Just thought I’d add something light and fun into the mix today to help balance out my last post (I tell ya - it’s ALL about balance).
You may recall our post about Franke James a little while ago.
Well, I just received an email from Franke, letting me know that her latest visual essay is online. Having thoroughly enjoyed her last piece, I certainly didn’t hesitate pop over to her blog for a look-see!
Her latest work is entitled “My SUV and Me Say Goodbye” and like her last essay, once again provides readers with some intriguing (and oftentimes hilarious), fun-filled Franke James (environ)mental meanderings to ponder. I absolutely love it, and highly recommend you check it out!
Technorati Tags: franke james, suv, david suzuki, environment, environmental, global warming, climate change
Written by Bentley on February 28th, 2007 with 1 comment.
Read more articles on Green Commentary.
I came across a post at Hugg this morning that really intrigued me. It reminded me of an overall question that’s been rattling around in my head for quite some time. Essentially my query is this - if a person/organization inspires positive change on the environmental front, yet falls somewhat short in their own activities, should their ‘hypocrisy’ outweigh all the good things they have accomplished?
Judging by the number of articles I come across lashing out at those who don’t quite ‘practice what they preach’ (many of them interestingly written by green-minded people), it’s pretty clear that many would indeed say ‘YES!!!’.
Hmmmm…
I think what really got me thinking about this issue in the first place was a comment my brother-in-law made re: so-called ‘green celebrities’. Essentially he was pointing out that celebrity environmentalism is mostly hype - that is to say that most celebrities who have jumped on the enviro-bandwagon don’t actually live according to the doctrine that they preach, so why should we applaud their efforts?
There is no doubt about it - he does have a point…BUT, I can’t say I agree wholeheartedly with that line of thinking in general. Why completely discount a person’s efforts if they are producing a net positive result?
What this all reminds me of is the idea behind carbon offsetting. Let’s say Leonardo DiCaprio’s lifestyle produces 5 times more CO2 emissions than the average American citizen (this is completely hypothetical of course!), yet his words (inspiring others to take action) and financial contributions are responsible for an overall reduction in emissions 10,000X that achieved by those with less influence? Should we really be spending time digging up and pointing out his shortcomings? (again, this was a completely hypothetical example - I have no clue how much Leo contributes, whether good or bad)
Obviously it would be pretty well impossible to accurately calculate the amount of ‘good’ derived from a particular person’s efforts and I think that might be where the problem lies. While it’s relatively easy to calculate someone’s personal CO2 contributions (the ‘bad’), how could we ever fully quanitify the extent of their positive influence?
The story at Hugg today was reporting on allegations that Al Gore is an energy-guzzler (supposedly using 20X the national average), and links over to an article at Energy Refuge. The author of said article poses the question, “is [Al Gore] a true environmentalist or a phony?”.
Now before I continue with my rambling, please be assured that the point of this post is NOT to rush to Al Gore’s defence and slam the author of the article. The specifics of this particular example are of much less interest to me than this overall topic in general.
I guess I’ve just always found it funny how some people are so quick to point out people’s foibles and weaknesses, rather than considering things from a ‘big picture’ perspective and at least acknowledging the person’s overall positive contribution at the same time.
Of course this is not to say that people should not be held accountable for their words and actions. Believe it or not I actually do feel strongly about the idea of ‘practicing what you preach’. Obviously if a prominent animal rights activist also happened to club baby seals in his spare time it would be understandable to question this individual’s integrity.
Returning back to the Al Gore example, I guess I just find it amusing to see how quickly he falls from the status of ‘hero’ to ‘phony’ in some people’s minds, without any consideration for the overall positive influence he has had. Should all of us (who promote the green movement) therefore be considered phonies if we still do things that aren’t 100% earth-friendly while actively promoting ‘all things green’?
Interestingly enough, the actual owner (aka ‘EnergyDude’) of Energy Refuge wrote his own article on the topic (the other article was written by one of his contributors) offering a more forgiving perspective, and certainly one that falls more in line with my own views. Be sure to check it out as well: Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth, and My Views.
