My world's on fire, how about yours?

Peter and I love living on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail. These pics are from early March. In spring, our mountain is green, but it dries out as the temperature heats up, bringing yearly fear of fire. 

We saw a fire on the mountain two years ago. We gathered our emergency bags and didn't sleep that night. We were lucky wind and rain were on our side, and we didn't have to evacuate.

Earlier that year, my parents spent several days with us while they were evacuated due to fire, a few mountains down from us. Some family friends in California lost their home in one of the big wildfires there.

Lots of factors go into wildfires, but climate change in the West means hotter average temps ✔ and longer and more frequent droughts ✔ That means bigger fires, and more of them going forward... unless the trees get to a point where the forests can't grow back at all (a depressing takeaway from one of these sources 👇)

Humans are responsible for climate change and all the consequences. But reducing emissions (by a LOT) can still keep this situation from getting worse.

What you can do:

Find wildfire prep resources at https://www.readyforwildfire.org/

Consider eschewing fireworks 🎆 this year if your place is as dry as mine.

And contact your reps. If yours is Republican, tell them to join the newly-formed Conservative Climate Change Caucus (all 4 of Utah's joined! You have to start somewhere!).

We all have to start somewhere 🙂

Sources: 

This study links drought to human activity going back a century:

https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2872/nasa-study-human-influence-on-global-droughts-goes-back-100-years/?_gl=1*1q7m9jh*_ga*M3U0a0VOVUdtam1Gakw3SDVqU0hsNjBqSGlLU2JsQ1Z1WTJBVlhvU1dSU0pER0NGU0lNdXpqZV9UTlB3aWE5bg..

From scientists at the Dept. of Agriculture at https://www.fs.usda.gov/ccrc/topics/wildland-fire :

"Overall, more fire is expected in western forests and rangelands for the foreseeable future, because of the preponderance of ecosystem types in which drought is strongly correlated with area burned...including large, severe fires....Anticipate big surprises -- expect mega droughts, larger fires, species extirpations, loss of resilience and system collapses, and incorporate these events in planning."

A bunch of resources about climate change and drought from the US Geological Survey:

https://www.usgs.gov/centers/sbsc/science/climate-change-and-drought

More from NASA:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/climate.nasa.gov/news/2881/earths-freshwater-future-extremes-of-flood-and-drought.amp

For the love of trees

Did you know the chemo drug taxol comes from Pacific yew trees? 

I don't know exactly which ones they were (redwoods in the picture) but I'll bet I hiked past some this week. I owe my life to these coastal forests, in a literal way. 

Trees have an especially hard time adapting to our quickly rising temps because it takes them so long to grow...they can't exactly migrate north. Losing species (of any kind) means we could miss out on discovering things like Taxol. Right now, 9% of tree species are in danger of extinction.

So call your reps, please, and tell them you care about climate change. That's the most important.

But also try to buy your paper from responsible sources...'cause clear-cutting ain't it. (I found this TP on Amazon that's Forest Stewardship Council certified, is better than our old TP, and costs about the same: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B07KWNSTRR/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_i_ZP1M7NRZXJW1H822DBBF?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1 )

https://www.cbd.int/climate/ (scroll down to "forest diversity" handout)

https://www.cancer.gov/research/progress/discovery/taxol

Thanks to Grandma!

Grandma has taken us on a trip to the northern California coast. I'm so excited to spend some time in a part of the world where I made some early outdoor  memories.

Our oceans are climate change warriors. They absorb heat, and the tiny organisms that live in them gobble up CO2. But all that warming-up contributes to bigger and bigger storms, melting ice caps/disappearing beaches, and changes in where fish can live. It also makes the oceans more acidic, making it harder for them to live at all.

So electrify where you can! Go here before you buy fish: https://www.seafoodwatch.org/!
And call ALL the legislators--tell them you are concerned about climate change.

For today, I'm happy to be here to witness this beautiful place as it is now. And to get away from the too-early 100+ forecast temps in Northern Utah. Thanks for the vaycay, Mom! 

Source links: 

https://www.msc.org/what-we-are-doing/oceans-at-risk/climate-change-and-fishing#:~:text=How%20does%20climate%20change%20affect%20oceans%20and%20marine%20life%3F,-93%25&text=Sudden%20rises%20in%20temperature%20and,altering%20the%20structure%20of%20ecosystems.

https://www.usgs.gov/news/disappearing-beaches-modeling-shoreline-change-southern-california

https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/oceans#:~:text=As%20greenhouse%20gases%20trap%20more,climate%20patterns%20around%20the%20world.

https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/d0c1df224a97418bb4dad129ea4c6d17

Lawn Mowers and Electrification

 

Caleb is the one who usually mows the lawn at our house. Gotta love that cheap child labor! He gets better at it every summer 💜💜

Last year we took advantage of a $300 Provo city rebate (see link below) to replace our gas mower with an electric one. It is quieter and lighter than our old one, foldable, quick-charging (Caleb can mow more than once on a single charge), doesn't fume up our garage, is cheaper to run since we don't have to buy gas for it....and it cuts the grass just as well as the old one. Wins all around. 

