What would you do with a lucky windfall close to Christmas? Would you give it to charity, use it to buy Christmas gifts, or treat yourself? Find out what I did in this week’s edition of The Sunday Spark.

Welcome to week 44 of The Sunday Spark, a series with weekly thoughts and highlights, nuggets of learning, and a sustainable living tip for the week. This week: carbon capture, 3D printing, the climate impact of the rich, and sustainable stocking stuffers.

The Sunday Spark – Week 44

On my mind this week: What would you do with a lucky windfall?

When I arrived at church on Sunday morning, one of the other choir leaders told me some good news. A few weeks ago, she had sold me a ticket for a fundraising raffle for our local philharmonic choir. It turns out I was the lucky winner of the second prize—$800 in cash.

As I thought about what to do with the money, my first thought was to use it to do good for others, so I did that with some of the money. You can read more about that—and why charitable giving is good for us—in tomorrow’s post for Wise & Shine.

But I also wanted to use a little bit of the money to treat myself. But how? As an avid declutterer, the last thing I need is more stuff! And I’m not really into spa days or other typical self-care activities.

So, the question was how could I treat myself without adding to the clutter? My answer to that question might not be your idea of a treat but it made me happy.

I took advantage of a Black Friday deal and bought a year’s subscription to an online fitness program that I’d been thinking about for a while. I love Marion Brand’s YouTube videos, so having access to live workout sessions, along with extended versions of her YouTube workouts, and exclusive videos for $99 CDN for a year felt like a good use of the money. And it might be just what I need to stay on track with my fitness goals.  

As for the rest of my winnings, I’m putting it towards Christmas expenses.

So in the end, I gave a little to charity, treated myself, and used the rest to offset planned expenses.

What would you do with a lucky windfall? Drop me a comment below with your thoughts.

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Three highlights of the week

It’s important to celebrate big milestones and simple pleasures in life. Keeping the trend going, here are three highlights and simple pleasures of the week gone by:

• We had a lovely dusting of snow earlier this week, making everything look very festive. Unfortunately, the rain returned on Friday, and it’s all gone.
• In between the snow and the rain, we had a beautiful mild day on Thursday, so I took advantage of it to get out for a long walk at lunchtime.
• I had a productive morning running errands on Friday. I am now finished my Christmas shopping.

Three things I learned this week

Life is all about learning. Here are three things I learned this week:

Why we need to invest in carbon capture

Carbon capture is the process of recovering carbon dioxide from the fossil fuel emissions produced by industrial facilities and power plants and moving it to locations where it can be kept from entering the atmosphere. (Source: Britannica.com)  

Carbon capture projects are storing almost 45 million tons of CO ₂ every year—about the amount of emissions produced by 10 million passenger cars. (Source: MIT) Clearly this is a solution we need to develop further.

3D printing’s potential to cut housing emissions

Ever since my daughter brought home a tiny robot printed on a 3D printer at her college, I admit to a bit of fascination with 3D printing. This week, I learned that innovative companies are using 3D printers to construct houses. No, not toy houses—real houses that people live in.

Benefits of this technology include lower cost, faster production, and lower emissions. Learn more in this article on Happy Eco News.

The climate impact of the world’s richest 10%

I saw a startling statistic this week in The Guardian. The richest 10% of the world’s population produce 40 times the emissions of the poorest 10%.

Now before you start berating “those rich people” consider that you are likely one of them. If you earn $40,000 USD or more (about $54,000 CDN or £32,000 at current exchange rates), you are one of the world’s richest 10%. That means you’re in the group that accounts for half of global emissions.

Interestingly, the article cites Canada’s carbon tax as one of the fairer ways of making the wealthier pay proportionately for their emissions, while shifting some of the revenue to lower income earners. I’ll file that little nugget of information away for the next time I hear someone complain that our government is “screwing them over with the carbon tax”.

(Source: The Guardian)

Sustainable living tip: Stuff the stockings, not the landfill

It’s always tempting to fill stockings with a cheap plastic junk and dollar store trinkets. If you’re looking for sustainable low-waste stocking stuffers, check out 33 great ideas for sustainable stocking stuffers.

I’d love to hear what you think about any of this week’s topics. Drop me a comment below and let me know your thoughts and ideas.