Building our CNY community

We've been working on greening our lifestyle for many years now, but I'll jump in with where we are with respect to a book I'm reading right now - The Small-Mart Revolution by Michael Shuman. Shuman's thoughts on the local vs. global economy are enlightening. The book was written in 2006, so it's especially interesting to read this now - in the midst of a financial crisis largely created by the kinds of forces he's discussing. And to see one of these forces, he suggests we look in the mirror...

Here's his list of ten things (in order from most important down) consumers can do to take part in the Small-Mart Revolution and where we (my husband and I) stand with respect to each one:

1. Localize Your Home - As he recommends, we own our home (or if you rent, rent from a local landlord). We now really do own our home and have for about a decade, but when we did have a mortgage, it was from a local institution that didn't bundle their mortgages and send it off.
   
2. Halve Auto Use - Until, as he suggests, we can use local fuel and perhaps even buy regionally-built cars, we're doing the best we can to reduce the impact of our transportation. (And the Big 3's current troubles make his regional car company suggestion look like a smart solution that could lead to a more stable economy.) Here's what we're doing: we have a Prius (and use our 10-year-old Sienna only when necessary), my husband bicycled or took the bus to work before he retired, we lump our errand trips together, we don't travel far to shop, and we generally limit our travel. This spring, I might get a bicycle for traveling to the near-by grocery store, though there's one short stretch of road right near the store that's difficult for bicycle travel.
3. Eat Out Locally - We don't eat out often for several reasons. First, it's quite expensive relative to the (for us) small enjoyment it gives. Also, we're vegetarians and most restaurants simply remove meat from their "real" dishes and call that vegetarian. When we do eat out though, we've patronized local restaurants - for example, Mai Lan Vietnamese restaurant on N. Salina St., the new vegan restaurant Strong Hearts Cafe, and we're planning to go to Elderberry Pond for our anniversary since it features locally grown food. When we're traveling we try to seek out local restaurants, but it's hard to know where to find them in an unfamiliar place. Sometimes, we just go to a grocery store and eat simple things out of our cooler.
4. Find Local Entertainment - Shuman includes health clubs in this category. Before retirement, John went to the local Y, and now he's sometimes going to our high school, which allows the community to use the facilities at night. As for what most people think of as entertainment, we don't watch TV, but we do read - mostly library books. We watch movies on DVDs from our local library (but this of course isn't locally produced entertainment). Since retirement this past summer, we also play our daily games of Boggle, gin, and The Train Game, partly just trying to keep our minds sharp...) But most of all, I am entertained by my habitat garden, watching all the creatures and enjoying all the plants. (See my website at www.stewardshipgarden.org .) More exactly, though, this isn't entertainment as much as recreation - as in "re-creation." It's endlessly fascinating - and as local as you can get.
5. Use Local Health Care - It's hard to have an impact on health care since it's such a crazy system an individual can hardly control, but we do get prescriptions from our regional chain store (Wegmans) rather than a national chain like Wal-Mart or CVS. But Shuman also includes prevention in the local health care category. We do lots of that by eating healthfully (especially by cooking from scratch using healthy ingredients), exercising, and by participating in the community.
   
6. Buy Fresh Food - We're trying to eat locally to reduce global warming and to support the local economy. We also want to avoid pesticides. This combination is difficult, but we're working toward this goal. This year, we grew more of our own food - very local and organic - and bought a lot of food at the Regional Market - very local, but not much was organic. We've been buying local eggs, too, and are considering acquiring two Khaki campbell ducks for our yard. We also experimented with different methods of preserving this locally-grown food for the winter. The previous summer (2007) we bought an Excalibur dehydrator, which works really well. This year, we branched out into canning jams, and we bought a small freezer. Of course, there's energy being used by the dehydrator, by boiling the water for the jam (this can't be too bad, though), and of course, the freezer. The freezer is small, though, and we don't open it much, and when we use up the food, we'll turn it off until late next summer. It's hard to estimate the energy cost relative to transporting food from afar, but buying local food also supports the local economy and foodshed.
7. Localize Household Energy Use - Advocacy efforts to create decentralized, clean, renewable energy are important, but this is a long-term effort. One big thing we can do, though, is conserve energy and use it efficiently. We've insulated our house and have CFLs all through the house. We have a gas heating stove in the family/kitchen/office area, so by keeping the doors to the rest of the house closed, we can keep the rest of the house at 56 degrees, while keeping our daytime living area comfortable at 67. We also wear layers - thermal underwear (very effective!), turtleneck top, sweatshirt, and house jacket (I like to be warm). When I bake, I group items so that once the oven is heated, it's used for many things. We wait for full loads of laundry and dishes, and we use a front loader. I hang my laundry in the summer and in the winter, too (I'm fortunate to have an excellent indoor clothes rack - unfortunately not for sale anymore.)
8. Give to Local Charities - We do support our local independent nature education center, Baltimore Woods, and our local land trust, Save the County, but most of our charitable giving is to many large non-profits, such as Sierra Club, or to smaller ones, such as Bat Conservation International or American Bird Conservancy. We're also a member of Cornell's Lab of Ornithology, which is regional for us, though national in scope. For wildlife, all of the earth (or at least continents) are "local."
9. Localize Car Services - When possible, we use the local Auto Tech auto repair shop on Burnet Ave. (though for some things it seems only the Toyota place will do...) We've also used local body repair shops. Other than that, we don't do much car stuff.
   
10. Drink Local and Stop Smoking - We don't smoke, and we don't drink a lot, but when we do, I've looked for regionally-produced items. I've found a Finger Lakes organic wine at the local liquor store, other apple, blackberry etc wines at the Regional Market, and regional beers at the grocery store.

That's where we are at the moment - at least with respect to Shuman's list on building the local economy.