia]

Yay for all the ways you're living in a sustainable way! And also the things you've done with a larger impact.

I hadn't thought about an end to natural gas. I had a gas stove in Oakland, CA (1920's building) and I have one here in Portland. You're right, cooking with electric is harder. I'll enjoy it while I have it!

[rosefox]

I always think of myself as not doing very much! Thanks for the opportunity to write it all out and see that I do a fair bit. :)

[yatima]

Solar panels on new house (which is a 1908 Queen Anne we've restored with good insulation and radiant floor). After we move, when the Prius needs to be retired, I'll replace it with an all-electric. That's mostly for going to the barn, which isn't served by public transit. I catch the train to work - on the days I go in; I'm working from home about three days a week right now.

We have a large cache of reusable bags. I'm trying to shop more bulk food to generate less waste. There's a good farmer's market in our neighborhood and great local grocery stores. We already compost and recycle, but I'll have a worm farm and vegetable garden in the new place.

I'm cutting right down to a capsule wardrobe of well-made basics, which reminds me, time to take one of my favorite pairs of boots to be repaired.

[yatima]

Oh and I guess I missed the big one, which is that I'm working at Autodesk (maker of software for architecture and engineering) in the hopes of nudging construction and manufacturing towards sustainability.

[sonia]

That all sounds great! Best wishes for nudging at Autodesk! Your new house sounds fabulous.

I keep thinking about solar panels, but it's a big investment, and my house faces the wrong way and is shaded by a bunch of trees. Someday!

[silveradept]

Not ignoring it as such, but much of the infrastructure needed to dent the use of carbon fuels isn't here. Power generation is moving to a lot of wind and water, which is good, but mass transit is spectacularly bad unless you live in the downtown of a major metropolitan area, or are moving between those downtowns along a rail or bus route. And while I could potentially improve my own carbon emissions by purchasing an all-electric and the infrastructure for it for my house, that requires money I don't have and probably won't be able to amass for a very long time.

In a better world, I would be able to see family for the holidays not through air travel, but by taking a bullet train from one hub to another, and eventually having the last part of the journey done by car, if needed. So, it's not head-in-the-sand ignorance as much as it is not feeling like I can do much more than put the recycling out every other week and try to use energy wisely.

[sonia]

Sounds like you're doing what you can!