Apologia
By Ken Muir
I am a person of my age, of my time in history.
Born into an America that was on the verge of winning the greatest war in history, I and my generation were to be the beneficiaries of that great victory.
The material fruits of that triumph were not evident to all Americans immediately, even though they were there from the outset. After all, we had not been pounded into rubble, burnt to a cinder, like so many of our erstwhile enemies.
But over a few decades those material advantages became increasingly apparent. Commodious housing, excellent transportation, abundant food, ample heat for homes and workplaces and, increasingly, air-conditioned spaces-—these and many other advantages supporting a pleasant lifestyle came to be viewed as an American birthright.
Timber, steel, cement, coal, oil, aluminum, food grains, natural resources and durable goods of great value underlay this huge flowering of American middle-class life.
And the common element which drove them all forward, made their fabrication and exploitation possible, was the use of fossil fuels.
Today we realize that this profligate use of fossil fuels, going back to the 18th century with the advent of the Industrial Revolution in England and France, has placed us on the precipice of a world-shattering climate crisis.
The evidence of this sweeping change has already made itself apparent, and volumes of insight much greater than mine flow at us very day.
Environmentalism is as close to a religion for me as anything is. My issuing a warning here can only be termed trite. But I can look back over my adult life and assess it, critique it, and, hopefully, see in it some positive steps to use as models.
Where did Ken Muir the “water miser” come from?
He originated with studies published by the U S Department of the Interior in the late 1960s and available (cheaply) from the U S Superintendent of Documents. Along with ballooning world population growth, the shrinking supplies of fresh water globally portended a troubled future.
We took our first small steps at water conservation while living in Glen Ridge. Using flow-restricter shower heads, re-using sink water to nourish our few plants and shrubs during times of sparse rainfall, avoiding the use of lawn sprinklers and industrial car washes—- these were our first small steps.
It was at the house in Charlotte NC that I really began to focus on water issues and energy use. While the house itself was a major “transgression,” given its size, none of that ever occurred to us in 1987 when we first committed to a spacious home.
However, once we were settled there and began to watch climate trends unfold, our attention became focused on minimizing our carbon footprint. We saved trees wherever possible and extended the life of perhaps 150 trees by twenty-five years. We culled the sick and dying but preserved almost all the healthy trees. On the two main lots most of those trees still survive now, thirty-six years after we became owners.
Our rain barrel operation was a major contribution. We had at least a hundred and fifty shrubs on the property, and all were watered and sustained by roof run-off for our last eight years. Adding in our supplemental (twenty 7 gal. spackle buckets) storage we most always had 300 gallons of reserve for dry spells. This water was hand-carried to the plants all around the property throughout the warm weather seasons. After 2005, the year we put in the grassed “lower forty” area, we almost never used sprinklers down there. Our original 1997 irrigation system used trickle-feed distribution in large part.
Of course, automotive emissions are a major part of the global warming issue. Starting in 1977 with our first Honda Civic (36 mpg) we focused on fuel efficient vehicles. In 1978 we purchased our Ford Econoline van as a six-cylinder vehicle in order to save fuel. Both of our later Honda CRVs are highly efficient vehicles when driven properly. Both are capable of well over 30 mpg on trips. Loretta’s Lexus hybrid routinely gets 32 mpg in our driving mix, and more on a trip.
The chief offenders are the two pick-up trucks we purchased. While both were fuel efficient “in their class” they did consume more fuel than I would have liked. I broke my own rules because we needed each to perform some serious carrying and towing chores.
A last category for consideration, and a very important one, is home heating/air conditioning usage In addition to keeping the house(s) very near the “not comfortable” level in hot and cold seasons, we became early adopters of heat pump technology. The use of heat pumps and the maintenance of interior temperatures at “barely comfortable” levels seems to be the best we can do for now.
Solar panels, which we first explored as an option at Clinton Rd. in the ‘70s, were not affordable for us then and cannot be used here because of HOA codes. Clearly they are the wave of the future. At Clinton Rd. we took a first step in this direction by converting the home furnace from oil to gas in 1978, both a cheaper and more environmentally friendly solution.
The steps listed above along with vigorous recycling constitute the measures we have taken across fifty years to be good stewards of the earth’s gifts.
I know that it is a mixed record.
Outside our personal life, school settings often gave me the chance to affirm these values. As “Mr. Earth Day” at MLHS I spearheaded very ambitious April clean-ups on both high school grounds, nearby woods, and the town as a whole. I also ran the HS paper recycling operation. Paterson Connection gave us a great opportunity to clean the canals below the Great Falls in the historic Alexander Hamilton “Society for Useful Manufactures” district. We worked hard and fruitfully.
My first Earth Day clean-up was in a patch of woods just below and east of Verona HS. I had to overcome significant resistance from our new asshole principal, who required a lengthy curriculum-based rationale as to why I should be permitted to take a group of my world history students out to do this work for forty-five minutes.
And the school circle was completed when I convinced the administration at Garinger HS, in about 1998, to allow me and a couple of fellow teachers to take students into an enclosed courtyard at GHS to clean up and thin out the jungle-like growth there which had accumulated during decades of neglect.
That’s all that comes to mind as I reflect on this vital concern.
It is not enough but it is something.
I hope that it will serve as a directional sign as we move into the coming turbulent years of climate dislocation.
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