Earth Month Ecochallenge: Drawdown

April 1 - April 30, 2021

Julia Robinson

Atlassian Sustainability Team

"Work within existing structures and systems to transform them. "

POINTS TOTAL

0 TODAY
0 THIS WEEK
1,047 TOTAL

participant impact

UP TO

42

locally sourced meals

consumed
UP TO

21

meatless or vegan meals

consumed
UP TO

665

minutes

spent exercising
UP TO

40

minutes

spent learning
UP TO

85

minutes

spent outdoors
UP TO

2.0

public officials or leaders

contacted

Julia's actions

Buildings

Replace Manual Thermostats

Smart Thermostats

I will replace manual thermostats with smart ones.

COMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION

Food, Agriculture, and Land Use

Composting

Composting, Reduced Food Waste

I will start a compost bin where I live.

COMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION

Food, Agriculture, and Land Use

Mulch the Base of Trees and Plants

Farm Irrigation Efficiency

I will prevent water runoff and increase absorbency by mulching the base of trees and plants in my yard.

COMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION

Transportation

Use Muscle Power

Multiple Transportation Solutions

I will cut my car trip mileage by only taking necessary trips, and I will only use muscle-powered transportation for all other trips.

COMPLETED 16
DAILY ACTIONS

Transportation

Go for a Daily Walk

Walkable Cities

I will take a walk for 30 minutes each day and take note of the infrastructure that makes walking more or less enjoyable, accessible, and possible.

COMPLETED 13
DAILY ACTIONS

Food, Agriculture, and Land Use

Reduce Animal Products

Plant-Rich Diets

I will enjoy 1 meatless or vegan meal(s) each day of the challenge.

COMPLETED 18
DAILY ACTIONS

Health and Education

Learn about the Need for Family Planning

Health and Education

I will spend at least 10 minutes learning more about the need for family planning globally.

COMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION

Coastal, Ocean, and Engineered Sinks

Smart Seafood Choices

Ocean Farming

I will visit seafoodwatch.org or download the app and commit to making better seafood choices for a healthier ocean.

COMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION

Food, Agriculture, and Land Use

Tend A Garden

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

COMPLETED 2
DAILY ACTIONS

Food, Agriculture, and Land Use

Learn the Truth About Expiration Dates

Reduced Food Waste

I will spend at least 15 minutes learning how to differentiate between sell by, use by, and best by dates.

COMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION

Action Track: Climate Resilience

Express My Support For Equitable Biking Infrastructure

Bicycle Infrastructure

I will find out who in my city makes decisions that impact bike routes and express my support for better biking infrastructure.

COMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION

Action Track: Climate Resilience

Express My Support For Walkable Cities

Walkable Cities

I will find out who in my city makes decisions that impact neighborhood walkability and express my support for better walking infrastructure.

COMPLETED
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

Buildings

Learn about the Legacy of Redlining

Multiple Solutions

I will spend at least 60 minutes learning about the legacy of redlining and how city planning and environmental justice issues are interconnected.

COMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION

Action Track: Accelerating Solutions

Support Local Food Systems

Plant-Rich Diets

I will source 75 percent of my food from local producers each day. This could include signing up for a local CSA, buying from a farmer's market, visiting a food co-op, foraging with a local group, or growing my own ingredients.

COMPLETED 13
DAILY ACTIONS

Participant Feed

Reflection, encouragement, and relationship building are all important aspects of getting a new habit to stick.
Share thoughts, encourage others, and reinforce positive new habits on the Feed.

To get started, share “your why.” Why did you join the challenge and choose the actions you did?

REFLECTION QUESTION
Buildings Learn about the Legacy of Redlining

How does city planning and design relate to equity and climate change?

Julia Robinson 4/29/2021 9:54 AM

A landmark study came out this week about how air pollution disproportionately affects people of color. I've know this for a long time, instinctively - having lived in NYC and seen that asthma rates in predominately Black and Latinx neighborhoods like Harlem, where more delivery trucks come off the bridges and are concentrated on thoroughfares through those areas before dispersing. But seeing the study, and realizing that the claim that Black people have higher rates of asthma - and research to identify a genetic cause - are completely BS, and rather about systemic racism - infuriating.

This is also true for parts of cities being hotter by 1.5C on average and less resilient to a warming planet (fewer trees and green infrastructure), among other things.

Systemic changes. No climate justice without racial justice.

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REFLECTION QUESTION
Transportation Go for a Daily Walk

What have you noticed on your daily walks? What have you enjoyed? What infrastructure changes could make your walks more enjoyable or possible?

Julia Robinson 4/22/2021 9:34 AM

I love seeing all the little details of the seasons, watching flowers bloom over a few weeks, birds building nests, etc. Seeing how other people use outdoor space - families, pets (so many more cats on leashes than I've ever seen before!), friends, people alone.

Wider, smoother sidewalks. Pedestrian-first intersections. Better bike lanes (so bikes don't ride on sidewalks). People being better pedestrian "citizens" and aware of their surroundings/community.

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REFLECTION QUESTION
Transportation Use Muscle Power

How do your transportation choices affect your engagement in your community? Does your experience or enjoyment differ while walking, riding transit, biking or driving?

