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October 3 - October 24, 2018
Martin Blasco's avatar

Martin Blasco

Washington County

POINTS TOTAL

  • 0 TODAY
  • 0 THIS WEEK
  • 271 TOTAL

Martin's actions

Waste

Visit a Waste Management Facility

I will spend at least 30 minutes visiting a local dump/transfer station, material recovery facility, and/or landfill to learn about the waste stream.

UNCOMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION

Health

More Fruits and Veggies

I will eat a heart healthy diet by adding 2 cup(s) of fruits and vegetables each day to achieve at least 4 cups per day.

COMPLETED 0
DAILY ACTIONS

Food

Weekly Meal Planning

I will reduce food waste and save money by planning a weekly menu, only buying the ingredients I need.

COMPLETED 1
DAILY ACTION

Water

Install a Low-Flow Showerhead

I will save up to 15 gallons (56 L) of water a day by installing a low-flow showerhead.

UNCOMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION

Food

Watch a Documentary about Food Sovereignty

I will watch 1 documentary(ies) about food sovereignty: the right of local peoples to control their own food systems including markets, ecological resources, food cultures and production methods.

UNCOMPLETED
ONE-TIME ACTION

Food

Choose Organic Ingredients

I will enjoy 1 meal(s) cooked with organic ingredients each day.

COMPLETED 0
DAILY ACTIONS

Food

Smart Seafood Choices

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

COMPLETED 0
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
    Water Install a Low-Flow Showerhead
    How can your region/household prepare for changing water situations in order to become more resilient?

    Martin Blasco's avatar
    Martin Blasco 10/16/2018 8:55 PM
    Taxing corporations for water use. In Washington County, corporations are watering their loans to keep the grass green, even when it's raining. I see this all the time.
    Education about water conservation, its use, its disposal, how crucial is water for the survival of the planet.
    Water is not renewable and is getting scarce.

  • REFLECTION QUESTION
    Food Watch a Documentary about Food Sovereignty
    How does food sovereignty address the complex agrarian transition to modern food systems?

    Martin Blasco's avatar
    Martin Blasco 10/16/2018 8:38 PM
    "...by an intensified and better-informed dialogue, increasingly complex alliances between producers and consumers, and greater integration with agroecology and with new paradigms of social and cultural change such as the Andean concept of buen vivir. The challenges remain daunting: corporate influence in politics at all levels and control of global food chains (and those for non-food agricultural products), as well as markets for inputs, especially seeds; the industrial ‘cheap food’ model on which too many consumers still rely out of necessity, preference or habit; the tenacious defence of globalized agricultural trade by influential states and powerful multilateral agencies, with their robust judicial apparatuses and dispute resolution and enforcement mechanisms; and the fact that biophysical threats to production from climate change are intensifying and beginning to wreak havoc on production in many of the world’s poorest regions. Perhaps the largest overarching question is whether food sovereignty can generate transformational reforms, implying ‘social changes that are feasible in the world as it is … but which prefigure in important ways more emancipatory possibilities."

    -Marc Edelman, Tony Weis, Amita Baviskar, Saturnino M. Borras Jr, Eric HoltGiménez,
    Deniz Kandiyoti & Wendy Wolford (2014) Introduction: critical perspectives on food
    sovereignty, Journal of Peasant Studies, 41:6, 911-931,

    • Martin Blasco's avatar
      Martin Blasco 10/17/2018 11:57 AM
      Movies to recommend:
      Kanopy: Transgenic Wars
                      Of The Land
      Netflix:  Food, Inc.
                      Rotten
                      In Defense Of Food
      The Botany of Desire

    • Jennifer Nelson's avatar
      Jennifer Nelson 10/17/2018 10:37 AM
      Hey Martin, I need to watch a food documentary this week for this challenge. Which one did you watch? Can you recommend any I can get through YouTube or maybe Kanopy?
  • REFLECTION QUESTION
    Food 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?

    Martin Blasco's avatar
    Martin Blasco 10/16/2018 8:13 PM
    Lower Willamette River: 
    -Black Crappie - 2 meals per month (or 4 meals if fillet only)
    -Carp - 0 meals per month
    -Brown Bullhead - 0 meals per month
    -Bass - 0 meals per month

    Oregon Health Authority as of today
  • REFLECTION QUESTION
    Waste Visit a Waste Management Facility
    Field trip! What a fun way to learn about our impact and consumption! What facility did you visit? What did you learn? Did you take anyone with you?

    Martin Blasco's avatar
    Martin Blasco 10/12/2018 4:03 PM
    Field trip to the vineyards. Learn about the process of growing grapes and making wine. Of course I took somebody with me: a designated driver.
  • REFLECTION QUESTION
    Food Choose Organic Ingredients
    Can organic farming feed the world? Which side of the argument do you fall on? Why?

    Martin Blasco's avatar
    Martin Blasco 10/12/2018 3:59 PM
    Organic farming can definitely feed the world. Organic is good if it's local. Not local organic means transportation, and transportation means polution.
  • REFLECTION QUESTION
    Health More Fruits and Veggies
    What do you think contributes to people in North America eating more meat than any other places, and what does this say about North American values and ways of living? How can we start shifting from a meat-focused food culture to a more plant-based one?

    Martin Blasco's avatar
    Martin Blasco 10/12/2018 3:57 PM
    Meat is not necessarily bad. Unfortunately, most of the meat that we get, we don't know where it comes from and its quality (which is bad). Buy to local farmers. In the farmers markets, you can get excellent meat and meat products.
  • REFLECTION QUESTION
    Food Weekly Meal Planning
    An average American throws out about 240 lbs of food per year. The average family of four spends $1,500 a year on food that they throw out. Does this surprise you? Where would you rather use this money?

    Martin Blasco's avatar
    Martin Blasco 10/10/2018 7:10 PM
    A take a nice vacation and go hiking to Peninsula de Valdez.

  • Martin Blasco's avatar
    Martin Blasco 10/03/2018 10:28 AM
    How can be so alienated from our nature? What are we doing? Why?

    • Jennifer Nelson's avatar
      Jennifer Nelson 10/03/2018 3:21 PM
      I don't know the cause, but one solution is to just get out there and be in it, a little bit, every day! :D

  • Martin Blasco's avatar
    Martin Blasco 10/03/2018 10:20 AM
    I have been avoiding the use of plastics for a long time. I remember when I was a child going to the market with my mother, and sometimes with my grandmother. We never used plastic bags, we brought our own ones which we used every time. Supermarkets began introducing more and more plastic to preserve products and to make our lives easier (sic). Our lives are getting sicker and sicker with pollution (any kind: CO2, water, light, auditive), and we keep doing things the "easy" way. I wonder if my everyday awareness of the planet is helping it. It seems that people get trapped with marketing actions like not using plastic straws. What about plastic cups, containers, forks-knives-spoons, bags? Almost everything that we produce is disposable, it ends in the trash. We recycle just a very small fraction of disposable products. Wouldn't be more effective to pressure big corps and companies to use and produce less trash? Making a campaign just for plastic straws? C'mon, let's be real, we need, all of us, to change our habits and to begin pressuring those who produce trash, any kind, to look for alternatives. Yes, it's not difficult, I do my best everyday, but also I'm frustrated seeing the streets full of garbage, breathing car exhaust, not being able to see the stars or to smell the grass or to listen to birds. 

    • Nichole George's avatar
      Nichole George 10/08/2018 8:55 AM
      I wish there was a more convenient option as well to replace the plastic.  Sometimes taking the family for a quick drive thru for dinner is our only solution and it pains me to see how much plastic they supply!