Keep your kit in your car, bike basket, backpack etc. It should consist of at least one canvas shopping bag, a clean box suitable for holding fast food or leftovers from a restaurant meal, and a cup suitable for any fountain drinks or cafe coffee you might want to purchase over the course of the day. If you're short on space or would like to have a shopping bag in your pocket, consider a sturdy cloth mesh. Natural materials are preferable for your kit to the extent possible.
You should be able to relate most of the suggestion in this blog/book to Principles #1,#2 and #3, added previously. With your kit, you will reduce your litter and carbon waste footprints (carbon, because fewer non-reusable materials will need be manufactured for your needs), reducing the negative effects of your journey through life upon the planet.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Principle #3 - Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle - IN THAT ORDER!
Sorry, didn't mean to shout.
This principle is related to the principle of minimizing your waste footprint. You can call it a corollary if you like. Basically, if you think recycling is the key to cleaning up the planet, you're missing the point. To recyle a glass bottle, it first must be transported back to a factory in a truck that burns fossil fuels, then it will melted down with heat that comes from more fossil fuels, then it will be reshaped, using more fossil fuels, into... a glass bottle. This is kind of silly. Incidentally, a lot of materials put out for recycling get dumped instead, turning what might have been perfectly good land in Third World countries into dump sites or winding up in the plastic soup in the Pacific. It's all about supply, demand, and storage costs.
I have a hard time drinking water straight out of the tap, and so far haven't made the investment in getting a really good filter on my tap. So to REDUCE the amount of plastic bottles I throw back into the plastic soup, I've been REUSING half gallon glass bottles, which incidentally are harder to come by but much healthier than plastic, to fill with super duper filtered water from my health food store. Recycling should come before dumping (because it REDUCES the amount of raw materials we need, and slows down the accumulation of junk), but only after appropriate REUSE. Bottling factories would best go back to the old method of getting bottles returned for deposits, washing 'em out and reusing 'em. Inconvenient for the consumer? So is finding a plastic bottle cap in your child's fish filet.
This principle is related to the principle of minimizing your waste footprint. You can call it a corollary if you like. Basically, if you think recycling is the key to cleaning up the planet, you're missing the point. To recyle a glass bottle, it first must be transported back to a factory in a truck that burns fossil fuels, then it will melted down with heat that comes from more fossil fuels, then it will be reshaped, using more fossil fuels, into... a glass bottle. This is kind of silly. Incidentally, a lot of materials put out for recycling get dumped instead, turning what might have been perfectly good land in Third World countries into dump sites or winding up in the plastic soup in the Pacific. It's all about supply, demand, and storage costs.
I have a hard time drinking water straight out of the tap, and so far haven't made the investment in getting a really good filter on my tap. So to REDUCE the amount of plastic bottles I throw back into the plastic soup, I've been REUSING half gallon glass bottles, which incidentally are harder to come by but much healthier than plastic, to fill with super duper filtered water from my health food store. Recycling should come before dumping (because it REDUCES the amount of raw materials we need, and slows down the accumulation of junk), but only after appropriate REUSE. Bottling factories would best go back to the old method of getting bottles returned for deposits, washing 'em out and reusing 'em. Inconvenient for the consumer? So is finding a plastic bottle cap in your child's fish filet.
Principle #2 - Everything is Linked to Everything Else
Perhaps this should be Principle #1. {I may renumber later...}
Physics has shown that there is practically no such thing as a "closed system". Everything effects everything else. This is known as Chaos Theory. The classic example is that a butterfly flapping its wings may make the difference as to whether or not a hurricane occurs, because of the ripple effects of one event effecting many others, which in turn effect many others.
This shows that we certainly can't control everything that happens in the world. But it also teaches us that what we do is important, because the effects are far reaching. While we can't fine tune ourselves to be perfect in all of our actions and their effects (maybe my flapping my gums here will cause a hurricane!), we should be conscious of the general patterns of cause and effect. In human actions, for the most part, actions that are good, positive, and done with love will have effects with similar qualities. Still, part of doing things that way means thinking things through, and not getting carried away with a blindered idea, even though it may conceived in a loving way, without considering the consequences.
Here are a couple of examples of getting carried away. Henry Ford came up with a great idea for building cars more efficiently, the assembly line. Industrialists, and folks in general, got carried away with this idea by building so many cars, and other goods on assembly lines, that today we are choking on the fumes from all the cars and factories, and of course we have this whole problem of global warming. On the other hand, if we just closed all the factories and banned automobiles, affairs as they are now run would pretty much come crashing down around us. People would not be fed or sheltered properly, as society groped for new ways, or tried to get back to old ways, to get things done. Quite possibly civil wars would erupt.
Everything is linked to everything else. Don't let the thought paralyze you, but also don't go off half-cocked into some mushrooming project, like Henry Ford did, without examining the consequences of your actions. In the context of this blog/book, let's especially emphasize the environmental consequences. But we do also have to take into account the effects on the economy - we at least want everyone to be sheltered and clothed, so we can't just shut everything down. If we are conscious of our effects, though, maybe we will naturally learn to do without the things we don't need, and to teach others to do the same.