Julia Robinson 4/15/2021 10:04 AM

Using my own body to move around through walking and biking lets me explore the city (taking different routes, observing, etc.). It also allows me to interact with and observe people in my community (as does public transit). I find driving and parking (esp in SF) stressful, and limiting my use of cars makes me appreciate when I do need one to get somewhere quickly (or at night, when walking/biking/transit can be less safe), hauling things, or getting somewhere not easily reachable by other modalities,

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REFLECTION QUESTION
Food, Agriculture, and Land Use Composting

Producing food that goes uneaten squanders many resources—seeds, water, energy, land, fertilizer, hours of labor, financial capital. Which of these kinds of waste most motivates you to change your behavior regarding food waste? Why?

Julia Robinson 4/10/2021 9:39 AM

All of them do, but I often think of the people who grow, care for, and harvest the food that we eat. I have friends who are farmers, so I know how much work it is. It's worth following the Twitter account, or at least watching the videos of, the United Farm Workers and seeing how hard people work in commercial farming - and the incredible level of skill. You'll never eat a Brussels sprout without thinking of how it was harvested again.

https://twitter.com/UFWupdates
https://twitter.com/clvane18/status/1379143584583061506?s=20

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REFLECTION QUESTION
Food, Agriculture, and Land Use Mulch the Base of Trees and Plants

Name some of the human activities impacting the health of water systems, both locally (your watershed) and globally (freshwater and oceans). What can you do to improve the health of water systems?

Julia Robinson 4/10/2021 9:35 AM

Garbage and waste, mining and fracking, poor sewage and street runoff management, living in areas that don't have enough water, and more. Need to advocate for more infrastructure improvements, lower-impact extractives technologies, and better water/irrigation efficiency.

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REFLECTION QUESTION
Buildings Replace Manual Thermostats

How do you anticipate replacing your thermostats for smart ones will positively impact your life?

Julia Robinson 4/10/2021 9:33 AM

We have thermostats for different zones of the house, and I spend a ton of time adjusting the schedule based on when I'm home, what part of the house I'm in, whether I'm asleep, etc. It feels really empowering to be able to control different parts of my home and use less energy and gas.

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REFLECTION QUESTION
Health and Education Learn about the Need for Family Planning

What did you learn about the need for family planning? How do the needs of different people in different places compare to each other?

Julia Robinson 4/10/2021 9:24 AM

I used to work in global health and family planning in West Africa, so I'm very familiar with the gaps in access between the Global South and other countries (and within my own country, for that matter). A lot of this ties back to creating more equity between cis women and others who can have (or are expected to) have children and cis men. Expanded family planning means better health, development, and equity outcomes. That means better resilience and adaptability, lower resource intensity (in some places). This is an important thing to talk about, and family planning is vital to all of the above, full stop. But sometimes I think we try to combine things so they sound more "palatable" because unfortunately family planning is still controversial.

In the end, when it comes to climate change, I still believe the most important thing is not what we as individuals are doing, but rather focusing on the oil industry and other sectors that are contributing 70% of the world's carbon emissions. The oil industry created the personal carbon footprint to distract the public from what it was doing. I'm going to do what I can to reduce my own carbon footprint and make climate-smart choices, but that's not going to be enough. We have to reorient our economies and systems to not rely on fossil fuels. Everything else is important, and people should learn about it and work on these issues, of course, but don't get distracted.

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REFLECTION QUESTION
Food, Agriculture, and Land Use Reduce Animal Products

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?

Julia Robinson 4/09/2021 10:09 AM

Protein is a highly valued food type evolutionarily; that's extended to culture, too - eating meat tastes good because our caveperson bodies crave it, and because it was scarce, it became a status symbol. Now, we're used to it - it's a habit. Going vegetarian temporarily when I was young taught me (and my long-suffering family) that we didn't need meat at every meal. Plant-rich diets are associated with longevity individually. They also mean more crops dedicated to feeding people, not animals. And they reduce GHGs in a bunch of ways.

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REFLECTION QUESTION
Food, Agriculture, and Land Use Learn the Truth About Expiration Dates

How does knowing the difference between use by, sell by, and best by dates empower you to make better decisions?

Julia Robinson 4/09/2021 10:04 AM

It means less food waste! Especially for things like eggs (gotta do the float test). :)

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REFLECTION QUESTION
Coastal, Ocean, and Engineered Sinks Smart Seafood Choices

Many states and countries have advisories on eating fish. Find out what is advised for your region. Do you think your diet choices fall within these guidelines? What steps do you need to take to make sure that they do?

Julia Robinson 4/08/2021 9:56 AM

Mostly, yes. When I eat out, I eat a lot of local fish (or at least West Coast). But at home, I definitely eat tinned fish (e.g. tuna) and less "smellier" to cook fish, like salmon. I generally get pole-caught, wild tuna and salmon (and try to get salmon that is indigenous-caught).

I don't have a good substitute for anchovies, which I eat a ton of, and which are generally a bit sketch. I'll continue to research these and see whether I can find the most sustainable options - I don't see myself eating fewer anchovies, because they make the food taste so good (I was recently gifted both a tote bag with anchovies on it and sweatshirt that says "With Anchovies").

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