(This article about walking complements the article that appeared on January 12, 2023 about how walking is good for people and the planet.)

There is more to life than increasing its speed.    — Gandhi

There’s a lot to be said for the old-fashioned wisdom that comes in sayings like: “If the Good Lord had wanted you to fly, you would have had wings.” Instead, we were given feet.

Walking is the original way of getting around. It came before the invention of the wheel, the cart, the wagon, the automobile and the airplane. For that reason alone, it is the “natural” form of locomotion—of moving from one place to another. Walking is simply a practical way to go places—to see people you want to visit and do the errands you need to do.

More than that, you can use walking to set daily goals and string them together into something amazing. The famous Chinese teacher and philosopher Confucius once said that, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Although Confucius lived more than 2,500 years ago, his wisdom is timeless.

I (the writer) walk and run at least 3 miles every day. A few years ago I did the math and discovered that, at this rate, the total number of miles I am walking over the span of every 23 years equals more than the distance that it would take to walk around the world along the equator—24,902 miles (40,076 kilometers). One step at a time, and one day at a time, you, too, can walk around the world—accomplishing something that is healthy for yourself and the planet! 

WALK AROUND THE WORLD

What You Will Need:

• Map of your neighborhood
• Highlighting marker
• Ball of string
• Scissors
• Ruler
• Calculator
• Writing Journal
• Pencil
• Map of the World 
• Large bulletin board
• Push pins
• Comfortable pair of walking or running shoes
• Pedometer (optional)

Steps to Take:

1. Set a small walking goal to meet every day. Pick a distance that you’re comfortable with. Keep in mind that walking to school, to the playground, the baseball or soccer field, local store and so on—all count toward your daily distance. Walking the dog counts, too!
2. Get a copy of a map of the area where you live, including trails. If you can’t find it a local outdoor/camping supply store or bookstore, try the Chamber of Commerce or City Hall. You can also search the Find a Trail maps on the Upper Valley Trails Alliance website: https://www.uvtrails.org/, or download the Walk Woodstock map to search for a route among Woodstock’s more than 60 miles of local trails: http://npmaps.com/wp-content/uploads/woodstock-trail-map.pdf
3. Find the scale of distance on the map. For example, “one inch equals 1.5 miles.”
4. Use the highlighter to mark some of the routes that you normally walk, and some routes that you want to add as part of your Walk Around the World.
5. Run a piece of string along each route and cut it to length. Then straighten each measure of string next to the ruler to get the number of inches for each route on the map. Write down this length for each route.
6. Using the map’s distance scale, calculate how far each of the walks measures on the ground. If the map’s scale is 1-inch equals 1.5 miles, then a 2-inch distance on your map, when measured on the ground, would be: 2 inches x 1.5 miles per inch = 3 miles. If the maps scale is 1 centimeter equals 1 kilometer, then a 2-centimeter distance on your map, when measured on the ground, would be: 2 centimeters x 1 kilometer per centimeter = 2 kilometers. Record each of these distances in your walking journal.
7. Break it down into small goals to start. At first, walk one of the shorter routes every day. As you get into better physical condition you can walk farther by adding some longer routes.
8. Each time you take a walk, record the date, location and distance in your Walking Journal. Keep track of the total distance that you have walked over time. Optional: You can also use a pedometer to record your walking distances. This is a small battery-powered device that hangs on your waistband or belt and measures how many steps you take. Based on how long each of your steps is, the pedometer multiplies that length times the number of steps to calculate the distance you’ve walked.
9. Pin the local map next to the map of the world on the bulletin board. Use some string and pins to show the total distance you have walked to date on the map of the world, and how far that distance would reach from your home to the next town, the next county, the next state, across the country and so on.
10. Learn about the states, provinces, countries, people, plants and animals at the locations that your total walking distance (to date) reaches to from your home. Imagine what it would be like to visit some of those places! Start a list of locations you would like to travel in your lifetime.

Over the years—one step at a time—you can walk around the world. Earth from Space. NASA Photo.

Safety First: 

• Always ask your parent’s or guardian’s permission before you go out for a walk, whether alone or with a friend. If your parent or guardian says you are too young to walk alone, or with a friend, then ask if they will go with you. This will get them involved with walking, too.
• When you do get permission, be sure to talk to your parent or guardian and choose safe walking routes.
• Always tell a parent or guardian exactly where you are going, what route you are taking and when you are expected back home. Stick with that plan. If you have a cell phone, bring it with you.
• Start a Walk Around the World group to share the experience, increase the level of safety (in numbers) and make it more fun!
• Tell your parents about the book called Free-Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry by Lenore Skenazy. Once they’ve read the book, you can talk about how to strike a balance between allowing you to do things outside, while still keeping you safe.

The post Walk Around the World appeared first on Sustainable Woodstock.

Among the recent cataclysmic and tragic impacts of this extreme weather is the flooding on a massive scale experienced by Pakistanis in 2022 over a vast land area 3 ½ times the size of Vermont. This antediluvian event threatens the health, safety and survival of more than 15 million people, including 10 million children. Massive international assistance of food and medicine is required to prevent widespread starvation and disease.

Following several years of historically unprecedented draught and fires in California—catalyzed by global warming—the extreme weather pendulum has now swung the other way. According to the Los Angeles Times, recent “megafloods” in early 2023 have killed at least 22 people, knocked out power to 100,000 customers and caused an estimated $1 trillion in damages. 

