Blog Entries tagged 'consumption'

Idea 16: Sustainable Building

will@oneplanetonelife.com — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0100

DAVID HEYMANN
Professor of architecture at the University of Texas at Austin

In the summer of 1999, I received a call from Laura Bush. She and then-governor George Bush wanted a design for a house that would blend into the landscape of an extraordinary piece of land they had just purchased in Crawford, Texas. We talked at length about environmental systems, and Laura was clear at the outset that they wanted to do everything possible to protect the land. It is exceptionally beautiful, with [...]

Idea 15: Efficiency

will@oneplanetonelife.com — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0100

ROCKY ANDERSON
Mayor of Salt Lake City

In Salt Lake City, we've been able to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions in our municipal operations by 31 percent in four years. We've eliminated 143 cars from the city's light vehicle fleet, and replaced 41 SUVs with smaller, more efficient cars. By retrofitting all city and county buildings with compact fluorescent bulbs, we save the city $33,000 a year. We then invest one third of that in wind power, making Salt Lake City the state's largest purchas [...]

Idea 11: The ocean's food chain is at risk

will@oneplanetonelife.com — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0100

THOMAS E. LOVEJOY, PH.D.
President of H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and The Environment

The ocean's food chain is at risk
We were one of the first to call attention to the acidification of the oceans. The oceans take up a huge amount of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere every year. A portion of that carbon gets turned into carbonic acid, so that the more carbon dioxide there is in the atmosphere, the more acidic the oceans become. The oceans are now 30 percent mor [...]

Idea 10: New stores will use less energy

will@oneplanetonelife.com — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0100

ANDY RUBEN
Vice President for Sustainability, Wal-Mart

New stores will use less energy
Hurricane Katrina was a big turning point for us. It showed us that we've got a role we can play that might be greater than we realized. Two years later, we have prototype stores-the first is in Kansas City, Mo. It uses LED lighting in the freezers, and a heating and cooling system without a fan. That store uses 20 percent less energy than a store we'd have opened in 2005. One product we're promot [...]

Idea 6: Being green is just good business

will@oneplanetonelife.com — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0100

DAVID STANGIS
Director of Corporate Responsibility, Intel

Being green is just good business
As the largest chip manufacturer worldwide, Intel has been leading the area of environmental excellence for decades. For us, being green is just part of the way we do business. One thing that plays to our advantage is that our manufacturing process essentially gets refreshed every few years. We can anticipate that, so instead of having to retrofit facilities, we've applied a philosophy of des [...]

Trawlermen Cling on as Oceans Empty of Fish - And the Ecosystem Is Gasping

will@oneplanetonelife.com — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Published on Tuesday, July 8, 2008 by The Guardian/UK

Europe is propping up an unsustainable industry in an extreme example of short-termism that our children will pay for
by George Monbiot

All over the world, protesters are engaged in a heroic battle with reality. They block roads, picket fuel depots, throw missiles and turn over cars in an effort to hold it at bay. The oil is running out and governments, they insist, must do something about it. When they've sorted it out, wha [...]

We Are Doomed! Sort Of!

will@oneplanetonelife.com — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Published on Wednesday, June 25, 2008 by the San Francisco Chronicle

We Are Doomed! Sort Of!

Earth in crisis, food and water increasingly scarce, people freaking out. Should you join them?

by Mark Morford

It would be nice to think much of the ugliness is coming to an end.

It would be lovely to imagine the era of brutal Earth-mauling technologies, coal extraction and petroleum and industrial agriculture and strip mining and clear cutting and ind [...]

Rainwater Harvesting

will@oneplanetonelife.com — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Rainwater harvesting with multiple barrels (http://www.kidsfromkanata.org/~kfk/files/rainbarrels.html)

I'm dependent on water and I'm hooked on barrels. With one installed, I just had to have more. I added another, and another. Now I have seven connected barrels. This system of barrels, pipes and fittings has a water holding capacity of 350 gallons. [...]

Top Ten Reasons to Go Vegetarian

will@oneplanetonelife.com — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0100

By Bruce Friedrich

Gone are the days when vegetarians were served up a plate of iceberg lettuce and a dull-as-dishwater baked potato. With the growing variety of vegetarian faux meats like bacon and sausages - along with an ever-expanding variety of vegetarian cookbooks and restaurants - vegetarianism has taken the world by storm.

