Green Grounded

Recently I had to purchase a new car (new to me, at least) due to an accident back in September. I had been driving a 2006 Impala with combined 30 mpg, and I knew that this unfortunate event had the silver lining of allowing me to talk with my money about environmental issues that matter to me.

Needless to say, I have ZERO interest or use for an SUV.  Truly, most people who have an SUV have no excuse to have one except they think it looks big and cool.

Hybrids, frankly, were no option.  I had $13K to work with, and I refuse to have a car payment.  I’m lucky that I don’t have to make monthly payments to that, and I refuse to start by choice.  Cash, up-front, and done.  It’s mine.

With hybrids being not affordable (including pre-owned 2004 models, which were still fetching $15K), I looked into the Smart Cars.  Affordable, but as stated in a previous post, I also refuse to drive a small, fragile vehicle that cannot ultimately protect Marc, myself, and our passengers in the event of an accident.  We got incredibly lucky with the first in that the driver at fault was not driving an SUV when she t-boned us.

This week, I saw a flurry of articles online supporting my fears.  Had I gotten a smaller hybrid or such, I would have been paying out the wazoo for insuring it!  Turns out these cars do not stand up well in accidents, resulting in insurance premiums to cover the high personal-injury claims that such accidents cause.

Other costs leading to high insurance, as sited in the article, are maintenance and repair costs of alternative-fuel vehicles, street racing incidences, and theft rates of compact cars.

Cost is not the end-all-be-all for me, and I believe that efficient vehicles are the long-term cost-effective solution.  We all still inhabit a world, however, where we can only do what our wallets allow.  Still yet, the biggest point for me is safety.  I actually feel like I NEED a mid-sized car just to have a CHANCE in surviving a serious impact.

Thankfully, driving smaller, fuel-efficient vehicles is becoming cool and will eventually become more affordable.  Unfortunately, driving demolition monster-trucks and SUVs is also still “cool” in our culture.  And in an odd world where people think it is OK to text, talk, email, and jam while driving (totally ignoring our culture’s tendency to drink and drive), we each have a lot of considerations when choosing a vehicle.

In case you hadn’t heard, I chose an almost exact replacement.  Gina is salvaging other Impalas, and Lelee, a 2007 Impala, is taking care of me now.

Safe driving and sustainably yours,  Ashley Sue Allen

In the sticky transition I am in, lodged back and forth amidst my new home (Asheville) and the home we’re leaving (Raleigh), I was lucky enough last week to have two goodbye outings with work colleagues.  The first was fun and official.  The second one was impromptu.  On a whim, four of us went to my favorite pizza place in all of the Triangle (or anywhere I’ve been, actually):  Moonlight Pizza. 

(That’s Lisa on her blackberry in the pic.)

My sister discovered this place several years ago and introduced me to its wonderfulness.  I love that it is locally-owned and better than anywhere else around.  I love the funky, warm ambiance of its inside area.  I love the essence of Raleigh you feel when you eat on their patio, which we did being the great night it was (plus Doug brought his buddy-dog Willow Bee ~ btw, thank you, Doug, for suggesting Moonlight!). 

I love that I can order a tasty pizza without cheese and have avocado and pistachios on my marinara instead.  I love that two of the four beers they had on draft were Angry Angel (my favorite Raleigh beer) and Highland Oatmeal Porter (an Asheville brewery).

Then, when I asked for the to-go box for my leftovers, I found another thing to love about Moonlight:

100% Recycled-content box.  Heck yeah!  Locally-owned and steps toward a more sustainable business practice and smaller footprint!

Cheers to what is wonderful about Raleigh and Moonlight!  ~ Ashley Sue

In the controversies of the world, the sustainability impact of paper towels will be historically noted. 

While that may not be entirely true, the ecological impact of deforestation certainly has already made its way into our children’s textbooks and society’s pop-culture.

Yet, people frankly don’t think about the ramifications of disposable items such as paper towels and toilet paper.  They are easy and darn convenient, and frankly, I think people don’t want to ponder the damage they cause.

About five years ago, my family was lodging in a WV cabin for a summer family trip.  Dad had purchased a 15 pack (or something equally massive) of paper towels.  At the end of the trip, Dad offered them to my sister and myself to split up.  Bonnie said, “No, but thank you.  Dave and I don’t use paper towels.  We use kitchen towels.”  I grabbed the whole sack and said, “We’ll take them all.  We’re broke and they’re free.  Thanks, Dad!”

Five years later, Marc and I still use paper towels, and considerably more than we should.  I have decided that upon the full move to Asheville, we will use cloth napkins at meals, and that will be a dramatic decrease.  Also, for most spills, I would be happy using a cloth towel.  And, since I’m temporarily moving in with my sister and her husband, Marc and I better get used to that!

Still yet, Marc and I will probably always use paper towels for some cleaning jobs.  And just like toilet paper and tissues, when you start to realize how much you use, you have to think about how to quieten the impact from your destruction.