Vermont is situated in the midst of a large region experiencing some of the most extreme temperature increases in North America as a result of the rising emissions of greenhouse gases. According to NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), temperatures in Vermont have increased 3°F since 1900, with the last 12 years being the warmest on record. Rainfall now averages 6 inches more per year than it did in 1960. Extreme weather events have also increased in recent decades, vacillating between extended draughts and intense record-setting rainfalls, such as 2011s Tropical Storm Irene and the $700 million in damages and tragic impact on the lives of Vermonters. This trend is expected to continue, bringing with it more frequent and severe storms and warmer winters with fewer days of extreme cold. This winter it was late-January before many parts of Vermont experienced the first significant accumulation of snow. 

How are these meteorological shifts affecting Vermont’s iconic rural activities and drivers of our domestic and tourism-based economies? Consider Vermont’s $50 million plus maple sugaring industry, by which Vermont produces a nation-leading volume of some 2.5 million gallons per year (2022). While modern technologies—such as plastic tubing, vacuum systems and reverse osmosis—have enabled maple sugar-makers to increase the volume of syrup produced, the sap-to-syrup ratio has declined precipitously. Research conducted at farms that have kept detailed records of their maple sugaring operations in the same sugar bushes for a century or more has revealed a dramatic drop in the sugar content of sap by nearly 30 percent since the 1970s—during the exact same span of time when atmospheric temperatures began to rise exponentially. In the 1970’s it took 25 to 30 gallons of raw sap to make 1 gallon of syrup. Nowadays, however, 45 to 50 gallons or more of sap must be processed in order to produce the same yield. This is due to stresses placed on sugar maples by conditions they are experiencing as a result of global warming and other forms of atmospheric pollution. For example, long-term research at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest has revealed that the growth of sugar maples decreases by 40% if their roots are exposed to severe cold when there is no snow pack—a drop in growth that continues for several years. 

Whither Vermont’s fall foliage season, which brings in much of the state’s autumn tourist revenue of $460 million? Says Dr. Barrett Rock—professor emeritus of the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans and Space at the University of New Hampshire, “Serious change in our climate became really noticeable in the mid-1970s, as if a switch had been thrown at that time, including increased temperatures and reduced air quality. Significant changes in forest health also began in the 1970s and all data indicates that it is now occurring at an increasingly rapid rate. This corresponds well with what the climate change models predicted.”

The first hard frosts, which bring out the most vibrant leaf colors, used to occur around the third week in September. But in recent years, these frosts have arrived later. As Rock has observed, “There was a time when Columbus Day was widely recognized for planning a visit to New England for spectacular colors. Now the foliar change may not have even begun by early October, and frost sometimes comes as late as early November.”

Parallel trends have been reported by researchers at the University of Vermont as well as at the Harvard Forest Research Station in Petersham, Massachusetts. Cornell plant biologists found that stress placed on trees due to climate change and other forms of air pollution, such as high ozone levels and acid rain, is causing many leaves to brown off and die without much color change. Leaves are also more prone to being invaded by fungi and bacteria seeking sugar to feed on.

Drought, late-season warmth, and the cloudier days associated with climate change all have the effect of muting autumn leaf colors, which now often progress, as Rock has observed, “from green to pale yellow, followed by leaf fall. Stressed trees have difficulty making anti-fungal compounds, which makes it hard for them to create the beautiful bright colors.”

Vermont’s $1.6 billion ski industry is also feeling the heat, marked recently by surreal warm spells that keep melting and re-melting the snowpack. According to the findings of the Vermont Climate Assessment, depending on the level of carbon emissions in coming years Vermont’s ski season will be foreshortened 2-4 weeks by 2080. With snowmaking machines, most operations manage to generate sufficient snow cover on ski trails despite the paucity of natural snow. Still, the operational changes imposed by climate change—such as running snowmaking machines more frequently—reduce profit margins and increase the impact on aquatic environments due to the need to draw more water to make snow. 

With change being the only constant on the horizon in the coming decades, the future success of Vermont’s traditional sources of seasonal revenue will depend on the state’s ability to adopt and prove resilient in the face of an increasingly warmer climate.

Photo: Michael J. Caduto

The post Vermont’s Traditional Economies on Climate Change appeared first on Sustainable Woodstock.

The road goes ever on and on

down from the door where it began.

Now far ahead the road has gone,

And I must follow if I can.

— The Fellowship of the Ring

 J.R.R. Tolkien, 1965

Everyone loves a good journey. We feel alive when we’re on the road—seeing new places and meeting new people. One of the reasons that so many readers are drawn to the stories of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings is that, through Hobbit eyes, we live out our own dreams of taking an epic journey.

Although we often try to get where we’re going as fast as we can, good stories remind us that we often have our greatest adventures during the journey, itself. The way in which we choose to get where we’re going, and the experiences we have along the way, are often more fun, interesting and exciting than the destination. When walking or bicycling we are connected to the land and the people around us. We see, hear and smell our surroundings—and meet our neighbors—in a closer way than happens when we’re encased in the glass, steel and plastic shell of an automobile. 

Say you want to go to your friend’s house, and then find a place to play basketball, field hockey or go sledding. Will you walk or pedal your bicycle, or ask your parents for a ride in the car? It seems like a small choice, but it’s one that makes a big impact on the planet. For example: on average, every mile driven on a bicycle creates 1/10^th of the carbon footprint as compared to a mile driven in a gas-powered car (sedan). Every crank of the pedals, and every step you take, creates fewer carbon emissions and helps to fight climate change!