Anyway, I’m definitely not trying to stir the pot too much here (hehe)! This is just a discussion topic I happen to find genuinely intriguing! I have little doubt that there are many people with much stronger views than mine (on both sides of the coin), and perhaps we’ll even hear from a few of them. 
Technorati Tags: al gore, inconvenient truth, carbon offsets, emissions, global warming, climate change, phony, hypocrisy
Written by Bentley on February 28th, 2007 with no comments.
Read more articles on Green Commentary.
Last week I made mention of an interesting sustainability internship at the Windward Institute. Well we received a nice email from Walt (contact person for Windward), thanking us for our post and providing a few more details re: the type of people they are looking for.
All we need is to figure out better ways to get the word out
on the internships. We’re working through the usual college sites,
but the people we’re most interested in the ones who’ve been out of
college for a year or two and have come to realize that the corporate
system just isn’t for them.
We’re sure that there are lots of twenty-somethings that
would much rather take the road less traveled than go to work for
Kinkos or Subway…
…
The challenge is to find people who are take what we’re
doing seriously, and not just looking for a cool place to hang for
the summer. It’s a matter of drawing a large enough pool of
applicants to include some serious folk.
So the good news is that they are still looking for candidates - just be sure this is something you are really serious about before getting in touch with them.
Technorati Tags: sustainability, internships, windward, sustainable living, aquaponics, biofuel
Written by Bentley on February 28th, 2007 with no comments.
Read more articles on Announcements.
By Tracey Smith
It’s bizarre, yet pleasantly reassuring that the telephone has been ringing a little more of late. It is coming up to my baby’s 3rd birthday…my virtual baby that is, an awareness campaign called National Downshifting Week.
I popped it out with gusto and a deep breath in 2005 - rather like shelling a pea really -from a chilly little cottage, on a pimple on the bottomend of nowhere in rural France and remember pondering at the time, would anything much become of her (she is quite definitely a ’she’ incidentally).
The idea of lacing an actual ‘week’ together came because I’d focused my writing attention on exploring the secrets of downshifting and sustainable living, following my own major downshift in 2002. There was such a lot to uncover and discover and my journey to a simpler, happier life left me brimming with a passion to spread the word about what one could achieve if you ’stepped out of the Rat Race’ and stopped to smell the roses.
International attention was drawn to the project after a few of my articles had been published on the Internet and I found myself in the epicentre of a worldwide craving for information on a bit of ‘back to basics’ living!
I would raise my head from the keyboard to tend to my chickens or pick or plant some fruit or veg, or maybe even just chew the cud with my husband and kids. My grip on the work/life balance was firming up with every passing day and I learned how to say ‘Actually, sorry, but no’; there is so much more to life than chasing the dosh.
The UK has been fuelled by various forms of the media paying lipservice to ‘downshifting’. They portray it as a cure for all ills (which indeed it can be) and that one of the best ways to achieve it is by moving house, counties, even countries! How ridiculous! And what to do for those with no capital allowing such a move? It’s preposterous.
Downshifting isn’t about chasing rainbows over the water. It’s about claiming back little pockets of time and money and investing them elsewhere.
In a nutshell, the more money you spend, the more time you have to be out there earning it and the less time you have to spend with the ones you love.
Embracing living with less is a challenge, but if you approach the concept with a positive mind, the possibilities are endless. Also, by taking the ‘dip your toes in’ method, you get to find your comfort level of downshift and have a far greater chance of long term success.
By making small changes in your own four walls, your whole world could change colour. Speaking of colour, when you do slow life down a pace, you automatically ‘lean towards the green’. A very interesting phenomenon, particularly if you have never been very green minded before.
But look, taking a trip to the local charity shop to drop in a bag of donations, because you are at last ditching the uber-consumer race to please the fashion police, is positive for your local community (it could be a hospice shop and you never know when you are going to need that!), you are recycling, reusing and you might even come away with a bag of second-hand goodies for a snip of a price.
Benefit to the purse and the planet.
So, there you have it. The conception, birth and nappy stage of National Downshifiting Week, in a (soap)nutshell.
