Karen's Low Impact Goals, Day 9

My four goals are:
1. I want to use my paper recycle more effectively, and keep old paper to use later.
2. I want to reduce the amount of pages that I print and that I use for homework.
3. I will try to put my computer in sleep mode whenever I am not using it.
4. I will try to work a little in the garden daily, and move towards leftovers or unprocessed foods rather than things from a box for snacks.

On the last day of the challenge, I have just escaped from the bug ridden tomato bed. It might be cool and drizzling, but the insects are still swarming. I planted four tomato plants today, trying to spread them out with enough space between them and all the other plants. I have found through this challenge that I enjoy working out in the garden, especially when I have something particularly productive to do, like planting tomatoes, or cucumbers, or beans. I sort of hope that even though the challenge is over I will continue to help out in the garden a little. I really need these kinds of challenges every day, not just for a specific project, because being out in nature helps me to de-stress. Because of this, gardening a little every day, so as to eventually eat less processed foods and become more sustainable without use of the supermarket, was my favorite challenge. I think that there is really a link between peace and working sustainably with the earth. The act of educating children with nature, for example, so as to help motivate them and balance them throughout life, is in itself a way that humans are acting as the earth's tenders. What gives us joy is helpful for the earth, because it reduces the amount of fossil fuels emitted from packaging and transporting store bought food, and also because it is nurturing the land. This is part of what I discovered by trying to garden a little every day, which is not something that I previously had thought of myself doing.

My other challenges, to reduce my paper use, not print out as much, and use my paper recycle more effectively, were also slightly eye opening. It was not that I discovered anything particularly new, but just that I realized how much paper I use and how much I already have. I rarely ever use a full sheet of paper, and I will disgard a piece of paper, both sides, when it has just one line written on it. In this challenge reusing paper was difficult, because I was using the backs of papers from everywhere throughout my binders. However, I believe that I can actually gain organization out of this, by keeping all my notes for the day on only one page, as long as there is not previous writing on it. Today I did have a difficult time finding paper to take notes on, and I had a hard time finding my math notes later because they were not in order. The only paper with some space used and some space clean was in an obscure location. Yesterday I made sure not to print out my spanish project, and sent it by E-mail instead to Ms. Beardslee, which I usually never do. Despite this, I definitely look forward to clean sheets of paper to use, even if I do continue to write as much as possible on one page.

I think that goals like the paper recycling goal help people to become more aware of their own consumption, and that this is significant in helping to lower our environmental impact. I also believe, however, that an environmentalist should not be defined as a person who participates in these kinds of challenges regularly, maybe someone who runs their house on solar power, and who only uses recycled paper. We have to go beyond this to find our role with nature again. It is something that cannot be found only by eliminating impact, but by finding an impact that we can make, a sustainable way to work with the earth.


I felt that the challenge of turning off my computer was very simple. All I had to really do was change the computer settings and it did the work on its own. I would like to continue doing this, letting the monitor shut off when I am not using it, but I do not think that it is a particularly meaningful challenge. It is sort of like buying organic food at the grocery store and then feeling better about what we eat; it is just another easy way to stave off the guilt of not being healthy. Real change comes from lifestyle change, even though habits like recycling paper certainly help lead up to this. We need more gardeners! We need more people who see themselves as the earth's tenders, and make a way to live from this goal.

I learned from each challenge, but what I felt the most was being outside. I want to use less paper and shut off my computer, but the feeling I will take with me is of my hands plopping a plant into a hole, patting the soil around it, and the way my yard looks like a green forest jungle with light filtering in sideways sometimes. And how I wish I could be out there all the time. It is definitely important to get us to think of our consumption and the impact we have as members of a complex society, but in the end what is most important is not using the computer more to save paper. It is getting off the computer and experiencing what you are actually trying to help-and then living it.