Energy can be measured in calories, as in “How many calories are in that bowl of ice cream, compared to that tossed salad?” The average car burns about 1,860 calories to move a passenger one mile. Taking a train or public bus uses about half this much energy. If you walk that same mile, you’ll burn 100 calories. But if you take a bicycle, you’ll only use 35 calories. This comes out to more than 50 miles (80 kilometers) on a bicycle for each mile by car. You can pedal over 800 miles (1,288 kilometers) using the same amount of energy that is contained in one gallon of gasoline!

This is how far 350 calories will get you when using different forms of transportation:

• bicycle—10 miles (16 kilometers)

• walking—3.5 miles (5.6)

• car—1,000 feet (305 meters)

And keep in mind that more than half of places we travel are less than 5 miles from home.

Hoofing It to a Healthier Life

Has anyone ever told you, “Go take a hike!” Whoever did so—whether they meant to or not—was actually telling you to do something that’s good for you! Walking 3 or 4 times each week:

• helps you to control your weight and stay healthy
• keeps your mind sharp and alert
• relieves stress, anger and other negative emotions
• helps you to get to know your neighbors and meet new friends along your walking routes
• helps you to feel good about yourself (simply because you’ve done something to take care of yourself)
• inspires ideas and creativity (many of the ideas behind this author’s articles and books came to mind while taking a walk)
• acts as a kind of meditation that helps you to renew your spirit

The writer discovered pine grosbeaks feeding on winter apples during one of his long winter walks. Photo: Michael J. Caduto.

What You Can Do

• Over time, take walks and bicycle rides to different places and keep a journal record of your experiences, observations and the people you meet.
• Find out about parks, historic walks and natural areas to hike that are within a short distance from your home. Ask your parents to take the family to some of those places on weekends, or in the evenings, so you can share walking experiences together.
• Search the Find a Trail maps on the Upper Valley Trails Alliance website: https://www.uvtrails.org/
• Download the Walk Woodstock map to search for a route among Woodstock’s more than 60 miles of local trails: http://npmaps.com/wp-content/uploads/woodstock-trail-map.pdf• Embark on some of the fascinating Valley Quests offered by Vital Communities. These fun, educational treasure hunts offer clues to discovering the people, history and natural environments in the Upper Valley. Questing helps us to discover the fascinating stories that are all around us. Visit the Questing web page to find out more: https://vitalcommunities.org/valley-quest/

The post The Wonders of Walking & Bicycling appeared first on Sustainable Woodstock.

Although January 1^st is day one in the year of the Western (Gregorian) calendar, it is not written in the stars. While New Years Day falls near the winter solstice—which is arguably the more natural day to mark a celestial New Year—it has come to be associated with new beginnings and resolutions that serve as individual and collective opportunities for a fresh start.

Each of us is a unique individual, but we are also just one member of a ballooning human population that now numbers more than 8 billion. Even though we perceive each day as a consequential event during which our experiences focus mostly on the immediate and all-encompassing necessities of human survival and the pursuit of a meaningful life, ours is but an infinitesimal moment—a speck in time as reckoned by the stars. Astronomically speaking, 2023 falls somewhere around 13.8 billion years after the birth of the universe.

Recent images transmitted from the Webb Space Telescope are causing astronomers to reimagine our perceptions of the immense space through which Earth travels at 67,000 miles per hour. Spectacular and awe-inspiring infrared images have been beaming back to Earth following the launch on Christmas Day 2021 by this joint venture of the space agencies in the U.S., Canada and Europe.

The Webb telescope was engineered to reveal regions of space that present a picture of what the universe was like just one billion years ago when stars and galaxies were first beginning to form. Indeed, one galaxy has been reported that corresponds to a time when the universe was a mere infant at 250 million years old. While there are a multitude of beliefs about how the universe formed, as well as the place and time to which humankind traces its roots, we are all children of the cosmic dust that swirls overhead and roils the dynamic geosphere beneath our feet.

How do we reconcile our human perception of the urgency and importance of each day, year and lifetime when weighed in relation to the boundless distances and intervals of space and time that our technology now enables us to perceive and measure? What does it mean to start a “new year” while living in a universe that is pushing 14 billion years old? What is the measure of one life in a world of billions?

Human experience lies somewhere between an awareness that the way we live our individual lives has a profound impact on our home planet, and the humbling perception of being a mere wisp of cosmic dust adrift in a vast sea of time. From the urgency of such issues as fighting climate change and alleviating hunger in the relative short term, to reimagining our perception of reality through the expansive views of art and science, we exist suspended along a continuum that stretches between the present experience of each moment, and the realm of the eternal.

How do we navigate our individual path through each day, meeting needs and desires while reconciling our place in the larger world? In what way is our thinking and decision-making influenced by the ever increasing awareness of our place in the wondrous fastness of the cosmos? What will our New Year’s resolutions be as we enter calendar year 2023, and cosmic year 13.8 billion?

This spectacular image, dubbed “Cosmic Cliffs,” was among the first transmitted to Earth by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. It shows individual stars amidst a stellar nursery in the Carina Nebula where nascent stars are emerging. NASA Photo.

WHAT YOU CAN DO: Explore some of the fantastical images first recorded by the Webb Space Telescope, which can be viewed at this link: https://www.nasa.gov/webbfirstimages

The post Children of the Stars appeared first on Sustainable Woodstock.

