The Drought of 2011, or A Public Service Announcement on Why You Should Water Your Lawn

If you are alive and well in Oklahoma, hopefully you have noticed certain… things… about the weather lately. Such as… it’s hot. And it felt kind of like we skipped spring entirely in order to make a nose dive into summer.  I have been waiting for the weird weather to end, and I have finally quit waiting out of boredom.  It will end when it will end. And until then, my plants will crispy-fry. I will wear tiny, breezy clothes. And I will post about it on ECOhoma!

Trivia on the Uber-Summer of 2011

·        Oklahoma City was featured as one of five cities on the Weather Channel and one of two cities on NPR for being crazy hot this June. On June 29th, we had 29 days in a row with temperatures above 90 degrees, breaking a 100-year record. We also are currently running on ten days in a row with temperatures above 100 degrees, and temperatures forecasted to be 100 or more for at least the next ten days.

·        This last June was the second hottest on record for the state of Oklahoma since records began in 1893. Texas had its hottest June ever recorded.

·        It was Oklahoma’s 4th driest June since 1893. Texas, Louisiana, and New Mexico had their driest 6 months ever.

·        When it comes to acres burned by wildfire, the country experienced twice the average, at 4.8 mil acres for the year. 1.3 mil burned in June. Texas had record wildfires.

·        Excessive drought covers 367,000 square miles, or 12% of the contiguous states

·        Drought/Heat conditions are comparable to or more severe than the Dust Bowl of the 30s. So why aren’t we covered in dust? Say thank you to the Oklahoma Conservation Commission, founded in 1937 so that the Dust Bowl would never happen again. The Dust Bowl was as much a result of unsustainable soil and farming practices as it was weather.

Interview with a Meteorologist

I was itching to know what the cause of our current weather trends may be, so I asked Patrick Burke, a National Weather Service forecaster, for his opinions. Because he’s a nice guy and I am a lucky girl, he did! Hooray! Below is the text from our informal email interview:

Me: Why we are having this crazy drought and heat? Are we in a funky El Nina or something? Are we about to crash into the sun? Am I just that hot, and need to dress less awesome and eat more junk food? I must know.

Patrick:  Everyone wants to know.  We are the recipients of increased media interest, so a few of us are working up some information this morning.  A lot of processes in weather/climate are chicken and egg questions.  It's hot because the ground is too dry... it's dry because the air is too hot.  So there is no single culprit.  But here is what we know:

This drought began last Autumn when precipitation was much less than average. The winter is almost always dry, but was even drier, and this was consistent with a strong La Nina. The La Nina remained strong through the spring, which is usually our wettest season. In part because the ground is so dry (Extremely dry from OK/TX to NM/AZ) extremely hot temperatures began earlier than usual in June.

The Southern Climate Region experienced the 2nd warmest April-June on record and 5th driest October-June on record. The farther west you go from Interstate 35 it is closer to The Driest October-June on record.

Here is what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported in 2007:

“…by 2010 to 2039…year-round temperatures across North America will be outside the range of present-day natural variability. The projected warming…is greatest in the summer in the south-west U.S. Warm extremes across North America are projected to become both more frequent and longer. Annual-mean precipitation is projected to decrease in the south-west of the U.S…” 

 Here is my interpretation (not an official interpretation of my office):

Any single heat wave arises from a number of influences – especially drought, season (summer), and in this case, a strong La Niña that existed during spring. It is impossible to say how much, if any, influence global climate change has on this single hot summer.

If we were to see an increasing number of these types of heat waves over the next few decades… that observation would be consistent with the predictions of climate modelers / climate models.

Me: So, if I water my lawn, the ground will be less dry, and it will rain??!!!  Woohoo!  (I am only partly kidding. If everyone watered their lawn, would it increase likelihood of rain?)

Patrick: Technically, that is true.  If everyone in a concentrated area added a lot of water to their near-surface soil, studies have shown that would create a locally lower cloud base and greater instability.  If other factors were not strongly opposed to making it rain (e.g., a strongly subsiding air mass) then the chance of rain over and downwind of your house would be slightly greater.  Of course, if you have to sacrifice water to receive water... hmmm...

I suppose it would be worthwhile just to mix things up.

So there you go, my friends: from the horse’s weather man’s mouth.  If you share my Okie condition, I hope you caught some of the showers we’ve been having over the last couple of days and have been eating lots of popsicles!

As a very big, important PS: If you are a resident of central Oklahoma, you very well may be under water rationing. I know that if you live in Oklahoma City, we have been asked to water our lawns only on even-numbered days for even numbered homes and odd-numbered days for odd numbered homes. Folks on the city fringes are having problems with water pressure, so be considerate! And if you live outside of OKC limits, you may want to check up on the status of your city's water supply, as well.

