wind is the new oil

NOTE: this is a guest column written for my dad for a little weekly newspaper in the town where i grew up. dad owned the paper for 35 years before selling it a decade or so ago to the woman who had worked for him for most of those years. he still works there every day and writes a weekly column. this week, he ordered politely asked me to write it for him. i found myself having to write it here in this blogger compose space, in order for the words to flow, so i thought i'd share it with all of you as well. plus, i thought you'd all like to see that i am indeed capable of capital letters...

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earth art from the COP15 meeting in copenhagen

Over the past year, my husband and I began to think about living a more environmentally responsible life. Last December, Copenhagen hosted the COP15 United Nations environment meeting and so for the past year, our newspapers have had an environmental slant to all of the stories. Although the meeting was a disappointment on a political front, we found that it had us thinking about ways we could, as individuals, do our part towards ensuring that the planet we leave to our daughter Sabin isn't a complete disaster.

One of the first things I did was leave a job I'd had for two years in Norway. I was flying to work on a bi-weekly basis from our home in Denmark and that just didn't seem like the most environmentally responsible thing to do, so I decided to get a job in the country where I lived. An opportunity arose for both my husband and I in a renewable energy company that manufactures wind turbines. That seemed to both of us like a good way to take action.

house with a 10-year plan

Taking the new jobs mean that we had to move across the country. Denmark is about the size of Wisconsin, so this move isn't as dramatic as it sounds. At the same time, we decided to follow our dream of getting a farmhouse with a bit of land where we could have a big garden and a few animals and although we have no desire to go completely self-sufficient, to be more self-sufficient than we are today. We found a place with an old and rather falling-down house that was built in 1895 that sits on about 11 acres of land. We have a ten-year plan for restoration of the house, but we are definitely in love with the property, which includes one end of a small lake.

our little corner of the lake

What it all means is that we have room for a big garden, where we can grow all kinds of our own vegetables and put them up, thereby eating a more locovore diet. We're going to have chickens and raise a couple of pigs as well, because it feels much better knowing where the eggs and bacon come from and what they were fed and knowing that they lived a good life. We live much closer to work than we did - only about 8 miles away. That means that my husband can bike and although I drive, it's much better on the environment than flying to work like I did for the past two years.

When we do our renovations, we're looking to use as many recycled materials as we can and to build in ways that make the house as energy-efficient as possible. We're researching having our own little 2-3KW wind turbine, with the intention of eventually going off the grid, or perhaps selling our excess energy back into it. We're finding that even though Denmark is very far ahead on the wind energy front (Vestas, a Danish company, is the world's #1 wind turbine producer (for now)), the legislation is lagging a bit behind as far as the individual consumer is concerned, but even that is changing.

near Charles City, Iowa

It's very encouraging to drive across Iowa and South Dakota and see big wind farms dotting the landscape. I know there's work to be done here on the infrastructure, but it's a good sign that the wind farms are being built. Today, 20% of the energy in Denmark is produced by wind farms, both on- and offshore and they have a goal of being 100% on renewable energy by 2030. It's my impression that in Denmark, there are more small wind installations -- of 2-3 turbines -- and it would be nice to see that coming here as well. A small town could put up 4-5 turbines and surely go a long way to producing the needed power. Of course, power in this area is already renewable hydro-electric power, so it's not as much of an issue here near the river. But we sure do have the wind for it around here.

It's interesting after a number of years in the maritime industry, where I learned quite a lot about the transport of fossil fuels (oil, LNG, LPG and other petroleum products), to come into the wind industry, which feels like there's a new gold rush going on. I keep saying wind is the new oil and there is definitely a cowboy mentality in the industry - a pioneering spirit of trying all sorts of innovative solutions (gearless turbines are a big one, and the sheer size of the turbines is another - our company's largest are 3.6 megawatts with 58-meter (190-foot) blades). There's a heady feeling that must have been there in the early days of the oil business and it's very interesting to be part of it.