Looking out across the early-December landscape of browns and grays, the fate of our local plants and animals was concerning. At a large farm pond near our house, Canada geese lingered well into December, seemingly oblivious to the cold and despite the scarcity of food. Ravens gleaned the scatterings of cow corn chopped while autumn colors still framed the sky. Phoebes hung around much later than usual, as did the last hummingbirds of the season, which continued to sip nectar from our feeders until September 15—some 10 days later than their usual autumnal departure for points south. Bears continued to feed later than usual, which delayed when they entered their winter dens as well as the onset of the safe period for putting up bird feeders that would not be marauded by our ursine neighbors.

We have a coyote whose habitual nocturnal hunting regimen crosses the lines of our regular perambulations in and around our old farm. I often find fresh coyote scat deposited in the same location each morning. It is clear from the ground up tiny bones and leaden wads of matted fur that this coyote has been subsisting largely on meadow voles; the hunting made easier by a lack of snow.

Long term meteorological data gathered by Appalachian Mountain Club researchers shows that the number of winter days with snow cover has decreased by three weeks during the past century. AMC climate models estimate that, due to global warming, by 2100 the amount of forest lands in the Northeast that are covered by snowpack in midwinter could diminish by 95 percent. Observations during the past sixty years by the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in New Hampshire demonstrate that the depth of the snowpack is also declining. 

When the ground is bare during the winter, plants and animals are largely unprotected from cold damp weather and extreme low temperatures. In his classic book, Life in the Cold, Peter Marchand refers to snow as the “…thermal blanket under which much biological activity takes place during the winter.” Snow cover provides “…the salvation of many plants and animals that depend upon it for protection from the cold.” Because the insulative value of different forms of snow varies, snow needs to be around 20 inches deep on average in order to protect animals living beneath it from the extremes of winter cold swirling above. In all but the most severe cold days, the temperature beneath snow of this depth tends to remain steadily around 32°F. 

Living in this subnivean (under the snow) environment insulates and provides cover from predation. Small mammals, such as mice and voles, who spend their time tunneling beneath the snow in search of food, are fairly well protected from the sharp eyesight and keen hearing of predators, such as the red fox, barred owl and coyote. Snow cover also decreases the damage and die-off of tree roots caused by exposure to extreme cold. Hubbard Brook research has revealed that growth decreases by 40% among sugar maples whose roots are exposed to severe cold when there is no snow pack—a drop that continues for several years. 

An insulating blanket of snow protects the plants and animals beneath from extreme cold temperatures and other severe winter weather, such as freezing rain. Photo: Michael J. Caduto.

Despite the many profound impacts of climate change on the lives of our wild neighbors, we usually focus on the impacts on humankind: melting glaciers and rising sea levels, weather extremes that have become the new meteorological norm, hurricanes that are setting new records for arriving late into autumn, as well as storms noted for their duration and intensity. Witness what is happening to residents of coastal areas who continue to live according to settlement patterns established during weather norms of the past, even while climate change-induced disasters rain down upon them. Along some parts of Florida’s overdeveloped eastern coastline, multitudes of buildings are now abandoned because they have been undermined by catastrophic erosion from recent, record-breaking hurricane-induced tidal surges and accompanying wind and waves. In some parts of southwest Florida, people and wildlife suffered similarly tragic and heartbreaking fates recently when their homes and habitats were wiped out and entire regions made uninhabitable by Hurricane Ian.

As global warming marches on, people, plants and animals are all in the same proverbial boat, riding the ups and downs that come with the waves of change that wash over a warming planet. Those of us who spend much of our personal and professional lives working on education and action that encourages everyone to mitigate their greenhouse gas emissions, and those who are keen observers of the natural world, do not need sensational headlines to remind us what is occurring during this Anthropocene era; the signs are ubiquitous, both in the headline-grabbing events of our climate times, as well as in the multitude of local and gradual changes that pervade our surroundings and impact the lives around us.

Why do so many people care so much about these changes? What motivates us to work toward solutions to climate change? How do we deal with our dystopian nightmares of a warming world, be they during wakeful hours or in the dead of night? Despite the harm that humans have wrought upon the planet by our overuse of resources and sheer numbers, most people sincerely and deeply care about the beauty and awe inspired by the natural world. 

Earth’s celestial dance with the sun has once again passed the inflection point that marks the start of the winter season. Anticipating the promise of longer days, our thoughts turn toward the celebrations of light, life and love. It is a time to reflect upon how the lives we live can be brought into balance with the wondrous world that we have inherited from our forebears, and the tenuous future that we are charting for generations to come. This is our charge, and our gift: to answer the existential call to action and opportunity to fight global warming in order to show all forms of life with whom we share this fragile biosphere just how dearly we hold that love. As snow is our witness.

WHAT YOU CAN DO: Visit SustainableWoodstock.org for specific actions and steps you can take in your daily life to fight climate change. “Climate Action” is found under “Get Involved” in the website banner, at this link: https://www.sustainablewoodstock.org/get-involved/climate-action/

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Sustainable Woodstock’s focus on community resilience in response to global climate change is catalyzed by the pressing need to ensure that residents of Woodstock, the surrounding towns and the Upper Valley region are able to find sustenance, health and safety—the necessities that individuals and communities need to achieve their full potential. To these ends, Sustainable Woodstock has increased our capacity as a leading local and regional grassroots organization that reaches across social, economic and cultural barriers to promote Sustainable Opportunities for All. We have increased the events and initiatives that provide support and security in regards to food and energy needs for those from all backgrounds and income levels. The links between Earth stewardship, social justice and racial equality are more clear and present than ever before.

