ECODIGEST

I'm working on my climate activism, and the more I learn, the more I realize that to really combat climate change in a meaningful way, we need to change our behavior. To change behavior in a big way, you need to change social norms. While I'm working on changing my own behavior, I wondered how to help change norms in my own community. So, I've landed on this - an "eco-digest" for the people around me to share what I'm learning about my impact and how to do things differently. 

 

So what the heck is an eco-digest? No more than once a week (probably more like once a month), I'll send an e-mail with some of the ways I'm connecting to my environment and making choices that fall in line with a decarbonized future. Sometimes, I might include some articles I've read that I think are an important part of the story. Much of this will be US-centric, but I hope it can be useful elsewhere too.

 

If you like this, no need to do anything, I'll keep sending. If this isn't your cup of tea, no worries I won't be offended, just reply 'unsubscribe' and I won't include you next time. Please feel free to send me email addresses of anyone who you think might be interested, I'll add them to the list. Also please feel free to send me anything you're doing/reading and I can add it to the digest. 

 

Below is an example digest

 

Happy end of February!

 

Here are 3 ideas of things you can do right now to help mitigate climate change:

1) Delete your amazon account

2) Buy nothing for the next week

3) Plan your next vacation in your home state/province

 

Food systems is my theme right now, here's a great explainer on why current food systems are so bad for the climate

 

Azure Standard is my favorite climate friendly find lately - an amazing bulk and sustainable food retailer. You place an order and pick it up at a specific location on a specific day. I'm away for the March pickup in my area, but will be doing this in April. If you are a friend from Cape Cod, I am happy to work with you to pick up your order and you can grab it from my house that week. Message me to coordinate!

 

In the US, the agricultural sector represents 10% of greenhouse gas emissions, and transportation (the largest emitter) represents 28% of greenhouse gas emissions. Within transportation, 60% is in the form of truck transport - so... the industrial agriculture sector is a massive source of carbon to the atmosphere and contributor to global climate change.

 

If you are a middle-income household (75K/yr) or higher, you can definitely afford to help mitigate the climate crisis by making conscious food choices. That doesn't mean buying things with 'eco' or 'organic' on the label - it means buying in bulk and buying locally. Often that is not more expensive, and once it is part of your norm, it is not much more work. 

 

Use bulk retailers near you, or try the online one I found here. There are others like it, just google 'online bulk food store'. I think it's great for the following types of foods

> Rice, dried beans, frozen veg, sustainable frozen meat, flour, spices, condiments, oil/vinegar, snacks, baking goods

 

Growing your own food is obviously a great choice, and ITS SEED SEASON BABY here are my fave retailers

https://www.fedcoseeds.com/seeds/

https://www.rareseeds.com/

www.johnnyseeds.com

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These are some articles I read this week that I think are important:

China is changing its climate story

Is the decline of oil in sight

Betrayed by green capitalism

What are the impacts of a 4C temp rise?

Changing culture by changing norms

 

Keep it shrimple folks

Episode 2 of Eco-digest coming at you! If you're newly added to the list, scroll to the bottom of this message to see what it's all about. Happy March 8th!!

 

Here are 3 ideas of things you can do NOW to mitigate climate change

1) Join your local library

It's such a fun activity, and underutilized resource. Love cookbooks? Library! Have a trip coming up? Get a travel book from the library! Have kids? It's an activity, and you don't have to read the same story every week!

 

2) Choose one food item to buy in bulk this week

Last week, I wrote a bit about the merits of buying in bulk. They are HUGE! If you're new to it, try one ingredient at a time - rice is a great one to start with because it keeps so well. I get a 25 lb bag, and keep it in a pantry. You may need to think about where you could store in bulk - adding overhead shelving, converting a closet to a pantry, etc. You'll also want 1-2 smaller containers per item. For rice, I keep my bag sealed by rolling the top down and sealing with tape, and I have a 4 gallon tub that I keep my weekly rice rations in. I also write on the lid of the tub the water to rice ratio so I can remember how to make it!

 

3) Use powdered laundry detergent

Do you know how much you pay for water when you buy liquid soaps? It's a lot! When you buy liquid detergents (dishwasher, laundry), you are mostly buying water and paying for the container and shipping. It's a massive waste. Last month I transitioned to a powder laundry detergent. This tub will last me 2+ years, and I can use the bucket for my gardening when I run out (Nellies is sometimes at Costco!). 

 

The theme this digest is divorcing yourself from Amazon. I deleted my Amazon account officially last week, and feel liberated about it. 

 

I don't want to downplay the convenience of Amazon, and yes there will be some discomfort to deleting it. That said, combating climate change for real means changing consumption, which will mean some discomfort. The ethos surrounding purchasing needs to change from how much can I get with this much money to how can I make sure my purchasing reflects my values. It might cost you 10% more, and it may take you a little more time, but it matters. Do you really need that thing, let alone delivered to your doorstep in 24 hours?

 

Here are two really good articles on how to shift away from Amazon:

How to quit shopping on Amazon, and what it will ask of you

How to officially break up with Amazon

 

Some summary stats on why Amazon sucks balls - great dinner party ammo:

• Jeff Bezos is a disgusting billionaire: "Count to ten. In those ten seconds, Jeff Bezos, the owner and founder of Amazon, just made more money than the median employee of Amazon makes in an entire year. An entire year." -Bernie Sanders

• Amazon is one of the most dangerous places to work in the US: Amazon is 35% of warehouse workers in the US, and comprises 53% of the nations workplace injuries

• Amazon costs jobs and businesses: a September 2016 report from economic analysis firm Civic Economics says that Amazon online sales — in 2015 alone — accounted for a loss of more than $1.2 billion of revenue to state and local governments. The report also estimates that in just one year Amazon sales displaced the equivalent of 39,000 retail storefronts and 220,000 retail jobs.

• This volume of individual delivery has massive emissions repercussions: Amazon continued expanding emissions from its U.S. imports and domestic deliveries at an average annual growth rate of 18%, from 3.33 million metric tons carbon dioxide in 2019 to 5.84 million metric tons carbon dioxide in 2023. Key contributors to this increased pollution include Amazon’s growing dependence on air freight shipping (+67% CO2 emissions) and expansion of fossil fuel-powered delivery vans (+195% CO2 emissions).

• Amazon's tremendous amount of packaging is problematic: 23.5 million pounds of Amazon’s plastic packaging waste entered and polluted the world’s waterways and oceans in 2020, the equivalent of dumping a delivery van payload of plastic into the oceans every 67 minutes.

Here are a few good articles to read this week about climate change:

How Plastic Production Drives Climate Change

Environmental footprint of AI

Talking points used by fossil fuel industry to distract from climate change

 

I hope you have a good week, and the chance to go outside

I hope everyone is feeling extra green after St. Patrick's Day!

 

Here are 3 things you can do NOW to mitigate climate change. This week is specifically grocery shopping oriented; grocery stores are where a lot of problematic behaviors arise. More on that in the section below! 

 

1) Stop bagging produce

Most produce doesn't need to be bagged, especially if it's a one-item product like ginger, cabbage, head of lettuce, herb bundle, eggplant, squash. It's wasteful to use those bags, and the veg is getting washed or peeled at home anyways. If you want to use bags, consider saving the next batch you get from the store, or investing in some small mesh or canvas bags to reuse.

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2) Shop the perimeter of the grocery store

Fresh foods are on the perimeter of the grocery store, and are things that have likely traveled the least distance to get to you. They are also less processed, usually less packaged, and often much healthier for you! Try to find ways to reduce your need for packaged foods - do you need a granola bar, or can you be satisfied with some peanuts and an apple? Accepting less variety in your food choices is a meaningful way to decarbonize.

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3) Stop paying for water

If you're buying an item that is mostly water, you are using unnecessary packaging, increasing transport waste, and wasting your money. Here are some items that are mostly water, and substitutes that are a cheaper and help to decarbonize the way we shop:

-Soda water: yes it's fun to have cans, but it's also fun to have a liveable planet for our children. Consider getting a soda-stream! If you wanna go big, here's a hack to reduce canisters

-Detergents: switch to powdered laundry and dish detergent.

-Canned beans: dried beans are economical, taste better and save on packaging and water weight. Soaking them overnight is easy, using a pressure cooker is fast and easy, or if you work from home, nothing beats the smell of a nice pot of beans on the stove! I boil mine with bay leaves, salt, and a little baking soda (helps with keeping the skins on).

 

Continuing on our theme of Greening Up Your Groceries....

My goal is to separate myself from my reliance on grocery stores altogether by the end of 2025. I'll be sharing, in this digest, how I am working towards that. To get there, I'm being mindful about how much carbon goes into my grocery store footprint. 

 

Remember that the only meaningful way to combat climate change is to divorce ourselves from reliance on fossil fuels, and that means changing behavior to reduce consumption, particularly in areas that are carbon-inefficient. So let's talk about how grocery stores are massive users of fossil fuels, and a place where we tend to overconsume. Two big things to keep in mind when decarbonizing your grocery habits:

 

1) The more processed something is, the more fossil fuels were used to make it.  You can tell something is processed if it has a lot of ingredients, it's highly packaged, it's shelf-stable and/or it isn't made from primary ingredients (ie. it's made from ingredients that themselves are processed, like preservatives, or dyes, or things like 'milk solids'). You can think about how much transport and manufacturing was used to get an ingredient on a shelf as a metric. I recently figured out that for M&M's to make it to my home, ingredients had to come from over 30 countries and 6 of 7 continents (all but Antarctica). That's a ridiculous use of fossil fuels, and reflects the highly corrupt and subsidized industry that it took to get those M&M's to me. 

 

2) Plastics are made from fossil fuels. That's a big one to really absorb - PLASTICS ARE FOSSIL FUELS! 99% of plastics are made from fossil fuels, and the ever-increasing demand for plastics has fueled the environmentally disastrous shale industry in the US, and strengthens the strangle-hold big oil has on our economy. This explainer has excellent articles explaining the oil-plastics industry and how terrible it is for the environment. As much as possible, try to avoid purchasing packaged foods, and bring reusable bags.

 

A few more reasons grocery stores are awful:

• They generate grotesque amounts of food waste. In 2023, 4.5M tonnes of food waste were generated from grocery stores in the US, while 45 million people in the US don't have access to food, including 1 in 5 children. Also note that 9/10 of the largest grocery retailers in the US have been found not to report or to underreport their food waste.

• They are all huge corporations. 1/3 of US grocery stores are owned by 3 companies (Walmart, Kroeger, Aldi Sud), and generate billions of dollars in revenue for their billionaire owners.

• They discourage local businesses and producers

• They don't reflect the seasonality of ingredients, and support unsustainable agricultural systems

• They don't discern where their animal products come from

• Most price increases reflect corporate greed, and not real trends in food cost (see egg-gate)

Here are a few good articles to read this week to stay informed about climate change:

The impact of your grocery store choices

A brief history of consumer culture

The hidden cost of the American food system

If you are new to this list, please scroll to the bottom to see what this is about!

Reader tips from last week - laundry strips are even more space/shipping saving than powdered laundry! If using powdered laundry in a "liquid detergent only" machine, just put the powder straight into the barrel.Try bamboo floss in a reusable container!

 

This week's theme is food waste at home. Did you know that food waste is the largest component of landfills at 24%? Ahead of even plastics (18%)!

 

i. Changing behavior now

Here are 3 behavior modifications you can make right now to help mitigate climate change! Remember, the only way to mitigate climate change is to divorce ourselves from reliance on fossil fuels. That means changing behavior to reduce reliance on carbon, and to reduce wasteful consumption.

1. Use your peels

DID YOU KNOW? The peels for most foods are where the most nutrients are. Why? Plants use skin as their first line of defense, and so important nutrients contained in antioxidants and phytochemicals are concentrated there.
I use my peels in 3 ways at home, instead of discarding them:
(1) Eat 'em! Potatoes, cucumbers, carrots, and yams don't need to be peeled. Once you get used to a little texture, they taste wonderful, and are extra nutritious! Just invest in a veggie scrubber and nom nom away.
(2) Make a quick plant fertilizer! Potatoes, alliums, all citrus and bananas have peels that are rich in vitamins and potassium. I put them in a jar, and fill with boiling water, and then leave it overnight. The next day, I use it to water my house plants, and then put the used peels in my compost! Citrus is also an anti-microbial and bug deterrent. WIN WIN WIN!
(3) Add them to your stock! See #2

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2. Make stock
Stock is liquid gold in the kitchen. And you can make it for free at home! Soup? Risotto? Stew? Sauces? Congee? You name it! It's also expensive and uses packaging at the grocery store.
At our house, we have 3 large ziplocks that we reuse as "stock bags" in the freezer. Things that would normally go to waste are frozen until the bags are full. One full ziplock goes into a stock pot with 8 cups of water, 3 bay leaves and salt, and is simmered for 2-4 hours. Then, we strain it and store it in tubs (I use old yogurt tubs) in the fridge and freezer. It lasts 1 week in the fridge or 6 months in the freezer. Items that go into the bag are:
Veggies: Peels and trimmings from meal prep from carrots, celery, onion, garlic, ginger, peppers, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, herbs, apples, squash, potatoes, yams, beans, peas, mushrooms
Meats: all bones, skin, trimmings from all meat (raw or cooked); shrimp shells, lobster shells, crab shells
Other: parmesan rinds

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3. Compost
Why buy the milk when you can get the cow for free? Fertilizers are often bad for the environment (they cause nutrient pollution in our waterways which leads to algae/bacterial blooms and hurts marine life), expensive, and made from ingredients all across the country which means, making fertilizers generates emissions. If you garden, or have neighbors who do, making your own fertilizer (compost) is an amazing way to reduce your waste and decarbonize.
We have a small (and stylish!) countertop compost bin that is emptied every two days into a larger outdoor composter. To make garden compost, you want 3:1 brown (leaves, sticks, grass) to green (household compost), so add leaves and grass trimmings once in a while to get close to that balance. If you do not garden and/or do not have space for an outdoor composter, most areas have organizations that accept compost and some programs will pick up your waste regularly upon arrangement. One bougie option that could also work for some is an at-home compost machine, which generates compost you could use for house plants, or donate to a local community garden/neighbor.

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ii. Explainer

Adding food waste to regular trash is very very bad. Not only does that food waste add volume to already expansive landfills, but food waste - organic matter - decomposes in landfill. There's two problems with that: (1) Food decomposes much slower in landfills because bacteria are suffocated by trash, and (2) food in landfills generates methane - a potent greenhouse gas - because of the low oxygen systems in landfills. Aka, because food is buried by trash, it has no contact with the atmosphere and therefore no oxygen, so different bacteria have to break it down, and these bad boys (methanogens) generate methane gas.

 

Some fast facts for the dinner table:

-92 billion lbs of food are discarded a year in the US; an underestimate because most big chain grocery stores don't report all their food waste

-Americans over consume and over purchase, consuming more than any other country (2.5x as much as someone from China, for instance) and throwing away 40% of their food

-Food waste is the largest component of landfills, taking up 24 % of landfill space - more than plastics (18%).

