Tag: sustainability

Welcome to the third to last xx/xx/xx year in our lifetimes  Only next year and 2012 until we wait another 88 years for one.

Now that I have gotten your attention, actually MOST plastic bottles are not evil from a health and safety perspective, but the way that we use them certainly is evil.  I did say MOST, since by far the greatest number of plastic containers are made of polyethylene (PE, recycle code 2), polypropylene (PP, recycle code 5), or polyethylene terephthalate, (PET or PETE, recycle code 1).  These materials are not very apt to leach harmful materials into the contents.

Some plastics, notably polycarbonate (PC, recycle code 7 [7 is a catch all for “other”]) are apt to leach out harmful materials, particularly bisphenol A, strongly suspected as being an endocrine system disruptor because of its potential to mimic estrogen.  Polycarbonate containers are clear and usually thick, while PE and PP are translucent.  PETE is also clear, but usually quite a bit thinner than PC.  Just look at the recycle codes on the bottom.

We have been talking about sustainability recently, and one of the resources in most jeopardy is fresh water.  In the United States the freshwater problem is becoming more and more significant, and in many parts of the world it is already desperate.  We shall look at some of the methods used to purify nonpotable water tonight.

First of all, we need to understand what kind of water we are purifying.  It ranges in quality from surface or ground freshwater, requiring only minor treatment to eliminate microbes that might cause disease (the vast majority of drinking and industrial water in the United States comes from these sources), all the way to seawater, with lots of intermediate kinds.

I have been thinking about sustainability for a long, long time.  Unfortunately, in my scientific analysis, it not possible if we continue on the route that we have chosen.  This is an extremely complex topic, and might even deserve its own, new, date.  I am thinking that Wednesdays might be a good time for it.  This is more speculation than science, so it does not properly belong on Pique the Geek for the long term.

This will be the most controversial topic that I have ever tackled.  I may be dead wrong in some of my speculations, but a lot of thought has gone into them.  I offer no easy remedies but do ask the hard, horrible questions and illustrate them with facts.  I will ask that you, my readers, tell me whether this deserves a new series, uncoupled from Pique the Geek. Please read further.

I originally submitted this as a sample blog post to become a blogger on change.org, but they rejected me, so here goes.  I have two other posts like this up my sleeve, too.

I don’t know about you, but when I go to the supermarket it’s a chore.  With every single item there are thousands of things that could potentially go wrong.  Is it USDA organic?  Is it fair trade?  It doesn’t have palm oil in it, does it?  And if you’re like most people, the supermarket is unfortunately your best choice for a wide variety of food.

If those are the kinds of thoughts that run through your head while you’re wandering through the aisles, then I have some good news.  There is an easy way to break free from the grip of the agricultural-industrial complex that’s much easier than continually checking labels – and as usual, it will improve your budget, your health, and your life.  I’m talking about raising chickens.

Raising chickens may seem like a daunting task when you first hear about it, but in reality it’s very easy.  After the initial effort of getting them and setting up their living arrangements, chickens are nice animals and easy to take care of (and they don’t even smell!).  I’ve heard people say that their temperament is similar to that of cats.

Last year, I decided that I wanted chickens.  My family and I put a lot of research into it, and we finally found a farm and a carpenter (to build the coop) that we were happy with.  If you live in eastern Pennsylvania, I’d be more than happy to give you the name of both.  After about a year of delays, and with the help of Chicken Owners of Philadelphia, we finally got ourselves three beautiful heritage chicks in April.

This past week the last of the three started laying eggs.  I really encourage everyone to get a few chickens for themselves.  They are cheap – the chicks were five dollars each and the coop was a steal at seventy bucks – and entail little responsibility.  They provide fresh eggs that you know are grass-fed and humanely raised.  They give you local and possibly biodynamic food for next to nothing, without the hassle of reading labels.  They’re great for any garden, with their manure and taste for bugs and weeds and seeds.  And they’re great pets.

If you’re interested in getting some chickens of your own, I’ve got a wealth of information and advice from websites, books, and my own experience.  Just email me at RossMLevin at gmail.com if you’re curious.

This is a diary about the social imaginary — those aspects of our everyday practice that depend upon our imagining the existence of social institutions.  As our social institutions are increasingly inappropriate to our physical survival on planet Earth, we should be in the business of imagining new institutions which will give us a fighting chance.  I will investigate the case of global warming to discuss why this is so, and end with a series of photographic reflections.

The concept of “social imaginary” was developed as a tool of social critique by Cornelius Castoriadis, a philosopher whose pessimistic assessment of the present-day “social imaginary” will be examined in detail here.

(crossposted at Big Orange)

It’s ironic that WalMart has become an iconic symbol of the very same small towns that they’ve destroyed.  Main Street sits, rotting if even in a beautiful way, as a vacant reminder of the not-too-distant past when we built walkable communities that worked.  Places worth caring about, aesthetically pleasing mixed-use human scale neighborhoods that grew organically over time as the need arised.  Buildings designed and built by real people, kept up with pride by the business owners who lived in an apartment on top of the store itself, or in a house a few blocks away.  One with a long porch, on a street with sidewalks…so they could greet their neighbors as they walked by on a Sunday morning.

I’m not gonna think that I can influence the shopping habits of America with one blog post, but I am going to ask you the favor of at least considering what I have to say.  If you’re gonna shop tomorrow, at least consider our neighbors and our neighborhoods.  America is in the late stages of a serious disease, but fortunately there’s a cure…

There has been some debate over the impact of this financial crisis on President Obama’s ability to address global warming. Well, UN leaders and top economists are not buying the can-not-do meme. Instead, they are drafting a “Green New Deal” to “create millions of jobs, revive the world economy, slash poverty and avert environmental disaster, as the financial markets plunge into their deepest crisis since the Great Depression.”