The phone is ringing again, more interviews to give, more stuff to say, more people to help on their way, then I’m off downstairs, the kids have just gone to bed and there’s a warm glass of cheap red and the old man to cuddle up to.
The life/work balance….keep it real, make it slow, keep it green.
…
Columnist and broadcaster Tracey Smith has carved a niche with Downshifting and Sustainable Living. She is also the creator of awareness campaign, National Downshifting Week in the UK and USA and was recently confirmed a finalist in Britain’s Eco-Hero Awards, an initiative from ITV’s National News. Tracey specialised in this genre following her own extreme downshift in 2002 and has made it her mission to uncover all the layers and levels of simple living.
Combine this with her passion and genuine enthusiasm for getting people on the right, green track, promoting a true life and work balance and first-hand experience of surviving on limited funds and you have an energetic and realistic advocator for ‘back to basics living’.
_____________________________________________________
Thanks very much to Tracey for her article. If you are interested in writing a guest post on the EcoSherpa blog, feel free to drop us a line.
Technorati Tags: downshifting, sustainable living, green living, simplifying, stress reduction, healthy living
Written by Bentley on February 28th, 2007 with 1 comment.
Read more articles on Eco Events and Interesting & Notable.
On Saturday my wife and I met up with some friends of ours in Toronto for a pre-planned girl’s/guy’s day in the big city. The ladies spent their time at the Eaton Centre, while we (manly men) took in the Canadian International Autoshow at the Metro Convention Centre.
To be totally honest, this sort of thing is actually not really my usual cup of tea (cars have never really excited me), but my friend got the tickets for free and I figured it might at least be a good opportunity to get up close and personal with some ‘green’ vehicles, if nothing else. As it turns out, I had a lot of fun and would certainly consider going again in future years.
I’d have to say the highlight of the day was coming face to face with the Ford ‘Super Chief’ (shown above). I’ve never seen anything remotely like it before. At first glance, although impressive in appearance, I thought it was simply the ultimate macho-man monster truck (it is absolutely massive!). As I learned however, it actually has a ‘triflex fuel engine’ - that is to say it is designed to run on hydrogen, E85 and gasoline. Apparently it can even travel up to 500 miles between fill-ups.
Although it’s still not exactly a treehuggermobile, it IS at least nice to see some potentially greener options for the diehard truck fanatics (who knows if/when it might ever hit the streets though).
If you want to learn more about this behemoth of masculinity be sure to check out Ford’s Super Chief press release from Jan 2006.
Of all the companies represented at the show I’d definitely say that GM impressed me the most - unlike any other manufacturer, they actually had a section dedicated to their green initiatives and a spokeperson on-hand to chat with anyone that came by.
I guess it’s not too surprising that they are trying to toot their green horn as loudly as possible after all the bad press associated with the movie ‘Who Killed the Electric Car?”, but regardless of motive it is still nice to see. Be sure to check out their Green By Design site if you want to learn more.
One thing I was a little disappointed about was that they didn’t have a Chevy Volt on-hand, but c’est la vie I guess!
A couple other green vehicles worthy of mention of course were the Toyota Prius and the Honda Civic Hybrid. To be totally honest, although the former was pretty cool in it’s own right, I’d have to say the latter totally blew it out of the water (in my mind anyway).
The civic was absolutely beautiful - it almost had a luxury car look and feel about it (much roomier, nicer looking interior) - and according to the spec sheets it boasts similar fuel efficiency, yet (oddly enough) costs a decent amount less than the Prius! I’m almost wondering if there was a typo - the Prius was listed in the 32k (Canadian currency) range, while the Civic was 25K range.
Anyway, whatever the case may be, I’d certainly be happy to own either one of them.
…
In unrelated (but still green) news, I must say it was nice to see so much green focus at the Oscars last night - for those of you who didn’t watch, “An Inconvenient Truth” won for both best documentary and best song (the latter was an especially impressive feat considering the handful of “Dream Girls” nominations in the same category!!). There was also a fun bit earlier in the evening with Leo DiCaprio and Al Gore. Great exposure when you consider the size of the viewing audience! Hopefully we’ll see many more great things happen as a result.
