mitch pereira

This week I supported a local business and bought only what I needed. Buying only what I needed was pretty easy due to the quarantine since my family has been mostly only buying groceries. But I paid more attention while grocery shopping. I slowed down and more thoroughly considered what was want versus what was a need, as well as tried to choose more conscious choices for them; such as buying organic or things in glass jars versus plastic. It was definitely pricier to make more sustainable choices, but I found it can work towards balancing out if I keep wants vs needs in mind, since I wouldn't buy somethings that I normally would. That being said, instead of shopping online or shopping at a big brand store, I shopped at my local grocery store instead.

For this week's ecochallenge, I learned about my watershed and watched the story of bottled water. Additionally, I clicked the "already do this" on the challenges for saying no to plastic and using reusable waterbottles. I learned about the Bay Areas watershed and system before the last class since Gabe and I led it and that was one of our questions. I learned where our water comes from, where it flows to and is collected, and about the five reservoirs that it goes to in the East Bay. Then I watched the story of bottled water, which was super interesting and I am glad that I watched it. But I felt a little lame since it was only eight minutes and that was the only challenge that I could do after the last class. So I decided to send it to a few family members and then I made my mom listen to me as I read her the reading for this week so that I could do more.

For my food challenge, I ate at least one vegan meal per day and I watched the documentary Cowspiracy. I have been vegetarian for about half of my life now, already often eat vegan, and have teetered on the edge of veganism many times. However, the last time I decided to visit the on campus nutritionist beforehand. She had me do a blood test and I learned I was very anemic so I didn't make the jump. But I've been working on fixing that and have been thinking on the idea again. After actively trying to steer my diet away from animal products again and especially after watching Cowspiracy, veganism is definitely at the forefront of my mind now. On that note, I'll talk about Cowspiracy a bit now. I have a lot of thoughts about it, but I'll keep this simple: it really blew my mind. I know that the agriculture industry is a big contributor to climate change and I have wondered before why it is not more focused on. I didn't realize the extent to which it's been pushed to the back, even by big environmental agencies. Surely it's not as suppressed as it was, although still is, but I can't help but wonder what impact that this documentary made on that. When I heard "Cowspiracy" I figured it would just talk about the problem with cows, not that there was an actual conspiracy behind the whole agriculture industry. I'm pretty sure that it's a popular documentary now, but I don't tend to watch much TV at all so I never got around to it. I definetely recommend it to anyone who hasn't watched it yet.

After calculating my footprint in the last class, I chose the action to discuss with my family how to reduce our footprint. It was the start of the conversation, since there is always more to learn and put into action. But I started dialogue about what we could do better and why it's important. I also reiterated my challenge to my mom from last week and extended it to my brother to use this shelter in place time to learn about sustainability and how to implement sustainability in our lives. I'm hoping my nagging will pay off. Additionally, I chose the option to spend time outside and practice gratitude for the earth. I chose the option later in the week so I had to tweak the time a bit on the website. But Rather than just walking, I sat outside and just observed my surroundings. I thought about my appreciation to the Earth and mentally said my thanks. It was peaceful and calming and inspired me to do this more, outside of doing it for ecochallenge or just every once in a while.

I chose three actions and selected one as already one. The one I selected as already done was to explore my area and although I have done it, I have been continuing to do it! Daily walking and exploring in the open space by my house has been my savior during this shelter in place. Onto the other three actions, I first watched the documentary Mission Blue. I chose this action because my Netflix list has been full of mostly documentaries for quite some time that I've always planned on circling back to - except I rarely watch TV and when I do it's usually with people (and they never want to watch documentaries with me!). I was glad that I did because I got to learn about Dr. Sylvia Earle, her life's work, and her first hand account of witnessing the environmental changes that have happened in her lifetime. It was much more personal than your average nature documentary, which I felt made it that much more powerful and convincing to viewers. This lead me to my next action, talking to someone: my mom. Although I have been discussing environmental matters with her progressively more and more throughout the years, she is a busy woman who is stuck in deeply ingrained routines and mental attitudes - as many people are. I used the documentary as a way to start a conversation about the importance of educating yourself on environmental matters; and since, starting today, she's going to have an awful lot of time on her hands, I challenged her to use this time to become more informed, both together and separately. Lastly, I just threw on the action of signing a petition as well. I signed a petition against fracking in the state where I live, California.