Snowpocalypse! in DC

Today’s episode takes us to Washington DC, where compostmodernist and Worldwatch Institute fellow, John Mulrow, brings us an unexpected story of snow. Press play to listen.

“It’s Monday. This past weekend the Washington DC metropolitan area was hit by over 2 feet of snow. Federal agencies as well as most businesses and NGOs cancelled work today as much of the snow still hasn’t been cleared from the roads. Another five to ten inches is expected for tomorrow. It’s being called the SNOWPOCALYPSE.

Caught up in the elements, my neighbors and I enjoyed a weekend outdoors together. Neighbors I never knew I had, or rather, never thought to meet. As it turns out, the harsh winter weather struck us all with a refreshing sense of… community.

“It was an apocalypse after all.”

Some of us get off on living the sustainable life.

We self-righteously ride around town in home-sewn eco-jumpsuits on our salvaged bicycles, laden with local seasonal organic bio-dynamic farmer’s market veggies and a solar panel, peddle-charging our batteries to run our laptops so we can post unassailably awesome blog posts like this one.

We look down our noses at the people/slugs we pass in SUVs. In the backseat, behind two more planet-hogging rug rats in car-seats, the car is stuffed with ten more plastic Safeway bags full of over-packaged, over-processed, animal torturing, earth-murdering muggle slop: cases of coke, frozen vegetables, plastic-wrapped kid-sized snack packs chock full of high-fructose-corn-heroin.

And as we roll past this four-wheeled suburban toxic waste dump, we think privately to ourselves: “Damn, I am so freakin’ good. My carbon footprint is about as big as a dandelion’s. Someone should give me the Nobel peace prize.”

You get the picture.

Fact is, though, if even if you do live as green as the caricature above, you’re not sustainable. Not even close.

No. Wait. I’m not going to tell you yet another thing you can do to refuse/re-use/reduce/recycle. If you’re reading this, you’re probably already doing just fine by yourself. The thing is, though, the lady in the SUV isn’t. Your neighbor probably isn’t. Your mom probably isn’t.

Look. Let’s break it down. Imagine that you in your ultra-green way eat 25 lbs. of local seasonal organic produce in a month while each of your 10 nearest neighbors each eat 25 lbs. of conventional produce shipped from far-away places. If instead of your usual self-congratulating you got down off your high horse and organized a CSA (community supported agriculture) delivery to your block, you could get those 10 neighbors eating (let’s be conservative) half their produce from the CSA box. That amounts to 125 lbs. less conventional food getting shipped around the globe.

The key idea here is, of course, dialogue – with your peers, friends, relatives and neighbors – about the million things every one of us can do to live a more sustainable life; things you might be rocking out on amidst an ocean of others who just don’t know any better.

This is where you come in.

[Music: Mi Glitch by Urtzi]

Following on the heels of our scientific exploration of dirty dishes, this week’s episode is a second installment from the Stanford Storytelling Project’s recent look at “Community”.

This time we zoom out from the kitchen sink to a larger case study of the people who use it. It’s the story of a few idealistic students, a couple of frat boys, and their shared project of creating a common household together. Listen in as their dream delicately goes to $#!%.

1. Purgatory
2. Urine
3. Sharing

Compostmodernism encourages healthy relationships between neighbors.

In 3-and-a-half minutes, this Mr. Rogers gives three tips for such relationships in your own beautiful neighborhood – on the human level as well as the microbial level.

This week we offer up an interview of Daniel Steinbock who “is taking on one of the biggest foes of community”: dirty dishes. Daniel has formulated a scientific theory of how and why dirty dishes pile up despite our best intentions. He also proposes a solution to what he terms the “Dirty Dish Dilemma.” Wait for it….

U + 1 = clean

After proving that the policy of “everyone clean your own dishes” is insufficient to prevent a dirty dish disaster, Daniel shows that a trivially small amount of altruism on everyone’s part is more than enough to save the day. The answer: 1. clean your own dishes (of course), and 2. if there are dirty dishes in the sink, clean one extra. U + 1 = clean. If everyone does this, the sink will stay clean, dishes won’t pile up, and – here’s the best part – most of the time, there won’t be any extra.

The interview is an excerpt from a recent Stanford Storytelling Project episode on the subject of “Community” and aired live on KZSU 90.1 FM on Tuesday, November 17th, 2009. The piece was lovingly produced by Charlie Mintz, who also hosted the episode on the air.