India travel
Baby and we will go to India and I am looking up travel tips.
We've been cloth diapering K for nearly the full 13 months of her life. While the water use vs. landfill debate goes on, I've felt that washing is an eco-friendlier approach than not just landfill for disposable diapers, but also the embodied energy and bad stuff that goes into disposables.
The compromise I'm still uncomfortable about having made is using disposables for outings and nights. Despite its immediate convenience, this has still put a fair bit of stuff into landfills.
In the larger picture, we each contribute in small ways to the ways of our world. So I like to believe that we should try to live our beliefs to the extent that we can. The Earth's resources are being stretched and stressed as a result of the unsustainable increase in human population. I don't think that this population burden is being caused just by Chinese workers and India's poor. I take responsibility. I didn't have a say in my own birth, but by having a child, I am contributing to development.
My procreation is increasing the burden on the world, probably in ways greater than the sum total of my other choices. Today's world is not one where my procreation is a necessary event for the survival of the human race. It is a world where my existence, the related choices and my procreation threatens the extinction of another species.
When I read about animals going extinct, or the drastic reduction in biodiversity, or when I go to visit "nature reserves" where hard working volunteers are being paid nearly nothing to save little bits of natural beauty in balance and harmony --- my mind jumps to my choices, and it's subsequent enormity of consumption and waste. This includes the house we live in and the way we eliminate our child's body waste.
On one end of the spectrum, the sum-total analysis fuels my internal battle of adopting a second vs. procreating again. On the pragmatic end of the same philosophical query is how best to mitigate the environmental damage of my choices, to my economic and intellectual capacity. I bought a house in an urban environment where it has the least potential for environmental damage, especially damage of virgin land. And I seek to reduce the damage I cause in other ways - such as diapers.
Freemarket economics are usually myopic and definitely don't favor the environment, non-human lives, or non profitable events. I find it sadly interesting that even where indigenous cultures have found an eco-friendly alternative that never needed a commercial product, the perception of improvement is very strong with a product.
Sadly, I find that the original Indian system of elimination communication has become either less understood or unfashionable. Babies that were cleaned up after and quickly learned to use the bathroom the way adults around them did, are now diapered longer and longer. Grandmothers that said "Ayyo, poor baby, take that diaper off", or "No baby in my house will wear diapers", are now saying, "Bring as many diapers as you can from the first world, you will need them here". Mothers that would have taught their babies to communicate about their elimination needs are now asking friends and family to send diapers from the west.
Sigh. Time is always a premium, so what governs our actions are the prevailing values & market forces. These affect the perception of what is correct and what is easiest. Unfortunately, even I, who values the Earth am leaning away from the environment on these choices.
We've been cloth diapering K for nearly the full 13 months of her life. While the water use vs. landfill debate goes on, I've felt that washing is an eco-friendlier approach than not just landfill for disposable diapers, but also the embodied energy and bad stuff that goes into disposables.
The compromise I'm still uncomfortable about having made is using disposables for outings and nights. Despite its immediate convenience, this has still put a fair bit of stuff into landfills.
In the larger picture, we each contribute in small ways to the ways of our world. So I like to believe that we should try to live our beliefs to the extent that we can. The Earth's resources are being stretched and stressed as a result of the unsustainable increase in human population. I don't think that this population burden is being caused just by Chinese workers and India's poor. I take responsibility. I didn't have a say in my own birth, but by having a child, I am contributing to development.
My procreation is increasing the burden on the world, probably in ways greater than the sum total of my other choices. Today's world is not one where my procreation is a necessary event for the survival of the human race. It is a world where my existence, the related choices and my procreation threatens the extinction of another species.
When I read about animals going extinct, or the drastic reduction in biodiversity, or when I go to visit "nature reserves" where hard working volunteers are being paid nearly nothing to save little bits of natural beauty in balance and harmony --- my mind jumps to my choices, and it's subsequent enormity of consumption and waste. This includes the house we live in and the way we eliminate our child's body waste.
On one end of the spectrum, the sum-total analysis fuels my internal battle of adopting a second vs. procreating again. On the pragmatic end of the same philosophical query is how best to mitigate the environmental damage of my choices, to my economic and intellectual capacity. I bought a house in an urban environment where it has the least potential for environmental damage, especially damage of virgin land. And I seek to reduce the damage I cause in other ways - such as diapers.
Freemarket economics are usually myopic and definitely don't favor the environment, non-human lives, or non profitable events. I find it sadly interesting that even where indigenous cultures have found an eco-friendly alternative that never needed a commercial product, the perception of improvement is very strong with a product.
Sadly, I find that the original Indian system of elimination communication has become either less understood or unfashionable. Babies that were cleaned up after and quickly learned to use the bathroom the way adults around them did, are now diapered longer and longer. Grandmothers that said "Ayyo, poor baby, take that diaper off", or "No baby in my house will wear diapers", are now saying, "Bring as many diapers as you can from the first world, you will need them here". Mothers that would have taught their babies to communicate about their elimination needs are now asking friends and family to send diapers from the west.
Sigh. Time is always a premium, so what governs our actions are the prevailing values & market forces. These affect the perception of what is correct and what is easiest. Unfortunately, even I, who values the Earth am leaning away from the environment on these choices.