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By Maurice Carter, Sustainable Newton President  For anyone paying even the slightest attention to climate news, these are difficult days not to run screaming from the building. Then again, this summer, outside is no place to be.
From unprecedented dual hurricanes Laura and Marco striking the US gulf coast last month to the scorching heat and raging wildfires now impacting California and Oregon, we're inundated with news about extreme weather caused by Climate Change. Throw in Siberian temperatures topping 100 degrees Fahrenheit and collapsing arctic ice shelves in Canada, and it's a little hard to remain hopeful. OK, nearly impossible. But, still, hope is not lost.
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By Maurice Carter, Sustainable Newton President  Ah, 2019, It Was Such a Simpler Time
"Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone."
As I struggle to express my emotions in these socially-distanced, mostly virtual times, Joni Mitchell's lyrics jump to mind. Though now it's less about paving paradise than putting it under glass. Or, perhaps, it's we who are under glass. Has anyone else watched a television show or a movie recently and felt alarmed by scenes of people standing close together -- perhaps even <gasp!> shaking hands or putting a hand on a shoulder? Now, it's The Police I hear singing "Don't stand. Don't stand. Don't stand so close to me." It's the same way when I look back at photos of past Sustainable Newton events.
By Maurice Carter, Sustainable Newton President
I’m making my shoulders strong for the young to stand upon,
Stepping lightly on the backs of those who hold me up.
By Maurice Carter, Sustainable Newton President  The Triple Bottom Line From our early days as individuals uniting to change our world by acting locally in our community, Sustainable Newton has defined sustainability along two dimensions:
By Maurice Carter, Sustainable Newton President  A petunia growing from a wall above my koi pond reminds me we're made of strong stuff. It's taken longer than I hoped -- weeks in fact -- to get to where I could organize my thoughts to share a few words about how we persevere with sustainability efforts in these troubling times. But, I suspect you all understand.
It's a striking reminder how much life changed so quickly to reread my last post about Arbor Day written 43 days ago, on February 20. It was easy then to imagine young seedlings and saplings growing into mighty shade trees to shelter generations to come. But, thinking about that future is a more difficult task today. I find myself spending spare moments on days not occupied by the present to reflect on my past. Or, more accurately, the past of those who gifted life to me long ago. By Maurice Carter, Sustainable Newton President Society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they will never sit in.
By the Sustainable Newton Board of Directors  We added a new word to our vocabulary in 2019 -- more accurately, an acronym. That acronym was "EtO," short for ethylene oxide.
This was an unfamiliar term for nearly everyone in Newton County, but news coverage of releases of this known carcinogen from the Becton Dickinson (BD) facility in Covington soon had everyone talking and local governments pressed to act. In October, we commended the Covington Mayor and City Council for their response to the situation. Much has happened since, with BD eventually resuming operations at their Industrial Boulevard facility with new air quality testing in place. However, in late December, BD was again cited by the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD) for not reporting the existence and release of EtO at a warehouse in Covington's Lochridge Business Park. By Julius J. ("JJ") Hayden, Sustainable Newton Treasurer
By Maurice Carter, Sustainable Newton President  Vegan Black Bean & Kale Soup with Meatless Chorizo Sausage (7 Weight Watchers Points) With January safely in the rear-view mirror, perhaps it's not too risky to mention how those New Year's resolutions are going. I'm referring to the sustainability actions I committed to at the end of last year, along with my fellow Sustainable Newton board members.
For me, the focus was reducing my carbon footprint by driving more fuel-efficiently and adopting a plant-based diet one day a week. Overall, I'm happy with results so far, but neither resolution has been without challenges. (As it should be for any changes worth making.) Today is my fifth "Meatless Monday." I was traveling in early January, so I elected to start my new regimen on Monday, January 13. But, since then, I've opened every week with a vegetarian (but not always vegan) diet. I'm allowing myself eggs and dairy products, but no beef, poultry, seafood, or other meats. On New Years Day, we bring you another installment of our series focusing on personal resolutions Sustainable Newton Board members are making for 2020 to increase our efforts to live more sustainable lives with less negative impact on our planet and those who will inhabit it when we are gone. By Julius J. Hayden, Sustainable Newton Treasurer & Lois Upham, Sustainable Newton Board Member  As some of my friends know, I have been on a crusade to raise awareness of the problems caused by plastic bags used to collect and transport our purchases. I am an old man and don’t mind playing the “ole’ geezer” card to make a point and perhaps change a mind -- if not, then raise awareness -- of the dangers of plastic endemic in our environment.
Almost without exception, I ask every clerk and bagger if they can tell me the source material for plastic bags. (It's petroleum or natural gas.) I go on to tell them, especially the young ones, that they will someday tell their grandchildren “we used to give away plastic bags by the handful, and that if they just had some of those bags now, how lucky they would be.” (Shades of back-to-the-future.) |
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