Coffee Cup Conundrum

I lose coffee cups. I lose travel mugs. At work I used to walk with the mug; set it somewhere; retrieve it weeks later only when stumbled upon. I have left them at coffee shops. I have buried them in the backyard. As such, I was in the market this week for a new travel mug.

Here's the mess I got into: What is my real carbon footprint by buying mug A, B, or C here around town?  



I thought, surely, the Thermos company from Illinois is a safe bet. Well, Shopko ships these mugs in from China. 

OK, then Cuisenart out of New York sounded promising. But Kohls receives them from China. 

Sears? The Copco brand from Illinois has them made in China, too. 

Borders? Seattle's Best mugs are made in...China.  

Aladdin, sold by REI: China.

Starbucks markets three styles- all from China.

Whole Foods offers their brand of travel mugs, made in China.  

I'm sure this is the tip of the slushy iceberg. 

Conundrum. I'm attempting to purchase a reusable cup so as not to consume a paper one. Or even the need for the coffee shop to wash their own china ware (!). Good intentions, right? BUT, the product I am attempting to buy in order to save resources has probably already used even more resources!  I'm saving a tree so it can do it's job of absorbing CO2, but end up consuming fossil fuels and emitting transportation CO2 in the process!


I'm not going to try to extrapolate figures into carbon tons, but the fact is that after the mug is produced in Beijing, it and its little buddies must travel, as the crow flies, 10,400 miles to Madison. I might as well use a cup made from recycled paper that comes from a sustainable forest in northern Wisconsin!


Check your coffee mugs. We're chasing our tails! 

A little searching on the net revealed some nice looking ceramic travel mugs, made in the USA. This seems to be the best answer at this point. Sounds like a lot less energy and resource usage, and I think I can handle not dropping it...

[Don't even get started on the transportation resource costs of beautiful reusable water bottles that keep us from using the dastardly disposable bottles with questionable water quality. We are so screwed in these drinking container cycles.]

Past Lesson Plan: Consumer Imports Make Their Stand

I wasn't going to include lesson plans on this blog, but one comes to mind that gave me an "ah-hah!" moment a couple of years ago: Shrinking geography and growing energy usage.

As a part of getting the feel for continents and an exposure to their countries I have had kids check their own homes for tags and markings that show a manufacturing country of origin. Clothing, toys, kitchen items, etc. We usually assembled quite a list. But this particular time we polled 55 countries! This from a 4th grade class of 21, in the midwest. 

Canada, United States, Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico

Colombia,  Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina

Egypt, Nigeria, Kenya, Madagascar, Namibia

Sweden, Denmark, Germany, France, Italy, Greece, Russia

Turkey, Israel, Kuwait, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Brunei, Maylasia, Indonesia, Mongolia, Korea, Japan, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Marianna Islands, Philippines, 

 Australia

I certainly don't require 4th graders to memorize world countries - seven  continents is enough... But I think an exposure to the political units on these continents is important. Kids will have heard place names like "Thailand" and "Nigeria" and "Bolivia" and associate them with homes beyond our own. Other homes; other cultures. 


As we wrote our country names onto stickies and put them on the world map up front, I began to sense a geography surge. The products in these fourth grade homes all came marching from foreign ports, across and above the four major oceans. Thousands and thousands and thousands of miles on the water and in the air.

World Shipping Lanes

Imports. Energy intensive imports. Right there on our wall map: Products that were somehow outsourced for cheap and/or unjust labor or inexpensive materials. It's been going on for years, of course. But the amount of finite fuel used and emissions spewed simply to carry products from one part of the world to another is grotesque.  

Currently, I cannot go through a store without checking the origin of products. I am cursed and obsessed. Especially in big box stores. It used to be just an exercise in geographic distribution, but now I visualize miles and fuel. Not that I necessarily need all these products - there are hundreds of frivolous objects that don't contribute to my quality of life. But, someday in the relatively near future, these will start to disappear from our shelves.


Do we wean away from them voluntarily now, or wait for them to be yanked because fuel for such non-essentials is unavailable?


What will the shipping lane map look like in twenty years?


What will the clothing tags of 4th graders look like twenty years from now?

A Different Bike Education for Kids

KIDS  ->  BIKES  ->  SCHOOLS  ->  FUTURE BEHAVIOR. 


The bicycle really hasn’t changed all that much over a century: two wheels, pedals, chain, handlebars. For the most part we associate it with leisure and, of late, maybe international racing. But for the most part, we think kids.  

It’s the transportation of children; something that marks a developmental turning point in their ability to balance and steer. They ride to a friend’s house or down to the store for candy. Bikes sprawled on a front yard shows an after school gathering.

In the USA the car culture has, for the most part, limited the bicycle to this image. Sure, there have always been adult road racers and Sunday bike clubs, long distance touring and some commuters. But our great regional distances and the building of suburbia have prevented the bike from moving out of the leisure mold and into bonafide transportation. A mindset change is necessary.


