Raising A Green Fledgling - Part 6 - Staying Green While Not Turning Blue...

Hello Readers!

This part of the series focuses on a very timely question - how do you stay warm when the weather starts getting colder?

Fall has descended upon Ottawa in the last couple of weeks, prompting my wife and I to dig out sweaters from the depths of our closet and to evict the patio furniture from the backyard. These and other aspects of 'hunkering down' for the winter made me think about how we and our green fledgling will stay warm during the next 6-8 months.

So how do I heat my home? Well, we have an oil furnace. Yup, oil. We live in a city where natural gas is widely available to homeowners but our home happened to be newly re-equipped for oil heat when we purchased it. Our furnace is less than 12 months old and has a high efficiency rating. We've also sought out and sealed drafts around our 50+ year old house and installed a programmable thermostat to reduce our overall energy consumption/costs for heating & cooling.

This series is all about how well my environmental values withstand the many demands - and conveniences - of modern-day parenthood. While home-heating is not a parenting issue, per se, how it is done absolutely influences one's environmental footprint. In fact, space heating in the home can contribute to 60% of residential energy consumption according to Natural Resources Canada (NRCan). After a series of posts on the things I think my wife and I are doing "well" to reduce our family's environmental footprint and connect our daughter to nature, I thought it timely to talk about something we can and should do better over time.

The Gulf of Mexico oil disaster is a poignant reminder of the risks associated with oil & gas extraction, hopefully catching the attention of anyone who heats with oil or gas, drives a vehicle, or purchases petrochemical products. Concurrent events like the Red Sea oil spill (June), China's Yellow Sea oil spill (July), the Enbridge pipeline rupture in Michigan state (July), Chevron's bid to explore offshore oil & gas in the arctic Beaufort Sea (Aug) and news of Tar Sands extraction impacts on the Athabasca River (Sept) remind us again and again of these risks.

The fuel and electricity that provides heat and hot water in my home (and possibly yours) come from somewhere, and I want to better understand their origins. That way I can make more responsible choices about how to reduce my family's environmental footprint by choosing greener, cleaner energy. Everyone should consider try this, particularly since we're using even more energy (derived from fuel combustion and other sources) in our homes over time... NRCan lists the following changes in energy consumption between 1990 and 2007 across the residential sector*:

Residential

• Water heating = 6.2% increase
• Space heating = 14.3% increase
• Lighting = 17.8% increase
• Other appliances (e.g., TVs, DVD players, personal computers) = 123.8% increase
• Space cooling = 166.5% increase

These increases can be attributed to numerous factors and don't directly reflect changes in fuel and electricity consumption. However, consumption is trending in an opposite direction than one would hope given the risks associated with how and where we get the raw energy sources from in the first place...

So here's the take-home message for this RAGF installment: How will you keep your family warm this winter? Do you know the origin of the fuel and/or electricity used to heat your home? Do you know the full environmental impacts associated with your home heating method? And if so, have you thought about how to reduce the negative impacts? Is your family interested in green energy alternatives?

For the record, there are a lot of 'greener' home heating alternatives available, including things like heat pumps, concentrated solar thermal power, geothermal energy, and energy sourcing alternatives like Bullfrog power. I won't expand on this topic for now since this discussion could be a post unto itself.

Stay tuned for the next post in the RAGF series. Check back every 2-3 weeks for new installments. And thanks for reading!


*Keep in mind that this is just a SAMPLE of all the sector-specific energy consumption stats available from NRCan - I encourage you to also check out the changes in energy consumption patterns that have occurred across the board.

Photo: A. MacDonald

Raising A Green Fledgling - Part 5 - Eating Greener Greens...?

Hello Readers!

Do you know where your food comes from? I mean, where it really comes from? Could you point to the community on a map where your food is grown, raised, produced (or synthesized)?

It's hard to do, right? And almost all of us would need a World map to even try. As new parents, my wife and I want to have a greater ability to know where our food comes from and how it's produced - and we want our daughter to know these things as she grows up, too.