Technorati Tags: autoshow, gm, super chief, hybrid, prius, civic, volt, green by design, toyota, honda
Written by Bentley on February 26th, 2007 with no comments.
Read more articles on Transportation.
Some interesting green stories from this week.
1) New Zealand’s Toyota Racing Series is expecting to become first major series to run on biofuel (E85); 2) Anyone with biofuel vehicles is the USA will likely want a copy of this directory listing over 2200 locations where alt fuels can be purchased; 3) Safeway inc. has launched it’s first biodiesel gas pumps at one of it’s Seattle locations as part of a test campaign; 4) News from Tesla that will likely excite a lot of people - they plan to start mass-producing electric sedans in Albuquerque. These vehicles will be considerably cheaper than their roadster and should be available by 2009; 5) Interesting article about Toyota’s FT-HS, an electric hybrid sport car that can achieve 0-60 in four seconds (similar league as Ferrari F430); 6) Nissan’s new X-TRAIL fuel-cell vehicle is getting put to good use in Japan as a fleet car - the first of it’s kind; 7) You might recall one of our past headlines (from Green News) relating to the ‘Heliotube Solar Concentrator’ - well it looks like this technology has some supporters in the California solar industry; 8] Interesting article discussing the finalists of Toronto’s Nathan Phillips Square re-design competition - I was happy to see that all of the competitors have incorporated various ‘green’ features into their design. I’ll definitely be interested to hear who wins.
1) Biofuel soon to power racing cars
2) New Alternative Fuel Directory Features over 2200 E85 and Biodiesel retail locations nationwide.
3) Safeway unveils first biodiesel pump at Seattle station
4) Tesla to build fully electric sedans in Albuquerque
5) Toyota’s electric hybrid promises shock for supercars
6) Nissan X-TRAIL Fuel-Cell Limo
7) Three Solar Partners Will Install Heliotube
Nathan Phillips Square Design Finalists Unveiled
Technorati Tags: green news, eco news, environmental news
Written by Bentley on February 23rd, 2007 with no comments.
Read more articles on News.
Thanks to Linton for the heads-up at Hugg about Michael Reynolds’ (of Earthship Biotecture) new documentary. The YouTube video features a trailer for the movie.
Some info from the Garbage Warrior site:
Shot over three years in the USA, England, India and New Mexico, Garbage Warrior is a feature- length documentary film telling the epic story of maverick architect Michael Reynolds, his crew of renegade house builders fron New Mexico, and their fight to introduce radically different ways of living. A snapshot of contemporary geo-politics and an inspirational tale of triumph over buereaucracy, Garbage Warrior is above all an intimate portrait of an extraordinary individual and his dream of changing the world!
Sounds pretty cool! There is no indication (on GW site) of when it might be released, but I will certainly make mention on the blog once I hear more.
Related EcoSherpa posts:
Ever Rented an Earthship?
Earthships Revisted
Technorati Tags: earthships, earthship biotecture, recycling, green contruction, green building, sustainable living, sustainable design
Written by Bentley on February 22nd, 2007 with no comments.
Read more articles on Waste Management and Green Construction.
I just received the latest issue of Natural Home Magazine yesterday and am quite pleased with the selection of interesting articles!
Two in particular caught my eye since they focus on rainwater recycling. It was interesting to see that one of them was even written by our ‘Eco-Friend’, Carol Steinfeld.
If all that isn’t cool enough for you, I’m happy to report that both of these articles are available online for your viewing pleasure!
1) Curb Pollution with a Rain Garden: Singing in the Runoff
2) Conserve Water and Reduce Runoff: Raindrops Keep Falling
Enjoy!
Technorati Tags: rainwater, rain water, water conservation, rain harvesting, rain garden, runoff, rain barrel, wastewater, carol steinfeld, cisterns, reservoir
Written by Bentley on February 22nd, 2007 with no comments.
Read more articles on Water Conservation and Gardening.
It certainly didn’t take me long to find something to write about today! I just happened to stumble across an cool looking blog - Adventures In Ecological Design where one of the posts (the one I linked to) makes mention of the “Windward Institute”.