Physics has shown that there is practically no such thing as a "closed system". Everything effects everything else. This is known as Chaos Theory. The classic example is that a butterfly flapping its wings may make the difference as to whether or not a hurricane occurs, because of the ripple effects of one event effecting many others, which in turn effect many others.
This shows that we certainly can't control everything that happens in the world. But it also teaches us that what we do is important, because the effects are far reaching. While we can't fine tune ourselves to be perfect in all of our actions and their effects (maybe my flapping my gums here will cause a hurricane!), we should be conscious of the general patterns of cause and effect. In human actions, for the most part, actions that are good, positive, and done with love will have effects with similar qualities. Still, part of doing things that way means thinking things through, and not getting carried away with a blindered idea, even though it may conceived in a loving way, without considering the consequences.
Here are a couple of examples of getting carried away. Henry Ford came up with a great idea for building cars more efficiently, the assembly line. Industrialists, and folks in general, got carried away with this idea by building so many cars, and other goods on assembly lines, that today we are choking on the fumes from all the cars and factories, and of course we have this whole problem of global warming. On the other hand, if we just closed all the factories and banned automobiles, affairs as they are now run would pretty much come crashing down around us. People would not be fed or sheltered properly, as society groped for new ways, or tried to get back to old ways, to get things done. Quite possibly civil wars would erupt.
Everything is linked to everything else. Don't let the thought paralyze you, but also don't go off half-cocked into some mushrooming project, like Henry Ford did, without examining the consequences of your actions. In the context of this blog/book, let's especially emphasize the environmental consequences. But we do also have to take into account the effects on the economy - we at least want everyone to be sheltered and clothed, so we can't just shut everything down. If we are conscious of our effects, though, maybe we will naturally learn to do without the things we don't need, and to teach others to do the same.
Principle #1 - Minimize Your Waste Footprint
We'll start with principles. I'll try to explain what I mean by them. Once you've read about them, and about some of the suggestions I'll be adding later to address incorporating the principles in your life, hopefully you will understand them well enough that the only thing you'll need to keep in your consciousness is the title of the principle, and the rest will just flow as you work on saving the Earth without really trying.
While many of us would like to leave a legacy, we don't want it to be one of trash and pollution. We should prefer to leave this place behind better than we found it. Therefore, one of our first principles in saving the Earth is to minimize our waste footprint. This means leaving behind as little trash and pollution as possible, and cleaning up more than you do leave behind.
If you've been watching the papers recently, you've probably heard phrases along the lines of "minimize your carbon footprint". Basically, this means minimizing one type of waste product which humans create a lot of, carbon dioxide which is produced by burning fossil fuels. These fuels are burned when we drive our cars, turn on our lights, run our applicances, heat and cool our houses, mow the lawn. We'll talk about trying to solve these problems (without really trying) shortly. But let's make the point now that this is only one aspect of our overall waste footprint, and not the only one which is urgent.
The next paragraph won't be fun, but I'll make it brief to try to give you the idea.
To begin with, carbon dioxide is not the only pollutant (it's actually a normal part of the atmosphere, but the increasing proportion of it is largely the cause of global warming). There are many other toxic substances that are released into the air as a result of things that we burn, and things that burned on our behalf, for instance by power plants and factories. These substances may not be the main causes of warming, but they are causing other problems, such as asthma and cancer, in many people and likely animals as well.
Aside from the air, our waste footprint has done far reaching damage to our waters and our lands. In the Pacific Ocean, there now exists what has been called "an island of plastic" or a "plastic soup" which "stretches from Hawaii to Japan," which is devastating to marine life. Litter is everywhere in environment as well, and plastics have built up in our bloodstreams, and may cause cancer. Tons of radioactive waste from nuclear reactors are buried in unsafe places in containers that that will eventually fail, quite possibly in our lifetimes. PCB, one of the most cancer causing substances known to humans, is buried in several locations near where I live (just as one example), and was once given to farmers who were told it could be used as fertilizer, so the company could get rid of it. Efforts to clean up the mess have been incomplete, and the subject of many court battles.
This is all waste, and it's making a bigger and bigger mess for each generation. The first principle means create as little of it as you can, and do what you can to help clean up what is out there. More specific suggestions to come!
I referenced this article in The Independent for specifics on the plastic soup. You can also Google "plastic island pacific ocean" for more articles.
While many of us would like to leave a legacy, we don't want it to be one of trash and pollution. We should prefer to leave this place behind better than we found it. Therefore, one of our first principles in saving the Earth is to minimize our waste footprint. This means leaving behind as little trash and pollution as possible, and cleaning up more than you do leave behind.
If you've been watching the papers recently, you've probably heard phrases along the lines of "minimize your carbon footprint". Basically, this means minimizing one type of waste product which humans create a lot of, carbon dioxide which is produced by burning fossil fuels. These fuels are burned when we drive our cars, turn on our lights, run our applicances, heat and cool our houses, mow the lawn. We'll talk about trying to solve these problems (without really trying) shortly. But let's make the point now that this is only one aspect of our overall waste footprint, and not the only one which is urgent.
The next paragraph won't be fun, but I'll make it brief to try to give you the idea.