On that note, we started buying our produce, meat, baked goods and some other foods at a local farmers' market several years ago. We used to live in Halifax, where visiting the farmers' market was a weekly tradition in all seasons, and we took pleasure in seeing the same producers from communities around Nova Scotia each week. Since moving to Ontario, we've been semi-regular patrons of the seasonal Ottawa Farmer's Market and love the selection of locally produced meats (artisan and traditional), tree fruits, plants and body-care products that were equally great but in lower supply at the Halifax market. But friends in Ottawa helped us discover a new way to know more about where our food comes from: Community-supported Agriculture (CSA).

CSA is, according to the Ontario CSA Farm Directory website, an agreement in which:

CSA farmers receive a set fee (from you - the consumer) prior to the start of the growing season. In return, you receive shares (produce) in the farm's bounty and you also share the risks due to weather and other factors beyond the control of the farmer.

CSA is an amazing way not only to know where your food comes from, but to also have a part in producing your food, and being more closely connected to the local/regional forces of nature that dictate what produce makes it to your table. Moreover, CSA is a great way to support agricultural production in your region in a time when it's somehow economically sensible/feasible to ship apples from New Zealand, South Africa and Chile to Canada throughout the year!?

Our CSA farm is based in Aylmer, Québec, just across the river from Ottawa, and the farm owners offer several drop-off points throughout Ottawa-Gatineau to more efficiently deliver weekly food boxes (small or large) to share-holders. 'Our farm' has organic certification and the offers farm open houses and opportunities for share-holders to help out with the harvest. In fact, some CSA farms require that share-holders help with the harvest to keep farm operational costs lower, for example. And CSA farms don't only provide produce, some offer various types of meat as well*. There is even a community-supported fishery (CSF) in Nova Scotia that provides weekly seafood catches to its shareholders. I'm sure others exist elsewhere, too. In any case - wow!

But enough about CSA and farmers' markets - how does all of this relate to raising a green fledgling??

Well first of all, knowing where your food comes from and how it's produced gives you a lot of control over your exposure to pesticide and herbicide residues, as well as knowing whether synthetic fertilizers were used and, if so, how their use was regulated. Run-off from both synthetic and "natural" fertilizers (e.g., manure) can infiltrate waterways and even drinking water resources, causing problems like nitrogen and/or phosphorus contamination, eutrophication and hypoxia, and should be minimized. Products from farmers' markets and CSA farms can offer environmental advantages, like organic production techniques, compared to supermarket produce and meat, which in turn help to minimize my family's environmental footprint and reduce our exposure to synthetic chemicals.

Second, experiencing the same weather in which your food grows, and then seeing what grows and what doesn't as a result of that weather, forges an intricate connection to nature. Suddenly you understand how an unusually dry summer translates into the food on your table throughout the fall and winter months. And it does - having a secure, sustainable supply of food on the table is something many Canadians take for granted, especially since foods like carrots, leafy greens and raspberries are available at the supermarket year-round. Again, the locavore or down-to-earth lifestyle choice helps to minimize my family's environmental footprint while giving us insight into the realities of farming in the Ottawa Valley region.

Third, I personally love knowing that I'm supporting farmers in my region. I grew up in Nova Scotia's breadbasket, so this means a lot to me. Farmers feed cities. Not only that, but we're sharing in the gains and losses of our region's farmers; we make the same investment at the beginning of each season without knowing what or how much produce we'll end up with. This is another important aspect of our connection to nature - humans are intimately connected to the environment through our nourishment and our economy.

These points play a big role in raising our green fledgling. She'll (eventually) be eating a substantial amount of organic, locally produced, farm-fresh food - and hopefully year-round, if we follow-through on plans to make our own baby food from summer produce! ;-) Plus, our daughter will grow up knowing where her food comes from and having a sense of what's involved in getting it from the field (or barn) to her dinner plate. That's very important to my wife and I. And yes, I concede that agriculture in many of its forms can be associated with negative environmental impacts, but that discussion goes far beyond the scope of this post. We all need to eat and, in my mind, we should strive to eat food that is produced and harvested as 'greenly' as possible.

As with many greener lifestyle choices, shopping at local farmers' markets and belonging to a CSA and/or CSF is not financially feasible (or geographically practical) for all. But I really wish it were, and I think that Canadian society is moving toward making that so. The premium, if any, charged for local agricultural products better reflects the costs of production, and maybe even the environmental costs, as more farmers move toward sustainable agricultural practices.

