Ruminations on Wall-E, garbage, and culture

I recently had to write a paper for a sustainable design class that I'm taking. The assignment was to watch Wall-E and write a paper using the prompt "Is this the direction of our planet is taking? Is it a world problem or individual? Or… does the development of machines threaten humanity itself?" I'd like to share my paper with you:

The movie Wall-E portrays an eerie picture of where humanity is headed. It depicts a future in which the earth is so covered in garbage and toxic waste that it is no longer able to support life of any kind, and humans have fled to live in starships in the hope that specially designed robots who have been left on the planet can clean it up in 5 years so that humans can return to a newly habitable planet. Unfortunately, the earth is so badly contaminated, that it becomes impossible to return for the foreseeable future, and humankind ends up adrift in space in a big-box-store existence that emphasizes constant consumption and little personal responsibility, the traits that presumably led to the mess in the first place.

Unfortunately, the movie is not just a crazy fairy tale, but a representation of a real possibility, aside from the fact that we don't currently have the technology to evacuate the entire population onto space-going cruise ships. One of the big points of the movie is the amount of garbage that must be dealt with once the planet has been emptied of life, and that reflects the current state of affairs quite well. When we throw something away, where does it go? Where is “away”? And where are the resources coming from to replace all of the items that are disposed of? What happens when those resources are depleted? How are toxic wastes managed?

This problem is a world problem. When one person or company puts toxic waste in a waterway, that waterway becomes contaminated for all downstream users. When a rich country depletes more than its share of resources, poor countries have to go without, meaning the inhabitants of those countries are often lacking the basic necessities of life, such as food and clean water. They often turn to unsustainable practices just to earn enough to survive, polluting the air, water, and land around them so it will be unusable for future generations.

The development of machines does not threaten humanity directly. Despite the fact that in the movie, humans are shown as being dependent on machines for every possible action they might take in a day, from brushing their teeth to moving around to eating and drinking, that type of society is far too energy-intensive to happen any time soon. At the moment, almost any American can choose that lifestyle anyway – we can get into our cars, parked just steps away from our couches and beds, and drive to work, stopping by the drive-through on the way to pick up breakfast and coffee. We can park right outside the door to where we work and spend the rest of the day sitting at a desk, with a break for lunch – either a trip through the drive-through or maybe having something delivered. We can then drive home, take a few steps to the couch, and spend the evening watching TV, getting up only when dinner is delivered. Most people choose not to follow that lifestyle, so replacing cars and couches with machines wouldn't make a huge difference, as the majority of people would still not choose that lifestyle.

More importantly, we need to concentrate on the more urgent matter at hand – the depletion of resources and the contamination of the resources that are left. Americans continue with consumption, contamination, and disposal of resources without giving it a second thought. Something must be done to change these patterns if the planet earth is to continue being capable of sustaining life. To quote Umbra Fisk of Slate magazine, “disposable” is a dirty word.

Wow, I can't believe it's been a month since my last update. Crazy. A lot of things are going on right now in my life, including moving! I'm finally moving to a new apartment. I'm quite happy about that, although packing isn't going so well so far. But at least I'll have a yard and a washer and dryer, which I'm so looking forward to.

There hasn't been a lot going on in the garden. We're having a ridiculous fall heat wave, with temperatures up over 100, so I haven't been too inclined to get out there and work. I planted some squash seeds a few weeks ago, and some of them are doing well, some are not doing quite as well. One of the tomatoes, the pineapple tomato, has grown immensely, and I'm expecting quite a few tomatoes from it in the next month or two.

Quick update

A few updates about life, garden, exercise, and food:

Life is good right now! My house is very slowly getting cleaned and organized. I've decided to tackle this issue slowly, in the hopes that cleaning and organizing will become a habit. I guess I'll see how that goes.

The garden is doing well. I've spent several hours there over the last few days, and the ground is cleared of weeds, some of the plants are thriving, and I planted some more squash seeds. I'm hoping they'll do ok.

I've been running and doing the 30-Day Shred. So far, so good. My muscles are tired and achy, but I feel good. I'll have to get to the gym one of these days to weigh myself, though.