-The US generates more than 300 million tons of waste per year, of which 75 million tons is food waste. That's like burying  the volume of 30 million African Elephants every year in food waste.

-The US has 3,000 open and 10,000 closed landfills, each landfill taking up 600 acres in surface area alone (so just 2-dimensional).  That's the surface area of the state of Maryland in landfill space in the US alone.

-8-10% of global greenhouse gas emissions are from food that is not consumed

-If food waste were a country, it would have the 3rd highest greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, after China and the US

 

iii. Reading

The climate impact of the food in the back of your fridge

The scandal of food waste and how we can stop it

If everybody hates wasting food, why do we do it and how do we stop?

 

**New this digest*** 

iV. Current Projects

1. De-Grocerfying 2025 Updates  

• Converting half our laundry room to a pantry:
  Added large metal shelf
  Ordered large plastic tubs for bulk items
  Made space in chest freezer

• Placed first order with Azure Standard [a conscious online purveyor of bulk foods that uses a pickup location to drop bulk shipments near you once a month]. CAPE CODDERS: I have 10 sq feet of room left in my truck, and will pick up your order up to that amount of space! Email me if you want to claim space!

• Saying farewell to the following products that I like, but I don't need: granola bars, canned chickpeas, instant noodles, sandwich meat

• Counting my trash bags for the month of April - stay tuned

In the spirit of spring, and because my botanist father is in town, this week's theme is: the power of plants. Don't worry, if your home has limited space for plants, I have tips for you too.

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i. Changing behavior now

Here are 3 behavior modifications you can make right now to help mitigate climate change! Remember, the only way to mitigate climate change is to divorce ourselves from reliance on fossil fuels. That means changing behavior to reduce reliance on carbon, and to reduce wasteful consumption.

 

1. Have a relationship with plants

DID YOU KNOW? Today, children can identify an average of 1000 logos, but cannot name 10 species of plants. One important aspect of changing our behavior as it pertains to the climate is to reacquaint ourselves with nature. An appreciation and understanding of our habitat goes a long way towards empathy for the species with whom we cohabitate. Here are a few suggestions of how to forge a relationship with the plants around you

• When you go for a walk, learn one new plant species. You can do this with most phones [iphone instructions, plantnet app, inaturalist app]. Try to remember them the next time you go by! Maybe you'll find a favorite sycamore, and learn to love watching it as it changes with the seasons. The easiest time to learn plants is once they have leaves and/or flowers.

• Keep potted plants at home. Potted plants are a great way to observe and interact with plant life every day. When you care for a plant, you might appreciate the things it takes to keep them going. Plants at home also help purify your air! Easy plants to start with are pothos, spider plants and jade plants - all of these are also very easy to propagate.

• Visit a local garden, arboretum or botanical garden. The diversity of plants is underappreciated, and places like these are great for providing perspective on how many magnificent plants have evolved to create our ecosystems. For those in the Boston/Cape area, I recommend checking out the Native Plant Trust's Garden in the Woods.

• Pick a neighborhood tree and photograph it every month. It's fun to get to know one plant, and to observe the intricacies of its life cycle. Getting to know your neighborhood plants is getting to know your community.
   

2. Grow your own food:

DID YOU KNOW? Crops grown for human consumption account for 5% of global greenhouse gas emissions! By growing your own crops you help mitigate climate change by: reducing transportation, reducing packaging, creating pollinator havens, reducing lawn/concrete surface area, increasing biodiversity and decreasing food waste. The other benefits to you are: saving money, avoiding consuming poisonous pesticides, more nutritious food, tastier and fresher produce, connecting with the life cycle of the plants you consume and exercise outside. Even if you grow just a few crops, you will be contributing to your health and the mitigation of climate change. Here are some ideas for getting started/expanding your home growing depending on your starting position:

• I have no outdoor space: Try growing herbs indoors! Herbs are expensive, spoil quickly in the fridge, but are crucial for great tasting food. They also happen to grow quickly and easily indoors! Here is a great guide to get started. I love to grow basil, cilantro, rosemary, thyme and chives indoors. The more you trim them, the better they grow, and indoor plants are relatively easy to remember to water!

• I have a small outdoor space: Try vertical gardening. This website has great ideas for how to maximize your space using wall hung containers, trellises, stacked pots and more. Vining plants like peas, beans, cucumbers, squashes, some tomatoes and melons are excellent contenders for vertically growing.

• My outdoor space is all shaded: First, find out just how shady your yard is by timing the amount of direct sunlight your spot receives. Then, this guide will walk you through which plants do well in the shade! Some easy shade lovers are lettuces, arugula, kale, carrots and radishes.

• I have no time to garden: That's OK too! But I urge you to consider it. Growing food is an incredible way to connect to our food system. Understanding the energy it takes to grow food is crucial for understanding the steps that need to be taken to break down the extremely polluting and anti-humanitarian industrial agricultural food system that we are all shackled to. A small garden takes a couple hours to set up, and can take as little as 15 minutes of effort a day. Alternate between watering, weeding and maintenance (pruning, feeding) for 15 minutes each day, and you'll be amazed at how much you can achieve. If you don't enjoy it or really can't, try connecting to small farms/community gardens near you to support their efforts for locally produced goods. Again, if your household makes more than 75K/year, you can afford to choose local produce.

• I'd like tips on expanding my current operations: Reach out to me with questions any time, but my main tips are:
  -Add variety to your crops - using heirlooms is great for this, because it enhances genetic diversity as well. Diversity is helpful for pollinator diversity and to strengthen the resilience of your garden against pests.
  -Plant what you eat! I use a ton of onions, carrots, celery, lettuce and tomatoes - so varieties of those are my top priority.
  -Use companion planting: instead of one species per area, plant 2-3 complementary species to maximize space and reap interspecies rewards. For example: basil, tomato and marigolds- basil enhances tomato flavor, tomatoes repel basil pests, and marigolds attract pollinators.
  -Use trellises! They add space vertically, and are great for vining plants like squashes and melons. Being trellised increases airflow for those plants, and beneath the trellis is a perfect environment for more delicate plants like lettuces.
   

3. Incorporate native plants:

DID YOU KNOW? 40 million acres of the US is a boring monoculture carpet of lawn. Can I just say, lawns are ugly and dated, let's get over them. They also detract tremendously from the functionality of an outdoor space because they do not provide food for pollinators nor do lawns provide shelter for animals and insects. Most lawn owners use fertilizers and water in excess, which makes lawns not only useless, but detrimental to the environment. In fact, lawn-owners use on average four times as much fertilizer as commercial farms, and 90 million lbs of fertilizers are used on US lawns annually. Fertilizers are quite bad for the environment, as most fertilizers used on lawns wind up in drinking water/natural waterways, which results in eutrophication (suffocating the organisms in the water) and the growth of poisonous algae. Also, watering lawns uses 30% of all residential water use in the US... 30%, FOR LAWNS!!! Insanity.

 

While adding nice garden plants is better than a lawn, adding non-native plants is problematic. Non-native plants (aka plants that don't occur in an area naturally) do not typically benefit native pollinators, who require specific plant hosts. Non-native plants often take over habitat for native plants, and non-native plants usually aren't as well adapted to an environment, meaning they need more care (aka water and fertilizers, bad bad.).

 

The best way to add plants to your landscape (and get rid of that unsightly lawn) is to use native plants. These are the most beneficial to native pollinators like birds and insects. These are also very low maintenance once established (no watering! no fertilizing! no pruning!) because they were made for this space! Here is a great explainer on the value of native plant gardening. Some of the native plants I'm trying to add to my Cape Cod landscape: beach plum, yarrow, lupine, asters, goldenrods, bee balm and columbines.

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ii. Explainer

I did lots of explaining above so I'll keep it short and sweet this time. Plants aren't a resource to be exploited, they are part of our community and we are here to be responsible stewards of these amazing organisms. Plants are the foundation of all life on Earth, and they shape every landscape we inhabit. Plant diversity is crucial to mitigating climate change because the more diversity there is (aka the more types of plants), the more resilient the system is to change. When a system undergoes a large change in temperature, precipitation, sunlight, season length ....*COUGH COUGH* CLIMATE CHANGE... many plants can't tolerate it and die/become extinct. If a system has many kinds of plants, it's more likely that some of those plant species will be able to survive the traumas of climate change. We need these plants to survive because plants are the main sink for carbon dioxide - aka we need plants to absorb the grotesque amount of carbon dioxide we are emitting to the atmosphere or we are even more royally screwed.

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iii. Reading

For wildlife and humans, native plants are a key to climate resilience

Revealed: The true extent of America's food monopolies and who pays the price

The staggering environmental implications of computation and the cloud

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iv. Current projects

-The pantry project continues! This week is repainting the room before shelving goes up, in time for the first bulk order arriving next week. 

-Last week we produced 3 bags of garbage. One of them was all diapers... the next biggest culprit was food packaging. I'll be mindful about buying anything that comes in a package this week to see if I can take that number of bags down by one next week!

-The garden is starting! I've planted my cool weather spring crops in the last 2 weeks - peas, lettuce, kale, broccoli, onions, chard and pak choi.

This week's theme is: What is sustainability? We see and use the buzzword all the time, but no current mainstream system is actually sustainable. For something to be sustainable, it doesn't take away anything from the system and/or it replenishes the system as it is consumed. More on this in the explainer (Part ii).

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i. Changing behavior now 

Here are 3 examples of sustainable/nearly sustainable behaviors that you can incorporate today (or via supporting organizations that do these things) to decarbonize your lifestyle. I have to admit that I was very hard pressed to think of even 3 things that people do in the rich world that are sustainable. Truly. It held me up from even writing this e-mail. If any of you can think of more, send them my way! Interestingly, I could not think of any sustainable behaviors that didn't pertain to growing plants or raising animals. It highlights how behaviors directly connected to the ecosystem are the simplest to make sustainable.

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1. Plant one for me and one for the planet:

I plant a lot of flowers, and I love to use them for cut flower arrangements. But, harvesting flowers for a cut garden typically means harvesting them before they are pollinated (they last longer in the vase that way). So, by harvesting the flowers early, I'm taking away their ecosystem function (aka their availability to pollinators for pollen, or seeds for birds, or shelter for rodents, etc.). Thus, to make growing flowers sustainable, I only harvest every second flower. The others I leave for the ecosystem. That means my garden provides habitat, food, and shelter... while serving the purpose of beautifying my landscape and home. When I'm done with my flowers, I compost them, so the organic matter will ultimately get returned to the soil. To really close the loop and make it sustainable, start by seed and save seeds year after year. You can add to your community by sharing seeds, or rogue spreading them (seed bombing) in open lots (only do this with native flowers, bonus points for growing native flowers!).

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2. Use the power of poultry

I'm guessing few of you keep poultry (chickens, duck, geese) or have ambitions to, but keeping poultry was the most sustainable human behavior I could think of. Surprising, no? Even if you can't keep your own birds, this is a push to try and buy those eggs/poultry from farmers markets or local farms. Keeping and eating your own birds can replenish your home ecosystem at the same rate as your consumption. Plus, poultry add many other benefits to your home ecosystem, while detracting nearly nothing (just the food they consume). A few benefits of home birds:

(1) They are natural pest control. For example, ticks run Cape Cod. Seriously they are everywhere and everyone hates them and they spread disease and are pretty gross. But, spraying for ticks is extremely bad for the environment, poisoning lawns, waterways and ultimately those who roam in them; pets and children are most vulnerable. Ducks, geese and chickens eat ticks in droves. Estimates suggest that most poultry eat tens of thousands of ticks per year, and up to 200 per day. They are more (yes MORE) effective than spraying, because spraying wears off and doesn't get every bug. Pest control by poultry is so effective that it is the primary pest control method of many rice paddies in Asia and some European vineyards.

(2) They make fertilizer. Poultry poop is incredible fertilizer, and by keeping them, you can feed your landscape plants for free!

(3) They are animal trash compactors. Poultry eat almost anything, and are a great way of reducing food waste

(4) They provide food via meat and eggs. Fast reproducing poultry are a sustainable way to grow your own animal protein. They reproduce quickly enough that you can keep a brood, harvest eggs, and butcher your birds at a rate equal to their replenishment.

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3. Eat oysters

This one is for my mom, who loves oysters more than anyone I know. If the above two behavior changes are out of reach for you, this one is easy! Support oyster farms. Oyster faming adds to the ecosystem by filtering water of pollutants (one oyster can filter 50 gallons a day), creating habitat for other marine organisms and buffering shorelines from storm surges. Most seafood is woefully unsustainable, but oysters farming adds to the ecosystem at the rate we consumer them. So, go get your slurp on.

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ii. Explainer

When something is sustainable, it is something that neither adds nor detracts from its long-term viability. Using a "compostable cup" is not sustainable, because using one does not make up for the impact of creating it. We hear the word sustainable thrown around everywhere, but a behavior that is truly sustainable is one that can be continued indefinitely.

 

Very very few (if any) of our day-to-day behaviors are sustainable. I do not believe that the onus to repair this problem belongs to us as individuals; we are all operating at the mercy of systems created without sustainability in mind. That said I think it's important to consider that as we consume, and are not replenishing, we are removing many things that will never come back. Our rampant consumption takes away from future generations' access to what we have now. Consuming less, and making choices about consumption that are in line with your values wont fix the system, but it could assuage guilt and slowly influence the behaviors of those around you.

 

Remember, 70% of the US' gross domestic product (GDP) is consumer spending - we are encouraged to spend as much as possible in every way possible all day. The average American sees between 5000-10,000 advertisements a day. It's understandable that changing consumption habits is difficult and none of us are immune to the tremendous power of advertising. This digest, and thinking about sustainability in its true sense, can hopefully break up that noise with a little squawk that says - hey do you need that, and do you need it right now? 

 

If you are changing behaviors to fall in line with a decarbonized future in any way, I am so proud of you, and grateful. I hope you talk about it with others, because that's how behavior is changed - when it becomes normal within our own social groups. You are my social group and that's the whole point of this digest. Earth Day has me feeling emotional, I digress.

 

The only viable way to combat climate change is to dramatically change our behavior, and for our values to center less around accumulation of wealth and material goods, and more on stewardship of our ecosystem and community.

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iii. Reading

We Need to Talk About the Carbon Footprint of the Rich

Anatomy of an Extinction

16 Kids Books that make Science and Nature Sizzle

‘Spiral of silence’: climate action is very popular, so why don’t people realize it?

