DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

What’s the impact of your lifestyle on the health of the planet? What’s going to be left over for your kids?

You’ve probably heard that Americans consume something like 80% of the natural resources of the planet, even though we account for only about 20% of the world’s population. It’s a ridiculous statistic, not because it isn’t true, but because it’s hard to wrap one’s brain around it.

The group Redefining Progress created a quiz that makes the numbers above easier to grasp.

It attempts to measure one’s “ecological footprint.” The name refers to the number of acres needed to maintain one’s lifestyle. As you can imagine, beef eaters require many hundreds of acres of grazing land to keep the cows alive, whereas vegetarians can survive on maybe an acre’s worth of garden. Food choices, transportation choices, housing choices all figure into the total.

The thing is, there are only so many productive acres on the planet. The more you use, the fewer there are for someone else. And even if you live a somewhat green lifestyle — conserving gas and electricity, making earth-friendly purchase decisions, etc. — chances are you’re still burning up two to three times as many acres as Europeans, and eight to ten times as many as people in the Middle East.

Take the Ecological Footprint quiz.

Read more about the Ecological Footprint. See also the Sierra Club’s article about it: Are You Big Foot?

The Sierra Club offers suggestions for reducing individual resource consumption.

The global candlelight peace vigil coordinated by MoveOn.org last night appears to have been a big success. Even in our small town, several hundred people (note: not an official police count!) showed up at the square.

I was happy to be there, but I felt out of place. People were singing songs I’ve never heard. I think some were left over from previous wars and previous protests. I’m sort of new at this. Also I can’t sing very well — tried it at band practice once years ago, and the dog left the room.

And my candle burned out, so I felt like a tourist, standing there with a camera, not singing, no candle. But I was rescued by a generous participant who handed me a great big taper. He correctly diagnosed my entire condition when he said, “You need this.”

We didn’t have room on the motorbike for a tripod, so the pictures are blurry. They at least give an idea of the size of the group. They may also give you an idea of how unfamiliar I still am with my new camera. Anyway:

• Peace Vigil 1 (north/northwest)
• Peace Vigil 2 (southwest)

My first experience with composting was a failure. I tried adding brown; I tried adding green. I tried spiking the pile with manure. I ran the lawnmower back and forth over the weekend newspaper in an effort to produce digestible bits of carbon. I watered, turned, and fretted. And at the end of the summer I paid a guy $30 to scrape it all up and haul it away. (Fortunately, our yard-waste pickup service feeds a countywide, industrial-strength composting program, so ultimately my recalcitrant grass clippings and kitchen scraps did end up getting recycled, for which I am grateful although I can’t be said to be entirely grudge-free; I still have it out for stubborn vegetable matter.)

Here at the new house, we’ve noticed that our nonrecyclable garbage output has dropped to about one bag each week, and about 50% of that is compostable kitchen waste. We’d long intended to try composting again, not only to reduce garbage output (if we could make this final bag/week go away, we could cancel the pickup service altogether) but to save money on gardening — for we currently buy compost every Spring.

Here’s the result: DIY compost piles. I raked out the grade, set down a 15'x2.5' hoop of fencing material, and layered in this week’s yard waste. I didn’t intend to build a second pile, but the first one filled up so quickly I figured I might as well take advantage of momentum.

I’ll check the pile in a few days. If it’s hot, I’ll have succeeded. If not, well, I’ve still got the number of that hauling company.

I don’t watch television, because we have no reception out here in the broadcast-media-wasteland that is western Sonoma county. I’m totally pleased with this arrangement; as far as I can tell I’ve missed nothing of import in the five years I’ve not had access to commercial programming. (We did subscribe to cable for the Olympics once.)

This is not to say that everything broadcast by the various television companies is garbage. It’s just that the signal to noise ratio is really low. And the noise is especially noisome — I’ve seen enough commercials (during occasional hotel-room stays) to know this for sure.

So, I’m grateful for studios’ recent efforts to publish previously broadcast content on DVD. This seems to me to be a great way to see the shows that are worth the investment in time, without having my brain freeze-dried by the endless stream of lifestyle marketing that features people and hobbies that I find offensive.

I just picked up Season Three of M*A*S*H. The first two sets are remarkable; the colors are brilliant, the picture quality is excellent, the sound is crisp and clear. These are old sources, of course, so I’m not talking about anamorphic widescreen and 5.1 surround. Considering the source, the DVD presentation is wonderful.

And we’ve been watching the first season of Sopranos, courtesy of the local video-rental place. I wouldn’t be interested in owning this particular series, but it’s been fun to see the first season knowing how popular it’s become. We’ve gotten as far as episode 10, and I have to say I’m eager to see the final two. On the other hand, I kind of hope they’re no good, because the video-rental place hasn’t bought the second season DVD set yet.

Sears seems to keep their customer lists forever. Move or die, they’ll still send catalogs to every place you’ve ever lived.

I just got three copies of the Spring ‘03 Fashion mailing. One was addressed to the people who sold us this house and moved out of state last Fall. Another was addressed to the people who sold the house to the people we bought it from, in 1997, and have since passed away. Both these copies contain revealing information about Sears’ disrespect for customers’ privacy, in a back-cover blurb that announces what seems to be a reversal of previous opt-outs:

According to our records, your household is not currently receiving promotional notices in the mail from Sears… We are updating our records… If you do not contact us at the above telephone number, you will be placed on our mailing list.

So, sell your Sears stock. Their sales projections are apparently so weak that they’ve decided to send catalogs to a bunch of people who have either previously opted out, or moved, or died. This is not exactly low-hanging fruit.

For the record, I find it despicable that any company would reverse its stance on privacy like this. What Sears is saying, as far as I can tell, is “even though you previously told us you don’t want to receive our junk mail, we’ll start sending it now unless you call us again to ask us not to.”

I bought appliances from Sears last Fall, and if I was given an opportunity to opt-out then I certainly would have. (I don’t remember.) If I was given an opportunity to opt in — that is, to request to be on the mailing list — I absolutely, without question, would not have, which is why I assume that the catalog victims in households “not currently receiving promotional notices” must have previously opted out, because clearly Sears never waited for an opt-in in the past.

It’s interesting that the catalog they sent in my name contained no opt-out information. In that sense I’m fortunate to have received the other two copies, because it gave me the opt-out telephone number, which I’ll share with you now.

To opt out of the Sears junkmail list, call 1-800-510-2396.

(If that number ends up getting cancelled, try 1-800-366-3125 or one of the numbers on Sears Catalog Contacts page.)

You may still run into a roadblock, although whether it’s due to Sears’ unwillingness to help customers leave the mailing list, or its inability to manage its database, is unknown at this time. The mailing with my name on it had no “sequence number”, so we had to search by name and ZIP. That search pulled up my old address, even though the catalog was sent to my new address. So it seems that I can’t be taken off the mailing list, because I’m not on it, never mind the Sears catalog in my hand that proves otherwise.