It's not hard to conjure up images of cycling in most other parts of the world. (I'm sure you don't need more photos.)  All ages. All types of trips. All types of items carried. All sharing the urban streets with cars and respected as such.

Pedal Power   =  Good Health + Zero Emissions + Zero Fossil Fuel Use

And

Pedal Power   =  Slowing Down Life + The Will To Improve Life For All

Downsizing from the current car culture to a cleaner and healthier alternative transportation will take a change in personal perspective; a change in habits of the mind; an education. Just like cutting back on home electrical power. Just like driving easy for the best mileage. Just like buying locally. Just like boycotting bottled water. Just like bringing high speed rail to Wisconsin.

What more natural way to make this transition than by showing every kid the practical aspects of their two wheels, then setting the expectation (through modeling) that the bike will be their close friend for the rest of their lives.

An increasingly vibrant bike culture needs to make an appearance in this country very soon. How can we add the image of transportation to the image of leisure?

Animation: "Thoughts On My Bike"    (!!)

Resources: For starters
The Bike Federation of Wisconsin - statewide voice for all cycling
Share and Beware - road safety skill program (BikeFed)

Safe Routes To School - planning and practicing riding to school (BikeFed)
Madison Dept of Public Works - Bicycle Safety Educator Steve Meiers
Wheels for Winners of Madison; helping kids

DreamBikes - used bikes, helping kids
Transcontinental Touring Blog - taste the life on the road

History of Trek Bikes in WI  - our own two-wheeled manufacturer

Race Across America - the ultimate endurance race

Adventure Cycling - everything long distance since 1976

Pedal Power Machine

Bike Parking - community grocery store parking

Bike Rental Article - hot off the press from Middleton, WI

"Will the Post Oil Future Be Bicycle Free?" - provocative article re: auto roadways and bikes
"Extreme Human-Powered Delivery" - wait till you see these pedal-powered resources (photos)
"The Future of Travel" - biking perspective from the Huffington Post

More Questions Than Answers About Human Behavior

...like trying to turn an ocean liner...or an oil tanker.

There are serious global issues; and there are societies facing these serious global issues.  Because the issues will eventually require societal changes, questions begin to appear about human behavior.

The concepts of societal change and reduced energy availability go together like oil and water, so to speak. Change is tough and change is slow.

Educators need to begin to piece together both the list of global health issues and resultant cultural change probabilities. World Health vs. Societal Changes. 

Where do we find a good Anthropology 101 for this? An Ethics 101? A Social Justice 101? To teach with our compass aimed at the future (a foundational standard, anyway) we must become agents of educated change ourselves as we enter the classroom each day (...as Gandhi said, and as he is now quoted regularly). It’s not just curricular content- it’s choreographing curricula under the societal change umbrella.

Raising questions related to peak oil, population growth, climate change, water availability, economy, etc., can be fairly directly answered and investigated.  Questions pertaining to human behavior, however, are going to take more thought.  

Consider these energy questions - mostly fossil fuel energy questions.  They are a jumble of human behavior and world ethics queries for thought. One could go on and on...as I know I have...  


What is quality of life related to fossil fuels?

Does "taking for granted" create a behavior issue?  

Is there a level of foresight that society is willing to accept for global health? 

What is “buy-in” when discussing change in behavior? 

In economics, what are inflexible commodities or consumer products? 

Why do people seem to require instant gratification?

What are labor-saving devices and do they cost us?

What is a social justice definition of luxury?

Have luxury and comfort become rights and expectations for societies?

How will the rate of behavior change appear when luxury and comfort are involved?

What do we mean by a lifestyle sacrifice?

What is survival energy?

Is change accomplished through leading by example?

How does the individual ego and its cultural norm fit with change? Is there a cultural ego?

Who will be in denial about the global future and how will they respond? 

What is convenience as related to energy or commodities or services?

How do we address growth as a foregone given?

Are extracted energy sources a luxury?

Is there a social justice issue with the distribution of greenhouse gas emissions? 

Where does privileged fossil fuel consumption and emission fit?

Is this where we tease-apart developed vs. developing countries? 

How could a debatable energy issue, say, like air conditioning, become a model for studying behavior modifications? 

Will a segment of society take on a future behavior to “...party like it’s 1999?”

What may be the effect of doomer behavior by some? 

Is it reasonable to expect cultures to reconcile and cooperate for the collective sake of world health?

How do we create momentum to turn the supertanker toward education for sustainability?

Why is it important for teachers to aggressively address and discuss societal behaviors in the face of uncertain global future?

Who will need to be totally prepared to tackle decision-making in 2020 and beyond?  (Hint: It’s not me.)

~ ~ ~ ~

There are concrete issues of global health, and then there are abstract behaviors.  Both need to be addressed by educators- and soon.