2022 Highlights

• Sustainable Woodstock—The Whole Environment: Working with the community to foster Woodstock’s unique legacy of stewardship, sustainability and resilience—yesterday, today and tomorrow. 
• Climate Change Leadership: Producing and partnering on numerous public programs, student and community actions, films, articles, solar energy projects, energy conservation and transportation initiatives and programs, including a Regional Climate Action Plan to curb carbon emissions and mitigate global warming.
• Energy & Transportation Action Group: Collaborating with the Town and Village of Woodstock and the Intermunicipal Regional Energy Coordinator (IREC/Two Rivers-Ottauquechee Regional Commission) to design and retrofit buildings to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions at considerable savings to Woodstock residents over time.
  • Equal Energy Opportunities for All: Raising $100,000 to implement energy-efficiency improvements & upgraded systems for income-sensitive households—from weatherization to heat pumps.
  • Renewable Energy for All: Promoting the means to make renewable energy affordable for everyone. Partnering with Norwich Solar Technologies, Twin Pines Housing, SEVCA and IREC to plan a solar array to serve low- to moderate-income households. 
  • Window Dressers: Implementing a 2-year project for income-sensitive households in Woodstock and the surrounding towns, making some 450 interior storm window inserts to reduce cold drafts, save energy, lower heating costs and reduce carbon emissions: https://windowdressers.org/
  • eBike Trials: Provided 67 free public eBike trials (to date) to promote low-impact transportation, in partnership with Vital Communities, Local Motion, Norman Williams Public Library and St. James Church.
• Community Gardens & Food Security: Helping to meet the crucial need for sustenance as the root of sustainability for individuals and families. SW expanded our Billings Farm and King Farm community gardens and planted additional food security plots. Our GROW YOUR OWN GARDEN project created 225 beginner gardening kits that were distributed free to income-sensitive households—feeding some 600 people. This year we also funded raised beds at Woodstock’s Riverside Mobile Home Park.
• Natural Resources Projects & Funding: On behalf of the Town and Village of Woodstock, Sustainable Woodstock applied for $280,000 in state funding to implement natural resource projects related to water quality. Procured a project design grant from VT Agency of Natural Resources (ANR) and Watershed United Vermont to mitigate erosion along Barnard Brook (in partnership with the Woodstock Resort Corporation & Billings Farm). Initiated a process—in partnership with the Connecticut River Conservancy, Woodstock Resort and ANR—to remove the three remaining dams restricting fish passage along Kedron Brook.
• Advocacy: SW advocates on the local, regional and statewide level for sustainability and community benefits, ranging from climate change mitigation and community resiliency to quiet alternatives to leaf blowers.
• Upper Valley Partners & Leadership: No town is an island. Sustainable Woodstock has worked on regional sustainability initiatives, educational programs and events in partnership with more than 60 organizations and municipal bodies throughout Woodstock, the Ottauquechee Watershed and the Upper Valley. As a result of SW’s success, residents in Lebanon, Brownsville and Plymouth asked for help with forming organizations to address sustainability and resiliency in their own communities.
• Celebrating the 4th year of partnering with Pentangle Arts on monthly screenings of our Upper Valley Climate Change & Sustainability Film Series—with attendance of over 4,500 people (to date) from  the Upper Valley and beyond, including online viewers from Europe to New Zealand! Inspiring viewers to act on critical environmental and social issues, with generous support from underwriters Mascoma Bank & Vermont Community Foundation, and sponsors Mark D. Knott DDS, Ellaway Property Services, Unicorn and Yankee Bookshop.
• Bridgewater Community Center: SW is in the 4th year of helping to transform the Bridgewater Area Community Center into a resilient, sustainable hub, including the Bridgewater Community Childcare, which opened its doors to children and families in June 2022! During this time, we have spearheaded a successful $100,000 grant from the State of Vermont and National Park Service to restore and weatherize historic windows and install new storm windows throughout, and co-authored a successful $75,000 grant from the Canaday Family Charitable Trust to install energy-efficient systems.
• Completed 7 years of monthly Green Drinks discussions, reaching a growing audience with presentations and discussions on sustainability initiatives in Woodstock, the Upper Valley and beyond—a dynamic venue for networking, public education and collaboration between sustainability and resilience organizations. 
• Weekly Columns: 12+ years of writing weekly columns for the Vermont Standard. (A special thanks to the Vermont Standard staff!)
• Community Recycling: At SW’s Annual Recycling Day, on October 15, 2022, participants recycled nearly 11,000 pounds of used electronics, and 5,000 pounds of documents. Forest Carbon Action Group: Marking 4 years of leadership educating foresters and landowners about managing forest carbon to mitigate climate change. Published a 24×36 full-color Family Forest Carbon Poster with Northam Forest Carbon. 

Sustainable Woodstock is honored and grateful for the energy, enthusiasm and hard work of our dedicated volunteers—and for the incredible generosity of our supporters—all of whom make it possible to accomplish so much on behalf of our communities and the environment. Thank you!