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iv. Current Projects

(1) HUGE NEWS!!! I picked up our Azure Standard bulk order today! It was our first one, and so inspiring. Recall that Azure Standard is a US-based company that sources all of its bulk products in an ecologically conscious way. Once a month, at a drop off location in your area (mine is 1hr away), you meet their truck for a drop off. You and your fellow bulk-shoppers unload and sort the goods, then help each other load your cars. It's the best way I could find to reduce my impact within today's food system. About my order:

-I spent $1000 on this one. I expect to do $1000 about twice a year, and every other month, closer to $200-300. Between this, buying half/whole animals from local farms, and growing food in my own garden, I expect to stop using the grocery store by the end of 2025. Note that the average American makes two grocery trips a week, and spends an average $175 at the grocery store each trip. Bulk purchasing may seem like more work and time up front but it is much much more cost and time effective long term.

- I got 25lbs of each 3 types of dried beans, 2 types of rice, 2 types of flour. I got 10 lbs of frozen meat, and 30 lbs of frozen veg/fruit. I got enough vegetables and fruit for 2-3 weeks (we shall see). I got enough nuts, popcorn, corn chips and crackers for 3 months. I got mustard, tahini, spices, red wine vinegar and olives which should last me 6 months. I got dish soap and dishwater soap for 6 months, plus toilet paper for 1 month (we shall see.....).

-I put it all on 1 normal sized vertical shelf, and 4 large 25L tubs, and the frozen food took up 1/5 of my half sized chest freezer.

(2) My trash count is still high. I had 4 kitchen sized bags last week, up 1 bag from last time. I hosted family and friends multiple times, and repainted the pantry... both of which added some extra volume. I'm hoping that the bulk order takes us down to 2 bags (1 diaper and 1 regular) next week.

(3) Pre-frost plants are all planted, and squash seeds are going in this week (for my fellow Cape Gardeners)

All week, I've been battling with a mouse, who is eating seedlings in my greenhouse. So, the theme for this digest is Pest Control! I think this is a great topic to reframe our relationship with our environment, in the context of changing behavior to decarbonize.

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i. Changing behavior now

Here are 3 things you can do now to help mitigate global climate change. Changing behavior to decarbonize starts with re-evaluating our values, and making our relationship with the ecosystem part of our core values. Enter: Pest Control, or maybe... Pest Acceptance?

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1. Do not use poison

Can't emphasize how bad pesticides are for the environment. When pesticides [herbicides, insecticides, rodenticides] are applied, the entire system is poisoned - pets and people too. In fact, pets and kids interact with the lawn/ground more than anyone, so they are the most exposed. Indeed, rodenticides got a bit more regulated when, in 2010, over 10,000 children were poisoned in the US. You poison an ant colony? The birds that eat those ants are poisoned too. You poison your lawn? The water you and your community drinks is poisoned too. Rat poison? Cat Poison. You get the idea.

Pesticides are problematic because they are complex molecules that don't degrade quickly, so they accumulate in the environment. The two most significant ways pesticides (POISON) accumulate when you apply them (in ANY way) are via water and bioaccumulation/magnification. 

1. Through water: pesticides applied to the garden, lawn, or to organisms directly, will make contact with water and be transported readily to the nearest water system. Water systems are connected, so you can guarantee those poisons are making their way to our drinking water. In fact, a recent study of US streams found that 95% of streams were contaminated with pesticides or their degradation products. Pesticides affect neurological, endocrine and reproductive systems in particular, and are most dangerous to children. 

2. Via bioaccumulation and biomagnification: basically, in this pathway, pesticides accumulate either over time in an organism who is continually exposed (like a fish in water) or up the food chain (like poisoned ants poisoning the birds that eat them). For example, one study showed that 80% of US bald eagles contained rodenticides, which they accumulate via their diet of rodents. Another one found that 82% of squirrels in DC contained rodenticides. Rats, mice, squirrels, birds are all crucial parts of our food webs and our ecosystems can't thrive without them.

 

Poison is a LAZY WEAPON. If an organism is in your house and affecting you, trapping it, securing entry points, and securing food sources is the most effective strategy to pest removal. Outside your house? Putting poison outside of your home is particularly environmentally harmful, and you will never poison every "pest" outside your home... it is a waste of time, money and is bad for the environment. 

 

The pesticide industry is a big one at $19.3 billion in 2023, and capitalizes on fear to sell its products. This figure doesn't even include agrichemicals, which are a $33 billion industry in the US. Again, none of us are immune to advertising. We've all been sold a lie that organisms in our homes are BAD and DISGUSTING and DANGEROUS, when that's really not the case. Rather, pesticides are the real danger.

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2. Work smarter not harder

We share our world with other organisms, and accepting that should probably have been step 1. But anyways, if you do have an organism who is in your home and you want them out, there are ways aside from poison. Here is a short list of tips for some common "pests":

• ANTS: The first ants you see in your home are likely messenger ants, they are scouting your digs for eats. When they find food, they go back to the colony to round up the troops and go to town. So, go ahead and smush all those first ants, and know that they are giving you a clue! Secure your food! Once you see an ant or two, it's time to make sure you have no food or crumbs out. Keep food in the fridge/containers, wipe up often, and be mindful of sweet foods in particular. A week or so of diligence, and your ant friends will scout elsewhere.

• PLANTS: If you're trying to poison weeds, I'm not going to sugar coat this one, that's not going to work. Please don't. Weed by hand, hoe, or use a tarp to cover areas and kill weeds sequentially. 

• FLIES/BUGS: Use a dish with vinegar and dish soap. The vinegar attracts the flies, the soap breaks down their organs and they die. 

• MICE/RATS: Hard to get a real number, but some studies suggest about 40% of homes have mice in them (some sources say as high as 85%). We all live with mice, and we always will. In fact, deer mice are most likely the most common mammal in North America, so trying to poison all the mice is totally pointless. And largely, mice are harmless, living in attics, basements and walls. My advice is if you have mice in these areas of the home (plot twist, you probably do), just live with them. They will leave you alone if they don't have a massive food source available. Mice are more scared of you than you are of them! Bear in mind that only about 5% of mice in North America carry disease, so our fear of them in our spaces is already outsized. If, however, they are in your living spaces (which you will know if you find droppings or see one), then it's time for a little action. Snap traps are the most humane and safe way to dispose of them. Bait them and check them often, moving them around and changing the type of bait you use (we use slim jims and peanut butter), and dispose of the dead mice. Mice don't like people, so it helps if you are making noise and playing music in the space and turning lights on - they'll probably leave if they don't have food available. Keep your food secured until you see no more signs of mice.

• GARDEN BUGS: Garden pests are definitely something every gardener encounters. Best practices are hand picking/smushing bugs as you see them, using "soft" pesticides [dish soap, cinnamon, cayenne, neem oil, Bt (a bacteria that doesn't target pollinators)], working in raised beds, and companion planting [using trap crops, bug repellent plants like marigolds/basil/cilantro/onions]. Bonus points - use integrated pest management like bird boxes around the garden, the birds will eat the bugs; or here's another plug for getting ducks/chickens to eat your pests!
   

3. Reacquaint yourself with the organisms around you

Organisms living among us have a hard enough time as it is, between plastic pollution, habitat fragmentation by roads and homes, habitat destruction in favor of lawns/other ecosystem deserts like parking lots, and myriad other environmental violations that our presence imposes upon our wildlife communities. I personally think it's shocking to additionally poison animals, insects or plants that infringe on our cultural obsession with sterile human spaces. 

 

Modern day human-animal relationships are riddled with irrationality, especially our relationships with insects and rodents. Part of this is the way insects and rodents are portrayed in the media; they are often shown as disgusting, disease-ridden and scary. For the most part, these organisms are none of these things. In fact, for most of human history, and in many places outside of the 'Western World' today, animal-human relationships have functioned symbiotically.

 

This week I urge you to challenge your view of at least one "pest" species. Learn about that species and their function in the ecosystem, and maybe do some exposure therapy. I recommend googling that species + the word "cute" and looking at some images. I used to be terrified of bees, and would run from them or urge someone around me to get rid of them. Now knowing how important they are, and upon closer inspection, I find them to be really cute, and when I saw the first bees this spring I cheered in excitement. 

 

A very very important step in mitigating global climate change is rethinking our relationship with our ecosystem, and showing our community (friends, family and children) the beauty of all creatures. Think about it deeply, and you'll probably realize that we are the pests here.

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ii. Explainer - I did a lot already, so I'll be brief.

To begin to address global climate change, we need to treat our environment as our community - not as our resource. The behavior modification here is acting as stewards, not overlords. A steward protects things of value, rather than exploiting them. I think that to be a steward of our environment, we need to understand that our place here is no more important than that of the organisms in our community. We need to live among the "pests".

 

So my greenhouse mouse is eating all my seedlings - how can I be the mouse's steward, while protecting my crops? I'll work smarter, by creating barriers between the mouse and my crops, sprinkling cayenne onto my seedlings and if all else fails, I'll move the mouse's favorite crops (sunflowers and pumpkins) into my house until they are big enough to avoid being mouse food. I'm aware that where we live, there are more mice than I could trap in a lifetime, and they are a valuable source of food for the birds of prey, foxes and coyotes who come to our yard. 

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iii. Reading

A Biologist, a Blog, and a Mosquito Control Dispute

City Life is Hard for Raptors. Can Removing Rat Poison Make it Easier?

Rat Poison's Long Reach

Plan for Less Pests with Integrated Pest Management

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iv. Current Projects

• Loving the bulk food life. Haven't been to the grocery store since my bulk pickup ten days ago. This week, to supplement the few things I needed, I spent $40 on local eggs, mushrooms, lettuce and fiddleheads from a farm stand nearby. Not a bad grocery budget considering the average US household spends over $270/week on groceries. My favorite purchases include our beans, which are delicious and I think will last us a full year; and the flour, which is SUCH great quality, my husband's bread has never tasted better.

• My trash bag count has not gone down, which tells me my main source of trash isn't my grocery store purchases. Instead, I think a lot of it comes from the packaging of things I order to the house, and projects I am constantly doing at home and in the yard. So, that tells me that part of my decarbonization process needs to include slowing down and working on projects that require little/no purchasing. I am going to try and pace myself, and to strike some balance, I will be ordering NOTHING online for the month of May. Stay tuned for how I fare here, and feel free to take on this challenge too! It could help us to make more with less, and to support local businesses when we do need something... and really, to evaluate our "needs" more closely.

• The garden is growing, and this week I planted corn a little early because I think we're totally done with frost. Stay tuned. I am trying Bt (bacillus thuringiensis) as a soft pest control method this year, and did my first spray earlier this week on my brassica crops.

There's a word I've been thinking about a lot lately: guilt. I hope this digest doesn't guilt trip you about your guilty pleasures but I would be racked with guilt if I didn't talk about guilt and climate anxiety. So that's the topic this week! Don't worry, I really ranted on this one.

 

If climate anxiety/guilt is something you feel, then it's likely that you have some biospheric values - values which reflect a concern for the climate and the environment. While I don't think the climate crisis is an individual's responsibility, I do think our behavior is generally not in line with biospheric values, and anxiety/guilt can manifest when our behavior is out of sync with our values (thank you therapy). It won't eliminate the existential crisis of climate change, but altering behavior to reflect biospheric values could alleviate some of those feelings of guilt. 

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i. Changing behavior now

Here are 3 things you can do now to change behavior to better reflect your concern for the climate: 

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1) Question your consumption daily

The average American spends 2.5 hours a day 'dreamscrolling' (filling imaginary carts, looking at real estate, vacations, clothing etc.). The average child has 238 toys, but plays with only about 12. The average American throws away 65 lbs of clothing annually. Americans spend $1.2 trillion annually on goods they do not need. Home sizes in the US have tripled in the last 30 years, and the average American home today contains over 300,000 items.

 

Gathering possessions is part of the North American lifestyle. Changing that requires actively re-training how we think, which is particularly challenging given the 5,000 advertisement barrage we are slammed with daily, in an economy that relies on consumer spending (recall: 70% of US GDP is consumer spending).

 

Corporations want us to shop, the functioning of our government hinges on our spending, and the very the foundation of American capitalism is centered around buying and selling goods. It takes real and constant effort to behave in opposition to that, but the reward is power over your own actions, saved money and reduced guilt about purchasing/wasting. Here are 3 mantras to consider every time you purchase - maybe pop them on your phone until it becomes a habit:

• Do I need this item now?
  If no, don't buy it, and if it comes up again, ask again until the answer is yes. An example of this for me: I bought in bulk, and wanted 1 cup scoops for each of my bins to make it easier to grab items like rice quickly when I'm cooking. But, I asked myself 'Do I need this item now?' at least 3 times, and every time, I answer - no, I don't need it now because I can walk to the kitchen and use the same measuring cup for each bin. Haven't bought them, haven't suffered.

• Is this something I need to own, or can I borrow it?
  This one is handy for identifying things that may only get a few uses. An example of this for me: our son started crawling, and clearly wants to walk. I wanted to get him one of those push walker things, but then I asked myself 'Is this something I can borrow?', and realized that I know a few of my local friends have them and my son is only going to be learning to walk for a small amount of time, it's not something I need to own. Haven't bought it, haven't suffered (and neither has the boy btw).

• What is my rationale for "needing" this item?
  It's worth asking, and asking often, what pressures are making this item important/desirable, and why now? An example of this for me: I have been wanting a new linen work shirt for the garden. So I asked myself 'What is my rationale for needing this item?'. Well, garden season is in full swing and I've been busy so *I deserve a reward*. My old shirts are pretty ugly and some are a little too warm for the summer and *I work so much in the garden, it's important I have the right work apparel, after all I'm growing food which is healthy!*. My husband got some sun shirts to work in the yard, since *he bought something, I should also get something". I could wear it outside the garden too, I really want a teal shirt and *I don't own anything teal right now*! Catching all of those thinking traps is really important in checking my behavior - there are lots of little untruths we tell ourselves to justify purchases, and many of them are probably linked to ads/social pressures [Just do it! Because You're Worth It! Think Different! Open Happiness! Maybe She's Worth it! It's Everywhere You Want to be! The Choice of a New Generation! Quality Never Goes Out of Style! Have it Your Way!].

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2) Find out where things come from

The road a product takes to land in our hands is circuitous and often intentionally convoluted. I've been looking at the path taken by M&Ms, which are "made in Hackettstown NJ", but have ingredients that come from over 30 countries. Knowing what we are really buying, from where, and through how much effort is key to decarbonizing, and behaving in line with our values. 

 

This week I challenge you to choose one item you purchased, and find out where it came from - what a fun activity for kids, or dinner table conversation starter! Go beyond "oh it was made in China". Where in China? Were all parts made there? Were the materials sourced there? By what process was it made?

 

When I looked up M&Ms, I found that their maker (Mars) has long been under scrutiny for sourcing ingredients by way of forced labor, child slavery, rainforest burning and water pollution in many poorer countries. I don't even like M&Ms very much, so that's an easy one for me to never purchase again, because that path taken by that product is not one that is in line with my values.

