Reganne Harding

This week I continued to challenge myself to be outside and go walking more. I definitely have the winter blues so it's been harder to motivate myself to be outside and to go for walks, especially in the rain because I don't like rain. But by getting outside and moving my body I feel way better and it has helped me appreciate the weather a little more. Instead of being annoyed by the rain I've been trying to feel grateful to nature for weather and water and remember that it's all part of Earth's cycle, and also to remember it's not that big of a deal if I get wet. I've been trying to walk everywhere instead of taking transit as well, which helps me feel independent and means I don't have to wait around for it to arrive. I also have been looking into plastic bag recycling and the places that I can take collected plastic bags to. Of course I don't get any plastic shopping bags but I do end up with some chip and bread bags that can apparently be recycled if you take them to the right places. Cutting out these sources of plastic would be ideal but since I do have them I think it's a good option to try to recycle them instead of just throwing them away and who knows where they'll end up. I've seen that a couple places around campus will take bags, like Safeway, and I'm starting a collection of plastic bags that I can take to be recycled.

This week I watched David Attenborough's A Life on Our Planet, which predictably depressed me but he also did an excellent job of outlining and framing solutions. David definitely understands how to frame saving the world to make it a popular idea, pointing out the many benefits a sustainable lifestyle will have for humans and how by improving our own lives we can improve the environment and vise versa. He did a great job of providing examples of the solutions he outlined already working on smaller scales, which makes it all the more frustrating that they aren't already widespread practices. It's clear that the world will be irreversibly destroyed in my lifetime if we do not take on solutions very soon, and it's very terrifying to feel that many of these big, impactful solutions are out of my hands and in the hands of governments. I'm very glad that people like David Attenborough are speaking to governments trying to get these solutions implemented and make change for a generation he won't even know. It was very interesting to hear this all from David Attenborough because of his extensive experience with the natural world and how he acknowledges that even back when he was first traveling to new places that decline was already happening. The ending of the film reminded me a lot of the solarpunk aesthetic with the sustainable future it imagined which I thought was pretty cool.

Since I don't have a car I always travel with public transit in Portland, mostly by the streetcar because it is free to students. In order to challenge myself this week I decided to try to walk more often, I've been trying to walk more often since the spending time outside challenge from a few weeks ago. This challenge helped me continue that because I opted to walk the whole way to places rather than take the streetcar and I ended up increasing my daily steps quite a bit this week. This helped me feel like I was doing something good for the environment and for myself which is a big motivator. 

This week I decided to look into petitions in Idaho because that's where I'm a resident, I'm just living in Oregon for school. An issue that has been going on there is a law that allows hunters to wipe out the wolf population to protect livestock from predation. This hasn't been proven to be a significant issue and allowing for up to 90% of the population to be killed is extremely harmful not only to the wolf population but to the ecosystems they are a part of. It's also so inhumane and it's crazy that this is something actually sponsored by the Idaho government. As far as I know this law is still effective despite major backlash when it was introduced. I feel as though the fact that predation is not a legitimate reason to reduce the wolf population because only a tiny fraction of livestock are lost to predation every year, that this law is just an excuse to allow trophy hunting. I am extremely against hunting, especially when it's not for food purposes and just for fun or to decrease populations. I found many petitions on this topic because it's clearly something that should not be allowed even if wolves are no longer considered endangered their populations are still much smaller than they once were. I am glad to see the Idaho community really cares about this issue and they are still making and signing petitions about it. I hope that if we stick by this issue and let the government know that this law is not what the people want we can protect the wolves in Idaho. 

This week I researched my watershed. In Portland I'm part of the Willamette River watershed which has 22 waterbodies, and at least 16 of them are impaired in some way. I found this information on the EPA website and I noticed that many of the waterbodies are impaired by algae and excess nitrogen/phosphorous. They are also polluted by heavy metals and pesticides. It is interesting that some of the impaired waterbodies still have drinking water that is considered good, but it seems they are the ones with algae and bacteria rather than the ones with toxic chemicals and metals. I also found information on portlandoregon.gov about the projects that have been done to improve the watershed. Most of them are about improving the habitat for fish by creating new channels, restoring wetlands, removing invasive plants, and improving sewage management. These projects are important but I think if we are going to truly improve waterways we have to cut off the sources of pollutants through regulation of industry and agriculture. 
I was also interested to look up my watershed where I'm from in the Crane Creek Boise River watershed. This watershed is in a little bit better condition according to the EPA website but all of the waterbodies are still considered impaired because of the degraded habitats and bacteria. I think it's interesting that they don't seem to be testing for micro plastics because I can't see how there wouldn't be any but it's not listed as any of the pollutants on the EPA website. Research into the effects of micro plastics on humans is pretty new but I know that there are definitely potential links to adverse health effects and it seems like something we would want to monitor. 

This week I challenged myself to eat at least one meal organic everyday. Since I try to buy organic when I can this wasn't too hard of a challenge. Especially because this week I learned to make my own hummus, where I usually would eat Sabra brand, so I was able to control the ingredients I used. I made sure to use organic chickpeas, garlic, lemon, tahini, and olive oil and then used it as a dip for organic carrots. That's a large part of my diet but I also made organic boiled potatoes and rice for some dinners. I like to buy organic because it doesn't use as scary of pesticides and it's important for preserving the land and making sure we can grow food for many future generations so I definitely support that. I think this challenge helped me be more conscious that I was eating organic food and helped me take that step in starting to make my own foods because it felt good to control my ingredients at some level. 

This week I challenged myself to practice gratitude for the Earth 30 minutes a day. I didn’t time myself but I did try to get outside everyday and be grateful for the world around me. I chose this challenge because being outside and going for walks does actually make a difference for me and my mental health. I mostly just walked around the city, but I went to places I’ve never been before and that was fun. I tried to notice the small pieces of nature that exist in the city, which isn’t as nice as actually going somewhere naturey but I still enjoy looking at trees and the way they look against the sky. Anyways, walking around a dirty city makes you want to change the world sometimes so that we can all live in a better place. So it definitely helped me get more motivated for my EcoChange to reduce my waste because I get so tired of seeing trash everywhere. I think I will try to continue this habit because it will be healthy for me and will hopefully get me out of the city and into nature areas more often. 

I chose the reducing food waste challenge because I am already pretty conscious about not throwing away food but I'm not good at planning menus so that I actually have nutritious food to eat throughout the week. By taking on this challenge I wanted to work on my health and still not wasting food, which can happen when you have healthier perishable foods. I made some progress and would say that I didn't waste any food this week but it will be an ongoing effort to include more healthy meals and plan them out well so I have time to make them. I think that planning healthy meals will also help me reduce my waste associated with food, such as all the containers I have to throw away when I'm buying more ready to eat packaged foods, like things for sandwiches and whatnot.