If you're interested in CSA, CSF or local farmers' markets, try searching the net for one in your region, or contact your provincial/territorial federation of agriculture to find out what options are available. You can also try contacting non-profit groups working on agriculture, fisheries and/or sustainable living issues to get more info.

I hope you've enjoyed this part in the series - I know I had fun writing it. Sorry for the delay on this addition to the RAGF series and check back in two weeks for the next post!


*Currently our CSA is veggie-only. Instead, we get a lot of our meat from farmers' markets and through friends' with transitionally-organic farmers in their family.

Raising A Green Fledgling - Series Update

Hello Readers,

Thank you as always, for following my Raising A Green Fledgling series on Nature Canada's blog. I'm greatly enjoying sharing my learning, thoughts and challenges in green parenting with you and look forward to continuing the series as the pages of the calendar turn over time.

This update is to inform you that instead of appearing each week, new installments in the series will appear every two weeks from now on. This change will allow me more time to research and develop each installment.

Thanks again!
-Alex

Raising A Green Fledgling - Part 4 - Fried Green Diapers

Hello Readers!

This week's Raising A Green Fledgling installment focuses on green diapering. It can be a messy topic but no worries, we'll keep it nice and clean. Which takes me to the title of this week's post. Why "fried green diapers"? It's simple really, but you'll have to read on to find out why.

Cloth/reusable diapers seem to be enjoying a resurgence after years of high consumer demand for convenient, disposable diapers. I think this resurgence makes sense both environmentally and practically, but it's worth exploring some other perspectives on this, especially since there can be substantial up-front costs for cloth/reusable diapers.

A 2009 research review called Diapers and the Environment, from the Massachusetts-based group NEARTA, compared disposable and reusable diapers in four areas: solid waste, non-renewable resources consumption, airborne/water-borne wastes, and water consumption. The authors' showed that reusable diapers had fewer negative environmental impacts than disposables in the first three areas, while there was no advantage for either type of diaper with respect to water consumption.

Alternatively, the UK Environment Agency showed that reusables can be better or worse than disposables in terms of their negative environmental impacts. In a 2006 study, An Updated Lifecycle Assessment Study for Disposable and Reusable Nappies (Aumônier et al), the Agency concluded that "consumers' behaviour" largely determined the negative environmental impact of reusables over time. Translation: the impacts of reusables vary based on how you wash, dry and hand them down over time, not to mention the appliances you use and the electricity and water you use to rinse, wash and dry them (and where the electricity and water come from). Other life cycle assessments of disposables and cloth/reusables have failed to find a clear front-runner, as well.

Fair enough. Reusable diapers do require a lot of rinsing, washing and drying, multiple times per week. And rinsing a reusable can consume more water once baby is on solid food. Hot water washing (w/ cold rinsing) is also recommended to remove stains from reusables. Finally, you shouldn't mix regular laundry with reusables because they require less detergent and detergent that is less harsh and free of synthetic chemicals (see RAGF Part 2). Detergent residues left after washing can decrease the absorbency of reusables and may lead to skin irritation.

But I was perplexed that life cycle assessments would fail to name reusables the clear winner. I mean, disposables generate so much MORE persistent, non-degradable waste than reusables, right? And disposables may take up to 500 years to decompose and break-down into tiny bits of plastic that persist in the environment. Most disposables also contain super absorbent polymer (SAPs) compounds that solidify to gel once 'activated', adding additional chemical waste to the mix.

Reusables range from being 100% composed of natural fibres to being a clever mix of natural and synthetic fibres. They're typically designed with an outer cover and an absorbent insert, both of which are washable. While the synthetic components of reusable diapers have life cycle impacts similar to those of their disposable counterparts, reusables produce far less waste at the end of product life and can be re-used by multiple babies over time in a family. Try that with a disposable.

