Jodi Siegel

Journal 6
This week, I found my daily and one-time challenges to be both easy and difficult to keep up with. To start, my daily challenge from the transportation category was to learn more about the disparities of public transportation and to advocate for it by telling at least 1 person each day about the social and economic injustices of transportation. I was surprised because I expected the articles to be advocating for public transportation since it reduces emissions, but the resources were all just criticisms of the injustices within the public transportation system that I never would have thought of. Reading up on these issues within the transportation system was easy. From the resource section of the challenge, I learned that lack of public transportation in a community is the #1 cause of deterrence from jobs and community involvement nationwide because of the class and race disparities it creates. Public transportation is desired by people on all aspects of the economic ladder but is essential for lower and working class people who cannot afford cars and need a way to get to their job, to grocery stores, hospitals, etc. The increase in fares for public transportation have created even more problems for low income citizens to utilize it, which means they have to resort to lower quality public transportation. This is directly linked to unemployment because poor public transportation can be unreliable and cause people to be late to jobs or not even make it at all. I have educated myself on these issues, but the real challenge was remembering to inform someone about it each day because it doesn’t come up in conversation, so most days I did not remember to. Because of this, I feel as though I won’t be able to implement this exact challenge into daily life because I also only know so many people to tell about this crisis, but I can advocate in other ways like writing messages to public transportation companies or town representatives to request better transportation methods and explain the issue to them.

My other daily challenge came from the waste category, and it was to avoid disposable bags. This challenge has been really easy on campus for me because I don’t have a car on campus and I have a meal plan, so I don’t really go out to buy things often which means I don’t get offered disposable bags. However, next time I walk to the grocery store I will bring a backpack or reusable bag with me instead of taking a bunch of plastic disposable bags to carry things back in, and I will try to implement this mentality when I am home and buy things more often.Whenever I have gotten disposable bags while at college, I always keep them in my closet for future use. Sometimes I will use leftover disposable bags as my garbage bags or will use them to carry something I can’t fit in my regular reusable bag, so I am at least reusing them instead of just throwing them away. I was surprised and upset to learn from the resources that only 2 states in the US (California and Hawaii) have banned plastic bags because the banning and taxing of plastic bags has had a really positive impact on the areas in which those policies are implemented, and I don’t know why more states aren’t doing that. I was also shocked at the numbers. We use 5 trillion plastic bags a year, and there are 160,000 plastic bags used every second. By 2050, there is supposedly going to be more plastic in the ocean than fish. These statistics are really frightening to me. I will definitely be implementing this challenge into my life permanently, at least as much as possible.

For my one-time challenge, I chose the personal waste audit from the waste category. This challenge started out well when it was fresh in my mind. I documented everything I threw out in my notes and kept track of it. The difficulty was remembering to keep up with it throughout the week because throwing out small things like wrappers or tissues is so routine and hard to remember to take notice of. The resources for this challenge taught me that Americans waste up to 220 million tons every year, and that the personal waste audit would tell me what things I waste the most. It seemed this week that what I threw out the most were plastic in the form of wrappers and cups, which I recycled but I am still trying to reduce plastic waste as it ties into the disposable bag discussion. I would definitely like to try to implement this permanently into my life, although I do foresee some difficulties because I tend to forget to document everything. I will definitely give it a try though. 

Journal 5
This week, the challenges I added on to my list were brushing my teeth with the water off, adjusting my thermostat down by 2 degrees, and learning more about renewable energy sources. Implementing these challenges into my daily life was pretty manageable. To start, brushing my teeth with the water off was something that I thought I was going to have to do consciously. However, when I went to brush my teeth the first day of the challenge, I realized that I already brush them with the water off and only turn the water on to wet my toothbrush before using it. This was a little surprising to me because I picked the challenge thinking I was going to be making an adjustment to my daily life, but it was already natural. Because of this, I see no issue in making this a permanent lifestyle choice. Now, I am just aware of the benefits of it and will be sure to continue to practice this. As written in the resource section of this challenge, the average person uses about 80-100 gallons of water every day and turning the water off when brushing my teeth can save up to 200 gallons of water every month. This makes me feel really good about this lifestyle choice and I am glad that I have been subconsciously practicing it for a while. This challenge and the resources have inspired me to want to conserve water in other ways too, such as shorter showers. The resource section of this challenge said that the largest use of household water is to flush toilets, then showers and baths, so I will see what I can do to conserve water in those utilities.

