"When you go on a hike in Oregon, it's disturbing on a deep level when
you walk by a clearcut," says Portland resident Barbara Holisky. "To
live, you have to let it go, but it has an effect on your psyche."
Now, awakened citizens in the city are embracing simpler, more
sustainable lifestyles, closer to the Earth, and have formed a fervent
movement that is helping transform the West Coast into a mecca of
sustainability. People aren't waiting on nonprofit groups or government
agencies to educate the public on environmental issues. "They are
getting together with people of like mind and taking their own
initiative, finding their own meeting spaces and speakers, and doing
their own publicity," says Pam Leitch, who helped organize the Portland
Permaculture Guild. "There is a film, discussion group or speaker almost
every night of the week."
There have been workshops on rainwater harvesting, raising chickens in
the city, using biodiesel and creating a food forest; demonstrations on
making an earthen oven, creating electricity with solar photovoltaics,
using solar hot water, and green kitchen design; and workshops on
organic gardening, composting, seed saving and getting around in the
city on a bicycle.
There is a lot of enthusiasm for environmentally responsible "green
building." There have been workshops on how to build living roofs, which
are now sprouting up across the city. An architect from Northern
California came to Portland to help build a house out of bamboo and
strawbale. Every year, green builders from all over the country come
together in Portland in what they call the Village Building Convergence
to help neighborhoods. Participants have built a variety of structures
with cob, a material made of clay, water, sand and straw that doesn't
deplete forests, is nontoxic and available locally.
"Everyone is so excited about it," says Maitri Ersson, who participated
in a project to build a sanctuary at the New Day School with a "living
roof" made of drought-resistant plants that don't have to be watered
often. "It's beautiful," she adds. The sanctuary gives teachers a quiet
place to enjoy breaks from their busy days.
"A big part of the movement" in Portland is centered around discussion
circles on such topics as deep ecology, voluntary simplicity and
globalization through the Portland-based Northwest Earth Institute, says
Connie Van Dyke, a local resident who spins her own silk, grows 80
percent of her own food and teaches permaculture classes. Volunteers
with the Northwest Earth Institute have over time enrolled approximately
17,000 Portlanders in these eight- to nine-week-long discussion circles,
which are held for an hour during lunchtime in work places or in the
evenings in churches and homes. Participants are given a book of
articles by leading environmental thinkers to read at home, which they
discuss in the circles.
The readings and discussions are designed to awaken a deep love and
reverence for the Earth and a desire to harmonize with the will of the
land. For instance, participants are encouraged to identify with a
territory, river, mountain or other specific area and defend it.
Readings by Arne Naess, a Norwegian mountaineer who taught philosophy
for 40 years and coined the term "deep ecology," encourage them to "live
light and traceless." To Naess, this doesn't mean poverty and denial of
beauty. In one of the readings, he wrote: "I have tremendous
ambition. Only the best is good enough for me. I like richness, and I
feel richer than the richest person when I'm in my cottage in the
country with water I've carried from a certain well and wood I've
gathered from the forest." Naess advocates that we "appreciate
lifestyles that are universalizable, and not blatantly impossible to
sustain without injustice toward fellow humans or other species." He
encourages "appreciation of, or participation in, primary
production--small-scale agriculture, forestry, fishing."
In one of the deep ecology discussion circles, participants question the
idea that the only true expression of your values is how you spend your
time and money. In the course on voluntary simplicity, participants
discuss the role of money in self image. "It's a new set of lenses to
allow participants to understand the culture we have created and what
it's doing to the Earth," explains Dick Roy, a co-founder of the
Northwest Earth Institute.
After attending the discussion circles, Portland resident Barbara
Holisky says she and her husband "made a lot of changes in a short
period of time" in their mindset and some personal habits. For instance,
they joined a community supported agriculture program and later dug up
the grass in their yard and planted a garden. They built a compost bin,
made a decision to use reclaimed and recycled lumber that was
sustainably harvested and phased out the use of disposable
dishes. Holisky and her husband, Gary McDonald, also began promoting the
practice of "no throwaways" through a service they call "Community
Cups," in which they lend out up to 500 glass cups, purchased from
thrift stores, as well as dinner plates, appetizer plates, silverware
and cloth napkins to organizations holding parties or other events. The
dishes, which have so far been used at 150 to 200 events, are now held
at a church.
The Northwest Earth Institute's discussion groups have spread to 650
communities in 50 states and have pulled in 68,000 people, revealing how
receptive the public can be to the sustainability movement. When Dr. Ole
Ersson and his wife Maitri held the institute's voluntary simplicity
discussion circle in their Portland home, the participants were so
engrossed that they met for seven years instead of eight weeks. Ole
Ersson, a physician, sometimes speaks to groups on the topic of living
lightly on the Earth. "Clean air and water, forests and other wild
landscapes are not infinite," he says.
By recycling and curbing their consumption of resources, Ersson's family
of five has reduced their garbage to half a grocery bag every two
months. Out of reverence for trees, he and his family use sturdy totes
or backpacks when shopping rather than paper or plastic bags. They buy
in bulk when possible, use reusable dishes, use handkerchiefs rather
than disposable tissues, photocopy and print on the back sides of paper
and use paperless communication via electronic mail.
The females in the family use washable feminine napkins, and they've all
given up toilet paper, opting to clean themselves with water and soap
and pat dry with a towel. "You'll find it definitely much cleaner!" says
Dr. Ersson. The family saves energy by hanging their clothes on a line
or drying rack rather than using the clothes dryer. And like many in
Portland, they rarely use their car. "The only time we drive it is if we
are leaving town, doing hauling or carrying something we can't carry in
our arms or in a basket," he says.
After 15 years of composting, the Erssons added one foot of compost to
the lawn of the home they recently moved from. "The fertility is
astounding," says Dr. Ersson, a permaculturist. "It's rich black earth
full of humus.... You can almost just dig your hand into it, it is so
soft."
They even add their "humanure" to their compost bins, covered with lots
of sawdust. "In about six months, it smells like fresh earth," he
says. By cutting out flush toilets they not only help protect the water
quality of streams and rivers, they also save 50,000 gallons of water a
year. Also to save water, the Erssons use rain barrels to capture water
for irrigating the lawn, as do many in Portland. In the Erssons'
previous home, their water catchment system provided 95 percent of the
water for all their daily needs. Many commercial buildings in Portland
collect rainwater for irrigating the landscape, as well as for flushing
toilets.
Also notable in Portland are individual initiatives to reduce automobile
usage. On workdays, about 10,000 people on bicycles cross bridges from
the Eastside going into downtown. Approximately 45 percent of commuters
going into downtown to work are either taking the bus, light rail or
streetcar, according to a survey done this year by the Portland Business
Alliance. Add to this three percent who are car pooling, five percent
who are biking and three percent who are walking, and the total is 56
percent of commuters going into downtown who have abandoned
single-occupancy trips.
If such good environmental behavior flows out of a deep love and
reverence for the Earth, then maybe what we need to save the world is
more hiking trips, more community gardens and more chickens in the city.
ANNIE BIRDSONG is a Maryland-based freelance writer.