With the years that pass and the seemingly countless slips and gaffes, and the downright dumb that go with learning from mistakes, it’s entertaining, even humorous, to go back over this process we call maturing. Especially so since, as we become more involved in things Transitional, our horizons broaden; gardening spreads to planting trees and saving forests, water concerns grow to include making swales and harvesting rainwater, and personal matters multiply by the increased number of neighbors with whom I make contact. My world view widens, in short, by linking more to the earth, touching my neighboring community and observing myself in these continuous interactions.

A core group of Transition folk met together several years ago to come up with a mission statement, and — after many hours of discourse — came to an agreement about what that mission was: It is to combine work on oneself, the efforts to build closer community, and the labors to better the planet such that these combined exertions become second nature. The following letter describes an adolescent episode which I now see contributed toward my earning this maturity.

Dear Jack,

Remember when we painted Dr. Caprita’s summer camp on Saratoga Lake one summer? He wasn’t there most of the time, but his mom, who spoke only Italian was. So was his wife, and you and I had as one of our responsibilities the disposing of her empty bottles accumulated after the extended sessions she enjoyed with alcohol. That was not as exciting to a couple of nearly 16-year olds as was the rest of the time that we allowed our creative urges to paint the house according to the mood we were in and the degree of labor we felt we could expend that day in the task at hand.

A green canoe, wood-ribbed and light, laid always at the ready on the dock and could easily tempt us after breakfast, and sometimes beyond … past lunch. It wasn’t long after we launched our first excursion that we discovered standing waist deep in water, we could right a submerged but still floating canoe. Bailing out the boat was a bit tedious; tipping it over on the other hand was daring and adventurous, however accidental it was to begin with.

The good doctor paid us nominally, given our room and board and the nominal hours spent at putting a new coating on his family’s refuge. He must have guessed the shenanigans we were up to — if not actually capable of, just as he must certainly have known about his wife’s consumptive habits. For us these were insignificant; we delighted more in innovative acts with each other, which of course called for our best efforts.

Do you remember one day as we were taking a break from our “duties” you were struck by the novelty of coming near where I was sitting, turning your back to me quickly and blowing a fart? Even I had to laugh at that one, as we both did uproariously for a good while. But I would have my revenge, I thought. With the laughter over and the episode passed, the day continued. In late afternoon when we were done for the day, you were sitting indoors in an easy chair. I busied myself with one thing and another as I slowly made my way to where you were seated, avoiding looking your way all the while. Then as I drew near, I turned quickly, giving you by back and let a good hearty fart go. What I hadn’t seen was that you had gotten up and mama Caprita had taken your chair. 

I will never forget — not the astonished look on poor grandma Caprita’s face — but the mild almost passive incredulity displayed at this upstart of a young creature who had no inkling of what civility and respect could possibly mean. What kind of people do they raise in this America, she must have thought. God bless you, Mrs. Caprita. I will always be in your debt for forgiveness. I knew it not at the time, though now I do. Then is when I began the long process of maturing, of learning the effects of shame. And yes, at the same time, humor.

​—Greg Marquez

Speaking of resilience . . . 

. . . did you know that in the case of the Big One (a magnitude 8.0 earthquake) hitting Southern California, it may take two whole years to repair the broken aqueducts? That’s a long time to go without drinking water!

I heard that gem at a “Lunch & Learn Class” given by West Basin Municipal Water District on April 6, 2018. West Basin is way ahead of us in water conservation. Probably because they got started way back in 1947 when salt water from the ocean intruded into the wells that they were using for drinking water. Yuck. They had to reduce groundwater pumping to halt the intrusion, which meant importing more water. 

They now import 66 percent of their water. But they want to be self-sufficient in case of the Big One. (Great idea!) Their plan is to move away from depending on imported water by 1. water conservation and 2. water capture.

West Basin can turn sewage into drinking water in three hours at the Edward Little Water Recycling Facility. Sounds gross until you realize that the planet Earth and the International Space Station recycle sewage into drinking water, too. 

Current laws don’t allow us to drink water that was recently sewage. Yet. That could change. 

In the meantime, that special clean water is flowing in purple pipes to parks and golf courses and to groundwater (just not very close to the wells). It is also used in industry. 

West Basin can also turn seawater into drinking water. It’s not popular yet because it’s still too expensive. But here’s something you probably didn’t think about: You can’t just dump the salt that you extract back into the ocean. Normal ocean salinity is 32 parts per one thousand, and a mere increase of 10 to 42 parts per one thousand impacts life in the ocean.

Other ideas from West Basin sound more like what we are used to. They give away free tools like rain barrels and water-saving devices, and they host classes in rainwater capture and grey-water use.

West Basin also provides information on “Ocean Safe Car Washes” that use 50 percent to 85 percent less water than the average home car wash.