COP15 begins today

the COP15 meeting on climate change begins today in copenhagen.  the danish parliament hurried through legislation enabling a big crackdown by the police on protesters. there's a holding area complete with cages for 350 set up in the old brewery not far from the center of copenhagen. and denmark has been granted permission by the european union and the schengen treaty signatories to institute border controls once again should that be necessary. "we're ready," say the police. per larsen, the gentleman in charge of the copenhagen police efforts said in the new york times, "his officers would have low tolerance for behavior that deviates from "Danish society as we prefer it to be." that could get interesting.

so there you have it. we're ready. the world's top leaders are coming (not all of them for the right bit of the meeting, ahem, mr. obama), but the meeting is expected to fizzle out and not achieve any legally binding agreement. the best anyone is hoping for is political agreement, but even that looks like a bit of a longshot.

the climate skeptics have given voice again in recent weeks in the lead-up. but i see signs of climate change all around. yes, the rose in my garden had frost on it last week, but the fact is that it's december and it's still blooming and we're not talking not only one rose, but several of them (tho' i only photographed the one). on the weekend, i saw forsythia blooming down the street, tho' ours isn't (our yard is north-facing and cooler and shadier). there was a canola field near sabin's riding school with many of those characteristic yellow flowers beginning to show. the climate is changing. and if there's a chance that there's something we can do about it, we should do so, immediately. at the very least, fossil fuels are limited and we've got to come up with alternative energy sources if we're going to continue in the lifestyle to which we've been accustomed (if that's even a good idea).

i've said it before (tho' cannot find the post for the life of me), i fear that it will take losing a major european country, like the netherlands, which will be severely affected by rising sea levels, before the world really wakes up. places like the seychelles and bangladesh are in danger too, but sadly, i believe the impact of losing them wouldn't be the same as it would losing the netherlands.

if i'm honest, i can see the upside in climate change for us living here in denmark. we're already increasingly able to grow grapes and that means we can make wine (pretty good if you've got an eye on self-sufficiency and a taste for the grape elixir). farmers are able to have two crops per year from their fields. in the decade i've been here, denmark has begun to grow corn. it's not as tall and robust as what you see in iowa, but corn nonetheless. and we could use more warm, sunny days.

i'm going to go in to the city to soak in the atmosphere with my camera and we've got couchsurfers galore coming (hotel rooms are scarce) in the coming days, so it will be interesting to see how it all unfolds. stay tuned, i'm sure i'll be returning to this subject.

wordless wednesday - cop15 edition

all dressed up....

the reports of the nearly 1000 protestors detained yesterday here in copenhagen continue to be conflicting and sketchy. most of the accounts i've read (nytimes, bbc, the guardian, seattle times) cover the arrests in a cursory manner and then move on to the larger picture of the potential agreement that's on the horizon at the end of the COP15 meetings. and i think that i'm heartened by that, because it means that the focus is indeed on the bigger picture, which is the future of our planet and not whether some people wearing cow costumes were arrested for covering their faces (which apparently isn't how we wish to conduct ourselves within danish society). apparently all but 4-5 people were actually released without charges, so i think that the whole thing was a show of strength by a danish police force that has done a lot of preparing and hasn't really had anywhere to channel all that energy as of yet.

i mean, it must be rather disappointing if you've made all those preparations for violence and the majority of the messages coming from all of those gathering in copenhagen are ones of hope and peace and mutual caring for our planet. oh, and solutions.

bicycles that save up energy for when you need it.

a model city of the future that is jakarta (which i'll admit i found rather counter-intuitive).

shopping bags with a positive message.

a room for silent meditation.

and even france being ready to do something other than go on strike.

even brad pitt wants to save the earth.

no wonder the police were feeling frustrated and like they wished something would just happen.

changing priorities

as you know, i've been doing a lot of thinking about how to simplify our life. it's partially because i don't want a high-powered office-politics game-playing type job anymore and that means that we'll have less money to frivolously throw away every month. and it's partially because i no longer want to frivolously throw away money every month on crap that i don't really need and which has been produced in a way that doesn't respect our planet. and although i love collecting and stashing, i don't want so much clutter in my life (and my brain) anymore. but mostly, with all of the talk about climate change here in the lead-up to the COP15 meeting, i have realized that i want to live in a more sustainable way. i want to throw less away and waste less. i want to make the purchases i make in a more deliberate, less impulsive manner (good luck with that aries girl).

so over the past week, i've been trying to put myself into the simplicity mindset when i'm out and about. and what struck me is that it makes me feel poor. and i realized that i don't like that. but now i know that's the main notion and feeling that i need to work on. because while spending less money would be a nice side effect of this endeavor, it's not actually the main goal. the main goal is living a more deliberate, meaningful life that's better in balance and harmony with the world around me. because i want there to be a clean, healthy planet for sabin to inherit.

but i think i'm so conditioned to consume that not consuming makes me feel strange.

i want to do this, but i don't want to feel poor or like i'm withdrawing from society at large or living a hermetic existence, but i think it's a bit of a balancing act. because i want there to be shops and restaurants and bakeries and butchers and fishmongers in my community. which means i have to support them by being a customer. but how do i transition to being a more responsible customer? and if i end up having a shop of my own, how can i be a responsible shop owner?

i don't have all the answers, but these are the questions i'm struggling with as we get ready to embark on a year of mindful consumption.