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3) Delete your Amazon account

Yes, this is the 3rd time I've written about this and it won't be the last. If you want to do one single thing to decarbonize your lifestyle, this is the one. Amazon is the pinnacle of American overconsumption. Deleting it forces you to reconsider where things come from, and to re-evaluate "need" (or, items 1 and 2 above!). Do you need it tomorrow, or could you support a local business sometime in the next couple of weeks/months? Do you need this item new, or is it something you can borrow or find used? Do you need it at all, or is this something you've been advertised to think you need?

 

I deleted my Amazon two months ago, when I first started this digest. Of all the things I've done in 2025 to try and reshape my consumption, deleting Amazon has been the most impactful. I've saved hundreds of dollars (probably more, let's be real), my packaging waste has gone down dramatically, and have connected to local businesses in my community in a new way. But the thing I have really noticed is that my mind is so much quieter. I do so much less "mental window shipping", and that guilt/regret feeling when I see a pile amazon boxes on my doorstep is gone because the boxes are gone.

 

Yeah, the first week was an adjustment. I caught myself thinking about ordering things multiple times. I didn't know where to get certain things. I felt like I didn't have the time to get the things I needed - particularly with a new baby in the house who has constantly changing needs. But then, my mind slowed down and my purchasing pace changed. Between my locally owned hardware, garden, bookstores and pharmacy (ok that one is a big chain), I didn't miss anything and I often realized that what I would have ordered wasn't something I needed. I not only decreased my consumption overall, but I made purchases that supported local businesses, and now the owners of the garden store look forward to seeing me and my cute baby once a week (sorry Geoff). When my son is older, it also will show him at least part of where things come from, and humanize our interactions with purchasing. Goods don't come from a truck, they come from dozens of places and go through hundreds of hands - that's easy to forget when you use Amazon all the time.

 

Deleting Amazon forced me to look head on at a pretty frequent, and addictive, behavior of mine. By questioning that behavior, I created cognitive dissonance and I no longer find that my need justifies the environmental impact of individual packages of goods sourced from all over the world delivered to my house multiple times a week. Not once has deleting Amazon caused me or my family to miss out on anything, nor has it prevented us from achieving any objective. 

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ii. Explainer

In therapy, I've learned about how to manage my unnecessary guilt with mantras like:

• This isn't mine to manage

• This doesn't have to affect me right now

• I cannot change how others behave, I can only change how their behavior affects me

But sometimes, I can assuage my own guilt by changing my behavior. Sometimes, my guilt is telling me something. For example, I live far from home and I feel guilty when I don't see enough of my family; when I apply the above mantras to that guilt, they don't really apply, so this is a chance for me to use my feeling of guilt to act. I do that by calling a family member, or leaving them a voice note, or sending a card. My guilt is telling me to connect, and I feel better after I do.

 

I wonder if climate anxiety could be treated similarly. The overarching message is that the climate crisis isn't ours to manage as individuals. But, climate anxiety is sometimes telling us that we are behaving in ways that aren't in line with our values. Maybe we can get some inner peace by reducing environmentally harmful behaviors like over-consumption. By acknowledging climate guilt, and seeing what we can do instead of despairing, we could even motivate collective action in reducing our consumption within our communities. I think it's at least something worth talking about.

 

A reminder that the US produces more fossil fuels than any other country, and consumes more energy per capita than any other country in the world - doubling the energy consumption per capita of China. 

 

Consumerism has been found to be responsible for up to 60% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

 

Shipping for Amazon continues to add millions of tons of CO2 to the atmosphere annually. From 2019-2023, Amazon increased its air freight emissions by 67%, increased its van emissions by 190% and its heavy duty truck emissions by 51%.

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iii. Reading

• What is Climate Science For?

***Shameless self promotion*** I wrote this piece for Issue 1 of 'The Breakdown', an issue examining the rise of the new right and what it means for climate action. It's a subscription, and worth it. If you really want to read my piece but can't afford it, let me know and I'll send something your way. Here's an excerpt from my essay:

 

There is only one strategy for mitigating climate change: to divorce ourselves from fossil fuels. By this metric—the only one that matters— science programs in the US have been remarkably unsuccessful. An impressive 15 per cent of Americans, among the largest share of any rich country, deny the existence of climate change. Astonishingly, so does nearly a quarter of US Congress. US emissions and fossil fuel production continue to reach record highs. Climate change has never been more deadly or costly, particularly for lower-income American households. Disasters like hurricanes, droughts and forest fires now occur every two weeks in the US. In 2023 and 2024, climate and weather-related disasters exceeded $1 billion in damages on 55 separate occasions.

 

Divorcing the US (and the wider global) economy from fossil fuels implies nothing short of a total transformation in the way we produce and consume. To understand why this is true, and the extent of the damage caused by a policy approach that prioritizes technological solutions that allow fossil fuel use to continue, we need to understand just what it means to burn fossil fuels.

 

Fossil fuels are the accumulation of tremendous amounts of organic matter collected over phenomenally long periods of time—the product of billions of dead plants, and the animals that consumed them, decomposing over some 300 billion years. This is what makes them so energy dense and, by extension, so valuable. But this density also obscures the sheer scale of carbon concentrated in even a small quantity of petrol. One 2003 study calculated that it takes 89 metric tons of ancient plant material to make one US gallon of gasoline. This means that to fill my Toyota Tacoma takes the mass of 378 African elephants in plant material. Viewed another way, it takes approximately 50 times all the plant material currently covering the surface of the Earth to generate one year’s worth of global fossil fuel consumption. This is an unfathomable volume, consumed daily through the unimpeded burning of fossil fuel. It is no wonder that the planet is destabilizing faster than we can develop the technology to repair it. 

• Too much stuff: Can we solve our addiction to consumerism?

• Prison to plate inmate labor investigation

• How Your Sugar Addiction Fuels Climate Change

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iv. Current Projects

Wow this digest is long, REAL QUICK

1) I love our bulk pantry. 25 lbs of beans is a lot of beans, they will last me the year. I have yet to go to the grocery store (4 weeks so far!), and while today I'm out of fresh fruit, I have frozen blueberries and mangoes... and I know my local strawberry season is just starting.

2) Trash count doesn't seem to go down, should I sort my trash to figure it out?? I'll decide next week

3) I am mid-way through May and haven't made a single online purchase. I feel liberated and every day that goes by, my desire to dreamscroll decreases.

I've had dirt under my nails all month, which has inspired this digest's theme - DIRT! Now, before you close this email because you aren't a gardener, I want to talk about more than gardening soil, this is about all things dirty.

 

We have this notion that dirt (soil) is something that's, well, dirty. Dirty is a bad word, dirty is a bad thing, dirty is gross (how many times will dirty appear in this email, read to the end to find out)... but is it actually? Read more to get the dirt on dirt.

i. Changing behavior now

Here are three dirt-related behavior modifications you can make now to align your choices with a decarbonized future.

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1. Rethink "clean"

Have you ever walked in a forest, and thought: "wow, this place stinks!". Well, I haven't. But I have walked into my kitchen, or bathroom, or laundry room and thought "WOW THIS PLACE STINKS". Guess what wasn't the culprit: dirt. More often, the culprit is food waste, human waste or bacterial growth - none of which seem to be a problem outside. We perceive dirt, and the outdoors in general, to be unclean. However, bad bacteria and smells are more likely to appear in comparatively sterile spaces. Why is that?

 

Well, for one, outdoor spaces are systems in balance. Plants filter the air, the sun naturally disinfects, water circulates broadly via rain and percolation and runoff, root and soil systems absorb and detoxify, and importantly, bacterial communities are stable. By contrast, indoor spaces are artificially lighted and circulated, and constantly cleaned with harsh chemicals that encourage the growth of stronger microbes. 

 

The dirt on our floors is much safer than any chemical we use to clean it. The dirt on our vegetables is much healthier than any pesticides we use to grow them. The dirt on our clothing is safer than the detergents we use to get it out.

 

Rethink what it means for something to be clean, and instead of focusing on sterility, focus on balance. Open those windows, hang those blankets in the sun, and if possible, create indoor-outdoor bridge spaces in your home. Using less chemicals is a big win for the environment (try vinegar and water with some essential oils instead!). But more importantly, understanding that dirt isn't unclean goes a long way towards fostering a closer relationship with the environment. To have a relationship with anything is to know it better!

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2. Get dirty

Now that we've reframed dirty as probably a good thing, another great behavior modification is to spend more time being dirty! Recent studies have shown that children who spend times in outdoor daycares versus more indoor ones experience years-long benefits to their immune systems and gut microbiomes. Others show that farmers have lower rates of Crohn's Disease, allergies and asthma. Research from the 1970s highlights how soil bacteria improve immune system health, have anti-inflammatory benefits and decrease stress. Indeed, several trends have emerged lately on "rewilding" our microbiomes by spending more time with soil.

 

This connects amazingly with changing behavior for decarbonizing - which largely centers around increasing our exposure to and improving our relationship with our environment. This weekend, consider getting dirty for your health and to work towards strengthening your connection to your ecosystem. Here are a few ideas:

 

-Pot some plants for in your home

-Visit or volunteer in a community garden

-Go to the beach and dig a hole, seriously when is the last time you did that

-Go hiking or mountain biking

-Walk barefoot outside

-Make a mud pie

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3. Create a healthy soil at home

OK this one is about gardening, feel free to skip it but I think it's neat whether or not you garden! 

 

There is so much bogus information about what you need to do to grow plants in your soil. Most basically, what you need to do is create healthy soil, which means supporting the existing microbial community in your environment. No need for bokashi, for compost tea, for tilling, for excessive nutrient additions, and rarely do you need to change your own soil pH. Here are some soil building myths, and associated tips on how to create your own healthy soil.

 

MYTH 1: My soil has no nutrients.

Your soil has plenty of carbon, nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus (4 primary elements for growth, among many other important micronutrients). But it might not be readily available to your plants (ie. it's stuck in minerals) or it might be reduced because things have been growing there for a long time. The most sustainable way to amend your soil is to build it, layer by layer, year after year. How do you do that? Use the power of plants! The plants you grow accumulate nutrients from the soil, and where that happens first is at the roots. One tip is to leave the roots! Cut your plants at the end of the season and leave root systems be, this allows microbial communities to develop and keeps root nutrients in the ground. Next tip: over winter, you can use nutrient-fixing cover crops like peas/clover to naturally add nitrogen to your soil from the atmosphere. Another great way to add nutrients is to pile your leaves and lawn clippings onto your garden, for decomposition over the winter, which adds loads of important nutrients. The following spring, add 1-2" of fresh compost to your soil. This can be bought in bulk, or made at home. If you have nutrient-intensive crops and want to make an addition of nutrients, I highly recommend getting your soil tested first to see if that's really the case, and then add only as much as needed via natural fertilizers (seaweed, fish based, worm casings).

 

MYTH 2: Oak leaves, pine needles, coffee grinds, orange peels... they'll make my soil too acidic!!

Totally false. The pH of your soil is almost entirely governed by its natural buffering capacity. AKA whatever minerals your soil is originally composed of have a natural capacity to regulate pH, and that will vary region-by-region, test your soil to find out your natural pH. When something that may have a low natural pH is added to the soil (like say pine needles at a pH of about 3.5), the addition may cause a quick dip in pH, but it will be rapidly neutralized by the bacteria that decompose it. It is not something your plants will feel. You very likely do not ever have to make modifications to your soil pH, and nothing you add to it (unless you are constantly spraying your garden with vinegar faster than your soil can balance it) will have any measurable impact on your soil pH. Oh, and coffee grounds are neutral after brewing anyways.

 

MYTH 3: I need to till my soil to aerate it

Your soil has a natural gradient of oxygen from the atmosphere to root depth, and the bacteria that live there rely on that gradient to function properly. Some bacteria do better in lower oxygen systems, and when you disturb the soil, you can destroy those communities. Bacteria are key to a healthy soil and healthy garden! They are the pillars of organic matter decomposition. Unless you have extremely compacted soil and are starting a garden from scratch, there is no need to till, and it usually detracts from your soil health. Save you back, and layer as directed in Myth 1!

 

MYTH 4: My soil has no bacteria, I need to add some

This is another load of baloney. Unless you live in an industrial mine pit with toxic soil where you shouldn't garden anyways, your soil is rich in bacteria. But, they may not be functioning as well as they could. To improve your soil bacteria, focus on creating healthy soils by adding organic matter regularly, letting root systems decompose in place, and avoid tilling your soil.

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ii. Explainer

I think I covered it enough above, so I'll just say that I hope we can reframe our vision of dirty. Maybe we can even get to the point of saying EW that is SO SANITARY! Which is definitely grosser than something dirty, in my books.

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iii. Reading

• Get Dirty. It's Surprisingly Good For Your Health

• No Till Gardening Keeps Soil and Plants Healthy

• The Green Cleaning Guide

• Built environment microbiomes transition from outdoor to human-associated communities after construction and commissioning

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iv. Current Projects

• We made it one month without the grocery store [but we did go last weekend for a BBQ]! The pantry has been the biggest help, but so have a couple locally-owned farm stores that sell local eggs, and MA-made dairy products. We also have half a pig this year, and having meat in the freezer for a few meals a week helps a ton. We've been eating really well, albeit with a little less variety in our ingredients. It's a good thing we love beans and rice! 

• I made an online purchase from costco. Could have driven an hour to get it, but that seemed besides the point. I'm going to aim to finish out May with no more online purchases anyways!

• The garden is starting to really produce! It's asparagus and strawberry season - both are perennials (come back every year) and are not too hard to establish for a near-lifetime supply! I'm planting successions of beans, lettuce, peas and carrots right now, and working on my 100 tomato plants in the greenhouse.

• Trash count is still getting to me, I think that'll be a big focus in June. One way we reduce trash is using cardboard as the base for new garden beds. If you're new to that, it's called sheet mulching! Cardboard degrades quickly, but blocks weeds for a good year. So, to make a new garden, just plop some cardboard down, add 4-6" of soil, plant and mulch. 

It's the 10th edition of Ecodigest, WOWOW! I hope everyone deletes their Amazon account to celebrate. How will I be celebrating?? With a big juicy theme for this week: All About Emissions. I'm going to tell you what emissions are, what they mean, the biggest emitting sectors today, I'll try to contextualize emissions, and of course, provide tips on how to change behaviors in order to decarbonize. Say it with me -  the only way to mitigate climate change is to divorce ourselves from reliance on fossil fuels. That means changing behavior to reduce reliance on carbon, and to reduce wasteful consumption. 

 

i. Explainer   **new this week, Explainer before Changing behavior now**

 

Emissions, in the context of climate change, generally refer to the emissions of greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases are bad because they act as an extra barrier in the atmosphere that prevents heat, in the form of solar radiation, from leaving the atmosphere. That change in radiation has impacts on more than just temperature because solar radiation is the source of energy for all processes on the planet, from ocean circulation (which is a temperature dependent process), to photosynthesis, to species survival, and to air circulation patterns. That's why our elevated greenhouse gas emissions have dramatic impact on the entire functioning of all systems on Earth. 