Why bother talking about West Basin? Because they can be an inspiration for us here in the San Gabriel Valley. Just because we have water flowing down from the mountains and no threat of sea water intrusion, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be doing everything we can to save and capture water.

Thanks, West Basin, for showing us the way!

—Sylvia Holmes

I said last time that our culture has overlooked the idea of the conservation of novelty that surrounds us. By conservation of novelty, I just mean that through history and prehistory emergent new forms become the basis for newer forms and increasing  complexity. Another way to say it: The progressive direction in the nature of the physical world and in the evolution of the biological is from simple to increasingly  complex.

What's surprising about this is that if you ask any evolutionary biologist what is evolution, they will tell you it is random mutations and natural selection. But from my description of the conservation of novelty, there's nothing random about prehistory moving from simple to complex with no turning back. Simple to complex is a direction, it's not random. 

Just to be clear, not only is biology progressive but it emerges out of an antecedent progressive process, the evolution of physical matter and the physical universe of stars and so forth. This phenomenon of the production and conservation of novelty is not something that only goes on in the biological domain or the cultural domain or the domain of physics. It is a transcategorical impulse in reality, meaning it's everywhere. 

And it anticipates a deeper advance into progressive integration in the form of culture, language, human beings, the creation of material culture, the elaboration of the arts and sciences. And we are the inheritors of all the complexity that preceded us. 

I also said that there was a second and related thing that our culture has overlooked. That second thing is simply that this increase in complexity has occurred faster and faster over time.

And so today we have one foot in a dematerialized, collectivist virtual, feeling-toned experience-based future but we also have one foot in the consumer-fetish, objectified constipated linear, acquisitive class-conscious, sex-conscious, race-conscious past. Each one of us is a union of these opposites. Each one of us is trying to make some kind of an alloy of our hideously dysfunctional cultural past and the incredibly compelling yet frightening dimensionless boundary-less polymorphic future. 

This future is hard to talk about. From what is happening to us now, we can extrapolate toward this adventure in transformational novelty that is now looming ahead of us with such prescience that it casts an enormous shadow over the three-dimensional landscape of our history and prehistory. We as moderns are very conflicted about this idea because the only vocabulary we have to deal with something like this is the vocabulary of discredited religions. In a secular world, that leaves us with no vocabulary at all.

In the next installment, I can start to connect the foregoing with my assertion that there's something hopeful about what I've been saying and that hope is available to all of us.

—David Cutter

In pondering how to reduce my carbon footprint, I know that reducing my own consumerism is the biggest piece. But I wonder if my carbon footprint is smaller when I shop online or when I drive to a local store. Here is what I have culled from the web — and the answer is not simple.
  
I had hoped for a short answer comparing gas-guzzling trucks making many stops with my driving to a couple of local stores. But many factors come into play. Enroute I have discovered several surprising things.

UPS and FedEx and USPS, motivated by profit of course, use algorithms to help their trucks navigate the streets at optimal times and hit green lights to reduce idling at stoplights. They deploy fleets of trucks to reduce drag instead of fewer, larger, heavily-loaded vehicles and thereby save gas. 

Shipping via Amazon Prime or a “next day delivery” service leaves a heavy footprint because it means the consumer is most likely buying airplane fuel, which is worse for the environment than gasoline. Slow, ground shipping has a smaller carbon footprint. Bundling your purchases at check-out online also reduces the carbon footprint by delivering one parcel with three items rather than three separate parcels. 

The worst offenders are shoppers who drive to local stores to look at and feel products they might want to buy then order them online. Returning the item doubles the carbon footprint. 

So when is it best to shop locally at bricks-and-mortar stores? One source says if you live more than eight miles from stores.  Stores use energy for lighting and air conditioning and marketing. But they also carry something less measurable. It is social interaction, running into people you know, placemaking in a downtown setting. Shopping locally boosts local economy with local taxes, and supports local business owners. It builds community.

Walking or riding a bike to a store has of course the smallest footprint.  When buying in bulk it is better to drive. This all assumes that your car is gas fueled.  If it is electric, and your car is charged from your own solar panels, then the carbon footprint is only a bit more than a bicycle. 

One study looked at what people were doing with the time they saved by shopping online. A transportation study found that online shoppers were not driving less. The free time that they gained from shopping online was now devoted to going more frequently to restaurants, movies, and visiting friends. 

One of my heroes,  Reverend Billy of the Church of Stop Shopping, promotes not shopping to save our planet.  Comparing the impact of buying a computer online versus in a store is barely helpful because the product itself has such a large carbon footprint. Not buying it helps most of all. Vandana Shiva, wisely maintains “The end of consumerism and accumulation is the beginning of the joy of living.”  More joy? Yes please. Add to cart.

—Therese Brummel