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p.s. i haven't forgotten about picking my favorite comment from the voice post, it's just a bit more difficult than i thought it would be because there were some very interesting thoughts. but a result is coming soon! maybe even later today...

what we've apparently forgotten along the way

i've been rereading laura ingalls wilder's little house books (thanks bee for the idea) and i realize that we don't know how to do anything anymore (except google stuff). i'm so struck by how much ma and pa could do. everything from process maple syrup from tree to a usable sugar supply for the winter, to tanning hides, to butchering a hog, to building a sod house to sowing and harvesting crops. we have become so distant from the food chain that the coming climate change is downright frightening.

all of this is on my mind thanks to the lifestyle change that husband and i are contemplating and blogging about here (after all, the blog is the medium of choice for thinking things through). regardless of what happens with the COP15 meeting here in copenhagen in december, we are all going to have to change the way we relate to the world. we're simply going to have to use less energy and what we consume will have to come from much closer to our local area. the life we know now is simply not sustainable. it's more and more indefensible that we treat the planet the way we do (she says as she's packing her bag to go to singapore next week, so she does realize she has a ways to go in transforming her thinking and her lifestyle).

so, in thinking about how to live in a more responsible way towards the earth, we're thinking about getting a large farm house that would be a property big enough to share with at least a couple of other families. farms houses here tend to be one big main house with often three barns/outbuildings forming a square courtyard. most of the places we're looking at have barns of solid construction that could be easily converted to living space (especially if you know an awesome polish guy who can help you with that). the idea isn't to go amish, but to have space to raise more of our own food and to share some of the things--like a kitchen and a car--that today we all think we need our own of--all while keeping your regular job. obviously that's the short version, but you can read more about how our ideas are evolving over on the livet på landet (life on the land) blog.

but i feel a little overwhelmed, reading the little house books. there's just so much i have to learn. so i guess i'm off to google a few things...

2009: the year in review

looking back over the past year, much has happened. i feel like a different person here at the end of the year than i was at the beginning of it. it's quite fascinating how those changes occur incrementally and one day you suddenly realize that you're transformed. there have been some constants - photography, noticing the world around me, creativity, inspiration, lists, blog crushes, overthinking and general navel gazing. and it seems like evolution comes up kind of a lot, but i blame husband for that.

i've spent some time looking back on the year in a couple of ways. one, by reading skimming back over this blog and two, by browsing back through my iPhoto. shall we take a little stroll down memory lane?

january - moving in to the now-famous blue room was the highlight. i also did a lot of those interviews that were going around at the time. my sister visited and we went to møn's klint and the west coast of denmark. and we played an elaborate practical joke on her boyfriend, who was an extremely good sport about it, tho' he did drink an entire bottle of port afterwards. and our pooka turned 8. 42 blog posts.

february - what can i say, it was the month the eyeball obsession began. sabin started riding lessons. we celebrated our 10th anniversary. i learned about fika. i bought a new sewing machine. i went a little nuts about TtV photography. 39 blog posts.

march - i met and fell in love with a nikon D300. sadly, later in the year, i would have to give it back, because it was my work camera and i left that job, but happily, i found a very lightly used one in my favorite local camera shop a couple weeks before i had to give it back, so that didn't matter at all - and i learned that one cannot stay in a job for the sake of a camera (but that was in november, so i'm getting ahead of myself). i opened my etsy shop and sold my first items. i went a little crazy for stones. i had a gorgeous birthday dinner at my very favorite little castle to celebrate turning thirty-twelve. my kitchen became famous on apartment therapy.  the julie project started. 48 blog posts.

april - i practiced austerity april, a little exercise in buying less, it largely worked, tho' there was a moment of weakness towards the end of the month in the face of new music. a little trans-atlantic learning adventure began. i invented gin & tonic sorbet. moments of perfect clarity was named blog of note by the gods at google on april 21, which was a really good thing, because prior to that i'd been having a really crappy day. i continued to be obsessed with rocks. and the julie project fizzled out, which was definitely a learning experience. we went to a funeral. and a wedding. we visited a danish vineyard. 47 blog posts.

may - spring came in earnest. i visited the west coast of norway for the first time. the idea of blog camp was born and the first blog camps were scheduled. the blog camp blog was created. i got downright obsessive about rocks, particularly one i found on the west coast of norway. me and my gin & tonic sorbet appeared in disco underworld.  i wrote my 700th post and mused on what it meant to me to blog. i outlined my long-held theory that everyone needs their albanian. 49 blog posts.

