The Environmental Beat: The Little Things We Do Can Harm The Natural World

By Kevin Fitch

Motlow Buzz Contributing Writer

        On the surface, this painted rock (see below) I ran across during the holiday season on Ganier Ridge RLSNA represents a fine sentiment. The instructions on the back encourage a hiker/finder to re-hide the rock after posting a picture on a particular social media page. The artist used bright colors and used socially inclusive language. These types of activities have the potential to encourage folks to get out-and-about. However, this rock represents a number of problems with the way we interact with our natural areas and the world around us.

        In other words, the little things we do can have much larger implications to the natural world.  I list some of these below:

1. This painted rock represents vandalism of protected natural area features. I removed this rock to prevent encouraging anyone else into painting rocks along our trails. With permission, I will use it as an educational device in my classroom.

2. This painted rock violates the tenants of the Leave No Trace ethic (see below).  I for one, go into these areas to see the natural world without our influences.

3. The paint on the rock is a toxic chemical and would require more chemicals to remove it.  As well, the blue paint has glitter in it which is a micro-plastic.  Micro-plastics are polluting our waterways and oceans. They are being eaten by microorganisms and therefore incorporated into the food chain, our food chain. They even attract other toxic chemicals and as these plastics are incorporated into the tissues of animals, they are exposed to the toxicity of the plastics and the chemical they attract.

4. This rock is a piece of flat sandstone and is not likely from this natural area. However, it might be from another one. This type of sandstone is a highly desirable masonry and landscaping building material. Mining of this stone is notorious for not being sustainable. I have personally witnessed a mining crew knock over mature hemlock trees as they drove bulldozers, excavators, and dump trucks onto Cumberland Trail State Park property. After loading the “harvested” stone from the surface mine, the miners left the site without conducting any mitigation (i.e., environmental repair) of any type. The stone is then likely sold to a stone yard at a potentially high profit margin.

So what can we do?

1. Don’t paint our natural features.

2. Avoid using this type of sandstone. If you need some stone, ask the vendor where the stone was mined and if they know if it was sustainably collected. If they don’t, consider a sustainable alternative.

3. Follow the tenants of Leave No Trace. “Take nothing but pictures, Leave nothing but footprints, kill nothing but time.” Learn more here: http://www.LNT.org

4. Learn more about our natural areas and the rules they follow here: https://www.tn.gov/environment/program-areas/na-natural-areas.html

5. Learn more about Radnor Lake State Natural Area here: http://radnorlake.org/

6. Learn more about the environment by taking Environmental Science at Motlow College: http://catalog.mscc.edu/preview_program.php?catoid=1&poid=18&returnto=25 

Tiny Home, Big Living

By Patrick Hamilton

Motlow Buzz Reporter

 

                There is a new trend in American housing, tiny homes. The movement is aimed at living simpler, financial freedom, and decreasing environmental impact. The social movement chooses to downsize the space needed to live. An average American home is around 2,600 square feet, whereas the typical tiny home is between 100 and 400 square feet.

 Few Americans desire to live inside a 300 square-foot home. However, a solid number of people have decided to embrace this simple living. In Tennessee, the demand for tiny homes is scarce. People like David Latimer with New Frontier tiny homes are embracing the movement making its way to Nashville. One of his tiny homes has been featured on HGTV’s “Tiny House, Big Living”. The virtual tour of the home is incredible. Here is the link. https://www.newfrontiertinyhomes.com/tiny-house.

 

Tiny houses became popular when Jay Shafer designed a house on wheels in the late nineties. He never set out to build a tiny home. Shafer wanted to build an efficient home. When all the unnecessary parts of the house are taken away, you’re left with a very small home. Shafer fathered tiny homes and made a way for the revolutionary movement today. Companies today are designing and building custom tiny homes for business. Tumbleweed Tiny Homes is one of the original Tiny Home builders, which operates in Canada. The link below is   http://affordablehousingdesigns.com/TumbleweedTinyHouses.

Companies all over the nation are embracing the movement because of the outstanding benefits. The benefits of building a Tiny Home are economical and personal to the buyer.

 1. You can travel with it. Not all tiny homes are portable. The ones with potential mobility have huge benefits. With mobility, you have the benefit of transporting everything you own in a short amount of time. All you need is a trailer hitch. Permanence is not an issue if you don’t buy a plot of land. Here is a link for building portable tiny home trailers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQFk2eVgi4A

 2. It is very cheap. Over a period of 30 years, most American homes double in price when you include the taxes, maintenance, interest, principal, and down payment. The damage for a typical single family home is costly and most likely the reason majority of Americans battle with debt. If you play your cards right, you could pay for the house up front. After evaluating the cost of living in Tennessee, it only makes sense to invest in a tiny home.