As far as TP goes, Flahute gives a pretty accurate (if not graphic) description into the recycled TP dilemma.  It’s a FUNNY read, concise, and really taps into a TRUE issue of buying recycled paper products.  And RiverWired taps into the conundrum of recycled-paper costs.  While I find the recycled-content goods are more expensive than those I’d get at the local warehouse store, GoGreen - Save the Environment says

…what’s more, Seventh Generation’s recycled-fiber toilet paper costs less per square foot than most of the leading brands-reason enough to make the switch.

So, I have to make that switch next.

Frankly, having virgin paper products for wiping, blowing, and grease-cleaning is absolutely absurd.  Recycling paper may not be the best thing for the environment, but it absolutely trumps further deforestation on every level.

Any other thoughts on the various ways and wastes of paper in our lives?

Sustainably yours,  Ashley Sue

Last night Eco-Office Gals tagged me in a tweet/blog, letting me know I’ve been tagged.  I had seen this before on blogs and twitter, and promise that this will be the last tagging you’ll get from me (as I am super excited to do this, but like chain letters, it can go round and round and round with no end in site if you don’t declare it as a one time thing).  If you’re new to this, it’s a neat way to learn more about a person, as I certain learned more about Jen.  That’s cool to take a blog and make it a person.  If you’re old hat to this, pardon my tagging you and posting.  I just wanted to learn more about you too!

The rules go something like this:
Link your original tagger(s), and list these rules on your blog.
Share 7 facts about yourself in the post - some random, some weird.
Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter.

I was tagged by Jen over at Eco-Office Gals.

7 things about me…

~I am the liberal, agnostic daughter of a family of staunch West Virginian Republicans, a family of religious conservatives, and one apolitical.  As a result, I wanted to grow up to be either a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader, a Native American Indian, or a mermaid.  You see the correlation, right?

~As corny as it sounds, I fell in love with Marc in the fourth grade when his family moved here from PA and, on his first day at his new school, the teacher put his desk beside mine.

~I’ve had a hard time having a truly open, honest, best-friend relationship with any girls since my heart got broken in 1998.  Every friendship I have had since has suffered.

~I am a Christmas junkie, but figuring out how to align Christmas within the realm of sustainability and eco-friendliness, not to mention with my morals and beliefs, is a contradiction I have to meander through annually.

~Despite my V-Day vlog from this year, I think Valentine’s Day is lame.  Capital LAME.  Except for between parents and children.  THAT is special.

~van Gogh is my favorite artist of all time, because of both his personal story and letters, and because the effect his paintings have over me in person (prints and pictures do little justice to real art).

~I have always felt Asian inside, and yearn for summer-long trips to navigate Chinese and Mongol cultures and history.

Here are the cool cats I tagged (selfishly so, as I want to learn more!):

Lenore at Eclectic Glob of Tangential Verbosity   Twitter: eronel

Ginny at Ginny from the Blog   Twitter: GinnySkal

Allie at Allie Larkin   Twitter:  AlliesAnswers

Teran at This is in my Backyard?

Dave at Toastie.st   Twitter: Toastie

Daryl at Verda Vivo   Twitter: VerdaVivo

Jake and Anna at Green Home Headquarters

Ok there you go, 7 blogs and tweeple to check out who are well-worth knowing! 

If you were tagged, I hope you have the time and spirit to indulge for a minute and share more with us all!  And I promise, this is the last tag from me!

Sustainably yours, Ashley Sue

Green Grounded is sometimes amazed at how the natural environment and urban development merge.  Often, I notice that we push wildlife out of their natural settings.  Consequences are expressed in our daily lives as we experience far too many deer carcasses on the side of highways.

On a much (much) lighter note than roadkill, here’s a video I took last week of geese overtaking the valley… the urban mecca known as the strip mall (Pleasant Valley, Raleigh).

Sustainably yours, and be nice to the geese!  Ashley Sue

After I saw the first few leaves changing color over a week ago, Raleigh faced a couple freezes, and all the trees are ablaze with splendid Autumn magnificience.

John over at Raleigh Nature shared the most AMAZING pics of the foliage over at Dorothea Dix campus. 

My photos are not nearly as beautiful, but I still felt inspired to share the view from my living room of the same tree that I caught as it began its transformation.

Yes, you may notice that in these photos Marc and I had pitched a tent in our living room.  If that seems odd to you, you must not know Marcus and myself very well.  Trust me. This is nothing weird.

Sustainably yours, and hoping you are enjoying ALL of Raleigh’s beauty this Autumn,
Ashley Sue Allen

I watch a silly show:  Kimora Lee Simmons: Life in the Fab Lane.  A couple weeks back I was going to write a post on how her Fashion Week plans could have been much more eco-friendly and less dramatic had she not hired a Chinese factory to produce her men’s clothing line (which were late in being flown to LA).  I hesitated, however, and Kimora came through in this week’s episode ”Smells Like Fabulosity” with even more green fodder.

Truth of it is, there’s no need for me to give a full-on analysis of how contrived of an episode it was, juggling moments of her eco-spending spree, hybrid SUV purchasing, and “Going Green!” chants with the filming of her new commercial touting her choice of transportation via personal cars, chauffeurs, and a private jet.  Pennyrile does a better job than Icould.  By the way, Pennyrile, I dig your perspective.  Grounded, realistic, and without the pretentious idea of instantaneous green-perfection. 