My wife and I considered the waste our reusables might generate if we tossed them out with this week's trash (assuming we were bonkers). We estimated the waste at less than one regular-sized garbage bag, and that's based upon one-size-fits-all reusables that will last us at least until our daughter's first birthday. Plus we can re-use them with future children. Using some of the estimates presented in the research above, a typical baby goes through 70 to 80 disposables per week. That's easily enough to fill 52 regular-sized garbage bags in that same one-year period. One garbage bag compared to 52 for the same period amounts to a lot more impact from disposables in my mind. A 2004 World Health Organization study said that disposable diapers are the "third largest individual constituent of municipal solid waste" making up "over 4%" of the total amount.

So notwithstanding water consumption, I don't buy the conclusion that disposables and reusables have equal environmental impacts. But that's just my opinion, and you know my bias. I also can't get beyond the fact that disposable diapers effectively 'lock-up' biodegradable human waste for hundreds of years, while reusables often liberate that waste into sewerage systems where it can be treated and/or biodegraded more readily.

I haven't talked about the difference in cost between disposables and reusables, but it's enough to say that reusables have a greater up-front cost. However, this cost is usually amortized, or spread-out, over the baby's entire diaper-wearing life. And the diaper-wearing lives of its younger siblings. Disposable diapers cost less per unit in the beginning but become more expensive as baby grows, and they have to be newly purchased newly when they run out. NEARTA conducted another research review, Diaper Cost Comparison, which reported these conclusions. The review also points out the costs associated with water and electricity consumption for laundering reusables, including the cost of using a cloth/reusable diaper cleaning service. This is certainly not insignificant in every case.

As for our experience with reusable diapers so far: they're wonderful. We're happy about the reduced waste associated with reusables, which allows us to feel like responsible environmental stewards. On the practical side, we're very impressed with how well reusables work and how little odor they have when soiled. Our daughter seems to love them, too. They're not messy and rarely leak if fitted and fastened properly, plus many of the new outer cover materials prevent external soaking. We use a non-airtight diaper pail lined with a washable diaper bag to store soiled diapers, and control occasional odors between washes by using drops of tea-tree oil in the bag. We also use washable cloth wipes with an all-natural diaper wipe spray, and we found great all-natural, biodegradable bamboo baby wipes to use as an alternative when not at home.

There's one other huge benefit to cloth/reusable diapers: they motivate toddlers to potty-train earlier since there are no super absorbent polymers and moisture-wicking membranes to make baby feel dry even though he/she's not. Yes, you have to pay more attention to the state of baby's diaper this way, but it's worth it in the longer-term I think.

Oh yeah, what about the title of this week's post? Well, fried green diapers refers to a trick that comes in handy with reusables. Normal washing and drying often won't remove all stains from reusable diapers, but the sun does a remarkable job of naturally bleaching them. So whenever possible, we line-dry our diapers to make sure they stay looking as good as new. I think "fried green diapers" nicely describes this process, since the sun 'fries' our 'green' diapers. :-)

Disclaimer: This is by no means a comprehensive look at the benefits and pitfalls of cloth/reusable diapering. There are numerous maternity stores, baby shops, boutiques and other retailers that can help you navigate the world of cloth/reusable diapers and I encourage you to seek the advice of their experienced staff. A simple Google search will help you find a retailer or cloth/reusable diapering blog or forum in your region.

Photos: A. MacDonald

Raising A Green Fledgling - Part 3 - Forging an early connection to nature

Hello Readers,

This week I'd like to focus on a couple of indirect ways in which my wife and I are trying to forge our daughter's connection to nature as she grows.

The idea for this post started as I was looking at my daughter's growing book collection. Yes, that's right, she's not even 7 weeks old and we already have tonnes of books. And tonnes of music - but that'll be a later installment in this series. We make sure to read, sing, hum and chat to our little one as much as possible to help her on her way.

Anyway, back to the point: I noticed that the majority of her books and music had some sort of nature theme. This is nothing extraordinary, of course, but I think it says something about the types of environmental values we hope to instill in our family.

I noticed books such as "On The Night You Were Born", by Nancy Tillman; "Baby Beluga", by Raffi and Ashley Wolff; "Panda Bear, Panda Bear What Do You See?", by Bill Martin, Jr. and Eric Carle; "I Like Bugs", by Lorena Siminovich; "Walking With Mama", by Barbara A. White; "Just Me and My Dad", by Mercer Mayer; "The Very Quiet Cricket", by Eric Carle; and of course "The Lorax" by Dr. Seuss. There are of course many others I've neglected to list.