 

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the most famous greenhouse gas, because of its outrageous emission rates from fossil fuel burning. Other important greenhouse gases add to the problem, but are less often reported/discussed. Notably, methane and nitrous oxide; methane is another form of carbon (CH4) that is emitted during fossil fuel burning as well as from agricultural sources (ruminant burps and farts) and nitrous oxide (N2O) is a nitrogen compound emitted as a byproduct in fossil fuel burning and as an agricultural emission. Maybe I'll devote future digests to each of these. I digress.

 

We talk a lot about decarbonizing, because the bulk (roughly two thirds) of global climate change results from our non-natural carbon dioxide emissions. Now, carbon dioxide does occurs naturally in the atmosphere, making up 0.04% of our atmosphere. That's largely because when you (or any oxygen breathing organism on the planet) respires, it's carbon dioxide. Respiration is kind of like the reverse of photosynthesis - in photosynthesis, carbon dioxide and water are combined in the presence of sunlight to make sugar and oxygen; in respiration, oxygen and sugar are consumed while carbon dioxide and water are produced (and energy, as ATP). So, all our energy ultimately comes from the energy in sunlight, which gets transferred to us via sugar, aka carbon. But photosynthesis happens more and faster than respiration on our planet, which means that carbon - in the form of sugar, which ultimately becomes organic matter - accumulates in biota (all living things).

 

So ok, carbon accumulates in living things. Now it gets interesting: as organisms die, the carbon accumulated within them is stored long-term in soils and sediments (when it's not decomposed). When that carbon is stored over say, 300 million years, it becomes fossil fuels - oil, gas, and coal. 

 

That means that when we burn those fossil fuels, we are releasing very concentrated and very old carbon back into the atmosphere at rates much faster than they accumulated. Burning fossil fuels is undoing millions and millions of years worth of photosynthesis, and represents unfathomable amounts of solar energy stored over millennia. In fact, in one year, we burn the equivalent of 400(!!!) times all the plant material covering the surface of the Earth (and within the oceans) in fossil fuels. No wonder the planet is destabilizing faster than we can develop technology to repair it.

 

The planet has systems to naturally regulate carbon dioxide emissions; water can hold more carbon dioxide than the atmosphere and absorbs some, and importantly, all terrestrial and marine plants absorb carbon dioxide via photosynthesis. Indeed, estimates suggest that the planet absorbs about 50% of the carbon dioxide we emit, thank you planet. But, the planet can only hold so much carbon dioxide, and climate change is actually making that quantity lower. Warmer water holds less carbon dioxide. Changing climates alter growth patterns of important photosynthesizers (particularly algae). And perhaps worst of all, we're clearing forests at an alarming rate (about 18 soccer fields worth of forests PER MINUTE), rapidly destroying a major sink for carbon dioxide. 

 

To rectify this, we need to immediately decarbonize - aka stop burning fossil fuels. That is truly the only way to mitigate global climate change, and is something that has been well-known for decades. Unfortunately, instead of initiatives aimed at changing behavior, most climate programs and policies are devoted to continuing business as usual while waiting for a silver bullet technological solution. Meanwhile, oil extraction and burning in the US has never been higher. I digress again.

 

We hear that emissions need to be curbed by a certain percentage, to reach certain warming targets. But emissions and climate change are hard to conceptualize when let's face it, we're talking gasses here, they are invisible. So, what do the numbers mean, and how is that reflected in our day-to-day behavior?

 

When we talk about emissions, we're usually dealing in millions or billions of metric tons of carbon dioxide. It's hard to think about a gas as having mass, but gas has mass! But, it takes A LOT of gas to have mass, which is why the upcoming numbers are so revolting. 

 

In 2024, we emitted 41.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere (up from 40.6 billion in 2023), a record year. That's the equivalent to the weight of over 600,000,000 African Elephants - for context. Each year, we as individuals each emit about 2-4 African Elephants worth of carbon dioxide. Wow gross. To fill my tacoma it takes the equivalent of 378 African Elephants in ancient plant material. Climate change is a lot of elephants. To slow climate change, we need to reach net-zero emissions, which means emissions can only be as high as their absorption by the planet. But again, the latter number is getting smaller while the former keeps getting higher. 

 

For some country-by-country context, here's some emissions data from the US, Canada and China (2023):

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Looking at these data, we see that while China is often blamed for its high total emissions (highest globally), its per capita emissions are much lower than for Canada or the US. Moreover, most of their emissions are in the sectors of industry and generation of electrical power (non discerned between commercial and residential), suggesting that most of their emissions are export emissions - aka generated in the production of goods for other nations. In the US and Canada, transportation and electrical power are primary emissions sources, but most of our consumption based emissions are hidden in their countries of origin - aka, our consumption in North America is responsible for emissions abroad. Worse still, the US and Canada also hide grotesque amounts of export emissions via the production of oil products - the top export for both countries.

 

I'll say it once, I'll say it 1000 times, we urgently need to decarbonize. That means changing the functioning of every major system in North America...obviously not an individual's responsibility. But as individuals we can participate in the necessary shift in values towards a decarbonized future. Most basically, that means consuming less. Less basically, it means reconfiguring our relationship with the ecosystem around us.

ii. Changing behavior now

Here are 3 things you can do now to change your behavior to fall in line with a decarbonized future. I have a tip for each of our largest emitting sectors (1) transportation and (2) electrical power, as well as another idea for reducing (3) overconsumption.

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1. What would it take to go electric?

This one is just a thought exercise, how easy is that? 

 

Transportation emissions are huge. I know what you're thinking, it's all airplanes and big trucks. Actually, in the US, only 9% of transport emissions are from airlines. And while heavy duty trucks are responsible for 23% of emissions, light duty (passenger and van) emissions account for a whopping 57% of emissions. That means that its us... rats. Or maybe not rats, because maybe individuals have power to change this number!

 

In Europe, electric cars have been highly incentivized and a part of their climate change mitigation strategy for decades. Like in North America, passenger transit is responsible for most of the EU's transportation emissions, and they identified this area early as an easy space to make change. Converting from a gas powered car to an electric car reduces the greenhouse gas emissions from the lifecycle of a vehicle by up to 70%. No, electric cars are not perfect, yes the materials used to make batteries are environmentally troublesome to acquire. But the priority is decarbonizing. Focusing on the problems with electric cars is like fussing over a papercut when a leg has been severed.  In 2023, over 23% of new car sales in the EU were electric, continuing their trend of electric car adoption; correspondingly, transport emissions have steadily decreased.

 

The exercise here is to ask what it would take to change one of your vehicles to an electric car. Would you want a battery at home? Chargers at work? Would you need your second vehicle (if you have one) to be gas for longer trips, or do you live in a city and not generally travel long distances? Would a hybrid be a good choice?

 

We have one electric car and one small pickup. The electric car we charge for free at Geoff's work, and it's the primary commuting vehicle. The truck is for longer trips and when we have a lot to transport. I think for us to go fully electric with both vehicles, we would need a battery at home, and to know that US highway systems are supporting the infrastructure needed for more and more powerful chargers. We are many years away from needing a new vehicle, but when the time comes, we will get at least a hybrid for our second vehicle.

 

Along with deleting Amazon, going electric for one vehicles goes miles.

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2. Get an Energy Audit

During an energy audit, a professional assesses your home's energy use and identifies inefficiencies. They inspect insulation, heating and cooling systems, windows, doors, and appliances. The aim is to find affordable ways to cut energy consumption and lower utility bills. Win, win.

 

An energy audit will help you assess your home and find ways to be more energy efficient, either via improving things like insulation or adding systems like heat pumps. Usually, an auditor will also help you apply for government rebates for things like solar panels or mini-splits. Exploring where energy is being most heavily used (or lost) at home, is a great step in personal energy accounting. Finding ways to be more efficient with your existing infrastructure is a great way to curb consumption!

 

This is free or offered with a government rebate in most states and provinces. In Massachusetts, you can use Mass Save for free, it's super easy. In Ontario, you can hire an auditor and get a $600 rebate back from the government. Here's some more info from the government of Canada.

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3. Delete your amazon. Jk! Try putting back half of your shopping cart

Challenge - over the next week, every time you have a cart (online or in person), put half of it back. If you really need it, you can get it next week. That is the real takeaway!! Whatever we think we "need" we probably don't "need it, NOW". 

 

Chances are, no matter that you're buying, be it groceries or something online, you could survive with half of what you have in your cart. If our purchasing was better paced, we'd buy less, so this one is an easy exercise in reducing overall consumption. Seriously try it, just for a week, even if its just two things in your cart, put one back. If you only have one thing in your cart, extra challenge - round down, and don't buy it at all. Just wait.

 

Taking a pause is helpful because it gives your mind a little space to think about what you are doing. We're bombarded all day with information, so it's easy to mindlessly consume. Changing behavior means re-training the way we think, and the pause is a great step towards that.

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iii. Reading

• How decades of disinformation about fossil fuels halted U.S. climate policy

• Defense, Denial, and Disinformation: Uncovering the Oil Industry’s Early Knowledge of Climate Change

• Oil Barons Own the Earth

• Two thirds of global heating cause by the richest 10%      (btw we are the richest 10%!!!!)

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iv. Current projects

1. The Pantry: A few reviews on what we bough a couple months ago (1) frozen cheese isn't as good as regular cheese. I got a couple 10 lb logs of cheese (parm and cheddar, cheese royalty) and froze them into 1 lb portions. The result was crumbly, and the cheese quality was below this cheese snob's bar. For the future, I'll buy locally made, high quality cheese, in low quantities. (2) Flour is INCREDIBLE from Azure, really. Bread has never been more beautiful and the value is amazing. (3) I love having corn chips and crackers, made from locally sourced whole ingredients, at home. I have snacks at the ready and don't need to turn to processed foods.

2. The Garden: Is so fun. I'm losing a pest battle with my beans, but that's ok because I have other things growing. This week I'll be planting a succession of lettuce and carrot.

3. The trash: OK OK I'm officially auditing trash next week. I'll photo-document it for you. Blerg.

4. The challenge: I've decided to try washable diapers, I'll be using a friend's. I'll keep you posted and share the wonderful tips I've gotten from readers.

Speaking of digestion, this week's theme is a reader suggestion: MEAT! If you care about the planet, eating meat is bad. Right? Well, I'm not sure. Let's take a closer look! Whether or not you are vegan, vegetarian, flexitarian, pescatarian, or a classic omnivore, I hope there's something in here for you. 

 

i. Explainer   

Anyone who has spent any time eating with me knows that I really love meat. Ham, fried chicken, pork dumplings, and ragu bolognese are all among my favorite meals. Which has caused me lots of guilt in the past, because the truth is, eating meat is indeed extremely carbon intensive and usually very ethically problematic.

 

But what makes meat environmentally harmful, and what are the impacts of its alternatives? Is there a way to consume meat and its products in a decarbonized future?

 

Livestock production for meat and its products (dairy, eggs, etc) is responsible for over 14% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Beef and milk production account for 60% of those emissions, and within that, growing feed for cattle and enteric fermentation (farts and burps) are the primary emissions culprits. Shockingly, 77% of all globally farmed land is used to grow feed crops for livestock, while that land only produces 18% of the world's calories, geez. Worse still, the industry is rife with animal abuse and extremely cruel practices to increase production volume. It's something that's difficult to think about and that most of us do not want to acknowledge - to quote Al Gore: “for most people, the role of animal agriculture in climate change is too inconvenient of a truth”. But is it the meat that is the problem here, or is it actually the industrialization of meat (and its products)? 

 

Americans consume 122 kg of meat per person, per year (Canadians 90 kg); compared to the 6 kg the average person in India consumes. Americans consume 228 kg of dairy per person, per year (Canadians, 160 kg); compared to the 31 kg consumed by the average person in China. In the US, approximately 27 chickens are slaughtered for every person, per year; and in fact, chickens are farmed so extensively that they are the most populous bird species in the world. Those chickens nearly always come from factory farms that raise 500,000 chickens or more per year in one space; and for egg-laying hens, the average sized farm is much larger, in the millions of chickens crammed together. When either egg laying or meat hens are killed, the volumes are so unwieldy that the method of choice is shutting off ventilation and letting them suffocate en masse. 

 

I don't need to go any further about the atrocities within the industrialized meat, dairy and egg industries. But looking at these data, I see a problem with the process, not the product.

 

By ascribing the blame to meat consumption in principle, we are distracted from the real culprit here: the scale of livestock production for both meat and its products. Why is beef so much worse than cheese? Why is eating chicken worse than eating eggs? What are the environmental and socioeconomic consequences of meat alternatives? Is industrially-produced meat the only way to source meat? Is a meat-free diet accessible to all socioeconomic classes? There is complexity within this issue that goes far beyond whether or not we eat meat.

 

For example, highly processed foods, a category of foods in which many vegan options fall, are extremely harmful for the environment and to the global economies that support their production. While most meat consumed in the US comes from the US, most processed foods come from dozens of countries, often from raw ingredients produced via slavery (often child slavery) and clear cutting of environmentally significant forests. About 60% of calories consumed in the US and Canada come from processed foods today (70% for children, very sad). Some studies suggest that processed foods could be responsible for 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and 45% of global biodiversity loss; others estimate these numbers are much higher.

 

I wonder if defaulting to vegetarianism/veganism misses the point that the industrialization of our food systems is fundamentally not sustainable. We need to think about food much more deeply on a day-to-day basis, and we must stop consuming from large corporations/retailers, mindlessly. That means understanding where our food comes from, eating whole foods, and as much as possible, buying local products. Currently, this is a luxury, but if you make over $75K/yr as a household (USD, average middle income for a family of 3, varies by state), these are choices you can afford to make. We'll talk about food deserts and the social injustices of our food system another time. I digress.

 

The solution is to eat the rich, but barring that, we need to make choices with food that are in line with our values. I'm pretty sure that everyone on this email list shares the values that animals should not be tortured and mass produced, nor should our calories come from forced-labor farming for palm, sugar, soy, corn etc. So here are some suggestions to help make choices that are in line with your values, particularly as those choices pertain to meat, its products, and protein in general.

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ii. Changing behavior now

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1. Become food literate, what do you actually need?

What do we need to be healthy, relative to what's in the foods we eat? There is a dated perception of meat being central to our meals, a perception that we need lots of protein and it can only come from meat. In reality, lots of vegetables and grains contain significant amounts of protein, and a varied diet with less meat can give you all the protein you need. 

 

Very roughly, an active adult needs 0.36 g of protein for every 1 lb of bodyweight, per day. So that means if you're 150 lbs, you need about 54 g of protein per day. That protein can (and probably should) come from diverse sources - here's some internet picture I found which is probably more or less accurate! 