Photo caption & credit: A sampling of harvests from Sustainable Woodstock’s Community Garden at Billings Farm that were donated to the Woodstock Community Food Shelf. (Photo: Amy Wheeler/Sustainable Woodstock)

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There are more than 100 million bicycles in the U.S., and some 52 million bicycle riders. City buses in Seattle, San Diego and Washington State have bike racks on the outside for people who commute to work by combining bicycling with mass transit. In Portland, Oregon—a city with 300 miles of bicycle lanes—bikes are used eight times as often as in the rest of the United States. Montreal has 300 bicycle stations throughout the city with 3,000 bicycles that anyone can use. Each station has Wi-Fi available and is powered by the Sun. Even in car-loving New York City, bicycle use has multiplied by 80% in the past decade. E-bikes are rapidly gaining in popularity in both urban and rural areas.

Other bicycle-friendly cities in the U.S. include Columbia, Missouri; Boulder, Colorado; Tucson, Arizona; Louisville, Kentucky; Carmel, Indiana and Davis, California, which was one of the first communities to embrace bicycles. Canadian cities that are working to encourage cycling include Victoria and Vancouver, British Columbia; Ottawa and Toronto, Ontario; and Montreal and Quebec City, Quebec. Some of the highest levels of cycling in Canada are found in British Columbia, in the chilly Yukon and Northwest Territories and in the cities of Kingston, Ontario and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

In addition to being driven for commuting and recreation, bicycles have many other practical uses. Mail is delivered by bicycle in Australia and northern Europe. Police patrol from the seat of a bicycle in London, New York, Los Angeles, Seattle and Victoria, British Columbia. Bicycles appear less threatening and help officers to get to know people in the neighborhoods where they patrol. People in many countries use tricycles for making deliveries and hauling things to market.

Many kids in North America grow up riding a bicycle to get around because bicycles are fast, cheap and fun. Today, in many places, riders have local bike paths that often connect to longer trail networks. The Adventure Cycling Association maintains a 38,000-mile network of bike trails in the United States, along with maps and cycle tours (https://www.adventurecycling.org/).

But the U.S. still has a long way to go. Out of every 200 commuters, only one now rides a bike to work. Many towns and cities don’t have good bike lanes to help make riding safe. And bicycles still have to be accepted and seen as a “normal” choice for getting around before many people will begin to use them.  

No matter how much time and effort it takes to help grow the use of bicycles in place of cars, it will be worth the effort for the sake of Earth. One of the best things about bicycles is that they contribute little, if anything, to global warming gases. When everything is added and subtracted to the amount of carbon dioxide created and absorbed by a person riding a bicycle, it balances out to about zero. That’s pedal power! And it’s why bicycles are “cool” for the planet.

What You Can Do:

• Safety First: Make sure to practice all of the safety measures while riding a bicycle, such as wearing a helmet, going with the flow of traffic, using a safety flag, tying your shoelaces and so on. Here is a great website to read for bicycle safety tips: http://kidshealth.org/kid/watch/out/bike_safety.html#
• Check out the Bike Commuting Options web page at Go!Vermont: https://www.connectingcommuters.org/greener-ways-to-go/biking-in-vermont/bike-options/
• Locate bike trails to explore as mapped by the Upper Valley Trails Alliance (https://www.uvtrails.org/), and the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy: https://www.railstotrails.org/trailblog/2021/december/15/top-10-trails-in-vermont/. A great book for finding new biking adventures is Rail-Trails of Northern New England by the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy.

Photo caption: “This intersection in Amsterdam, Netherlands, is alive with cyclists.”Photo credit: “Photo by Noralí Nayla on Unsplash.”

Going Places With Pedal Power 

Here are some ways to use your bicycle, from fun to the practical. 

• go out and play games or sports
• visit friends and family
• pick things up at the local store
• exercise and keep in shape
• ride on a designated mountain bike trail
• take a historical tour
• visit a museum
• ride to a nature center and take a hike in the outdoors
• go to a community bike trail or rail trail and take a long ride
• pedal to a park for a picnic
• start a small, local delivery service and make some extra money

For longer trips, the best equipment for carrying things is a bike rack for the rear and a set of saddlebags or panniers. Twin bags that drape over the bike rack above the rear wheel sit low on the bicycle, which helps you to hold the road and doesn’t interfere with steering. Make sure to put equal amounts of weight in each side of the saddlebags so that the load doesn’t pull you off to one side, especially when cornering.

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On average, livestock must consume 25 calories of plants in order to produce a single calorie of beef. The ratio for pork is 15-to-1, and for chickens it is 9-to-1. With nearly 8 billion people on Earth today, if the world adapted a plant-based diet, we could reduce the amount of land needed to feed everyone by 75%—from some 10 billion acres to 2.5 billion acres. If the farmland currently used to grow grain to feed beef cattle were instead used for poultry feed, the caloric and protein needs of an additional 120 to 140 million people could be met, based on the average U.S. diet. 

No one was focused on climate change in 1971 when Diet for a Small Planet was first published, at a point in time that just happened to coincide with when the rise in global temperature began to accelerate at an exponential rate. We eventually realized that, as the percentage of our diet that is derived directly from plants increases, our carbon “foodprint” drops proportionately. A person can reduce their carbon foodprint by 73% just by adopting a plant-based diet.

Of course, due to individual diet-related health needs, cultural and spiritual traditions and our strong rural desire to support local farmers, a completely plant-based diet it not always realistic. However, increasing the proportion of your diet that is plant-based will greatly reduce your carbon foodprint. For example, reducing the amount of red meat that you eat can quickly decrease your carbon foodprint by 25%.