With World Vegetarian Week beginning on Monday, here without further ado are PETA's picks for the top 10 reasons to give vegetarian eating a try.
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The Global Effects Of Meat Consumption

willadams@oneplanetonelife.com — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0100

"The global effects of meat consumption don't stop on land. Agriculture also requires water consumption, and animal agriculture is no exception. Animal production consumes an amount of water roughly equivalent to all other uses of water in the United States combined. Besides grains, animals need water to survive and grow until they are slaughtered. One pound of beef requires an input of approximately 2500 gallons of water, whereas a pound of soy requires 250 gallons of water and a pound [...]

It's the Meat-Eating, Stupid

will@oneplanetonelife.com — Wed, 28 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Published on Tuesday, May 27, 2008 by The Capital Times (Madison, Wisconsin)
It's the Meat-Eating, Stupid
by Bill Berry

How's this for a timely quote: "(It) was the year I decided to find out why people were hungry in the world. The experts were telling us that the population problem was the cause of scarcity. The truth was, we were feeding a third of the world's grain to livestock, and with little return."

That was Frances Moore Lappe, author of "Diet for a Sma [...]

We cannot rely on technology to save us

will@oneplanetonelife.com — Thu, 22 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Technology provides us with some answers to the environmental challenges we are facing. Hybrid technologies have recently made it to the auto market, promising more fuel efficient transportation and less greenhouse emissions. Hydrogen fuels are a very promising alternative to the dirty energies we are using today. Ultra-clean and unlimited, it is the fuel of the future.

Renewable energy sources such as photovoltaics, wind and thermal energies and future renewables we can't imagine yet, prom [...]

Sustainability?

will@oneplanetonelife.com — Thu, 22 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Sustainability? I don't believe there is such a thing anymore. If we were to sustain our current rates of consumption, habitat destruction, emissions, etc. the Earth's biosphere will collapse within a century.

The concept of sustainability at this point is flawed. It is now not a matter of "sustainability", it is a matter of retreat. We need to drastically reduce consumption, drastically reduce emissions, halt all critical habitat destruction, reduce an exponentially growing huma [...]

Collision Course

will@oneplanetonelife.com — Wed, 21 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Our consumerism is not on a future collision course with the biosphere, it collided the day consumerism was defined and implemented as the economic standard and unit of measure for success. The theory and practice itself is based off a system that is so obviously unsustainable that a grade school student has enough knowledge to label it foolish and ignorant.

We have collided as a species with our only home and are in the process of following through. Sustainability will become our new [...]

There is no "top" of the food chain.

willadams@oneplanetonelife.com — Tue, 20 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

"Given that we sit atop the food chain, nothing preys on us so there's nothing to stop our growth."

This is simply a major fallacy of our very ecologically fallacious culture. There is NO ‘top' to the food chain!

In fact, evolutionary tendency is from carnivorous to omnivorous where we see some plant eating capabilities, to exclusive plant eating capabilities and then further specialization (such as the bovine specialized stomach) adding an ability to digest much m [...]

Should you become a vegetarian?

will@oneplanetonelife.com — Fri, 16 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Should you become a vegetarian?

Becoming a vegetarian stems for the most part as a result of a spiritual quest by an individual or a society who decides to stop eating meat. Progression of spirit NEVER involves BECOMING a meat eater. So, we can safely assume that consideration and implementation of becoming a non-meat eater is positive spiritual progression. As people on a spiritual path, becoming vegetarian is an unavoidable eventuality. Therefore, the sooner the better!

Now, the decisi [...]

Reigning King of the Modern World

will@oneplanetonelife.com — Thu, 08 May 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Materialism/Consumerism has succeeded as becoming the reigning king of the modern world. Almost all action that mankind does is measured in some means by this intangible creation. Though mankind claims to be concerned with the well being of other creatures he shares this planet with, this concern falls very, very short of the power material wealth and its measuring ugly-stick has over it.

It is not necessary to destroy or eliminate this material mindset in order for us to become an evol [...]