Several of these books talk about wildlife as an inherent part of our world - as part of the human experience, while others focus on directly experiencing nature and the countless critters that comprise it. Baby Beluga gives a special nod to a federally-listed species at risk, too. "Panda Bear...", "On the Night..." and "The Lorax" go a step further to deal with conservation themes, quite eloquently and directly in the case of the Seuss book.

These are important messages we want to convey to our daughter. We want her to grow up understanding how we fit into nature and what opportunities we have to decrease our negative impacts on the natural world. There are many ways to do this and so far, it seems we're approaching it indirectly through the stories we share with our daughter. So with any luck, she'll grow up interested in nature and aware that it is both possible - and important - to experience it.

That last point made me think of a book by one of my undergraduate professors, Peter G. Brown, from McGill University's School of Environment. The book is called "The Commonwealth of Life" and though it's a treatise on stewardship economics, Brown discusses the inherent right to exist held by every living thing. He also addresses the moral imperative we have, as humans, to respect those inherent rights. I'm barely scratching the surface here, but I always recall these ideas when I think about why people should care about nature. That's just my take, and my daughter is free to come up with her own. :-)

There are also a couple of very special books I have to mention. My wife and I got these books more for ourselves to enjoy, but we think they hold a number of fun, timeless and valuable messages for our daughter, too. They are: "The World Needs Your Kid" by Craig and Marc Kielburger (of Free the Children fame) and Shelley Page, and "Nelson Mandela's Favourite African Folktales" edited by Nelson Mandela. We love that "The World Needs..." shares inspirational messages and ideas by some of the world's leading promoters of positive social and environmental change, while Mandela's book shares some very real, valuable lessons about life and the world, told through the voices of numerous African cultures throughout the ages. Both books capture some great points about the importance of connecting to and understanding nature.

Well, that's it for now. Thanks for checking out this third installment in the series. And be sure to check back next week for Part 4 on the trials and tribulations of cloth diapering!

NOTE: In searching for links to the books I've mentioned above, I stumbled across a list of children's nature books recommended by Virginia State naturalists. I also found this one from the Massachusetts Dept of Conservation & Recreation. That has me wondering, do other government departments, professional naturalists, naturalist clubs and associations have similar recommended book lists? Please post a comment if you know of one.

Raising A Green Fledgling - Part 2 - Purging 'Pollutants' Prior to Baby's Arrival

Hello again, Readers! Has it already been one week since the first Raising a Green Fledgling post? Sorry for the delay, but things have been busy at Nature Canada - and at home - lately!

As promised, this second part in the series will describe what my wife and I - the "we" in this series - did to create a healthy, harmful chemical-free environment for our baby prior to her arrival, in three steps*. I won't talk about food-borne synthetic chemicals in this post, but check back later.

1. Taking stock. Have you ever looked at what goes into the cleaning, personal care, decorating and maintenance products you use around the house? Several years ago we did a rough inventory of the synthetic chemicals to which we were being exposed in common household products. The list included exotic-sounding chemicals like dioxins, sodium lauryl sulfates, parabens, phthalates and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) flame retardants, among countless others. The David Suzuki Foundation is one of several groups with a list of commonly-used chemicals to which you should limit and/or prevent exposure. These sorts of chemicals are used in anything from product fragrances to product preservatives.

But why limit exposure to them? Well, many of these chemicals are ubiquitous, such as PBDE flame retardants in pillows, furniture and even on children's clothing, and they have been shown to have various negative impacts on human health. These can range from mild skin irritation, to reproductive effects and even cancer - start at Health Canada's website for more information. Given that we were planning to eventually start a family, we also worried about the potential for fetal exposure to chemicals during pregnancy.