june - i got flowered chucks. i attended nor-shipping. the first blog camp was held and it was even better than any and all expectations. i received the most lovely little stones from trinsch in isreal and from lynne in south africa (see, even others got caught up in my stone obsession). we celebrated the summer solstice and soaked in the light.  i had a realization (finally) about creativity and about accepting the release of your creativity into the world. michael jackson died and i found that i didn't care. 40 blog posts.

july - i learned how to make my pictures big. i embarked on an insane project provoked challenged inspired by spudballoo - to tell 30 secrets in 30 days. in the end, i told 29 secrets and one lie and no one ever guessed correctly which one was the lie. and i was exhausted by the effort. we spent time on the beach, soaking up the summer sun. kristina and i started across øresund, a photoblog showing the contrasts of denmark and sweden. i developed a sociology of mobile phones. we took a mini-vacation to dublin. and left for a real vacation in singapore via amsterdam. i added a new country to my list: malaysia. husband and me started the livet på landet (life on the land) blog to document our dream of moving to a farm. 52 blog posts.

august - i embarked on a new obsession: robots. i learned that our child is a budding photographer. i concluded that singapore is like disneyland (actually, i concluded that a long time ago, but finally documented it).  i reread the laura ingalls wilder books. i went to blog camp in england.  i visited stonehenge, which was something i had long desired to do. i developed a foot fetish. i had a truly brilliant experience at one of the last shipyards left in denmark. i started participating in postcrossing. and woven underneath it all, i developed a disliking for my job, which i'd really loved until then. maybe because they made me sit with more than $10,000 of their debt in travel expenses for an inordinately long time. 37 blog posts.

september - with the autumn beginning, i started to obsess about light. blog camp 2.0. i felt the significance of 09.09.09. the queen came to town. i found weaving at a museum in randbøldal. i thought about color. i started domestic sensualist together with beth. i discovered the wonderful henie-onstad art museum near oslo. my unease with my job deepened, and even made me ill, tho' i didn't see that at the time - interesting how that works. barbara kingsolver writes in one of her early books something along the lines of how people are so inside of themselves, it's sometimes hard to tell anything. i came to know what that meant in september. 39 blog posts.

october - i turned to embroidery in order to cope with my growing dissatisfaction with my job (phew, at least it manifested itself positively in some way). husband found a brilliant old sewing machine for me at the dump. we prepared for our house to be put up for sale i spent a couple of days in istanbul, one of my favorite cities. we had a glorious few days touring around denmark with an old cat love friend during the autumn holiday. i couchsurfed for the first time and it was fabulous. 34 blog posts.

november - the monocules© were born! i found a real treasure in a used bookstore. i pondered the 20th anniversary of the fall of the berlin wall. i closed in in earnest on my 100 creative things in 2009. with only a minor nervous breakdown, i held a brilliant thanksgiving dinner for friends and family. my work appeared in public bookstore. the gold edition of disco underworld came out and i was included! i voted in the municipal elections in denmark. i thought about and tried to articulate who this girl was, at least for now. and i left the job which had become the job from hell, and even in this economic climate, i still breathed a heavy sigh of relief. 37 blog posts.

december - i did some serious pondering and reading about simplicity. i prepared for christmas and revealed that i'm a bit of a scrooge about christmas cards. i lost my photo mojo a bit and am still hoping it comes back. i've been pretty introspective as i have tried to decide what's next after leaving my job. COP15 took place in copenhagen. i sorted a whole lot of sabin's baby clothes to save and donate. and i have at least three new bloggy-related projects up my sleeve (so stay tuned in 2010). 34 blog posts (and counting).

conclusions: 

: : inspiration was a big theme for me in 2009. i wanted to seek it, understand it, pick it apart,  drink it in, swallow it and digest it. i was a little obsessed about it. but apparently i needed that.

: : i changed a lot over the course of the year. what i want from life became simpler (even if the amount of stuff in my house did not).

: : i became a photographer in 2009.

: : i also became an artist.  even if so far it's still mostly for myself.

: : i didn't fly enough to retain gold status on my two airlines where i've had it in recent years. and i'm ok with that.

: : i was directly (credited) responsible for the sale of no less than ten nikons in 2009. i think nikon should employ me.