Best of all, like an electric car, it releases waaaaay less CO2 into the atmosphere, which means it contributes less to unhealthy air and climate change.

Yeah, we have to charge it in part on the power grid, which runs partly on coal, but studies say running on the grid vs. gas *still* releases fewer emissions, even when manufacture of the item is taken into account (also true for electric cars!). And electric mowers and cars will only get greener as more of the grid turns electric--Provo's grid is trying to go 60% renewable by 2030 🥳

(Check out a link below to a neat tool to see how much better various electric cars are for the air on your specific grid.) 

Electrification of homes and vehicles is one of the big things that needs to happen in the fight against climate change, since emission-free electricity--whether by solar, wind, nuclear, or geothermal--is possible...but emission-free gas burning is not.

So choose electric over gas appliances and vehicles whenever you can! Even choose electric over natural gas, which doesn't produce as *much* CO2, but still produces plenty.

See links below for the local electric mower rebate, the statewide rebate mailing list, and EV calculator. The rebate I used is for residents of Provo, Spanish Fork, Nephi, Manti, and Salem. (There was a statewide buyback last year, but it filled.)

https://www.renewchoice.com/exchange-program/

 http://survey.constantcontact.com/survey/a07ehdddr0ykgl4476t/a021s6kp6wm1km/questions

https://evtool.ucsusa.org/

Mother's Day Garden

So here's what Peter built me for Mother's Day. Aren't they gorgeous? I had no idea when I married him that he'd grow up to build cool stuff for me, but sometimes life has happy surprises! Best of all, he claims to enjoy making stuff, so I don't feel *too* guilty. Check out the cool wattle fence he built, too, so our blind dog Gizmo won't fall off the terrace anymore 😳

Despite having had gardens for the last 10 years, I still have a ton to learn about gardening (as you can see by my wilty zinnias), but having a garden can be a great "green" practice--it costs less energy to get the food on your table, hopefully uses fewer chemicals, and you're less likely to waste produce you worked hard to, well, produce.

In coming years, I want to learn more about regenerative gardening, which can does a good job of keeping carbon in the soil rather than the atmosphere. Farmers (like 30% of farms in America) who have transitioned to these methods say they are not only good for the air and the climate, but good for their farms' productivity and bottom lines.

Here are some resources if this sounds interesting to you, too (I'll link in my bio on Instagram):

https://www.american.edu/sis/centers/carbon-removal/fact-sheet-soil-carbon-sequestration.cfm

https://gimletmedia.com/shows/howtosaveaplanet/39h6wn7/soil-the-dirty-climate-solution

#fridaysforfuture 4/9/21

 #fridaysforfuture (with frozen Utah Lake from a couple months ago). 

Lots of things that are better for the planet save us money, too. 

Recently I learned how to make homemade laundry soap. This stuff is dirt cheap. I bought everything to make it for about as much as one or two containers of grocery store laundry soap--and I think it's going to last me a year or more. And it works great, as far as I can tell. I use it in my HE washer. It was easy to make, though there was a bit of a learning curve (let's just say my oven and floor got *really* clean... checking your bucket for holes and following the recipe below will help you avoid my mistake!)

This recipe has no phosphates, which cause algae overgrowth and fish death in bodies of water and which can be hard for treatment plants to get out (Utah Lake, I'm looking your way). It's biodegradable (though you shouldn't use it directly in a river or steam while camping or whatever). It might be healthier, as it's more natural. It cuts way down on plastic packaging, the manufacture of which releases lots of greenhouse gasses--and which never completely goes away, microplastics being found now in most waterways, animals, and us.

This blog had some good info and recipes.
https://www.smallfootprintfamily.com/homemade-laundry-detergent-recipe
(I used Fels-Naphtha soap this time, but I'm going to try Kirk's Castile Bar Soap next time, since FN uses palm kernal oil, which isn't great.)

Worth a try! 

#fridaysforfuture March 26, 2021

Hey look, I'm blogging again! Time to do some work on our planet for those kids I used to post about, haha.

Late #fridaysforfuture post with green tip and bluebirds (with one robin) from my hike with Mom this morning.

Here's the tip: we're looking into getting rain barrels here, which are discounted for Utahans through April 25.

One aspect of dealing with climate change is coping with the fallout we are already experiencing. Like Utah's current drought, which there are expected to be more of in the west with time. Rain barrels go under your spout so you can catch runoff from your roof when that precious rain *does* happen to fall, and use it for your yard or whatever.