In the words of “J-Dawg” (who wrote the post):
So I’m in rural south easeten Washington, in the mountains of klickitat, at the windward institute. A sustainable community in progress if ever there was one. Some of our projects for the summer include aquaponics, solar ovens, biofuel, and watching the peacocks get rejected time and again.
Feel free to check www.windward.org for stories and info.
Of course, seeing mention of aquaponics certainly got my attention so I decided to follow J-Dawg’s recommendation to check out the site. I’m glad I did!
Here are some short exerpts from the Windward ‘about us’ section:
Windward is an intentional community located just north of the scenic Columbia River Gorge about 80 miles east of Portland, Oregon.
So far, we’ve acquired 131 acres of pasture and forested land, put in basic services and learned a lot in the doing of it all. Some of the lessons weren’t the nice kind, but we’ve made it through the sticky parts and grown.
…
Windward is guided by the belief that there’s nothing more radical than a working model of a better way. We’re committed to building working models of a variety of sustainable systems in order to show that appropriate technology is viable, affordable and practical.
Sounds like a great place!
There is quite a lot of interesting content on the site, including an online newsletter - but something else that really caught my eye was the mention of 2007 internships.
For 2007, Windward will be offering 12 week internships on an ongoing basis throughout the year.
Interns will participate in the development of the sustainable systems described throughout this website gaining both a theoretical understanding of interconnected sustainable systems and a wide range of practical, hands-on sustainability skills.
…
Interns will also be part of a program of study that looks at the art of creating sustainable community both in historical practice and in speculative fiction as a way to better understand the challenges inherent in establishing sustainability at the small community level.
The ideal intern candidate would be someone in their mid-20s with a liberal arts degree who is looking for an opportunity to pursue sustainability as a life path. Applicants should be U.S./Canadian residents over the age of 21, but we have waived the age requirement when an applicant’s history showed that an exception was warranted.
Even if the internship isn’t your cup of tea (or you don’t fit the required profile), I highly recommend you check out the Windward site.
Technorati Tags: sustainbility, windward, internships, environmental, sustainable living, biofuel, aquaponics, solar, ecological design, composting, biomass, eco-village
Written by Bentley on February 22nd, 2007 with no comments.
Read more articles on Announcements and Interesting & Notable.
There’s no doubt that the Worldwide Web has revolutionized our ability to share and obtain information. One of the downsides of surfing the web, however - even with with Google’s increasingly powerful search algorithm - is that it can be a fairly tiring experience at times. Very often, you need to visit a number of different sites in order to find sufficient information on a given topic. As such, it’s always nice to come across a resource that is absolutely jam-packed with top quality, relevant information!
As you probably know by now, we just love telling you about these sorts of resources!
I actually came across Oasis Design not long after we started EcoSherpa and even added them to our directory - but as is often the case, I made a mental note to explore the site further and well…you know what happens from there.
For whatever reason they popped into my head again today so I decided to pay them a visit and write this long-overdue post. The timing of the mind ‘pop’ was actually very good due to my increased focus and interest re: household water management. If you visit the Oasis site you will see that this is clearly a topic they know a great deal about! In fact this seems to be their primary focus. That being said, you will also find a decent amount of info relating to ecological design and sustainable living in general.
I should probably mention that a fair amount of their info (in the form of articles and books) is for sale, but definitely don’t let that scare you off! There is a wealth of free info, and the products for sale look to be excellent resources.
A little more about Oasis (from the site):
Oasis Design is a wellspring of original content and designs which you won’t find elsewhere. We specialize in the nuts and bolts of sustainability—practical systems for living well, in harmony with nature and each other. These include designs for managing water, wastewater, energy, money and other resources. Our goal is to live really well, on a small amount of well-managed resources, and help others do the same. We don’t need resource wars…we just need to make the most of our fair share. There are several hundred pages of free information here on our web site, as well as an additional several hundred in our books and articles.
Technorati Tags: greywater, graywater, ecological design, water management, rainwater harvesting, rainwater storage, oasis design, sustainable living, wastewater, composting toilets
Written by Bentley on February 20th, 2007 with no comments.
Read more articles on Water Conservation and Interesting & Notable.
