Daniel Tapia Silva

This week I took steps towards building a more sustainable future by emphasizing buying from local businesses and embracing my local area. I've been a member at a small locally owned gym in town and love it and realized that recommending it to others would help bring business and help grow the local area. I was able to convince one friend to switch over from a commercial gym and so far is loving it. Balance Fitness in Hillsboro if anyone would like to check it out! I also took another friend of mine on a run in a park nearby and then we picked up some food from a small local Thai place. By doing more of these things instead of looking for "better" or more popular places, hopefully, it helps the places we frequent feel more like they are part of the community and take some care in what goes on around our city. 

This week aligned with my Eco-Change project and helped give me more insight. I watched a Ted-Talk called "Consumer Culture: The Day Your Baby's Wardrobe Became Better Than Yours by Vigga Svensson. She discusses the overconsumption of textiles through clothing and fast fashion. Svensson started a kid's fashion brand that was meant to be the most sustainable in the world. She implemented many practices such as organic and recycled fibers and banning a number of chemicals. One of the questions she asked her customers was "How much clothes do you have for your child? How much do you use?". The average for the answers was between 100-200 pieces owned, but only about 25 used. That means that the rest of the clothes could be seen as wasted resources. The clothing was organic and sustainable, but the high consumption rates are what concerned her. She came up with the idea of creating a cycle of receiving and returning garments. Kids grow out of their clothes super quickly, so for a flat monthly price, customers receive high-quality sustainable clothing in their kid's size and return it once outgrown. The clothing gets cleaned and repaired if needed. I thought this was a great idea because it is convenient, reduces consumption, and guarantees that every piece gets to its full use. She also makes the point that by creating high quality pieces, they in turn last longer which in turn requires less pieces to be produced, which increases profit for the business by saving money. If more companies thought this way, it seems that pretty much everyone benefits. 

*eco-challenge 4*
Making up for a missed eco-challenge. This week I also was able to get two coworkers to start bringing a reusable water bottle to work. They would buy plastic water bottles or not-so-healthy drinks at the convenience store across the street almost every day. One day one of them mentioned that they were thirsty but didn't want to walk to the store and also forgot their wallet in their car. I told them having a water bottle at work would save them that trip, money and keep them healthier thank drinking soda or other sugary drinks. It was enough to convince them and after a single reminder, both of them are happy they have it!

This week I learned about alternatives to the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) to calculate a nation's economic livelihood and health. One of the alternatives is GNH (Gross National Happiness), which calculates the overall success of a country by factoring in an evolving mix of quality-of-life factors, rather than focusing strictly on quantitative economic measures.  The four pillars of GNH are good governance, sustainable development, preservation and promotion of culture, and environmental conservation. These pillars play a major role in the decisions that are made by the government. The idea is that the use of these four pillars affects the population's psychological well-being, standard of living, good governance, health, community vitality, cultural diversity, time use, and ecological resilience. These are the factors used to calculate the countries GNH. Another alternative is Thriving Places Index (TPI). TPI’s emphasizes local welfare so it doesn't do country-wide rankings. The focus is on sustainability, equality, and local conditions. To do so, "TPI seeks to answer three questions about a given area:

(source: from ethical.net)

I think both of these alternatives tackle valuable topics that GDP doesn't take into account. These are values and ideas that I think would resonate with a lot of people and would more accurately tell us the best places to live. This would hopefully in turn cause governments to do better for their people in order to generate income. 

For Eco-Challenge 5 I decided to complete an online energy audit of my family's home. The audit calculates a score between 0-10 (10 being most efficient), and the average household score is a 5. Based on the audit calculations, my home comes in at a slightly above average score of 7 which is great! A lot of credit has to go to my dad who makes sure we get energy-efficient appliances, but everyone in my home does a pretty good job of turning lights off when not needed, not wasting water and other small things like that. My next steps to continue to improve that score consists of just being conscious of the small things like unplugging chargers and other devices when not being used as they can still take up energy even when not active. Using as much natural light as possible, and not turning the faucets on the whole way will also help that. It's good to know we're on the right track though!

This week my challenge was to spend at least 10 minutes outside every day and meditate in order to practice gratitude for the Earth, nature, and life overall. The only time I had ever meditated before this was in a yoga class, but that was indoors. This week the weather lent itself well for this with the sunshine although it was still very cold. Meditating outside was soothing and it really did help me gather myself and feel more grounded. I was able to focus on feeling the air, sun, and ground beneath me. It's sad to think our species is killing our beautiful home, although that may also help me appreciate it even that little bit more. The picture posted is right after a short meditating session before doing some exercise.  

For my session two eco-challenge, I watched the story of bottled water. I have always known that single-use water bottles were bad for the environment, but I didn't know the specifics of why and how they were damaging the earth. The story of bottled water does a great job of educating viewers about manufactured demand and how companies convince consumers that bottled water is the way to go. I see this present even at home when I refill my water bottle with tap water and my mom asks how I'm able to drink that, that it tastes not as good as bottled water. I also know many other people that have to filter tap water in order to drink it. I think this just demonstrates how bottled water companies have succeeded in making us second guess our tap water. There are obviously some places where the water really is unsafe or drink, but this is due to pollution created by those companies. This is why the video also encourages us to advocate for free safe tap water for all. 

This week the action I completed was to watch a documentary about food with family. The documentary I watched was What The Health on Netflix. It talks about the food industry and how it has impacted and continues to impact our health. The interest of big businesses has often come before the well-being of their consumers. It was pretty eye-opening, but at the same time made sense. I talked about it with my mom and she had never really thought about it and we came to the conclusion that we should be a little more conscious about what we are putting into our bodies.