: : i made a lot of connections and good friends in the blogosphere (and in real life) for which i'm very grateful. and i can't wait to see what 2010 brings.

cultural perspectives

this afternoon, we put the child, age 8, on the train by herself, to go into copenhagen to see a movie. her big sister was meeting her halfway, but for half of the journey, she was all by herself on the S-train. it felt momentous both to her and to us. she was giddy with excitement and pride. when she's proud of herself and you praise her, she does the cutest little exhale through her nose, not quite a snort, but quick, heavy breath. it's one of my favorite things. she met her sister as planned, saw the movie and came home again on the train, the last half of the journey by herself. in all, a wholly successful journey. she was proud and we were proud that our little girl was so grown up.

after she left for the movie, i was thinking about how such a thing wouldn't be possible if she were growing up in the US. we'd surely have been turned in to social services for trusting our 8-year-old child to make a journey by herself on public transportation. and for a moment, i was really glad she's growing up here, where kids are trusted and so are the other people in the society around you. because in addition to us being confident that she could make the journey, we also knew that no harm would come to her on the train, especially not on a sunday afternoon.

i guess i have the US on the brain because of the IOC meeting last week in copenhagen.  as you may be aware, the IOC met in copenhagen last week to decide where the 2016 olympics will be held. with top officials, royalty, sports stars and VIPs from spain, japan, brazil and the US fronting up to campaign for their respective cities (Madrid, Tokyo, Rio and Chicago), it was a big news week for the danish t.v. stations. since oprah and michelle obama were speaking on behalf of chicago, the news was fixated on them for several days. they were only eclipsed by president obama himself coming into copenhagen for five hours on friday.

after chicago was out in the first round of voting, much to the shock of everyone, who had thought it was a dead heat between rio and chicago, oprah apparently sneaked quietly out of town, as we didn't hear anything more about her. sadly for president obama and michelle, their departure was a bit more public, as cameras were obsessively trained on air force one from the moment it landed 'til well after it was but a shining dot in the sky. however, at the time they left, the results weren't yet known.

the coverage was non-stop and it was DR's (the state-owned television station), turn to pretend they were CNN. and pretend they did. speculating like mad about who was in an unmarked white plane parked on the runway near air force one. speculating like mad about which city would win the olympics. asking danish rock stars their opinions as to who would win (as if they knew). commenting live on a big event held for the IOC members and the cities' celebrities at the copenhagen opera (without knowing more than a handful of the names of those arriving, which ended up rather embarrassing and far more comical than they meant it to). and then there was the bringing in of danes with loose connections to the obamas and oprah to the studio to comment on all of the hype. one connection was so thin that all a danish model living in the US had to offer was that her african american husband reminded her a lot of obama. i laughed quite a long time at that one. poor DR, they were totally unaccustomed to being on air nonstop and clearly struggling with the task.

i hope they learned a lot of lessons because the next big international event on the horizon is the COP15 climate meeting here in copenhagen in december and i hope at least they get a list of names of the attendees at that one, so they can at least say who people are. copenhagen will be filled with strangers then, so i don't think we'll be putting the child on the train alone.

an organized mess

the newspapers in denmark are full of environment-related stories in the lead-up to the COP15 climate meeting here in copenhagen in december, so living a more green life is at the forefront of all of our thoughts. but in all honesty, denmark is pretty far ahead on that front. it is, after all, the home of modern wind technology (think vestas). but for me, one of the most tangible signs of denmark's commitment to the environment is how organized our dumps are.

when we went last sunday, i snapped a few pictures to show you.

husband and mig unload stuff from the ancient toyota

ancient toyota might need to be recycled itself.

maybe in the large metal container?

one for newspapers, telephone books, etc.

and another for bottles and jars

put your old carpets here.

small burnables.

keep it under 1 meter, please.

large burnables (tho' this one was closed - there was another one).

small metal things.

it's here that husband found the fabulous sewing machine.

appliances

clothing donations
and yes, that was a bag of old linens in front of that one.
and maybe i did appropriate a couple of choice patterns.

mattresses and other feathery furniture.

separate containers for ceramics and tiles, cement, marble, stone, bricks

and i didn't even get pictures of the whole area where you can put old paint cans and batteries and electrical appliances and tires and garden debris and insulation. it's amazingly organized and there are little guys in orange suits patrolling and just waiting for you to accidentally put a ceramic flowerpot in with the glass, so they can yell at you. and odin forbid you try to put something longer than a meter in the small burnables.

but it makes me feel better to go there and to separate things and know that they're being recycled (tho' to be honest, i don't really know where they go). in the spring, you can go get rich compost for your garden, as much as you can carry away for free. it's the result of the trash they collect from our houses, where we separate into green and non-green trash. and i know that the burnables are burned in a big central place where they then capture the heat and use it to heat water for the fjernvarm system that heats much of copenhagen.

i like that the environment is the central topic around here at the moment and i like feeling that i'm doing my part by separating our trash and taking it to the organized dump.