2. Making changes. We gradually reduced the number of products containing harmful synthetic chemicals we brought into our home. This meant reading ingredient labels very closely (though many chemicals are unlisted) and choosing more natural alternatives to certain products, like soaps, toothpaste and shampoo. There are a number of companies helping Canadian consumers to choose more natural alternatives to everything from personal care products, to cleaners and even home decorating supplies, including Green Beaver, Nature Clean, Seventh Generation, Burt's Bees, Avalon Organics, Beauti-Tone Natura paints, and many, many others**. We also recycled and disposed of our BPA or bisphenol A-containing plastic products and switched to metal or glass containers for food and drinks.

As the time came to decorate our daughter's nursery, we chose as many healthy, environmentally-benign products as possible, such as low-VOC (volatile organic compound) paints, organic fabrics, natural cleaners, rugs made from natural materials and low-VOC plastics.

Now that our daughter is here, we've tried to find as many 'natural' baby care products as possible, too. I'll write about our diapering strategy in the next couple of posts, but for now I'll report that we're using a highly effective natural disinfectant spray to clean surfaces she's exposed to outside the home, such as change tables. We also use small amounts of tea-tree oil to limit offensive odors associated with soiled diapers.

3. Resisting temptation. There is lots of aggressive marketing for products that are not necessarily ideal to have in your home. Lots of "product W leads to result X, saving you Y dollars and bringing you Z satisfaction", with no mention of the harmful synthetic chemicals present in product W. Despite the limited marketing around natural alternatives to common household products, they often work just as well. You just have to do without the excessive perfumes, soapy suds and almost effortless results you get with harsher products.

There's no way to completely avoid one's exposure to synthetic chemicals in modern society, no matter how hard we try. Not to mention, this lifestyle choice still comes at a premium and is not possible for everyone to afford. Then there's the issue of availability - I grew up in a small town, so I understand this aspect very well. The key is really to become more aware of the synthetic chemicals in your home and workplace and to ask whether or not you understand their potential effects on your health and that of the people around you. If not, look for more information and start asking retailers to provide product information to you.

Over time we can all create healthier, more natural environments in which to live, work and play.

Next week I'll be back with a post on thinking about how to gradually connect our little girl to nature as she gets older.


Photos: A. MacDonald

*DISCLAIMER 1: I've provided a general, non-exhaustive overview of some steps I took to reduce levels of synthetic chemicals in my home. This post is for information only and should not be interpreted as lifestyle advice or judgment. I also acknowledge the difficulty in fully explaining all the caveats, concerns and considerations around harmful synthetic chemicals in such a brief post. I welcome any feedback and suggestions on what I've shared and acknowledge that there are many different and equally (and more) successful approaches to achieving the same goal.

**DISCLAIMER 2: The companies specifically named and web-linked above are provided as examples only, based on my personal shopping experience. In no way does my mentioning them in this post represent Nature Canada's endorsement of these companies and/0r their respective products. Readers are encouraged to do their own research into commercially available natural products.

Raising A Green Fledgling - Part 1 - Introduction to the Series

Hello Blogosphere! You may already know me as Manager of Nature Canada's Protected Areas Program, but I'll soon start to wear a second hat on the Nature Canada Blog...

Every Friday for the next while I'll be posting my personal accounts of trying to be a 'green parent'. My wife and I joyously welcomed our first child, a beautiful baby girl, in July and we're excited to see how well our strong environmental values withstand the many demands - and conveniences - of modern-day parenthood.

My wife and I both have academic and professional backgrounds in biology and the environmental sciences, but our new role as parents will no doubt challenge us in many ways we can't even imagine...

This series will focus on the various environmentally responsible parenting choices my wife and I make, such as which baby products we buy, what foods we eat and the various things we do to maintain a small ecological footprint. I'll also write about the ways we try to gradually help our little girl connect to nature.

Now for some housekeeping.

This series will describe my own parenting choices and experiences and should in no way be interpreted as parenting, lifestyle or other advice coming from me or Nature Canada. It's just a way for me to share my green parenting thoughts, ideas and challenges (and failures...?) with you, the Reader.

Check back next Friday for Part 2, describing what we did to create a safe, 'harmful chemical-free' environment for our baby prior to her arrival.

Image 1: Me with my newborn daughter (Photo: J. MacDonald)
Image 2: Hemlock grove on Frozen Ocean Lake in Kejimkujik National Park & National Historic Site (Photo: A. MacDonald)