Living Green on Zen

By Cameron Burgess

“Every generation needs a new revolution.” - Thomas Jefferson

Over a hundred years ago, our third president spoke this well-known quotation, speaking for the generations alive at his time. And now, in 2011, that is still true. Every generation really does need a revolution; it just depends on what the revolution is. Right now, it seems to me that ‘going green’ is a very revolutionary topic and, maybe, that’s what my generation will be known for.

Ever since I was little, I knew that my family was going to, someday, live on a boat and sail as far around the world as we could get. Finally, that came true in 2008, when we left Rhode Island on our 50-foot catamaran named Zen. For two years my brother, parents, and I sailed from Newport to New Zealand via the Panama Canal and South Pacific. The experiences were absolutely amazing and I’ve got memories that will last a lifetime, but what I wanted to tell you about was our lifestyle. Obviously, living on a boat is quite different from living on land, and how we lived was quite ‘green’.

For starters, we used very, very little electricity. There was no dishwasher, washing machine, dryer, microwave or any other of those big appliances. We opened the fridge and freezer as little as possible because we didn’t want to let the cold air out. Water was a very precious resource on the boat and, although we had a water maker, it used a lot of energy that we had to conserve. So, showers were jumping off the back of the boat to get wet, then soaping off, jumping back in the water to rinse off and then spraying yourself down really fast with a fresh water hose that was on the back transom and using as little as water possible. Of course, the water was normally cold unless the engines had been running and therefore heating the water that was in the little tank beside it.

As for making all this energy that we tried to conserve? Well, there obviously wasn’t a power plant that followed us around the ocean, so we used solar panels and a wind generator. The solar panels were the biggest source of energy because in the majority of the places where we were, there was a lot of sun! There was also a lot of wind, which made the small wind generator on the back of the boat quite helpful as well. If there was no sun and no wind, we’d start up the engines and let them run in neutral while they charged the batteries, which was where all of our electricity came from. But, of course, we didn’t want to do that all the time because that would be, in a sense, wasting fuel that wasn’t always easy to come by.

Those are only the major things that made our life on Zen ‘green’. We also ate only fresh foods because that was all we could find on the tiny islands we visited! Not only does growing everything fresh help the environment, but it is also the ideal way to keep your body healthy and fit, which is a growing problem in the US especially. But don’t read this article and get all depressed, thinking that you’re not ‘green’!

Remember, in a revolution, there are people who really stand out and push to make a change, but without their supporters, and the people who do all the small stuff, there would be no revolution. So, plant some flowers, watch spring grow, and think about all those little, revolutionary things.

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Cammi Burgess is a thirteen-year-old girl living in Rhode Island with her younger brother, Cole, two parents and an 18-year-old Jack Russell Terrier named Harley. She has been taking ballet since age two and is now training at a pre-professional level with a small, Russian studio for 17 hours per week. Aside from dance, Cammi loves writing and is currently working on a series of science fiction novels. She’s been home-schooled since sixth grade, but next year, she will be starting at a ‘real’ high school as a ninth grader.