Concerty Awesomeness

Last night was Concerty Awesomeness at the Diamond Ballroom!

I spent a good three hours hopping up and down, crazy sweaty, inside a hot metal building listening to the Cobra Skulls, the Tossers, and the Dropkick Murphys... it was as awesome as it sounds, and one of the best people-watching concerts I've ever been to, complete with body surfing and little kids with mohawks (always a favorite of mine - I swear one day I will babysit my little nephew only to return him to his parents with a surprise hair makeover).  At the end of that beautiful night listening to the loud, loud sound that is silence as I fall asleep. And I took not a single picture for you or me or anyone, because the thought of taking my camera into a punk rock concert and expecting it to emerge alive at the end of the night is daunting.

But you should have been there. You would have had fun.

Ah, summer concerts... one of the best things in life.

Bathroom Remodel - Eco Tour Version

I hated this bathroom from the moment I saw it. My husband once told me that this bathroom is what happens when the husband never says no to his wife’s silly ideas… a coworker retorted that this is what happens when the WIFE never says no as the hubby buys only what is on sale!  Aside from having damaged tile, it had mis-matched everything. Gray and maroon tile floors, mauve and maroon walls, pink and blue wallpaper, white vanity cabinets, and yellow faux marble countertops. Seriously, I doubt it could have been more mismatched had they tried. (I hope the previous owners aren’t reading this and feeling poorly about it)  It was such a crazy quilt of color and style that I did not even ATTEMPT to make anything match, and just moved my green bath gear into it from my previous abode.

Despite my horror at the aesthetics, this alone was not enough to make me remodel. But two years after we moved in the pier under the bathroom floor began to sink. And so we know we had to fix the pier, which meant we would have to fix the floor by removal and replacement. Since we already had to do all this, we decided to just do everything. And we did. Literally. Everything. Tore it down to nothing, built it back up from scratch, and replaced everything except the ceiling and the original wall cabinet, doing our best to keep it in the original 1950s flavor. My handyman uncle said we should learn to do the work ourselves, so we did. He taught us how, and did much of the more technical work such as the plumbing. It took us a year to go from sledge hammer to touch-up paint and caulking… and that is such a long grueling story that I will spare you, but I must add that it turned out to be a blessing we chose to tear down the walls because we found we had hidden plumbing leaks and termites that all of our inspectors had missed. The result is that the remodel was costlier than expected in the short run, but saved us a bundle long term.

 

After a year of sweating and learning, it is now the prettiest room in the house! Here is a tour of the eco-features.

1)      We used low-VOC white paint and primer, easy to find from Lowe’s.  The cost was slightly more than some traditional varieties, but the peace of mind is well worth it. 

2)      The black paint we got for FREE from the OKC Hazardous Waste disposal center (I may do a short post on them later). It was name-brand paint that someone else had discarded.

3)      This is our brand new WaterSense, low-flow dual-flush toilet! Silver button is for solids, blue button is for liquids. It amuses all our friends. 

4)      This is my low-flow WaterSense shower head. I had to do some bargaining to convince my husband to try one out, but we both love it. It feels nicer than our old water guzzler did.

5)      I found a recycled plastic curtain liner, but I am not sure if it’s really ecofriendly or just greenwashed… 

6)      This is our old bath tub. Instead of buying a new one, we had it resurfaced – one of the two things we contracted out. (The other thing we contracted? When we had almost finished grouting, we hired someone to come out and complete it, because we hated grouting just that much, and it was Christmas. It was SO worth it.)

7)      New double-paned Energy Star window! Gave us a small tax credit this spring, too. We also re-built this wall slightly to accommodate a smaller window than the original one, so that the window doesn’t encroach into the shower space (which is weird and creepy)

8)      We replaced our 80s uber light strip with a fixture that only requires two bulbs. There is NO REASON why our tiny, window-lit bathroom needed five light bulbs! 

9)      The medicine cabinet came from Habitat for Humanity’s Renovation Station, meaning it was either re-used or donated surplus. Either way, Habitat saved it from a dump and sold it to me. And it is huge, and awesome, and sleek. However, my uncle did have to rebuild part of the frame to make it stronger.  

10)   The countertop is made of recycled glass and came from River’s Edge Countertops, and is probably the most beautiful thing I own. 

11)   After a couple weeks of searching, I found the perfect buffet at Bad Granny’s Bazaar. It was antique, but it was worn enough that I didn’t feel bad about stripping it down and transforming it. A fantastic surprise was that when we got it home for closer inspection, it had a manufacture date on it: the furniture had been built in 1950, the same year as our house! We re-purposed it into this vanity simply by removing the shelves that sat on top, cutting a few holes, removing the center drawer (we just nailed the face of the drawer back on), and sanding/painting it.