 

Now we can add another layer, and consider which of these proteinaceous foods are particularly carbon intensive. Avocados, almonds, and non-peanut nuts are all very carbon intensive crops. Of the meat choices, beef will be more carbon intensive than chicken or duck. So, it's helpful to consume less carbon intensive products, and more high protein but low carbon footprint products - go beans! Here's another awesome image to help you make choices of how to consume with a smaller carbon footprint:

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2. Break the meat habit

I don't think you need to be a vegetarian to be someone who eats in an environmentally conscious way, but I do think we all need to eat much less meat, and much less dairy. If everyone reduced their meat and dairy consumption by 50%, we'd see a 30% reduction in greenhouse gasses from agricultural systems. Our bodies get accustomed to the endorphins released when we eat rich foods like meat, but our bodies are quick to adjust when we make changes and those cravings will quiet. We can make do with less! Let's tolerate a little discomfort for the future generations!

 

Ideas like meatless mondays are great, but consider a mindset shift in how meat is used in your kitchen instead of strict rules. Meat is a treat, and can add a lot to a dish with very little. Ideas - bacon in a salad, a small amount of ground pork into your mushroom ragu, grain bowls with a little grilled chicken thigh. Center the dish around grains and vegetables, and use meat/cheese/eggs occasionally as an add-on. 

 

It's helpful to keep meat items on hand that are satisfying but that you might need only a small amount of, like ground meat (which is usually really cheap!) and bacon (yum). It's also helpful to have other protein sources on hand! Peanuts are great, and a really low carbon crop. Add them to a stir fry, or add peanut butter to your next squash soup. Lentils are delicious and proteinaceous; they cook about as fast as rice - great for a salad, a curry or a quick soup. Eggs are easy to source locally, and are a fairly low-carbon way to get protein quickly. And beans! I soak a large batch of beans (2 cups) early in the week to make a big batch of hummus, and to have some beans ready to cook quickly on weeknight. Oh and don't forget classy quinoa, a great protein source too!

 

The important takeaway is that meat and its products need to be treated as specialty items because of how much energy and resources are needed to produce them. Consuming them in large quantities isn't sustainable, but there is a conscious way to enjoy them.

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3. Happy meat, happy climate

If you're going to change anything after this digest - or even just contemplate a change - this is the one I want you to try. Take a few minutes this week to find out where you can source happy meat/products. By that I mean meat that comes from a farm that you actually know has animals ranging about, happily (as far as we understand the psyche of farm animals).

 

For meat, you'll likely find some at your local farmers markets. Local farm stores, co-ops, and locally-owned grocery stores are usually good options as well. If you're motivated and have space, the most cost effective way to buy happy meat is to buy 1/4, 1/2 or whole animals direct from farms to keep in the freezer (this is very easy in the meat mecca of Ontario, friends up North!). We did half a pig in January and are just finishing it this month, 6 months of pork was awesome, and only took up 1/6 of our half sized chest freezer! And best of all, happy meat tastes so much better. It will be more expensive, but that's because meat energetically costs more to make, and any low prices are artificial (read: evil-corporate-greed-fueled-tortured meat). If our values are that we don't support animal cruelty and rampant carbon emissions as part of our food system, then we need to adjust our expectations for what things actually cost, taking into account the planet. 

 

Eggs are usually really easy to find locally. You will likely be paying $8-10/dozen. Again, eggs represent a calorically and energetically dense food item. They should cost more! 

 

Cheese/dairy is probably the easiest to source "happily"! Specialty locally made cheeses are very trendy, and can be found at most grocery stores, all specialty food stores, and often at farmers markets and farm stands. Same as above, it does cost more, so adjust to eating less, but higher quality cheeses.

 

What you'll pay more for in specialty foods, you'll gain in ingredient flavor and quality, and you can adjust by buying other ingredients in bulk. Easy and cheap bulk foods are grains, beans, pasta, frozen vegetables, nuts, etc. These can make up 75% of your diet, while meat and its products could be closer to 25%. Remember, we are treating meat and its products as specialty foods because of their high energetic requirement to produce. 

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iii. Reading

• 9 charts that show US factory farming is even bigger than you realize

• How we can make beef less terrible for the environment

• You Don’t Have to Be a Vegan to Be a Climate-Friendly Eater

• The Vegan vs. Carnivore Narrative Distracts From Climate Action

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iv. Current projects

1. The pantry: we are rich in beans. Anyone on Cape Cod want some? Our pantry occupies a very small footprint in the home and provides so much. I spend about $60/week on food luxuries like eggs, jam, olive oil, and make do with our grain/bean supply and veg from the garden/local farm stores. I feel great! To anyone who is newish to this list, I want you to know that this way of eating is new to me as of this year, and it's a learning curve but totally doable.

2. The diapers: ok I'm officially getting my friend's reusable diapers tonight. This one is totally out of my comfort zone, but I'm trying it and will keep you posted! A reader suggested starting with reusable at home, and disposable when I'm going out, and I love that idea (in large part because I have a stash of disposable diapers to get through!).

3. The garden: I've tried two pest control methods this year - diatomaceous earth vs. neem/soap combo. So far, the diatomaceous earth is way better, but has the difficulty of needing reapplication after rain or if the soil is too moist. All my kale bolted before it produced, OH WELL. Lettuces are starting to look good, and so is the chard. I also wanted to say - I've only been gardening for 4 years, and there's a lot to learn, and most of that is learned through trial and error. Last year, probably only about 30% of what I planted produced something for me to eat... keep at it! Gardening is about learning, and it's very forgiving because you can always try again later.

If you are new to the digest, please scroll to the bottom of this message to see what it's all about, and for archived digests.

 

This week's theme has been a long time coming - RECYCLING! So you care about the planet, reduce, reuse, recycle, right? I'm not so sure. 

 

I have been feeling mistrustful and confused about the efficiency of our recycling systems in the US - and I'm not alone. Consumer confusion and mistrust in recycling is reflected in recycling rates: in 2018, the US Environmental Protection Agency found that as much as 75% of generated waste in the US is recyclable, but only 30% is actually recycled - most of that is paper and cardboard. Canada fares worse, with only 27% of its solid waste actually recycled (2022 data). Why are recycling systems, which make use of valuable materials, so inefficient and unpopular? Let's take a look.

i. Explainer   

I can remember learning about 'Reduce, Reuse, Recycling' when I was a kid in elementary school - not surprising since the slogan has been in use since the 1970s, when it was coined by the US federal government. At the time, there was growing concern among policymakers over the avalanche of waste generated as plastic materials got cheaper to make - the beverage industry being a major culprit. Where in the 50s, 96% of materials were returned and reused (think milk bottles), by the 70s, less than 9% were, as a result of disposable plastic materials. 

 

Thus, recycling programs - which had previously only been used for large things like used cars - emerged for all kinds of materials: paper, aluminium, glass, and namely - plastics. These original recycling programs were funded by large corporations, like Coca Cola, in an effort to combat mandatory bottle and can returns that were cramping their ability to produce and sell as much plastic as possible. Instead, today's recycling programs were created, programs which have many stakeholders, and many hidden processes. But basically most North American recycling - even when partially organized via state/provincial/municipal government - is privately managed. Recycled materials are bought by companies - which resell them usually overseas, or to companies repurposing materials domestically. What can't be sold is landfilled or burned. 

 

Even at their inception, recycling programs were intertwined with the corporations largely responsible for producing the immense volume of plastics rapidly filling landfills. Worse still, those corporations were aware of the repercussions of generating massive amounts of waste with nowhere to go. An investigation into internal documents and memos revealed that industry officials (from companies like Exxon, DuPont, Coca Cola, etc) knew that plastics - the largest component of landfills aside from food waste - were not actually recyclable. 

 

The investigation found a 1973 report, where a scientific consultant said "There is no recovery from obsolete products", and went on to explain how plastics degrade and change with each turnover. Plastics are not recoverable as a recycled material because chemically, the composition of plastic changes too much over the course of their reconfiguration, resulting in materials that leach toxic molecules. At best, only 20% of all plastics made have even a small potential to be recycled. So, plastic is not (generally) recyclable because of very low reprocessing rates. 

 

So what actually happens to plastics? In the US, domestically managed plastic waste is broken down as follows: 86% of plastics are landfilled, 9% are burned, and 5% are repurposed (2019). But that's just domestically, the US actually exports the same amount of plastic as it handles domestically. 

 

Until recently, China was the recipient of most US plastic waste. But in 2017, to address growing environmental concerns and to build more robust recycling programs, China enacted the National Sword policy, and stopped accepting international waste. China was being overwhelmed by contaminated and non-recyclable plastics from the US, and has since made a greener recovery, but the ban didn't stop the export of plastic waste. After China stopped accepting the world's plastic, other countries stepped in, many in Southeast Asia. Those countries do not have the infrastructure to handle the rich world's waste, and can't manage the plastic problem. In Indonesia, for example, 86% of imported waste is landfilled or sent to open dumps - aka dumped into canals and into the ocean.

 

It's clear there is a plastic problem. But how do other products fare? Recycling effectiveness varies by place and by product, but generally, some products are much more recyclable than others. In researching this topic, I found that the 'recyclability' of a material - how many times it can be repurposed in its lifetime - isn't well reported or standardized. Instead, when talking about how recyclable something is, generally we're talking about what fraction of it was in reality (not in potential) recycled. So, here are reported recycling rates for products from 2018 (aka the % of material that actually gets recovered and repurposed).

PAPER: 68%

METALS: 34% (aluminium only 17%, steel 33%, other metals 67%)

GLASS: 25%

TEXTILE: 15%

PLASTICS: 9%

 

These are US numbers, but in general, recycling paper = good and easy. Recycling plastic = inefficient and generally not actually happening. Plastic production and consumption continues to rise, and false promises and advertisements about the recyclability of those products hides the very real truth that we need to stop making and using plastics.

 

If wastelands of plastic trash abroad and in our environment aren't enough, plastic waste poses serious health threats to the entire global population. Our waters are ultimately all globally connected, and most of our plastic waste is interacting with or winding up in waterways. There are 10,000 different chemicals used in the manufacturing of plastics (and remember, plastics are 99% fossil fuels). Of those 25% have been flagged as immediately concerning to public health, and the remainder are mostly unstudied. Worse still, the interactions and chemical reactions between those compounds are completely unknown and unstudied.

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ii. Changing behavior now

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1. Don't buy plastics

This one is really hard, but I'm trying to shy away from suggesting half measures like "reduce your plastic consumption" because I'm a gemini - just kidding, it's because half measures don't hold us accountable and don't usually fundamentally change our thinking patterns and behaviors. That said, there aren't systems in place to completely phase out plastics, so buy as little plastic as possible. Here are some strategies to do that:

-Don't use grocery bags and don't bag your produce (bring mesh ones, or just leave the produce as is, you're washing it anyways)

-Stop buying beverages that come in disposable containers. 

-Try not to get things shipped to your house (delete your Amazon!!), which creates lots of excess plastic packaging. Once you are used to going to the local market, hardware store, and pharmacy, you'll probably find you are ordering more than you need and spending more time/$$ online shopping than you would spend on the 1-2 outings a week to get your supplies.

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2. Recycle paper, glass and metal

These materials have a higher recyclability than plastics, and if there were more consumer buy-in, their recycling in North America would be effective. That would lead to less waste and less carbon used to make these materials. Rinsing and sorting these as it pertains to recycling rate varies by location, so look up your local recycling guidelines. Here they are for Cape Cod towns. 

 

In Sandwich, for instance, labels are OK, rinsing is recommended, and paper should be sorted into paper bags.

 

3. Strike against disposable drinking vessels

It's time for a Challenge! Count how many beverages you consume in one week from disposable containers. Paper cups are part plastic, that's why they don't leak, so they get counted too. We don't need as many bottled/canned/cupped beverages as we are consuming! It's a really meaningful way to make a change, and yeah maybe you'll feel awkward bringing a reusable cup/mug. Oh well.

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iii. Reading

• Where does your plastic go? Global investigation reveals America's dirty secret

• Rich countries export twice as much plastic waste to the developing world as previously thought

• Recycling plastic is practically impossible — and the problem is getting worse

• Ocean plastics: How much do rich countries contribute by shipping their waste overseas?

• The disposable cup crisis: what’s the environmental impact of a to-go coffee?

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iv. Current projects

1. I haven't tried reusable diapers yet... 

2. Still loving bulk food and market life. Only one trip to the grocery store since April and we haven't missed anything. It's been fun seeing what things are in season at local farm stands, and getting to know the people who work there. For the Cape Codders - it's still peach season at Crow Farm! Get them at Bartlett's farm stand, Scenic Roots, and other spots!

3. We did a Mass Save energy audit last month, and are using the federal tax rebate ($10K) to get a heat pump and some mini-splits installed. Goodbye inefficient electric heat! The audit was free and took 15 minutes.

4. The garden is so thirsty, I really need drip irrigation to make better use of the water we have. ACCEPTING TIPS

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v. **NEW THIS DIGEST** Reader comments!

• One reader wondered if garburators (trash disposals in the sink) were a good way to dispose of waste. After some research, I found that sink waste disposal systems go to municipal water waste, where solid materials are separated and sent to landfill. So the answer is NO, that's not a great place for food waste! 

• One reader asked how to get rid of a persistent weed that they had pulled the year before, but had come back. They wondered if a chemical treatment was worth it in this case. Answer is NO, chemical treatment is never the answer! Tough weeds will come back and typically take 2-3 years (sometimes more) of pulling to completely eradicate from a spot. Keep pulling them and be vigilant. It's extra helpful to plant something new when you pull something out, that way the new plant may dominate. Chemical additions will wear off and ultimately end up in your waterways, and any application to your landscape could be intercepted by kids, pets or wildlife.

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If you are new to the digest, please scroll to the bottom of this message to see what it's all about, and for archived digests.

 

This digest's theme is TRANSPORTATION, a theme loosely related to an oped I wrote for Undark magazine about trade emissions, which came out a couple of weeks ago (How Tariffs Could Help Canada Wean Itself from Fossil Fuels). Sorry for the shameless self-promotion.

 

Anyways, transportation is the largest greenhouse gas emitting sector in the US, accounting for a whopping 39% of US emissions (30% in Canada, also the largest source of emissions). Where does that come from? How do our habits contribute to this? Are there behavior modifications we can make to address this issue? Let's dive in.

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i. Explainer   

When I think of transportation emissions, I'm transported to images of big jet plane contrails, and I think about taking fewer flights to lower my individual carbon footprint. But the reality is, our transportation emissions come primarily from light-duty vehicles (57% of transportation emissions in the US, 2022) - flight emissions are only 9% of transport emissions. 

 

Within the category of light-duty vehicles, there are passenger vehicles and light duty trucks, the latter accounting for 64% of light duty vehicle emissions. Interesting too - medium, and heavy duty trucks account for 5% of vehicles on the road, but 24% of transportation emissions. 

 

Light duty trucks - which are often delivery vehicles like Amazon vans - and medium/heavy duty trucks are shipping vehicles and so you could say that shipping is the single largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in the US (and Canada). 

