Ecochallenge.org

Drawdown Ecochallenge 2024

Tonia Wu

SAGE EcoLogicals

POINTS TOTAL

0 TODAY
0 THIS WEEK
772 TOTAL

participant impact

UP TO

13

meatless or vegan meals

consumed
UP TO

16

plastic containers

not sent to the landfill
UP TO

505

minutes

spent exercising
UP TO

270

minutes

spent outdoors
UP TO

95

minutes

spent learning

Tonia's actions

Share Your Story

Find out what’s happening in your neighborhood

While global and national actions get a lot of attention, it’s often at the local community level where individuals can have the greatest input and where change is most tangible. But every community is unique and there is no one-size-fits-all solution. I will spend 20 minutes finding out how my neighborhood, town or city is helping the environment and building local resilience.

COMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION

Transportation

Go for a Daily Walk

Walkable Cities

I will take a walk for 15 minutes each day and take note of the infrastructure that makes walking more or less enjoyable, accessible, and possible.

COMPLETED 16
DAILY ACTIONS

Food, Agriculture, and Land Use

Learn More about Regenerative Agriculture

Conservation Agriculture, Regenerative Annual Cropping

I will spend at least 60 minutes learning about the need for more regenerative agriculture.

COMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION

Industry

Green My Job

Industry

Using Drawdown's Job Function Action Guide, I will learn about climate actions I can take at work.

COMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION

Industry

Reduce Single-Use Disposables

Bioplastics; Reduced Plastics

I will avoid buying and using 1 single-use plastics and instead replace them with durable options.

COMPLETED 10
DAILY ACTIONS

Electricity

Learn More about Micro Wind

Micro Wind Turbines

I will spend at least 45 minutes learning more about the energy generation potential of micro wind.

COMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION

Buildings

Plan to Insulate

Insulation

I will spend 60 minutes finding out how to make my home more energy efficient through better insulation and weatherization.

UNCOMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION

Buildings

Replace Manual Thermostats

Smart Thermostats

I will replace manual thermostats with smart ones.

UNCOMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION

Food, Agriculture, and Land Use

Tend A Garden

Conservation Agriculture

I will tend to a garden, or prepare for one, each day using sustainable gardening practices.

COMPLETED 10
DAILY ACTIONS

Coastal, Ocean, and Engineered Sinks

Cook With Seaweed

Seaweed Farming

I will use seaweed in a new recipe.

UNCOMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION

Land Sinks

Explore My Area

Sometimes protecting nature requires feeling connected to nature. I will invest 60 minutes in exploring and appreciating a natural area in my region, whether a forest, wetland, coastal area, or somewhere else.

COMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION

Food, Agriculture, and Land Use

Reduce Animal Products

Plant-Rich Diets

I will enjoy 1 meatless or vegan meals each day of the challenge.

COMPLETED 10
DAILY ACTIONS

Coastal, Ocean, and Engineered Sinks

Visit the Coast

Macroalgae Protection and Restoration

I will visit a coastal or ocean site to experience the ecosystem and look for the presence of macroalgae/seaweed.

COMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION

Land Sinks

Choose Better Wood Products

Forest Protection

I will only purchase wood and paper products from ecologically certified sources like Forest Stewardship Council.

COMPLETED 2
DAILY ACTIONS

Participant Feed

REFLECTION QUESTION
Share Your Story

Did I learn something new about my community?
Tonia Wu 6/27/2024 10:47 AM
In 2018 my community received a silver level certification from Sustainable Jersey - some of their accomplishments included receiving an open space grant to install a pollinator garden downtown and expanding the riparian buffer alongside Rancocas Creek to mitigate flooding issues and improve stormwater management. They also created a brownfield inventory of our town, which I used to find some info about an old factory building near our favorite breakfast place. It used to be some kind of dye processing facility and then later manufactured polyurethane bumpers - there are apparently multiple areas of concern on the site with possible soil and ground water contamination. Yikes..

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- Tonia Wu 6/28/2024 10:53 AM
  I'm in Mount Holly - little village in Burlington County :). The garden I think they're referring to is on High St. near the Friend's Meeting House.
  
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- Samantha Niven 6/28/2024 5:29 AM
  Which municipality is this? Would love to check out their garden :)
  
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REFLECTION QUESTION
Coastal, Ocean, and Engineered Sinks

What coastal site did you visit and what did you learn while there?
Tonia Wu 6/25/2024 6:17 AM
We went to Seaside Heights Friday afternoon to cool down - the temps there were a good 5-10 degrees cooler than inland and there was a very nice sea breeze. We looked for seaweed on the beach - there wasn't much but there were little clumps here and there. I tried to look them up on my phone but it was surprisingly hard to find good seaweed identification guides for New Jersey/Mid-Atlantic coast online. I'll have to dig deeper into this...I grew up eating a lot of nori and I always wondered why seaweed isn't a bigger part of American diets here on the east coast.

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- Lydia Roe 6/25/2024 8:33 AM
  I'd love to hear any updates if you find good seaweed guides! Also, I love eating nori and seaweed too, and I wish it was more "mainstream" locally as well!
  
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REFLECTION QUESTION
Food, Agriculture, and Land Use

Why do people in richer countries eat more meat than people in other places? How does eating more meat affect our bodies, our planet, and other people?
Tonia Wu 6/18/2024 8:28 AM
Meat requires more energy and resources to produce. In the past, before industrialization and the huge increase in agricultural productivity in the 20th century brought about by Haber-Bosche and the "Green Revolution" - meat was probably a lot harder to get for regular people. Hunting wild game took time and energy and most people ate domesticated meat only on special occasions or certain times of the year, in keeping with the natural rhythms of animal life cycles.