The challenge of adjusting the thermostat down by 2 degrees was actually more challenging than I had expected. I find that when I come into my room initially from being outside, I feel really hot and turn down my thermostat a few degrees. For this reason, I figured I’d have no issue just keeping the temperature a few degrees lower all the time. However, as I spend time in my room, I start to get colder and have the urge to turn up the thermostat. Trying to resist doing so, especially given that it is so cold out and I am naturally not very good in the cold, has been a real challenge. I try to turn the thermostat down when I leave the room so that I can conserve energy without feeling the effects. I am out of my room for a good part of the day, so I do feel as though I am making an impact, but I also do forget to turn it down sometimes. As mentioned in the resources for this challenge, adjusting the thermostat by 2 degrees reduces greenhouse gasses, which helps protect the Arctic and animals that live there, as well as other regions of the world by cutting down on energy consumption and therefore helping to reduce climate change. Animals that particularly benefit from this action are polar bears, bumblebees, penguins, pikas, frogs, and butterflies. Knowing that I am helping to lessen my ecological footprint is a good incentive for me to maintain this challenge in my life permanently, because it feels like a small price to pay for helping so many species. Another interesting fact I learned from the resource section was that a living room should only be 70 degrees, and all other rooms should be 64 degrees. No room should be over 75 degrees. My dorm room is usually 72-76 degrees, so I definitely need to make a bigger adjustment than I thought.

My one-time challenge was learning more about renewable energy sources. I learned about these last year in my environmental science class and I remember being really interested in it, so I wanted to brush up on it and see if I could gain any new information. Last year I learned about the actual functions of each category of renewable energy (solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, tidal, and biomass), such as how photovoltaic panels work and how the kinetic energy of water turns a turbine which triggers a generator that is used to convert the energy to electricity. From my resources in the challenge, I learned more about the role of renewable energy in today’s society and system. I read that the burning of fossil fuels for energy contributes to 25% of heat trapping GHGs globally, and that while the switch to renewable energy is happening, it needs to happen at a much faster rate while ensuring that the future of clean energy is equitable and empowering for all. Today, 24% of electricity comes from renewable sources. This number needs to change dramatically and quickly, which inspires me to try to use renewable energy in my life. I will probably have to implement this change when I am at home because I don’t control the energy at Bucknell, but I will definitely see what I can do when at home in terms of talking to my family about switching to renewable sources.

The daily and one-time challenges I chose for the week were things that I thought I would absolutely have time for and not struggle with. I have tried my best to practice mindfulness for the past year. I bought a journal last year to keep manifestations and thoughts in, and I try to express gratitude for my life and my health every day. Because of this, I figured I would have no problem expressing gratitude for the Earth each day for 10 minutes by spending time outside journaling or just meditating/being outside appreciating my surroundings. However, I found it difficult to dedicate that much time to being outside expressing gratitude and doing nothing else. This may just be because of the freezing weather, but I found myself just expressing gratitude while on my walks to class because I am not very good at handling very cold temperatures so I wanted to be inside as much as I could. I did feel more connected to the environment this week though, and noticed I kept my head up while walking to really take in the sky and the trees and the air while walking to class. It made me excited for spring when I can enjoy being outside because I know I will feel even more gratitude for the Earth. With manifesting and expressing gratitude for my life, I do focus on putting out positive energy into the world which was mentioned in the resources for the challenge. One of the articles titled “On Gratitude,” the author Alex Stark writes, “This word translates into English as reciprocity, the principle of equal exchange of energy. Ayni affects everything, because the ancient Peruvians, like their modern counterparts, understood that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only exchanged,” (Stark 3). I believe in this concept that the energy I put out into the world is what I get back, so I will focus on giving that positive energy to the Earth specifically.

The other daily challenge I signed up for was to reduce my screen time by 10 minutes every day. This was something I really looked forward to because I feel as though I am wasting so much of my life on my phone. As the article from one of the resources from this challenge states, “An article from June 2015 per Digital Times suggests that Americans spend about 4.7 hours a day on their phones. Considering that the average person is awake for around 15 hours, this is about a third of our day,” (Daley, Paragraph 2). Statistics like these make me incredibly anxious because they make me think of how many days this adds up to, then how many years, and how much of my life will have been wasted on a screen. This week, I made sure to leave my phone in my room whenever I knew I wouldn’t need it and avoided using it when eating in the dining hall with my friends. I also tried putting my phone away earlier before I went to bed because I knew it would also allow me to sleep better and feel better the next day. The real challenge became that a lot of my school work is on my computer, so trying to get away from my computer was incredibly difficult and I would not say I succeeded at that necessarily. 

The one-time challenge I chose was Core Values. I wrote down my top 5 core values into a journal and thought about how to stay true to them in my daily life, which I plan on carrying into my life permanently. I really feel as though keeping my core values in mind will keep me grounded and connected to who I am as a person, and will definitely help me to increase my spirituality. As an article from the resources section of the challenge states, “Pono is the Hawaiian concept of feeling right with yourself and the world. It’s that feeling of being aligned with who you really are, calm, centered and at peace with everyone and everything around you. You feel pono when you live from your true values,” (James, Paragraph 6). Staying centered with the things around me will definitely improve my overall lifestyle.

I am definitely willing to at least attempt to permanently implement these changes into my life. I believe that it is going to take a good amount of time before I really get into the proper routine with them, but with enough determination and focus I believe that I will be able to.