 

That's not surprising. The online sale of goods has soared nonstop since online shopping became available. The industry was valued at $316 billion USD in 2022, projected to increase by a compounded annual growth rate of 22% by 2030 in the US - the fastest growing market in the world.

 

Insanely, online orders in the US now arrive within 2.5 days of ordering, and 74% of consumers favor purchases that offer free shipping. In fact, some studies show that 77% of people expect their deliveries within the same day. Our appetite for having things delivered directly to our homes, RIGHT NOW, is rapacious.

 

This obviously has a huge environmental cost, but our choices continue to trend towards more consumption, and faster. The important shift we could make for a decarbonized future is to reevaluate our needs, and our false sense of urgency for receiving consumer goods directly to our homes. 

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ii. Changing behavior now

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1. Delete your Amazon

Amazon is on track to be the largest parcel delivery service in the US, beating out even the United States Postal Service. In 2024, Amazon shipped 6.3 billion packages (up 7.3% from 2023), while USPS shipped 6.7 billion.

 

Over the period between 2019-2023, Amazon increased its greenhouse gas emissions from shipping in the US by 18%. In that same time period, Amazon's light duty vehicle emissions increased by 190%.

 

I've had a few of you tell me that these digests have encouraged you to pause your Amazon, or to use it less. That totally warms my heart. But today I'm asking you to ask yourself why you need it at all. I challenge you to take this next week and make a list of things you "need" from Amazon, and then see what's on that list. Do you really need it? Do you need it now? Does it need to be delivered, directly to your home, within 3 days? Why? 

 

After I deleted my Amazon account this spring, I've found that the urgency that I feel about purchasing has really decreased. Often, I accumulate a list of things I'd normally buy on Amazon, and buy them all at once within a couple of weeks of my need. Usually, I find I don't really need it right away, and I can accumulate my "needs" in one shopping experience at my locally owned hardware store or wherever. I also spend a lot less time online scrolling and imagining things I need, and I'm finding I need a lot less than I felt I did before. 

 

...Not to mention the plastic packaging waste from Amazon.

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2. Stop shipping things to your home

If you already have deleted your Amazon, I think the next step is to really reduce or stop ordering things from online retailers to your house in general. I think it's worthwhile to question whether the convenience of having things directly delivered to our homes is worth the environmental impact. Is having that thing right away on your doorstep in line with your values that climate change is real, and the only way to slow it is to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels?

 

Here are some things I used to get shipped to my home, and ways around that:

 

i. BOOKS: alternative #1 is the library! You can request almost anything you want, and going is such a fun activity, and a great way to engage with your community. #2 is to make a relationship with your local bookstore, and call them to see if they have your book in stock. If they don't they will happily order it for you. You might have to wait a few days. Then, you get the fun activity of going to your bookstore, and another opportunity to engage with a local business owner.

 

ii. FOOD ITEMS: alternative for bulk foods would be to physically go to Costco/BJs or a bulk store. For specialty food items, an option is finding the nearest specialty food store, which can be a fun errand! This one is hard for me, and I admit that I use malamarket online for my specialty chinese ingredients. I'm trying to reduce that to once or twice a year. So, another suggestion is to accumulate a list of your specialty items and try to find a smaller, reputable online retailer to get them all at once (malamarket is one of those!)

 

iii. CLOTHING: I rent a lot of my clothes from nuuly, which does ship to me once a month in a reusable container. Not ideal, but it's a balancing act for me between wanting to avoid fast fashion and wanting to avoid having things shipped. I think some alternatives are to buy fewer clothes, do clothing swaps with friends, try thrift shopping, and if you want to buy something new, take the time to find some locally owned clothing stores in your area.

 

iv. HOUSEWARES: This one I find quite hard and would love suggestions. Things like light fixtures, furniture, decor are tough to find outside of large and problematic retailers like Home Depot or Target etc. If anyone has suggestions, send them my way, and maybe I'll take some time to make an ecodigest all about where to source these things. The one alternative that comes to mind is used furniture, but for newer pieces I do struggle to avoid the shipping direct to home.

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3. Make your next vehicle electric/hybrid

So most of this digest has been about shipping transportation and its contribution to emissions, but many light duty vehicles are passenger trucks and SUVs, and passenger vehicles in general are huge sources of emissions.

 

Consider making your next vehicle purchase a fuel-efficient one. There is a bunch of misinformation out there about the environmental costs of electric vehicles, when the reality is that while things like mining for battery products is harmful, those repercussions pale in comparison to the repercussions of continuing to burn fossil fuels.

 

The scientific consensus is and has been overwhelming that over their lifetime, electric vehicles are better for our future climate than fossil-fuel burning cars.

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iii. Reading

• Electric Vehicles Help Combat Climate Change, Here's Why

• Amazon’s Shipping and Delivery Emissions Just Keep Going Up

• The Truth About Online Shopping and Its Environmental Impact

• The Effect of Framing the Environmental Impact of Fast Shipping on Nudging Consumers To Opt for Slow Home Deliveries: Evidence From the Field

• The environmental impact of fast shipping ecommerce in inbound logistics operations: A case study in Mexico

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iv. Current projects:

We're in the last quarter of 2025, and I'm feeling on track for our goal of divorcing ourselves from grocery stores by the end of the year. We've gone to a big grocery store about 5 times since April, and I think many of the behavior changes we've made as a family have sunk in and feel routine now. To make those changes, here's what we've done:

 

-Getting eggs locally has been pretty easy, there are a few retailers and locals who sell them roadside. I usually go to Scenic Roots or Bartlett Farms

-We got a half pig in January which was about 80% of our at home meat consumption until June. Since June, we've gotten local chicken from Scenic Roots, or locally made sausages (Doms). In October, we're getting a half lamb from Peterson Farm in Falmouth, they are accepting reservations for half lambs as of this week, reserve yours.

-We've gotten most of our produce from the garden, and a few things from farm stands since May. I've managed to freeze some veg and veg dishes over the summer, I'm hoping it'll last until about January, and we are trying our hands at growing winter crops under a hoop - kale, onions, carrots, cabbage. I'll keep you posted!

-We've gotten fruit from local farm stands exclusively since May, but I'm not sure what will happen as the winter sets in. I'm thinking I'll buy frozen fruit in bulk and make due with that, but will keep you posted!

-We've almost entirely cut out processed foods, which means our snacks are things like breads, cheese, fruit, veg, homemade crackers and we also go out a few times a week for treats like fries and ice cream. In our Azure Standard bulk order, I got lots of nuts, some rice cakes, and cereal as well.

-We've been buying much smaller amounts of dairy, from small farm stores that source dairy products from the Northeast. Bartlett Farms, Lambert's Market, and Scenic Roots are our go-tos.

 

Cape and Southern Mass friends - there is a new Azure Standard drop location in Lakeville MA! Closer to me for sure, and could be a good fit if you want to try it out, we've really had luck with the food quality. I'll be making an October order, and will have room to pick up for 2-3 other people (dried foods only sorry), so reach out if you want me to do that for you. First come first serve!

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v. Reader comments!

• One reader mentioned the benefits of getting local foods by participating in a local CSA. A CSA is a Community Supported Agriculture project, and most areas have many. You sign up for an amount of produce(ex. one box per week), that you usually pick up from a specific location. That produce comes from one or sometimes many farms and is a great way to get healthy, local veggies and fruit.

This week's theme is processed foods. This one is personal, because after a long and tumultuous relationship, I'm breaking up with processed foods. If you know me well enough, you'll know that until recently processed foods were some of my favorites. We had SPAM at our wedding, I've had hot-dog eating contests with humans and their pet dogs alike, and my fingers may as well be stained orange given all the nacho cheese Doritos I've scarfed (way better than cool ranch). But the more I learn about these carefully pre-packaged foods, the more they give me "the ick" as the kids say. 

So this week, I'm going to tell you why I'm breaking up with processed foods, and how I will replace the void in my stomach and heart. And importantly, I want to emphasize the link between these highly-manufactured foods and climate change. Veganism/vegetarianism is the most common anti-big-food-industry movement in our culture, but cutting processed foods can have just as big, or bigger, impacts on improving our environment and decarbonizing.

Much of this information came from the research I did for this piece that came out a couple weeks ago in the Guardian on The hidden cost of ultra-processed food.

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i. Changing behavior now

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Processed foods contain many many ingredients, sourced from all over the world. Each processed food item has ingredients that have travelled thousands of miles, often from mono-culture crop farms in poor countries of the global south, and are highly manufactured using extremely energetically intensive processes. Between transport, mono-culture farming, deforestation, intense water usage and the fossil fuels used to make them, ultra-processed foods hide a tremendous carbon footprint. Here are 3 things you can do now, to change behavior, in order to work towards a decarbonized future. Say no to processed foods!

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1. Eat intentionally

In a study of 29 countries, examining time spent preparing and eating food, the US and Canada finished last - spending only 1 hour a day eating and drinking. Compare that to Spain, Greece, Italy and France, who spend over 2 hours a day enjoying their meals.

This reflects one major problem with processed foods - they are designed to be safe, cheap and easy to eat in convenient single sized packaging. Processed foods encourage quick, isolated meals. Doing that takes away the intention and joy of eating!

 

Instead, it would be healthier both physically and mentally to take the time to cook our own food and eat it in a communal setting, when possible. Doing so usually means making healthier choices that are ultimately more satisfying and have a much smaller carbon footprint. One study showed that 30% of food consumption emissions were due to processed foods, but this number is likely a huge underestimate, because most corporations that make processed foods do not, or do not accurately, report carbon emissions.

2. Replace processed foods with whole foods (not the store, yuck Besos)

Single ingredient foods are healthier and have a way smaller carbon footprint than their processed counterparts. While you may lose on variety and intensity of some flavors, you'll gain much more in nutritional value and you'll lower your carbon footprint substantially by eating whole foods. It will take a small amount of extra time to prepare food this way, but the reward is worth the effort, and the time spent increases your connection to the food you eat. That's a huge part of changing our consumption habits: thinking about what we are consuming. Below is a table of processed foods, with their number of ingredients, and suggestions (with recipe links where it makes sense) for whole food alternatives.

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3. Learn and share about nutrition

The most vulnerable population to processed foods is children. The packaging, characters, colors, and flavors are geared to be sold to them, specifically. To combat this, it's helpful to think about nutrition, and talk about it with our kids. Nutrition for children is critical for managing childhood obesity, for hormone regulation and for developing an understanding of the impact of our food systems on our planet. Some suggestions on how to learn more about nutrition:

-Look at food labels, and consider the # of calories contained within a food, compared to other nutritional factors like sodium, sugar and saturated fats. Are the calories you are consuming empty? Many processed foods hide this with small serving sizes, so read carefully.

-Find out what is grown and made locally, those foods will be most nutritionally dense (foods lose nutrients with time and processing). A great way to find this out is check your local farmers market.

-Try adding more beans and grains to your diet - these are energetically inexpensive to grow and harvest, are nutrient dense, and last a long time in the pantry

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ii. Explainer

Sadly, in the US, 60% of our daily calories typically come from ultra-processed foods (45-50% in Canada), which isn't surprising since these foods represent 70% of grocery store offerings. An ultra-processed food (UPF) is one that contains 5 or more ingredients not commonly used in cooking (think palm fat, milk solids, food dyes, preservatives, etc). This is problematic from an environmental, socio-economic and health standpoint.

One third of our greenhouse gas emissions come from global food systems, and within that, the impact of ultra-processed foods isn't well accounted for, so the figure is likely higher. It doesn't take a genius to see that something with lots of ingredients has a large carbon footprint. The dozens of ingredients contained in a single processed food all come from somewhere, and usually, that somewhere is outside of North America. Transportation between the hundreds of farms, to the dozens of suppliers finally to the manufacturers of processed foods results in an enormous expenditure of fossil fuels. Moreover, most processed foods contain lots of sugar, palm oil, wheat, corn and dairy products... all which require huge amounts of land to produce. Monoculture crop farming is devastating for the environment, because they create ecological deserts. When forests are cleared for crops, the new system doesn't support many if any organisms, so entire ecosystems disappear. Deforestation for agriculture is thought to be responsible for 90% of global deforestation, and deforestation is responsible for over 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

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Beyond the global burden of climate change and disease, UPFs have horrible impacts on the countries from which their ingredients are sourced. Socioeconomically, UPFs are products from gargantuan corporations that take advantage of unstable economies, largely in the global south. Most ultra-processed foods come at the cost of child labor, slavery, and the abuse of women.

From a health standpoint processed foods are pretty gnarly. The bottom line for UPFs is that they are foods made from the cheapest ingredients possible, dressed up with chemical additives, lots of salt, fat and sugar. Using colorful packaging, exciting advertising and taste-bud numbing flavoring agents, UPFs trick their eaters into feeling excited and satisfied when they actually leave us feeling sick and lacking essential nutrients. When you don't get the right, or enough, key nutrients your body doesn't function as well. Indeed, UPFs have been found to affect nearly all parts of our systems. Notably, UPFs have been shown to reduce sleep, increase anxiety, worsen your skin, damage your digestive system and of course, they lead to mortality through type 2 diabetes, heart disease and other obesity-related illnesses. The figure below highlights how ingredients in UPFs become nutritionally deficient via the many steps in processing which strip them of their nutritional value.

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iii. Reading

• 'Planetary health diet' could save 40,000 deaths a day, landmark study finds

• Why Ultra Processed Foods Are So Bad For Your Health

• Exploring Monocultures and Green Deserts

• Fossil-fueled Food: The Carbonization of Our Food Systems

• Ultra-processed Foods are Ultra Bad for You

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iv. Current Projects

• With winter on the way, locally sourced veggies and fruit are getting harder to come by. I'm trying a few things to continue to avoid big grocery stores but keep the fruit and veggies coming. I ordered frozen fruit from Azure Standard, which I'm hoping will be good in smoothies and for our 1yo who doesn't really know the difference. I have some veg frozen from the garden, and will rely on some garden greens over the winter, canned tomatoes, and frozen peas/corn. Hoping legumes like lentils can fill a big void, and will be making an herb garden in our window to freshen things up!

• We ordered half a lamb from Peterson Farm in Falmouth, and also a box of mixed meats from Lilac Hedge Farm, which delivers to Southern Mass! It's all sustainably and locally sourced meats, and you can get a variety or single meat type depending on preference and budget.

• We figured out our "recycling" truck was putting all our recycling into landfill (Gibbs trash service in Sandwich fyi), so we cancelled it. Instead, we're collecting bottles for now to drop off ourselves and will start working towards cans and paper by the end of the year. I'll keep you posted on the system we develop and how much time it takes us to sort and drop off our own recycling.

• We started a winter garden in what was a small hoop house in the garden previously used as a seed-starting space in the spring. I planted it in the ground about 2 weeks ago, it'll be onions, kale, cabbage, carrots and some herbs. I'm hoping the 5-10 degrees of insulation provided by the hoop house will allow for a continued harvest, and am curious how it will go. I anticipate blanketing the crops during very cold nights. Stay tuned!