A global shift to a more plant-based diet would also decrease the pressure to keep clearing more forest land for grazing animals and growing grain to feed livestock. This would in turn preserve forestlands, like those in the Amazon, that store and sequester vast quantities of carbon, thus acting as buffers against climate change. It would also enable the restoration of immense areas of habitat, slowing the disastrous loss of species that we are now experiencing in the midst of a human-caused Sixth Extinction.

Eating produce from your own garden is one of the most effective (and delicious!) ways to lower your carbon foodprint. Sustainable Woodstock’s Community Garden Coordinator, Amy Wheeler, with help from volunteers, grew these vegetables at our Billings Farm Community Garden for donation to the Woodstock Community Food Shelf. Photo credit: Amy Wheeler.

Perhaps the biggest concern with the global effort to reduce carbon emissions generated by industry, households, transportation and agriculture isn’t whether we can eventually accomplish our carbon-reduction goals (the successful campaign to repair the hole in the ozone layer shows what we can accomplish on a global scale), it is whether we can do so in time to preserve some semblance of the world we know and love from the impacts of global warming. Installing solar arrays, erecting wind turbines, engineering more efficient and affordable electric vehicles and batteries, etc.—all take time, money and resources.

In the midst of this temporal dilemma in our critical fight against global warming, dietary change offers a realistic opportunity for individuals to significantly reduce their carbon emissions NOW, simply by increasing the proportion of the diet that is based on consuming plants. This doesn’t mean that everyone will, or has to become vegan or vegetarian, but there are steps that everyone can take to lower their carbon foodprint:

• Reduce consumption of meat and dairy.
• Purchase meat and dairy from local and regional farms, rather than from sources that produce energy-intensive animal products that are raised on feedlots and transported hundreds or thousands of miles to reach the grocery store.
• When consuming animal-based foods, choose those with the lowest carbon foodprint. For example: The production and transportation of locally-sourced, grass-fed meat and dairy generates a lower carbon foodprint than factory farming operations. Locally-sourced food travels shorter distances from farm to table, and buying locally supports regional farms and farm workers while investing in the local economy. Meat and eggs from locally-grown, free-range poultry have some of the lowest carbon foodprints of all animal products. The carbon foodprint of milk protein is smallest of all, at just 1/5^th the CO₂ emissions of free-range chicken eggs.

Individuals, organizations, businesses and governments throughout the world are working hard to design and build new infrastructure and energy systems that will reduce carbon emissions for the long-term. But every one of us has the ability to make basic dietary choices today that can accelerate our response to climate change by drastically reducing our carbon foodprints. 

What You Can Do

• Read Frances Moore Lappé’s Diet for a Small Planet (50^th Anniversary Edition), and Anna Lappé’s Diet for a Warm Planet. (Please support your local bookstore!)
• Pick up some of the excellent cookbooks that are full of recipes that offer no end of delicious plant-based meals, such as Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen, Sweet Potato Soul by Jenné Claiborne, The Vegetarian Epicure by Anna Thomas and The New Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison.

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Winnie the Pooh had it just about right: Find the honey tree in your own backyard and eat to your belly’s content. Of course, what with bee stings and rabbit-sized jars of honey, getting his fill wasn’t easy. But as time went by, Pooh ate so much honey that he grew to be shaped like a big, round honey pot. As it turns out, honey is one of the best sources of energy, is full of vitamins and minerals, helps to keep a wound from getting infected and even promotes healing.

We ought to listen to bears more often. In the past 70 years nutritionists have come to understand that we become what we eat—that we can help our bodies to stay healthy by eating good, nutritious food that is grown fresh locally. Science has proven that the choices we make for our diet also have a huge impact on the health of the planet, including climate change, because of the vast global food market.

Let’s start with the choice of where our food comes from. On average, the food that makes it onto our tables at mealtime has traveled 1,600 miles to get there. How far is that? By traveling that distance you could go from the Upper Valley to the southern tip of Greenland, to Arizona or to Nunavut and the Northwest Territories (Canada).

Apples, cabbage, corn, tomatoes and eggs, for example, may come from local farms, but other foods are shipped from around the world. Grapes may arrive at your local market from Chile, nuts from Brazil, olive oil from Turkey, kiwifruit from New Zealand, bottled water from France, gingerbread cookies from Germany and rice crackers from China. 

According to Worldwatch Institute, the amount of food shipped from overseas that appears on our tables has quadrupled since 1961. Some 30% of the fresh vegetables and over 50% of fresh fruit now purchased by US consumers are grown in other countries. The USDA projects that the US will be importing almost half of our vegetables and 75% of our fruit by 2027. 

What difference does it make that our food travels a long distance before we eat it? The more energy it takes to transport food to our tables, the more greenhouse gas emissions are generated, which increases global warming. For example, fuel is burned when food is moved by trucks, trains, and planes; plus, energy is needed to store many foods in refrigerated cars so that it doesn’t spoil. Food from far away also requires more packaging to keep it from spoiling. It takes energy and resources to make that packaging. Trees must be cut to make paper packaging. Plastic and Styrofoam are made from petroleum oil. And don’t forget: factories that make any kind of packaging run on electricity and other kinds of carbon-producing power. 

According to research findings reported in Nature Food magazine, shipping food generates 20% of the total carbon footprint generated by our current food system. Roughly half of these greenhouse gas emissions are created by the wealthiest countries, even though they make up just 12% of the world’s population. A United Nations study found that one-third of ALL greenhouse gas emissions results from growing, processing and packaging food. 