Aristocratic classes were able to eat more in some societies, which probably helped to turn frequent meat-eating into a status symbol. The ability to eat meat is still seen as a symbol of security and prosperity in many cultures ("a chicken in every pot!").

In small-scale farming, animals can be helpful in filling certain niches, converting things humans can't/won't eat (grass, waste vegetable scraps, bugs etc.) into food for humans, and also helped to cycle fertility back to the soil through their wastes. But the number of animals that we eat today in the rich countries is only possible because of industrial agriculture, factory farms, fossil fuels and all the accompanying bad stuff....

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REFLECTION QUESTION
Electricity

Micro turbines can be placed on large structures to take advantage of stronger, steadier breezes. The Eiffel Tower now sports vertical axis turbines that produce electricity for use on site. Where could micro turbines potentially be installed in your city?
Tonia Wu 6/14/2024 11:40 AM
It was interesting to learn about these micro turbines - it's not something that was on my radar before. They're cool-looking, very "solar-punk". Though my town is small it sports some tall buildings due to the courthouse and being the county seat. I'm not sure how much useful electricity could be generated from these, and I'd be concerned about possible impacts to birds if you were really to put a lot of them together....The technology still seems very immature and niche. And like with some other types of renewable energy I do wonder about the cost-benefit in terms of materials (minerals, metals, semiconductors, etc.) and expertise needed to maintain.

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REFLECTION QUESTION
Food, Agriculture, and Land Use

Clean air, clean water and healthy food are just three reasons to care about regenerative agriculture. What are some other reasons? How could/does regenerative agriculture positively impact you and your community?
Tonia Wu 6/10/2024 10:33 AM
The CSA near me which I joined last year is doing incredible work. In 2020 they took over a 70-acre property that had previously grown conventional soybeans and had been experiencing severe erosion and stormwater flooding problems. Now they are growing all chemical-free produce using regenerative methods while tackling stormwater and erosion issues through tree planting, creating native grassland areas and cover cropping.

This way of farming is not easy, very labor-intensive, and requires a lot of knowledge and skill which has been lost to industrial mindset, but I think we urgently need a lot more of this everywhere. Conventional industrialized agriculture which is highly dependent on the global fossil-fuel/chemical/mineral supply chain is wreaking havoc on soil health, fertility and human health - and is ultimately unsustainable.

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REFLECTION QUESTION
Transportation

What have you noticed on your daily walks? What have you enjoyed? What infrastructure changes could make your walks more enjoyable or possible?
Tonia Wu 6/10/2024 6:18 AM
My car is in the shop for 11 days; it's been tough getting by without a car in South Jersey. We're lucky because there are things we can walk to - including a grocery store, some restaurants and the car repair shop itself. Walking forces me to slow down and be more aware of my surroundings. There are things I've seen on my walks that I've never noticed before, even after living in my town for 5+ years - historic signs, interesting plants, weird houses, etc. My town's sidewalks need a lot of work; they are being pushed up by the roots of big, old trees that were planted many decades ago. Some of them probably need to go, but at the same time, I hate to lose the trees that provide much-needed shade.

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- Tonia Wu 6/13/2024 5:41 AM
  Yeah it's hard to notice much of anything when you're zooming by at speed - and if you take your eyes off the road for even a few seconds you run the risk of killing someone or yourself. It's a very stressful way to travel on a daily basis when you think about it - car dependency is so bad for us in so many ways. That said, I do love road trips and the open-road feeling of freedom, the wind in the hair, etc. - but we can probably get the same feeling from bicycling or horseback-riding....
  
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- Lydia Roe 6/10/2024 1:12 PM
  It's kind of strange to realize how much we miss because we're moving too fast. I was reading an interesting book called Strong Towns by Charles Marohn (from ERL), and one of the chapters discussed how many missed opportunities there are in driving-based communities. Our neighborhoods have so many small spaces that can be utilized for progress, which is easy to see while walking 3 mph and super easy to miss when driving by at 30 mph.
  
  (I also could give a whole ramble on street trees and how cool urban forestry is, but I'll save that paragraph for now)
  
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REFLECTION QUESTION
Industry

What single-use items (e.g. straws, coffee cups, vegetable bags, plastic bags) do you regularly use? What could be substituted instead?
Tonia Wu 6/04/2024 12:09 PM
I have a weird analog habit of getting a daily print newspaper, but I'm considering canceling the sub because it drives me crazy that every paper comes in a plastic sleeve (presumably to keep the rain and dirt out). In the past I think people had special mailboxes that the delivery person would toss the paper in - or they would just toss it without the plastic and if it got wet, oh well.

I wrote to the paper to ask about this awhile back but never got a response - maybe I should try again. In the meantime, they would probably make great doggy poop bags so if anyone needs extra, hit me up. I have so many of these things....

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- Tonia Wu 6/11/2024 11:02 AM
  Haha, I have loads of them here in the library in a supply drawer, so if you come over I can give you a whole bundle if you want. I have cats at home too but for me anyway the bags are little skinny around the opening for my purposes. I hadn't thought of using them as protection for the yard - good idea.
  
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- Lydia Roe 6/10/2024 1:14 PM
  I scoop cat litter at home so I can help take and use those tiny bags if you need to off-load some! I can "tip" you in pictures of my 12-week-old kittens!
  
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- Louisa Lubiak 6/05/2024 5:21 PM
  If the bags have no holes in them, they are good for pulling small amounts of poison ivy. Just like picking up doggie doo, grab the poison ivy and turn the bag inside out so you don't touch it, knot it & put it in the trash.
  
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