 3. It is extremely environmentally friendly. The clear majority of tiny homes are made of recycled, re-purposed, and salvaged materials. Each home is unique and easily powered by solar or wind resources. The required energy of a tiny home is much less than a traditional home. Building a tiny home is a great start to decreasing your environmental footprint. Also, if your Tiny Home is built in a rural area, nature becomes an easier priority. Most tiny home owners say they appreciate nature more than they did before living in a tiny home. Building a tiny home generates a new-found relationship with the environment. Tennessee offers vast country for building tiny homes.

4. Your life is less cluttered. Tiny homes are aimed at living a minimalistic lifestyle. Your limited space allows you to store what is necessary. Many people own too much stuff. Decluttering your life could possibly bless somebody in return with the materials you don’t need. This experience could be very humbling. I know what it is like to sort through possessions, only to find that I have more than enough. Donating your possessions is extremely hard, but it adds appreciation to the stuff you need.

Tiny home living is remarkably efficient. I plan to build a tiny home soon. The research I have done proves that building your own tiny home is cheaper. I highly recommend designing and customizing your own. Living in a home this size demands little maintenance. The greatest demand is adapting to small living. You have less junk, less room, and less time to stay inside. Living in a tiny home is ideal. Moving into a 400 square-foot home after living in a 2,000 square-foot home is grueling. Most people realize this way of living makes the most sense after making the 1,600 square-foot jump.

Trees Need Love, Too

By Diana Martinez

There are many important issues going on in our world right now like poverty, terrorism, and human rights, but one issue I feel that is not discussed enough is our home, Planet Earth. Little by little, we are destroying it, and the most harmful act we are doing is cutting down trees. Trees create the air that we breathe, purify our water and clean our pollution. Trees do so much to help us and what do we do? We destroy them and for what? For more land to build on? For money?

According to the United Nations’ food and agriculture organization, an estimated 18 million acres of forest are lost each year. That is roughly the size of the country of Panama. Deforestation happens all around the world. Tropical rainforests are cut down the most. Trees clean our pollution by absorbing carbon dioxide. With more forests getting cut down, there is more carbon being trapped in the atmosphere. It can also create acid rain, which does some serious damage to the forests. http://www.livescience.com/27692-deforestation.html

Trees are not only beautiful but also extremely important. They filter out toxins, sediment and other substances from water.  According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, non-point pollution from urban and suburban developments cause more than 60 percent of damage to the U.S. waterways, including many drinking water sources. We wouldn’t be able to survive without trees. The air and water would be so filthy it would be unsuitable to intake. https://www.epa.gov/nps/what-nonpoint-source

So how do we fix this problem? We can reduce the amount of energy and fossil fuels we use. Recycling is also a good way to save many trees. You could go to https://standfortrees.org/en/, buy a certificate, and the money goes towards trying to stop more deforestation from happening. There are also many groups you can join that offer volunteer work to plant more trees and do many other types of environmental work. A local group in Nashville that I am also a part of is The Nashville Tree Foundation. 

The Nashville Tree Foundation hosts many events to educate the community about trees, as a matter of fact, they have a work shop coming up on Oct. 29, 2016. If you are interested in the work shop, you can go to their website http://www.nashvilletreefoundation.org/. Their website is full of information and ways to get involved. The foundation also has booths set up at local festivals. For example, I helped sell cherry blossom trees at this year’s Cherry Blossom Festival and we even made it on the news! It’s a great feeling when you become a part of something bigger than yourself, so get involved and make a difference!

Now that you’ve read some facts what do you think? Is cutting down trees for land, money, or any other need worth risking our health and well being? Earth is our only home it is our job to protect it. Yes, there are many other issues going on around the world and I’m not saying that one is more important than another, but something a musician named Prince Era said really stuck with me: “Whatever you’re fighting for racism or poverty, feminism, gay rights or any type of equality it won’t matter in the least, because if we don’t all work together to save the environment we will be equally extinct.”

My name is Diana, and I’m just like everyone else. I don’t calculate my footprint as much as I should or do everything I can possibly do to help the environment. I’m not saying you have to completely change your lifestyle, but just by recycling you could make a huge difference. You might wonder why I volunteer or how I have time to. Well I never imagined that I would be a “tree huger”, but once I educated myself on the facts of what we are doing to our only home, how could I not try to play a small roll on trying to save it. There is no planet B! My hope is that at least one person starts getting more involved in this cause after reading this blog. 

“When the last tree has been cut down, the last fish caught, the last river poisoned, one the will we realize that one cannot eat money.” –Native American Saying