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v. Reader comments

-One reader commended that delivery systems can be really helpful for people with mobility issues, and I thought this was a great point! That said, there is room for systems which can cater to those people without being as corporate and exploitative as Amazon, and other companies which can fill a similar role with a lower carbon footprint. Grocery delivery, pharmacy delivery, or caretakers who specifically work on delivering goods to those in need are good starting points.

-One reader commented that Amazon is where they source their specialty goods, and that's something I find hard too! So many products are hard to find locally. My recommendation is to find purveyors online that are smaller businesses (will take some research) and/or to find specialty goods stores and ask them to source specific things you're looking for. And of course, another recommendation is to ask yourself whether your product is in a "need" category or "want", because in a decarbonized future the former has to be the focus.

As we wrap up 2025, I thought it'd be nice to do a year end review of Ecodigest, which I started in April of this year. So to close out the year, this digest will be a unique format of 14 tips + 1 new tip for 2025!

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Before going back in time, here's some things to look forward to in 2026:

-Ecodigest summaries at the end of each digest (a little more digestible for if you don't have as much time, a great reader suggestion)

-How-to guides and lists to start your own pantry, small gardens, and more

-A few polls here and there to inquire about topics you'd like to see and behaviors that you might be stuck on

-In 2025, we took 8 months to divorce ourselves from the grocery store and won't be going in 2026. Tips on how in #15! In 2026, my goal is to work towards eliminating online ordering to our home. Stay tuned!

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Alright! Onto the good stuff. The main theme of Ecodigest is changing behavior in order to decarbonize in the hopes of combating global climate change. Things like 'meatless Mondays' or 'reusable water bottles' or 'sustainable fashion' are greenwashing tactics that allow us to keep consuming at the same rate while feeling better about ourselves. Instead, I'm urging you to reconsider the way you perceive the things you need versus what you want, and to consider what our day-to-day creature comforts actually cost our planet. In our lifetime, and certainly our childrens, climate change will hit a threshold where we won't have a choice but to change our habits and behaviors. With that in mind, it's so valuable to start the work of understanding the real cost our carbonized lives cost.

 

Here's 15 Ecodigest tips for 2025 that aim to modify everyday behaviors to align with a decarbonized future.

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1. Delete your Amazon account: Amazon continued expanding emissions from its U.S. imports and domestic deliveries at an average annual growth rate of 18%, from 3.33 million metric tons carbon dioxide in 2019 to 5.84 million metric tons carbon dioxide in 2023. Key contributors to this increased pollution include Amazon’s growing dependence on air freight shipping (+67% CO2 emissions) and expansion of fossil fuel-powered delivery vans (+195% CO2 emissions).
   Moreover, Amazon's tremendous amount of packaging is problematic: 23.5 million pounds of Amazon’s plastic packaging waste entered and polluted the world’s waterways and oceans in 2020, the equivalent of dumping a delivery van payload of plastic into the oceans every 67 minutes.
   Instead: ask local stores to order in products you want; order from smaller US (or Canada)-made retailers, within your home state (or province) is even better; buy used from online retailers (for books, clothing), Facebook Marketplace, or in person second-hand stores; choose literally any other retailer and at least it will be a little better.
    

2. Change the way you shop at the grocery store: Stop bagging produce! Most produce doesn't need to be bagged, especially if it's a one-item product like ginger, cabbage, head of lettuce, herb bundle, eggplant, or squash. Shop the perimeter! Fresh foods are on the perimeter of the grocery store, and are things that have likely traveled the least distance to get to you. They are also less processed, usually less packaged, and often much healthier for you! Stop paying for water! If you're buying an item that is mostly water, you are using unnecessary packaging, increasing transport waste, and wasting your money. These items include- canned/bottled beverages; detergents and soaps (get powdered instead); canned beans (dried taste better and are cheaper); milk (high quality powdered milk is the same price and saves loads on shipping, plus is shelf stable!).
    

3. Consider that PLASTICS ARE FOSSIL FUELS: 99% of plastics are made from fossil fuels, and the ever-increasing demand for plastics has fueled the environmentally disastrous shale industry in the US, and strengthens the strangle-hold big oil has on our economy. This explainer has excellent articles explaining the oil-plastics industry and how terrible it is for the environment. As much as possible, try to avoid purchasing packaged foods, and bring reusable bags.
    

4. Reduce your food waste at home: Did you know that food waste is the largest component of landfills at 24%? Ahead of even plastics (18%)! Here are 3 ways to reduce that waste: (1) The peels for most foods are where the most nutrients are. Why? Plants use skin as their first line of defense, and so important nutrients contained in antioxidants and phytochemicals are concentrated there. Eat them, make plant fertilizer with them (soak them overnight in water, strain it, then water your houseplants!), or add them to a stock pot. (2) At our house, we have 3 large ziplocks that we reuse as "stock bags" in the freezer. Things that would normally go to waste are frozen until the bags are full. One full ziplock goes into a stock pot with 8 cups of water, 3 bay leaves and salt, and is simmered for 2-4 hours. Then, we strain it and store it in tubs (I use old yogurt tubs) in the fridge and freezer. It lasts 1 week in the fridge or 6 months in the freezer. In the bag? Bones, meat scraps, onion-carrot-celery-peppers-apples... most veggie scraps, parmesan rinds, herb scraps. (3) We have a small (and stylish!) countertop compost bin that is emptied every two days into a larger outdoor composter. To make garden compost, you want 3:1 brown (leaves, sticks, grass) to green (household compost), so add leaves and grass trimmings once in a while to get close to that balance. If you do not garden and/or do not have space for an outdoor composter, most areas have organizations that accept compost and some programs will pick up your waste regularly upon arrangement.
    

5. Have a relationship with plants: One important aspect of changing our behavior as it pertains to the climate is to reacquaint ourselves with nature. An appreciation and understanding of our habitat goes a long way towards empathy for the species with whom we cohabitate. Here are some ways to make plant friends: go for a walk in nature, grow indoor plants, start a kitchen herb garden, visit an arboretum/garden/greenhouse, pick a neighborhood tree and photograph it every month to watch how it changes and grows. Plants aren't a resource to be exploited, they are part of our community and we are here to be responsible stewards of these amazing organisms. Plant diversity is crucial to mitigating climate change because the more diversity there is (aka the more types of plants), the more resilient the system is to change. When a system undergoes a large change in temperature, precipitation, sunlight, season length ....*COUGH COUGH* CLIMATE CHANGE... many plants can't tolerate it and die/become extinct. If a system has many kinds of plants, it's more likely that some of those plant species will be able to survive the traumas of climate change. We need these plants to survive because plants are the main sink for carbon dioxide - aka we need plants to absorb the grotesque amount of carbon dioxide we are emitting to the atmosphere or we are even more royally screwed.
    

6. Absorb what sustainable actually means: We hear the word sustainable thrown around everywhere, but a behavior that is truly sustainable is one that can be continued indefinitely. Very very few (if any) of our day-to-day behaviors are sustainable. I do not believe that the onus to repair this problem belongs to us as individuals; we are all operating at the mercy of systems created without sustainability in mind. That said, I think it's important to consider that our rampant consumption takes away from future generations' access to what we have now. Consuming less, and making choices about consumption that are in line with your values won't fix the system, but it could assuage guilt and slowly influence the behaviors of those around you. 70% of the US' gross domestic product (GDP) is consumer spending - we are encouraged to spend as much as possible in every way possible all day. The average American sees between 5000-10,000 advertisements a day. It's understandable that changing consumption habits is difficult and none of us are immune to the tremendous power of advertising. The only viable way to combat climate change is to dramatically change our behavior, and for our values to center less around accumulation of wealth and material goods, and more on stewardship of our ecosystem and community.
    

7. Rethink the way you manage your pests: To begin to address global climate change, we need to treat our environment as our community - not as our resource. The behavior modification here is acting as stewards, not overlords. A steward protects things of value, rather than exploiting them. I think that to be a steward of our environment, we need to understand that our place here is no more important than that of the organisms in our community. We need to live among the "pests". A big change to make? Stop using pesticides. When pesticides [herbicides, insecticides, rodenticides] are applied, the entire ecosystem is poisoned - pets and people too. In fact, pets and kids interact with the lawn/ground more than anyone, so they are the most exposed. Indeed, rodenticides got a bit more regulated when, in 2010, over 10,000 children were poisoned in the US.
    

8. Manage climate anxiety/guilt: If climate anxiety/guilt is something you feel, then it's likely that you have some biospheric values - values which reflect a concern for the climate and the environment. While I don't think the climate crisis is an individual's responsibility, I do think our behavior is generally not in line with biospheric values, and anxiety/guilt can manifest when our behavior is out of sync with our values (thank you therapy). It won't eliminate the existential crisis of climate change, but altering behavior to reflect biospheric values could alleviate some of those feelings of guilt. Ideas for daily behavior modification: (1) think daily about what you are consuming and what it took to get to you (2) find out where things come from and (3) delete your amazon account.
    

9. Reframe how you feel about dirt: Have you ever walked in a forest, and thought: "wow, this place stinks!". Well, I haven't. But I have walked into my kitchen, or bathroom, or laundry room and thought "WOW THIS PLACE STINKS". Guess what wasn't the culprit: dirt. More often, the culprit is food waste, human waste or bacterial growth - none of which seem to be a problem outside. We perceive dirt, and the outdoors in general, to be unclean. However, bad bacteria and smells are more likely to appear in comparatively sterile spaces. Why is that? Well, for one, outdoor spaces are systems in balance. Plants filter the air, the sun naturally disinfects, water circulates broadly via rain and percolation and runoff, root and soil systems absorb and detoxify, and importantly, bacterial communities are stable. By contrast, indoor spaces are artificially lighted and circulated, and constantly cleaned with harsh chemicals that encourage the growth of stronger microbes. The dirt on our floors is much safer than any chemical we use to clean it. The dirt on our vegetables is much healthier than any pesticides we use to grow them. The dirt on our clothing is safer than the detergents we use to get it out.  Rethink what it means for something to be clean, and instead of focusing on sterility, focus on balance.
    

10. Understand what's in greenhouse gas emissions: Emissions, in the context of climate change, generally refer to the emissions of greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases are bad because they act as an extra barrier in the atmosphere that prevents heat, in the form of solar radiation, from leaving the atmosphere. That change in radiation has impacts on more than just temperature because solar radiation is the source of energy for all processes on the planet, from ocean circulation (which is a temperature dependent process), to photosynthesis, to species survival, and to air circulation patterns. That's why our elevated greenhouse gas emissions have a dramatic impact on the entire functioning of all systems on Earth. When we burn fossil fuels, we are releasing very concentrated and very old carbon back into the atmosphere at rates much faster than they accumulated. Burning fossil fuels is undoing millions and millions of years worth of photosynthesis, and represents unfathomable amounts of solar energy stored over millennia. In fact, in one year, we burn the equivalent of 400(!!!) times all the plant material covering the surface of the Earth (and within the oceans) in fossil fuels. No wonder the planet is destabilizing faster than we can develop technology to repair it.
     

11.  Consider eating ecologically instead of simply eliminating meat: I wonder if defaulting to vegetarianism/veganism misses the point that the industrialization of our food systems is fundamentally not sustainable. We need to think about food much more deeply on a day-to-day basis, and we must stop consuming from large corporations/retailers, mindlessly. That means understanding where our food comes from, eating whole foods, and as much as possible, buying local products.
     

12. Find out what recycling really means in your area: Most North American recycling is privately managed. Recycled materials are bought by companies - which resell them usually overseas, or to companies repurposing materials domestically. What can't be sold is landfilled or burned. Even at their inception, recycling programs were intertwined with the corporations largely responsible for producing the immense volume of plastics rapidly filling landfills. . At best, only 20% of all plastics made have even a small potential to be recycled. So, plastic is not (generally) recyclable because of very low reprocessing rates. So what actually happens to plastics? In the US, domestically managed plastic waste is broken down as follows: 86% of plastics are landfilled, 9% are burned, and 5% are repurposed (2019). But that's just domestically, the US actually exports the same amount of plastic as it handles domestically. After China stopped accepting the world's plastic in 2017, other countries stepped in, many in Southeast Asia. Those countries do not have the infrastructure to handle the rich world's waste, and can't manage the plastic problem. In Indonesia, for example, 86% of imported waste is landfilled or sent to open dumps - aka dumped into canals and into the ocean.
     

13. Reduce your transport emissions by ordering less direct to consumer: Today, our transportation emissions come primarily from light-duty vehicles (57% of transportation emissions in the US, 2022). Light duty trucks - which are often delivery vehicles like Amazon vans - and medium/heavy duty trucks are shipping vehicles and so you could say that shipping is the single largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in the US (and Canada). That's not surprising. The online sales industry was valued at $316 billion USD in 2022, projected to increase by a compounded annual growth rate of 22% by 2030 in the US - the fastest growing market in the world. Insanely, online orders in the US now arrive within 2.5 days of ordering, and 74% of consumers favor purchases that offer free shipping. Our appetite for having things delivered directly to our homes, RIGHT NOW, is rapacious. This obviously has a huge environmental cost, but our choices continue to trend towards more consumption, and faster. The important shift we could make for a decarbonized future is to reevaluate our needs, and our false sense of urgency for receiving consumer goods directly to our homes.
     

14. Try buying your food in bulk, and making a small pantry at home: If you are a middle-income household (75K/yr) or higher, you can definitely afford to help mitigate the climate crisis by making conscious food choices. That doesn't mean buying things with 'eco' or 'organic' on the label - it means buying in bulk and buying locally. Often that is not more expensive, and once it is part of your norm, it is not much more work. Use bulk retailers near you, or try mine, Azure Standard. There are others like it, just google 'online bulk food store'.
     

15. Consider quitting the grocery store: We did it! We are going grocery store free in 2026 after learning lots of strategies in 2025. Here are some tips if you are interested in working towards a transition:
    -Buy in bulk: grains (rice, quinoa, cornmeal), beans, frozen produce (peas, blueberries, spinach, corn), pasta, baking goods, toilet paper, and detergents (powdered laundry, dishwasher)
    -Buy local: eggs, cheeses, produce in season (frozen off season), jams, honey, hot sauces, specialty condiments [try specialty and small markets]
    -Purchase half/whole animals: drive to a farm for a half pig, cow, or lamb
    -For last minute needs, try small grocers, or even convenience stores which are usually at least privately owned unlike large corporate grocery stores
    -Check out local farms for produce and products
    -Use a privately owned pharmacy and hardware store
    Most importantly, learn to make due with less variety and more seasonality. Maybe we shouldn't be able to have strawberries in December or a dozen limes at our fingertips. Try to modify your diet a bit and learn some cooking tips. More to come in future digests!

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Thanks so much for reading in 2025!! Looking forward to hearing from you and much more in 2026.