As cute as her daughters are in absorbing the “go green” messages Kimora was teaching, I WISH Kimora had taken a more realistic and honest approach, as I feel it would inspire more people than she did with an episode that seemed entirely too gimmicky and ultimately like a self-absorbed publicity stunt.

But hey, maybe she really was inspired to do her part, and gimmicky is just Kimora’s style.  Effort deserves applause, right.

Sustainably yours,  Ashley Sue

PS.  The Daily Green touches on some of Hollywood’s more annoying Green Trends that border on blatantly hypocritical, and that’s actually how I felt about this episode of Fab Lane.

Lame play on words, but I wanted to write a brief commentary on the energy, emotionally, of our nation post Tuesday’s election.  Tuesday itself was a holiday to me, commanding more honor than so many national holidays, I have looked forward to Election 2008 since summer of 2007.  I compiled a short video of Marc’s and my experience casting our votes.  NC did not face the long lines of some states, such as my friend Sara in VA who waited for hours.  Marc pointed out a huge line may have been more entertaining for my video, but we were relieved to get in and get out due to cold rain.

And in case you missed it, Barack Obama is our President Elect, the 44th President of the United States of America.  North Carolina was an important state for the first time in decades, and one of the last to officially have a concluding count.  North Carolina voted narrowly in favor of Barack Obama, ousted scandal-clad Senator Dole, and my three near and dear counties (Durham, Buncombe, and even Wake) all voted blue.

I must say, I am quite astounded that at a time that I feel so positive, so uplifted, and so optimistic, I have encountered several friends who are fearful and disheartened… some even angry… in feeling that our nation is “spiritually bankrupt” enough to have a majority that voted as they did.

I do not respond.  I allow each of these friends to express their fears and doubts because, frankly, we all need to vent our anxieties.  And this is, for almost all of us, a very anxious time in the world.

Yet, I feel a positive message ringing through that the “majority” supports each of us being who we individually are while still embracing us each into the larger, more important group ~ also known as Americans. 

I hear strength in the voices and words of both Obama and McCain’s speeches Tuesday night, as a call to action was placed upon every one of us to unite on this hurdled road toward solidarity.

I saw promise and progress in the tears of civil rights leaders and centenarians who participated in this Election Day after witnessing so many atrocities and surviving so many seemingly hopeless days.  These Americans survived more than my peers or I can begin to imagine or pretend to understand.

I know that whoever leads us is only human, but we have long reached the time when we needed leaders not who look back to regain strength our nation once had, but leaders who look forward and construct a new America with our new strengths and abilities as our young nation faces age-old adversities for our first time.

So many issues in our world need revolution, only one of which is the issue that stands before us in the air, in the water, and in the earth.  We must find new ways to fuel and sustain a growing population, an industrializing world, and a weakening economy.

Green Grounded toasts our future and learning from our past… and invites those living in fear to breathe, step out of the shadows of doubt, and unite in the common cause of one for all.

~Sustainably yours, Ashley Sue

Also, check out these GREAT posts by some of my FAV NC bloggers on the election results:

*2Sides2Ron talks about a purple NC and progress

*ayse’s tumblelog

*Lenore’s voting experience, and the power of believing

*Chris Kromm of Facing South on How Obama Won NC

*Carl Kenney on our nation and beautiful brown skin

*Toastie on why Obama seemed to come out of nowhere

*Goodnight, Raleigh! and Obama all over downtown Raleigh! and Raleigh’s Election Night Celebration!

*NewRaleigh shares the downtown Raleigh celebration

The film here was filmed in mid-September, as Green Grounded and the Triangle were suffering from $5 a gallon gasoline.  “Drill Baby Drill!” was a popular chant (or source of criticism), and I was still driving Gina.  I planned on airing it before registration deadline, but life (and car accidents) got in the way.

I waited to put the video up for a while, but now, one day from Decision 2008, those of us who are waiting until actual Election Day to cast our votes still have time to weigh out all of the issues that matter most to us.

The economy.

Health care.

Employment.

Our parents.

Our children.

Life.

Education.

Poverty.

Terrorism.

Energy for today and tomorrow.

In this video, I urge you to consider how you feel about the realities and possibilities of drilling, “clean coal”, ethanol, biodiesel, wind, solar, hydro, nuclear, and all other alternative energy fuels.  The Green Revolution is one for our generation to shape the future, better or worse.

I also ask for you to consider the unexpected.  I’ve said before and will continue to say… gas prices may seem reasonable again now, but can we hinge our complacency on that?  We need to account for the unexpected… no one expected 9/11… Katrina… Ike… hanging chads… mortgage crises… and these were pivotal moments that effected every other aspect of our lives that matter.  These crises will continue to occur:  right when you need to find health care, or plan to buy a house, or have to find childcare but were laid off, or want to celebrate an election outcome, or have to drive to work.  So please take it all into consideration, as it all fits together.

Sustainably yours,  Ashley Sue Allen