Ecochallenge.org

Drawdown Ecochallenge

Gayle Giovanna

Community Team

"Plants, especially trees, can solve the climate crisis. Keep forests intact!"

Points Total

0 Today
110 This Week
2,412 Total

Participant Impact

up to

88

locally sourced meals

consumed
up to

252

meatless or vegan meals

consumed
up to

10

pounds of CO2

have been saved
up to

295

more servings

of fruits and vegetables
up to

150

minutes

spent learning

Gayle's Actions

Action Track: Building Resilience

Straw Bale Building

I want to build a small studio perhaps using straw bale construction. I have several friends who have used this method. What are the advantages/ disadvantages? My goal will be to design the studio with straw bale construction, and show the design to friends who have built their home in this manner for their comments and insights.

Uncompleted
One-Time Action

Food, Agriculture, and Land Use

Explore Other Food, Agriculture, and Land Use Solutions

All Food, Agriculture, and Land Use Solutions

I will spend at least 60 minutes researching other Drawdown Food, Agriculture, and Land Use Solutions.

Completed
One-Time Action

Action Track: Building Resilience

Tour a Green Roof

Green and Cool Roofs

I will set up a visit or a virtual tour of a green roof in my city, and ask about the codes and process for installing a green roof.

Uncompleted
One-Time Action

Transportation

Purchase a Carbon Offset

Efficient Aviation

If I buy a plane ticket, I will purchase a carbon offset.

Completed
One-Time Action

Transportation

Research and Consider Switching to a Hybrid or Electric Vehicle

Electric Cars, Hybrid Cars

I will spend at least 60 minutes researching and weighing my options to see if a hybrid or electric vehicle makes sense for my lifestyle.

Completed
One-Time Action

Food, Agriculture, and Land Use

Support Local Food Systems

Plant-Rich Diets

I will source 1 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 85
DAILY ACTIONS

Food, Agriculture, and Land Use

Support Organic Growing Methods

Nutrient Management

I will buy organic cotton and foods grown without the use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers.

COMPLETED 85
DAILY ACTIONS

Food, Agriculture, and Land Use

Support Nutrient Management

Nutrient Management

I will research and support local farmers who have made the decision to not use synthetic nitrogen fertilizers.

Completed
One-Time Action

Food, Agriculture, and Land Use

Learn about Local Indigenous Practices

Indigenous Peoples' Forest Tenure

I will spend at least 10 minutes learning how local indigenous tribes are caring for the land by participating in a training, workshop, or presentation.

Completed
One-Time Action

Food, Agriculture, and Land Use

Reduce Animal Products

Plant-Rich Diets

I will enjoy 3 meatless or vegan meal(s) each day of the challenge.

COMPLETED 85
DAILY ACTIONS

Action Track: Healing & Renewal

More Fruits And Veggies

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

COMPLETED 85
DAILY ACTIONS

Feed

Gayle Giovanna 8/15/2022 6:13 PM

I have been trying to empty my freezer of bags of last year's apples because the earliest varieties of this season's apple crop are ripening. An applesauce/ banana smoothie with chunks of fresh ginger was breakfast this morning.

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Gayle Giovanna 8/14/2022 7:19 PM

We had a meeting today to look at the repair work on the 200 year old hemlock hand-hewn sills on the Unitarian Universalist church in my town. Although there were some soft spots of rot the replacement wood for those sections could be patched in, without taking out the whole beam. I think that is pretty good for a 200 year old chunk of stored carbon!

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Gayle Giovanna 8/10/2022 7:00 PM

I have been eating lots of fruit, especially blueberries and blackberries, because we have them growing in the yard and they are ripe and abundant right now. Also apples and pears are beginning to come in. I ate 3 small pears and an Early Macintosh apple today.

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Gayle Giovanna 8/03/2022 9:07 PM

I need more sunlight in my garden: my tomatoes are still golf-ball sized, and the onions and garlic have long green tops, but marble-sized bottoms. I hate to cut down any trees, however. I have enough dead trees on the ground for firewood, so I don't want to cut down any live ones. They can stand and sequester carbon.

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Gayle Giovanna 8/03/2022 8:07 AM

In one of the old piles of horse manure, there is a gigantic plant of pokeberry. The fruits are not edible, but I might use them to dye yarn. There are thousands of berries on this one bush. Shows how fertile the ground can be with the proper organic fertilizer.

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Gayle Giovanna 7/28/2022 3:20 PM

I had pancakes with organic strawberries for breakfast this morning. The pancakes were cooked on a griddle over a camp fire, with wood that I cut myself from my forest. It was very satisfying to know that the cooking fuel came from literally a few feet away, instead of from a propane truck from who-knows-where.

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Gayle Giovanna 7/27/2022 1:06 PM

I munched my windowboxes because it had been so hot and dry. Almost immediately, they began putting out more foliage and flowers. Even the muehlenbergia, a small-leafed trailing plant that I like in windowboxes, practically doubled in size over the course of ten days. The mulch helps to keep the soil from drying out.

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Gayle Giovanna 7/25/2022 3:35 PM

A friend of mine has a house built with straw-bale construction. She says that it is incredibly well insulated-- an R-value of 55-- so that it is warmer in winter and cooler in summer.

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Gayle Giovanna 7/24/2022 4:53 PM

I am wondering whether using a woodstove and burning hardwoods from my land is a reasonable thing to do from a climate perspective. I try to burn trees that are already dead and on the ground. They come preseasoned, as it were. They are not full of sap, as a live tree would be, and therefore they are drier and burn better. But it is still a combustion process which puts a tree's lifetime of stored carbon into the atmosphere.

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Reflection Question
Food, Agriculture, and Land Use Explore Other Food, Agriculture, and Land Use Solutions

What did you find out? What is the most interesting fact you learned?

Gayle Giovanna 7/23/2022 4:03 PM

I found out that 81% of all agricultural land worldwide is devoted to producing animal products. This is roughly equivalent, areawise, to all of the land area of Europe, the US, India, China, and Australia combined! Why don't we just stop eating animal products altogether, and then devote all that land area to growing trees, which sequester carbon. A huge old maple tree pulls CO2 fr om the atmosphere by photosynthesis, storing the carbon within itself and in the soil and its organisms. Why cut it down to make pasture for cows? Even if you do silvopasture, or regenerative agroecology, it doesn't make up for the loss of big old trees. Keep the forests intact, I say.

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