My Fair Share

Continuing with the bread theme, we had a friend come over yesterday so I decided to make a loaf of coconut bread. I like making coconut bread, although it is always a dilemma for me whether to you use coconut milk or coconut pulp. We had neither so my wife picked up some coconut on her way home from wherever she had been.

She put it on the bench.

Anyway, I bunged it all together and whacked it in the oven, then Tom and I went for one of our regular evening walks around the block; the difference being that tonight he didn’t want to be pulled in his red wagon, he wanted to go in my wheelbarrow.

It was about half way around the block that the epiphany first struck.

We got home, retrieved the bread from the oven, lovely and fresh and smelling just fine, and turned it out to cool on the bench right next to the unopened packet of coconut.

The laughter was hearty, and all were warmed from inside and out I was reminded that a fair share of laughter and humility is the secret ingredient of not so coconut bread.

Continuing with the theme of reflection this week, I have revisited some of my own posts of the past couple of years.

In the second half of last year, I noted that my score on the Happy Planet Index was a mere 41.4, versus the average of 31, and my previous year’s score of 81.

Tonight, wondering about how far I have slipped since the days when I washed my clothes by hand and cooked meals each day with produce mostly drawn from my the earth that I nurtured myself, I tried again.

I don’t get it.  Whereas I once spent my day caring for children and doing the ‘right” things to live according to my values of sustainability and sharing/caring, now I spend my days working.  Well, that’s how I feel anyway.

I understood why I scored high two years ago.  What comes as a surprise now is that I have scored higher today than then; 89.3 versus 81.

Why then, do I feel so lost and … unaligned with my own values, when the figures indicate otherwise?

Perhaps it is because the novelty has worn off?  Perhaps there have been sufficient things that have been so habituated that we are just cruising along comfortably at a level that is more sustainable than I think. Perhaps, just perhaps, for me it was initially about the thrill of action, of taking control and wrestling with myself, whereas now those actions - some, not all, but perhaps enough (just enough) - have become entrenched and … boring?

Perhaps it is because I like new things.

But, perhaps it is also because I do think it nigh impossible for there to be a more fortunate person to ever have lived?

It happened. Although only a few days ago I lamented the loss of certain aspects of my daily existence, today I made coconut bread with the kids - and a bigger mess of the kitchen.

The sweet smell still fills the air.

I wrote yesterday about getting a bit off-track in the past few months. After giving myself a talking to, I am back on track. Immediately after posting yesterday, I collected some dirt from the gardens and dug out (very punny) the pH testing kit.

The kids helped. Tom was very good at squirting the purple stuff (above), and Charlie was very good at puffing the white powdery stuff.

I was best at mixing it all together, and they both were very good at matching the colours of the soil with the pH samples on the card.

The findings:

• no wonder bugger all is growing in the vegie patch….the pH is 5.
• the arrowroot that is over 2 metres is in pH 6.5. the arrowroot that is less than 30cm - planted at the same time as the big one - is in pH 5.5

Now, where is that lime?

Also yesterday I noted that my ecological footprint is up from 1.5 planets to 1.9 planets. Oh boy. I was a little heartened later since then to discover that the algorithms that are used in the ecological footprint calculator have been revised since I last used it - with Australia’s figures generally going up by about 28%. 28% of 150 is 42. This means that 1.9 planets is about the same as where I was last time, which means that I can keep bludging.

Hmmm. Sometimes I think that sad news is better than good.

I just wrote - then deleted - a whole post that waffled on about where I have been and what i have been doing, and about this and about that, and lamenting that now that I am the breadwinner once more, I have less time and inclination to pursue those things that matter (like making my own bread…), and wondering what will come of all this, and when I will realign my values with my day to day life….

But instead of going down that track, I read The Problem - a piece I wrote almost 2 years ago as an intro to this blog.

In that piece, I pointed out that my ecological footprint was such that if everyone lived like me, we would require 2.1 earths.  Since then, it has been dropping steadily to 1.5 earths in June last year.  Today, when I retake the quiz, I see that it is 1.9 earths.  The main noticeable change is in the area required to feed me - which reflects the amount of time that I am no longer spending in pursuit of our own food production.

So, what does all this mean?

I guess it means that I could sit here and waffle on, and wax lyrical about the challenges, and justify our recent increase (now, seriously, going up by 0.4 is not much - until you consider that 0.4 of an earth is how much we have to support 40% of the world’s current population…), or I can take heed of a recent ad campaign targetting fat blokes - the more you gain, the more you have to lose, and go test the pH of the vege patch soil to see if it changed following recent floods, then plant the bean seedlings that are soon to be rootbound, and trim the mulberry tree, and …. maybe even make a loaf of coconut bread to share with someone.

Hmmmm. I have been thinking on Australia’s imminent Emissions Trading Scheme, and I have a number of ideas, but am yet to come to a conclusion..

Can someone please tell me what the point is of reducing my own emissions if we have an emissions trading scheme?

What an awesome turn of phrase.

Read more at One Straw.  Thanks Rob.

My fair share is as much about my kids’ fair share as anyone else’s. My boy reminded me of this recently:

tom-reading-green-sheep3

 I’ve been reading some of Peter Singer’s stuff lately. Always good for a think and a ponder, and always good for a restless night upon my comfortable bed in my structurally sound home with a full tummy and a few mosquitoes as the only real worry in my world.

If we are obliged to do no more than our fair share of eliminating global poverty, the burden will not be great. But is that really all we ought to do? Since we all agree that fairness is a good thing, and none of us like doing more because others don’t pull their weight, the fair-share view is attractive. In the end, however, I think we should reject it. Let’s return to the drowning child in the shallow pond. Imagine it is not 1 small child who has fallen in, but 50 children. We are among 50 adults, unrelated to the children, picnicking on the lawn around the pond. We can easily wade into the pond and rescue the children, and the fact that we would find it cold and unpleasant sloshing around in the knee-deep muddy water is no justification for failing to do so. The “fair share” theorists would say that if we each rescue one child, all the children will be saved, and so none of us have an obligation to save more than one. But what if half the picnickers prefer staying clean and dry to rescuing any children at all? Is it acceptable if the rest of us stop after we have rescued just one child, knowing that we have done our fair share, but that half the children will drown? We might justifiably be furious with those who are not doing their fair share, but our anger with them is not a reason for letting the children die. In terms of praise and blame, we are clearly right to condemn, in the strongest terms, those who do nothing. In contrast, we may withhold such condemnation from those who stop when they have done their fair share. Even so, they have let children drown when they could easily have saved them, and that is wrong.

Peter Singer wrote this as part of his article, What Should a Billionaire give - and what should you?

For some reason - and I cannot explain precisely this reason - I agree that my fair share is not enough.  So why then do I persist in spending more than a fair share of time wondering what on earth my fair share is?  I don’t know the answer, but maybe it has something to do with being sure that I am still not doing enough - and maybe (let’s be honest) that I never will.