If you have ever done a remodel, you know it produces a huge amount of waste. So what did we do? A bunch of the things I was able to sell for cheap on Craigslist. Even more went out for unsponsored curbside recycling (which means it goes on the curb with a sign that says FREE). Sponsored (city pick up) curbside recycling took care of plastic containers. A recycling bin at work took my cardboard boxes. Unused and empty paint cans went to the Hazardous Waste Facility. And a few things – like my old green bath décor - went to Goodwill.

 Original drywall had to be thrown away, as did our used tile. I had hoped to donate the tile for craft projects, but our tiled floors and walls turned out to be made of concrete. Even worse, we could not recycle the concrete because it was impossible to remove it from the tile and chicken wire reinforcement. I would be embarrassed to tell you how much concrete, tile, and chicken wire had to go to the landfill… but sometimes things must be tossed.

Welcome Home

I know that I have been away for a while, and in truth, there was a period of time where I was not certain if I would come back.  There are many reasons for this, but when you spend the majority of your 10-hour work day doing research and writing on a computer, that is normally the LAST thing I want to do when I get home. I thought about my goals here. I questioned whether or not I was actually unique enough that people should care what I have to say. I considered re-opening at a web location where I would be completely anonymous and no one would know me. I considered re-opening just for personal communications, on the complete 180. I decided that in the long run it probably doesn’t matter too much. (We all know that if you don’t want people to know what you are doing, 1) don’t do it, and 2) don’t put it on line, but since I normally follow rule one, and am not stupid enough to hand out my address and social security number, I think I was probably being hyper paranoid.) I also had a computer break down recently… so after 4 weeks of having no computer at all I am feeling refreshed. And my computer also now has beautiful Windows 7, with upgraded RAM and Antivirus software, to play with.

While I have been gone from the blogging world I have had a slappy fantastic time. I’ve had an international vacation and a short Okie staycation. Our dogs went through and graduated from advanced obedience! I’ve built a jury-rigged lily garden, a nice raised bed garden, and compost bins. I’ve worked (a lot) on weatherizing the house and I’ve completed my Green Home Loan process (hooray, new HVAC and insulation!). Most exciting, our year long bathroom re-model is finally completely finished and I’m excited to show it to you, with our fantastic eco-upgrades. I’m slowly working on spreadsheeting all my utility bills for the past few years so that I can mark the dates we made efficiency improvements, graph the usage, and figure out quantitatively if our improvements made a difference. (I already have the costs spreadsheeted… you know… I keep a budget! But that’s not truly indicative of use over time, as utilities initiate rate changes over the years) I started enjoying my first CSA membership with Berry Creek Farm, and have been learning how to cook vegetables I previously never cooked (and in some cases, never even tasted before). And, even though I am almost thirty years old, I am teaching myself to ride a bicycle. Yes. I am. Don’t judge!  And I’m sure you’re well aware that we’ve been experiencing simultaneously one of Oklahoma’s most intense droughts AND most intense heat waves in generations… So we have lots to talk about, you and I.

I was also impressed and surprised to see that over my web hiatus, I gained a subscriber and my site views increased. Certainly odd for a brand new blog that has been dormant for a few months… but encouraging. Thank you! When I checked my web stats I completely expected and deserved to see that my little web home had fizzled out while I was away, but instead found that I had even more reason to stay. So here I am!  Thanks for sticking around. I’ll be back on the ball soon.

Meanwhile, here is a picture from my vacation last March… I love this one because I look like I’m on a fantastic adventure! Hiking through the Arctic Circle all alone… or something like that.  This was on Inisheer. And it was a lovely adventure. Especially that morning, when we saw no one but us for several hours. Just me, my sweetie, and a beautiful, sparsely inhabited island, all alone.

Cheers.

Going on internet hiatus!
Hope everyone's homes are safe after Friday's fires...

Being Forgiving

There are times when I think about my life and I am disgusted with myself for the disconnect between my lifestyle and my values. I feel guilty. I make excuses. I try to think of the things I would do differently if I weren’t married, if I were richer, if I didn’t have dogs, if I lived somewhere else, if I had more time. Maybe I feel useless. Maybe I feel angry. Maybe I feel frustrated. I certainly feel selfish. Why do I need so much stuff? Why do I use so much energy? Why do I run the heat instead of putting on a jacket? Why don’t I take the bus? Why didn’t I buy my spinach from the farmer’s market? I’m just feeding the system, a cog in the machine. If I really cared, wouldn’t I do better? I know I can’t be alone in feeling this way.

