In Context: A Quarterly of Humane Sustainable Culture - out of print since 1995, but the archive remains online and highly relevant.
Is Greater Than - This one’s new. It talks about everything from the anti-war movement to independent presses. A three-parter on the biology of capitalism is going up this week.
From the Facebook group:
RubberBandTogether is an initiative started by several Stanford University students to spread cancer awareness and search for the cure. On Wednesday, February 27, at 12 AM PST, everyone and their mom will be able to join our cause. For each name added to our RubberBandTogether website, we will add a rubber band to our RubberBandTogether ball. Let’s show our solid support for these women and men…and shoot for the WORLD’S BIGGEST RUBBER BAND BALL, MADE BY THE WORLD IN 24 HOURS!
Pros: Takes about five seconds, warm fuzzy feelings, they’re making a giant rubber band ball.
Cons: None. So go do it.
http://www.rubberbandtogether.com/
In spite of the general tenor of this blog so far (collective action! social justice! RAINBOWS!!!!), I consider myself to be pretty pragmatic. Until recently, though, that meant valuing businesses over the environment. People were obviously more important than spotted owls.
But that isn’t what environmentalism means at all. It isn’t that the environment is more important than our lives; it’s because our lives are important that we need this planet. And unless we figure out terraforming or discover a planet with all the characteristics that make Earth hospitable to life, we’re going to need it for a while.
It’s easy to assume that we can’t do anything about our carbon footprints or the amount of waste we produce, or that the effect would be so small as to not be worth our time. But think of it like voting. A single vote rarely determines the outcome of an election. Yet millions of people vote anyway. It’s a responsibility that comes with citizenship in a democracy.
We are also, then, responsible for living sustainably, as citizens of this world.
The Nature Conservancy’s Everyday Environmentalist section has suggestions for doing just that from its staff and some of its bloggers. (Thanks to Open Culture for the link.)
You click, The Hunger Site gives 1.1 cups of food to the hungry. The other tabs at the top of the page (Breast Cancer, Child Health, etc.) follow the same general idea.
It takes about 20 seconds a day to click through all the tabs, and all you have to do is glance at some ads. Only one click per person, per day, goes toward the official count, according to The Hunger Site’s FAQ. If you feel like doing some manic clicking for great justice, FreeRice is probably your best bet… better go to the site so I can make sure I have the address right and play compulsively.
*several minutes and 49 levels later*
… Anyway, The Hunger Site and friends also have associated stores (although, judging by the stats, the clicks bring in far more income). I was going to say I haven’t bought anything from them yet, but then I found some lovely recycled silk yarn… fair trade, no less. So, I funded 25.0 cups of food and I get about two scarves’ worth of yarn. I see no drawback here. (It would be nice if they took PayPal and/or allowed customers to create an account with them, but typing in my contact information and whatnot isn’t exactly time-consuming.) Aside from the proceeds going to excellent causes, many of the items seem quite beautiful in their own right–and isn’t Valentine’s Day coming up? Take a look around.
I’m way behind the curve on this one, but the article in question isn’t going to get any newer, and I have to make my first real post sometime. The NYT article “Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler” suggests that reducing our meat consumption may be a surprisingly effective way to protect the environment.
Unlike oil–which is necessary to our daily lives, at least until alternative energy sources become widespread–meat isn’t really something we need. Personally, I don’t think I could ever be a vegetarian, let alone a vegan. But could I give up greasy hamburgers and just treat myself to steak on special occasions? Yeah, I think so. (Really special occasions, of course, would get filet mignon.)
I’m not particularly wealthy by American standards, but even so, I’ve grown up in the world of Wal-Mart and high-speed Internet, where almost everything I might happen to want is available at a moment’s notice, at very little cost. (Music, anyone?) And I’m sure many of my generation could say the same. But at some point, we Americans will have to assume our responsibilities as global citizens, and realize that behind our instant gratification, there are deeper costs to the environment and (in many cases) the developing world.
It’s the classic economic dilemma: finite resources, infinite desires. And it’s about time we started scaling back our desires to match the resources available, rather than taking more than we can afford in the long run to produce all the things we want right now.
A new blog is created every seven seconds, according to Technorati.com…- Thomas Friedman, The World is Flat
And yet, I’m creating another one.
More to follow.
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