Good Economic/Ecological Practices for Consumers

Bicycling is inexpensive, healthy, and the most efficient form of transportation around. Please write to California Governor Gavin Newsom and encourage him to make all California DMV offices truly friendly to bicyclists. Below is the email I sent him at https://govapps.gov.ca.gov/gov40mail/ . Alas I could not send along pictures in the form based email submission but here are some pictures from my recent DMV visit.  At the DMV in Santa Clara: Their lonely and isolated wheel bender rack is flush against a wall so the center section that bends your wheel cannot even be used: Luckily with COVID there are lots of guards and staff outside at their entrance so they watched my bike next to the front door while I was inside: Locking my commuter/shopping bike to an outdoor bike rack is a big pain and risky -- it is much easier to roll it inside with me. I tend to only shop where I can bring my bike inside because I bike everywhere and use my bike as my shopping cart. Most places do not have...

How would you like to be a millionaire? One way to help you get there is to save money. If you are a couple who is thinking of having 2 kids and 2 cars here are two big ways to reduce your costs. The USDA recently calculated that the average child in the US would cost $233,610 to raise from 0 to age 17. This does not include college costs. College costs can vary widely (community colleges are a great deal) but if you send your kid to a private college this can easily cost $50,000 to $70.000 a year or $200,000 to $280,000 for 4 years. So if a young couple chooses NOT to have two children, they could save roughly $1 million! Now on the car front, AAA recently calculated that the average cost of car ownership in the US is $9282 per year . That comes to $557,000 per car over a lifetime of car ownership (say about 60 years). So if a young couple decides to forgo owning two cars and use bicycles to get around instead they will save about $1.1 million! Combine the savings from deciding not t...

We all like to accomplish more for less thus the popularity of “Kill 2 Birds With One Stone”. What if there was a simple action you could take to accomplish 34 things all at the same time  (and save dozens of birds)? Would you jump at the chance? I hope so! You can accomplish 34 beneficial things just by bicycling (instead of using a motor vehicle): Increase happiness - it’s fun! Reduce climate change from fossil fuel C02 AND fossil methane. Reduce road congestion. Reduce road repair. Reduce space needed for roads. Reduce space needed for parking. Reduce your taxes.  Reduce other people’s taxes. Reduce insurance costs. Reduce transportation purchase costs. Reduce transportation maintenance costs. Reduce transportation fuel costs. Reduce registration & licensing costs. Reduce obesity & waistlines. Reduce health care costs. Reduce health insurance costs. Reduce people dying from motor vehicle crashes. Reduce animals (and birds!) dying from motor v...

Sun Tzu’s The Art of War: “ Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a thousand battles without disaster. " Enemy #1 these days is COVID-19. While it is very contagious, we know quite a bit about COVID-19 and this can help us determine zero waste ways to defeat it in the thousands of battles we face over the coming months and possibly years. What we know about our enemy : Soap and water kill it in ~20 seconds and this works better than hand sanitizers. Sitting on porous surfaces for 1 day at room temperature kills it. Sitting on plastic or stainless steel for 3 days at room temperature kills it. It can last in the air for a few hours but then it dies. Dilution works against COVID-19 as the number of viruses (“troops”) landing on you matters. That is why being outside is so safe if we maintain distance - our huge atmosphere blows it away and dilutes it so it dies off before it can land on anyone else. Indoors near others is much more dangerous. Higher tem...

We humans are facing a climate emergency of our own making. On top of that mankind is consuming about twice as much resources as our earth can sustainably provide each year - look up Earth Overshoot Day. If every household with incomes equal to or greater than mine did what my household has done, we would no longer have a climate emergency. My house is now fully electric with all of its electricity from solar and a bit of wind (no fossil fuels). Our transportation is almost entirely by bicycle and electric car. Our household trash is down to about a quart a month. We count ourselves blessed to have everything we need to live comfortably. My household and others like us have shown that yes we can live well and still be responsible custodians of our world. We've cut our carbon and trash waste to less than a hundredth of what it was just 10 years ago. If mankind does not choose to reduce its resource consumption dramatically by either living much more economically or halving the...

Here are some recipes for some basic staples we use frequently. These recipes were adapted and customized from many different sources and our own experience. You may copy and adopt these freely, no license or permission required. You may credit me only if you wish. I'm posting these recipes all at once because I'm about to undertake a 3 month bicycle journey across the US to talk with people from coast to coast from San Francisco to Boston about oceans, plastic, climate change, and kids. For more about this ride please see ZeroW.org . My wife was not up for this long a ride and needed these recipes while I'm traveling :-) Super Easy Syrup We use this basic syrup on pancakes, waffles, and to make granola. Ingredients: 1 cup water 2 cups granulated sugar (white or unrefined) 1 tablespoon molasses 1 tablespoon maple flavored extract Directions: Bring the water, sugar, and molasses to a boil in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Take off heat and stir in the ...