The truth is yes, I do care. Yes, I am educated. Yes, I can change. But change is hard. Change takes time and effort. Changing habits takes mindful concentration. If we are to make an effort to live according to the concepts of sustainability and our personal values, we must simultaneously be forgiving of ourselves and others. Our culture did not arrive at excess overnight and this is not going to change overnight. We can’t even wave a magic wand and immediately transform ourselves. We can’t all be No Impact Man. But we can all make a continuous effort to change, and we can expect to improve over time. We can watch ourselves get better and better.

I haven’t made any steps forward in decreasing my personal environmental impact in recent weeks. I’ve been overwhelmed with the chaos of life – with home renovation projects, with caring for my dogs and family, with trying to eat healthier and be a calmer person, with holiday activities and the fatigue that follows all of these things. And that’s ok. This happens to everyone. Sometimes life moves fast.

 Instead of feeling like a consumerist slacker, I should feel gratitude towards the changes I made earlier on that allowed me to get through this time more sustainably. I should feel thankful that, even when I was overwhelmed with Stuff and Responsibilities and Stuff To Do, I stayed aware of my impacts and open to new information. In all that noise I continued to learn and to think about what I was doing.  My exterior life and habits did not change during this time, but my interior self did. When the stress diminishes and life slows down, I have projects to tackle, changes to make. And, now that I have time to reflect on the last few months, I am able to see that even though I felt like I was being lazy and selfish, I was still improving.

•          I made an effort to buy all of my Christmas gifts from small, local businesses. I made an effort to buy as many of these handmade, eco-friendly gifts as possible, and to go for thoughtful quality over quantity. I also baked my own pumpkin butter to give family members and packed it into reusable, pretty glass jars.

•          We installed a dual-flush low-flow toilet, installed an EnergyStar window, and purchased VOC-free paint. We repurposed a nice sturdy buffet into a pretty bathroom vanity.   

•          We serviced our air conditioner and furnace.

•          I donated good but underappreciated items to Goodwill, the Salvation Army, and friends. I made a small monetary donation to 350.org.

•          I found good homes for much of our construction waste so that it would be reused and stay out of the landfill. 

• (I've done a bit more since I wrote this monologue a month or two ago... but the point remains good!)

·         Then there are the past changes that carry into our present lives, like recycling, using CFLs, having EnergyStar appliances, having newer and therefore lower emission vehicles, and eliminating unnecessary driving.

So I ran my space heater, and failed to program my programmable thermostat. So I failed to go to the farmer’s market this month and went to Crest because it was easier. I’m not perfect. I can’t expect that; we’re only human, and that’s a beautiful thing. We can dream and change. Our tiny efforts all count for something. Every little penny adds up to a dollar; every drop in the ocean makes up the sea. I’m not useless. While I felt I was doing nothing positive, I did do some small amount of good. I bet you did, too. And I will continue to good. I will do better. I will do best. In little steps. In my life time I will preserve a small patch of the earth in my name, a little peace of mind for myself, and a metric ton of good intentions for the future to come, with love for the world around me and all it contains. I will do this, and I will be forgiving of my shortcomings, because I simply am striving to live the best life I can.

We cannot be discouraged. We cannot allow ourselves to feel small and useless and selfish in the face of the whole wide world. We must remember, we must keep sacred in our minds, that the whole wide world is populated only with small people like us. There are no super humans on some far off Olympus whose decisions make a difference while ours do not. The only decisions that ever count are those that you and I make, your neighbor, your brother, your friend, your grocer, your mayor. It is true that some people have more power than others, but your personal footprint is just as important as everyone else’s. A gallon of gasoline you burn costs as much, travels as far, and pollutes as much as a gallon of gasoline burned by Bill Gates.  Individuals make the world what it is. Individuals change the world into what it will be.

Air Quality Advisory... and brief update on me

Today we have simultaneous plumes crossing the state, originating from Texas and fires in SE Oklahoma. Although Oklahoma's air quality is pretty good, this is one of the worse events in recent history, so if you have health conditions or are very young or very old in age it would behoove you to stay indoors this evening. Asthmatic ol' me is going to do just that, despite the seductively pleasant weather.

Now is an excellent time to tell you about the Air Quality Health Advisory mailing list that is provided to Oklahoma citizens by the DEQ. You get up-to-date alerts depicting spiffy graphics like the one below, with some extra information that I am not posting here, whenever conditions bring counties into the orange. (Not often - you might get a dozen emails a year, *maybe.*)

To sign up for the mailing list, go here:  http://www.deq.state.ok.us/aqdnew/AdvisorySignUp.htm
For more info on today's advisory, go here: http://www.deq.state.ok.us/AQDnew/advisory/index.htm

This week has left me feeling unexplainedly exhausted by the end of each day, and unwilling to spend much internet time catching up on emails and doing blog posts... so my apologies for being boring. I'm sure you have other things to do than wait breathlessly for me to get an energy spurt.