Of course, it’s not always simple to figure out what’s best to buy for food, especially given the short growing season in the North Country where fresh local produce can be challenging to source during the winter. Still, in addition to eating locally grown foods as much as possible, it’s good to eat foods that are in season and those that are easy to store. You know, like honey.

The carbon “foodprint” of protein derived from eggs laid by locally-raised free-range chickens is 3,250 times smaller than that of beef produced on distant, energy-intensive livestock operations. Photo: Michael J. Caduto

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

• Being a localvore means eating foods that are grown within 100 miles of your home in any direction. So your home sits at the center of a localvore circle that is 200 miles across. Using a state map (or two), draw a circle with a 100-mile radius around your house. Identify farms and market sources of local-grown and raised foods that fall within this 100-mile radius. Purchase as much of your food as possible from these providers. 
• Start a Localvore Journal. As you begin to learn about food supplies in the area, keep a running list of places you can go to get locally-grown food, the kinds of local foods available at each place and the specific foods available during each season of the year.
• Look for recipes that use the foods raised within your localvore territory. See if you can match the specific seasonal lists of ingredients in your Localvore Journal, with the ingredients needed in the recipes you’ve found. Turn your newfound knowledge into a list of recipes that can be made in specific seasons using locally-grown ingredients. Pick up some of the fine cookbooks that offer recipes for delicious meals made with locally-sourced foods, such as Eating Local: The Cookbook Inspired by America’s Local Farmers by Janet Fletcher, and Sustainable Kitchen by local authors Heather Wolfe and Jaynie McCloskey. (Please support your local bookstore!)
• Ask for local. Encourage your local food stores to sell local produce, dairy, meat and other local food products.
• Order local. Encourage the owners of local restaurants to serve meals made from locally sourced ingredients. Remind them how this will support local farmers, feed the local economy, fight climate change and attract customers who value living sustainably. 
• Read Frances Moore Lappé’s Diet for a Small Planet, and Anna Lappé’s Diet for a Warm Planet. 

* This is part 1 of a 2-part article.

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How longstanding is the tradition of hunting and fishing in the North Country? More than 11,000 years ago the ancestors of today’s Abenaki arrived in the place they would come to call Ndakinna, “Our Land,” following the post-glacial return of migrating caribou along the winding valley of Kwenitekw, Long River (the Connecticut). 

Over time, a cyclical way of life evolved that relied on gathering wild foods, gardening and hunting—all of which meant traveling to different locations in different seasons. Summers were spent living near large community gardens, and winters in the best hunting grounds. When garden soil became depleted, or when game was scarce in a family’s hunting territory, horticultural activities and hunting were relocated to new grounds. Over time, as resources recovered, activity would once again shift back to the replenished areas. This combination of seasonal cycles punctuated by periodic relocation to allow the land and resources to recover, was key to the sustainable land use practices of New England’s native peoples. It was a seasonal form of local sovereignty within a regional homeland.

Historically, Abenaki families had specific hunting territories that were passed down to the next generation through the lineage of women. Families held the right to hunt, harvest berries, gather birchbark, grow food and undertake the full range of subsistence activities. Even though these territories were defined and vigorously defended, whenever hunting rights were exchanged between families it was only the permission to use the land that was given. 

Later, when Native Americans traded with Europeans, they exchanged land use rights for a period of time, or so they thought. The Western concept of owning and trading the land itself was alien to indigenous peoples and conflicted with their world views. The seasonal movement of native peoples, however, was shrewdly used by early colonists to exploit these diverging views of land use and ownership as a pretext for laying claim to vast tracts of land. Fallow fields, forests and other environments that were not surmised to be actively used by local indigenous populations at that particular moment in time were declared vacant or abandoned, and thus free for the taking. 

Some words are fulsome and satisfying as they roll off the tongue, pregnant with meaning when plumbed for depth and historical weight. So it is with usufruct (YOU-suh-fruct), whose roots sprout from the Latin usus et fructus or “use and enjoyment.” It speaks of the right to employ someone else’s property for one’s own benefit, and for a time, without altering the nature of that property.  

After decades of fighting for their indigenous rights to hunt and fish in Ndakinna, the Abenaki peoples of Vermont finally succeeded when, in July of 2020, the State legally recognized some of their usufruct rights. In 2021, members of the Abenaki communities who have been recognized by the State of Vermont became eligible to receive free permanent licenses for hunting and fishing.

The legal issues behind the conflict between usufruct rights and the Western concept of land ownership underlie two divergent views of resource use that collided when the first Europeans arrived in the Americas more than 500 years ago. Over time, the English view of land as commodity prevailed, supplanting the traditional Native American perspective that land was shared by families and communities, and that the use of natural resources was connected to long-term stewardship. And since survival depends on the sustainable use of the soil, as well as maintaining healthy populations of plants and animals, usufructuary encourages wise stewardship.

Rural residents in the North Country are still trying to balance the land ownership of individuals and families with the value of managing resources for the benefit of communities composed of diverse peoples and forms of life. In the months ahead, this tension will play out in the midst of seasonal changes, as it has for thousands of years.

The many opinions one encounters about white-tailed deer personify the wide array of perspectives about wildlife and the land. Photo by Laura College on Unsplash.

What you can do: Engage in thoughtful conversations with people who have a variety of viewpoints on usufruct land rights and our relationships to wildlife. Read some of the classic works that broach this and related subjects, such as A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold, and Of Men and Marshes by Paul L. Errington.

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