I've stopped eating dinner, sort of. I've been eating and energy bar and a few nuts for dinner for the moment. That won't last long, though, mostly because I'm out of energy bars. On the other hand, I've been eating a fairly large breakfast, so I thnk it balances out. I'll update more on how that's working for me. And now it's time for bed!

Garden bonanza

I've got huge plans for food from the garden this week! Tonight, I'm making braised cabbage with a red cabbage that I found in my garden. I had pretty much given up hope on the cabbage, and tonight I went to pull out some older plants, and there it was! I'm also in the process of roasting a pepper from the garden to make frittata for breakfast tomorrow morning, along with tomatillo sauce, frozen from last year. It will be a bit of an experiment. As a side dish for tonight, I'll be making a simple tomato and avocado salad, with heirlooms from the garden. Despite my heirlooms barely producing, I'm determined to enjoy them as much as possible.

In other garden news, the corn has just about petered out. The cucumber is still barely hanging in there, and I'm hoping the removal of some of the corn plants will convince it to grow a bit more. I also have a honey dew melon! I was despairing about not having had any melons from the garden, and lo and behold, there it was! The basil is going crazy and I've barely had time to do anything about it. The tomatillo plant is looking promising, but hasn't produced a lot yet - about enough to make a small batch of sauce. Today, I planted squash in six more places. I'm hoping at least one of the plants will pull through. I bought a packet of multi-colored pattypan squash seeds, and I would love to have white, yellow, and green to make zucchini pickles with.

Sobering news

I just found out that one of my classmates from graduate school has ALS. This is a person that I've thought of occasionally over the last few years, and I recently sent him a friend request on Facebook, not knowing that he was sick. Needless to say, I'm a little upset by the news. He is a person who has been energetic, creative, and surprising the entire time I've known him, and while I can't claim to be good friends with him, I've always thought very highly of him.

I would say that it's a lesson to me to try to be happier and to enjoy life and cherish each experience that I have, but I don't want to reduce him to an object lesson. He's a real person, and I fervently hope that everything will turn out ok.

Thoughts prior to embarking on a new year

My birthday is quickly approaching, and I've decided that I'm going to treat this as sort of a new year's celebration, considering that it's a new year for me. The last year was absolutely awful, and I'm determined that the next year will be better.

I'm preparing for the new year with a few gifts to myself and a few resolutions to get me through to the calendar new year.

First and foremost, I gave myself a haircut and a trip to the dentist. That might seem rather mundane, but it sure feels good to be doing mundane things again. It's been a very long time since I had a haircut, and a much, much longer time since a trip to the dentist.

Some of my new year resolutions include cleaning out and organizing my house, and then keeping it that way, along with saving money, losing weight, and getting in shape. Which have been pretty typical goals for me for a while now. I'm hoping that I'll get my act together to actually accomplish them.

Where did my memory go?

In my quest to shape up my finances, I've been doing a little virtual rearranging. I have labeled my emergency savings account as a true emergency savings account, although I have unfortunately had to dip into a bit lately. But I went to REI yesterday and emerged without buying anything that wasn't on my list, so that was a good start at controlling spending. I also opened an extra checking account for things that aren't regular expenses, such as vacations, car repair, car insurance, etc. I calculated how much I spend on unexpected expenses each year, then divided it by 12 and set up an automatic transfer to put that much money in that account each month. Hopefully this will help me, although until I pay off my credit card (which should happen in another month or two), it's going to be tight.

I now have two dilemmas. I had another savings account, my old, traditional savings account, and I can't for the life of me remember why I kept it open. Maybe I was thinking that I would use it for regular savings, but I'm not planning to have any regular savings until I pay off my student loans.

Which brings me to my next dilemma - my student loans. I HATE being in debt. I've figured that if I take any extra money I have each month, and put it towards my loans, I can cut the repayment period to 16 or 17 years. If I stop contributing to my 401(k) and put all of that towards my loans, I could have them paid off in 9.5 years. But is it worth the peace of mind of having my loans paid off earlier?