Eco-Justice and my MSR Pocket Rocket?

Eco-Justice and my Pocket Rocket?

Eco-Justice holds together commitments for ecological sustainability and human justice. It sees environmental issues and justice issues not as competing agendas, but as intertwined elements of how humans are called to relate to God's creation. It asserts that it is not possible to care for the earth without also caring for humanity, and that seeking human justice must involve care for the environment.

taken from the Eco-Justice Ministries web site

http://www.eco-justice.org/

I had a thought recently while on a back-country solo. It was simple. I was making tea or probably coffee on my Pocket Rocket with an iso-prop pressurized canister. It was empty so I punctured it as I usually do to carry it out for recycling. I noticed it smelled pretty bad and in fact when I put it in my pack the things in my pack started to smell. It reminded me of when I was growing up and I would travel with the family on long car rides. To get off Long Island we often had to travel through New Jersey. New Jersey has some very lovely farm country and coast line. It also has some heavy industrial zones.
I often remember riding in the car on a major highway through an area with refineries I think with tall smoke stacks and flames coming out the top. I thought it was cool but it also smelled kind of foul. We kept the car windows rolled up.

My empty, punctured gas canister smelled similar. I noticed the words Made in Vietnam on the side of the can and I started to think. I had traveled to Viet Nam alone in 2000 on my first foray into Asia. As a kid I'd seen it on TV every night for about 8 years during the war. I learned that Viet Nam is not a black and white place. It's quite colorful. It's also quite poor. I was often beside myself at the conditions I saw people living in and was asked for handouts everywhere I went.  This is a deeply rooted systemic problem, there was not much I could do. Sounds harsh I know. 

Toward the end of my stay in Viet Nam I was in Hanoi and a young man approached me asking if I wanted to buy one of many black market books printed in English. I politely declined but he kept on. He spoke some English and finally he began to get escalated and started yelling at me, "Why don't you help me? why don't I have some thing to eat"? Sadly I replied, "Perhaps you should ask your local government official".  He was a little stunned and walked away. That sucked...

Well, I just began to wonder about the manufacture and production of my little gas canister. I hate to imagine that they re being produced in a country where oversight into safety of the workers and the environment is at all a consideration. I'm thinking probably not. 

So, while enjoying the peace and quiet of a relatively clean (except for the un-buried pile of human excrement I found near my camp), high-country landscape; and as it happens pondering the efficacious-ness of my own LNT ethic, I realized a significant incongruity in my thinking and my actions. I might need to find an alternative stove. Perhaps one that burns alcohol? But where is the alcohol produced? What are the conditions, Who lives there? Are there byproducts? 
Ever mindful of my impact on the world....

Thoughts on choosing a Bicycle

Bicycle Park, train station Cambridge, England

Thoughts on choosing a bike for touring or just long days in the saddle:

About me: I am a relatively small, older but fit woman.


Good frame fit. If it's too big it's a little dangerous, too small it's uncomfortable. Drop bars or uprights? My first tour was 1000 miles across the Midwest into Colorado where I live. I went faster with drop bars and it's possible I got more bang for my buck with each pedal stroke. Drop bars create less wind resistance. But I did not see as much and it wasn't very comfortable. Not miserable but it hurt my shoulders a little. I've since discovered that the bars were probably too wide for my narrow shoulders. I've gone to a more upright position. More comfortable and I see more. But it puts more pressure on my butt and my saddle is a simple Brooks B-17 with no padding. I don't advise that for new riders.  Maybe I go slower, but I also have 2" tires for riding dirt, gravel and some single track. Less wide tires go faster and are lighter. But racing tires won't hold up. Find the middle.
That first bike was geared more for racing than touring. So crossing the Midwest east to west was fine. Then I hit Colorado and the Rockies. That was like hitting a brick wall. I've since gone to mountain bike gearing. I'd rather spin than lug my way up the mountain. Slower on the downhill but easier on the uphill. Without extra weight it may not matter. I usually travel self contained, my friends think I'm a lunatic but I stop wherever I want. Maybe I'm a little nuts..... 
You could consider weight. My bike is steel and weighs a lot, A LOT (I name my bikes and my current bike's name is "Tank". It goes anywhere....Slowly). Aluminum is lighter, carbon fiber lighter still but maybe not so durable on the myriad surfaces one discovers while touring.
 
Also, is it in good working order? If it's used take it to a shop. Or look for chain wear, ring wear, check the cables, true the wheels...
Train on it!!!!!! The best training is probably hours and miles in the saddle. A little aerobic cross training is useful. Strength training is very helpful for endurance if you have the time.

The Earth and Everything in it....

The earth is the lord’s, and everything in it,the world, and all who live in it.Psalm 24:1

“The crisis of climate change presents to us unprecedented challenge to the goodness, interconnectedness, and sanctity of the world God created and loves… The church’s commitment to ameliorating it is a part of the ongoing discovery of God’s revelation to humanity and a call to the fuller understanding of the scriptural imperative of loving our neighbor.”

- Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori; speech to the United States senate environmental and Public Works committee, June 2007

Riding bicycles and growing gardens can no longer be seen as quaint hobbies or the past times of outdated, idle “hippies”. We cannot continue to live as though our actions do not affect someone somewhere. Growing food locally, regardless of the scale and self-propelled transportation can negate ecological damage and economic hardship.

If we consider that God’s call to care for creation is the same as God’s call to care for our neighbors, we have to start to live and think as if what we do here matters to someone elsewhere. For example, driving my little car creates demand for fossil fuels. We all know that the extraction, production and use of gasoline for a combustion engine are a lengthy and dirty process. This is often at the expense of ecosystems located where marginalized people of society often live.

If we fail to connect the violence in the Middle East, Asia Minor and/or sub-Sahara Africa to our own North American habits of consumption, we have deliberately chosen ignorance. And while much of the violence and conflict can often be traced back to religious or political ideology, it is also driven by economics.

Riding my bicycle does not exempt me from contributing to an extraction of natural resources and industrial fabrication (also dirty processes). However, by riding as much as possible to go from point A to point B, C, D and so on I don’t increase the demand for more fossil fuels to keep moving. It is my primary form of transportation and runs essentially on food produced and harvested and prepared as close to home as I can manage. Granted I have a weakness for locally made donuts. Perhaps my bicycle then is fueled by them. The more I ride the more donuts I can eat. It’s really a great dividend.

If the incarnation is about what is inside of us being embodied in our actions then spreading the gospel (or at least living as if it matters) might be as simple as getting out of the car and on a bike or even just walking…

We can live as an example and to prove that what we do does matter. I often hear that change on a grand scale is impossible.  For example improving and expanding public transportation in La Plata County is often countered with, “It costs taxpayers too much, it’s economically viable and cannot sustain itself” etc. Is it possible to begin to think of the cost in terms of the quality of life rather than dollars?There is the old adage, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you will always get what you've always got”. It’s time to let our conscience guide us, if we don’t think past the status quo, who will?