To begin with, carbon dioxide is not the only pollutant (it's actually a normal part of the atmosphere, but the increasing proportion of it is largely the cause of global warming). There are many other toxic substances that are released into the air as a result of things that we burn, and things that burned on our behalf, for instance by power plants and factories. These substances may not be the main causes of warming, but they are causing other problems, such as asthma and cancer, in many people and likely animals as well.
Aside from the air, our waste footprint has done far reaching damage to our waters and our lands. In the Pacific Ocean, there now exists what has been called "an island of plastic" or a "plastic soup" which "stretches from Hawaii to Japan," which is devastating to marine life. Litter is everywhere in environment as well, and plastics have built up in our bloodstreams, and may cause cancer. Tons of radioactive waste from nuclear reactors are buried in unsafe places in containers that that will eventually fail, quite possibly in our lifetimes. PCB, one of the most cancer causing substances known to humans, is buried in several locations near where I live (just as one example), and was once given to farmers who were told it could be used as fertilizer, so the company could get rid of it. Efforts to clean up the mess have been incomplete, and the subject of many court battles.
This is all waste, and it's making a bigger and bigger mess for each generation. The first principle means create as little of it as you can, and do what you can to help clean up what is out there. More specific suggestions to come!
I referenced this article in The Independent for specifics on the plastic soup. You can also Google "plastic island pacific ocean" for more articles.
Introduction: Saving the Earth Is Fun
The important thing is that we all get involved in preserving the Earth as a natural habitat in which human beings can thrive (and that means other animals and plants as well). We can't all burden ourselves with carbon trading, paperwork, complexity, incomprehensible law and even more incomprehensible scientific analysis. In fact, life in the 21st century is complicated enough. If we have to take on a new task, even if it's ultimately about saving our own lives and the life or way of life of our entire species, it would be great if the task could be fun, maybe even relaxing! Fortunately, it can be. We just need to learn a few principles, and then be open to incorporating them into our own lives.
Notes about this blog, and your participation:
This blog will hopefully serve as the foundation for a book, to be published electronically and, if it goes into print, on 100% per cent post-consumer recycled or tree-free paper.
I will probably follow my usual manner of writing this blog - that is, free form inspiration, channelled by what I have written recently and by the latest news, info, and ideas that come my way. In this case, I have also been thinking of writing under this title for some time, so there will be some ideas that have been brewing for a long time.
I need your help! I'm pretty much a regular guy, trying to eke out a living while also pursuing a variety of passions, including writing prose, saving the planet through sharing ideas, and, incidentally songwriting. I will be throwing a lot of ideas out there in the blog, and I may not have time to do all the research myself. Please feel free to help me with my fact checking, criticize my points, or develop them further. Understand that you will not be compensated for your contributions even if someday this turns into a moneymaking book; it's just too complicated. But please have fun participating, and enjoy the satisfaction of contributing to our understanding and our future. Feel free to reuse your own contributions. In fact, anything published here, my ideas or yours, is to be considered "open source", that is to say, freely re-printable and free to be developed further. Exceptions would be any outside information that is quoted, referred to, or cited, that is not itself already open source. Such information is subject to the terms its owners or applicable laws place upon it. Also feel free to develop my ideas and each other's ideas into businesses, as long as you are at least as sincere about helping the planet at you are about making money.
To the extent I make any money from this blog ora related book, I do pledge to use it to enable myself to spend more time at hopefully enlightened endeavors such as this one.
Also, let me say that, starting out, I am probably only an average American when it comes to doing what's needed to make this planet a better place. I may talk more about the details of that later. My hope is to further open my mind (and heart), and to help to further open the minds (and hearts) of others, to the possibility and the reality of all of us doing more.
One problem with using a blog as basis for a book is that blog entries are generally displayed with the newest on top. Therefore, to the extent that I may be writing a book front to back, you will view it back to front. But since inspiration is to be a guide, there will also be a lot of randomness, so from the standpoint of writing a book, the blog entries might best be viewed as note cards, to be re-shuffled later. Still, from time to time as this blog (and my other blog, ravingmoderate.com) grows I would encourage folks to go backwards through earlier entries, consider, re-consider, develop and utilize the ideas therein, and feel free to keep commenting. Plus, it is likely that I will be responding to such comments, and editing the individual "notecards", over time, as ideas develop. I may even reply to myself. Yeah, good idea. I meant in a seperate reply. Oh.
:)
OK, got some of the details out there, now let's have fun, and see if we can't fix this place in the process!
Notes about this blog, and your participation:
This blog will hopefully serve as the foundation for a book, to be published electronically and, if it goes into print, on 100% per cent post-consumer recycled or tree-free paper.
I will probably follow my usual manner of writing this blog - that is, free form inspiration, channelled by what I have written recently and by the latest news, info, and ideas that come my way. In this case, I have also been thinking of writing under this title for some time, so there will be some ideas that have been brewing for a long time.
I need your help! I'm pretty much a regular guy, trying to eke out a living while also pursuing a variety of passions, including writing prose, saving the planet through sharing ideas, and, incidentally songwriting. I will be throwing a lot of ideas out there in the blog, and I may not have time to do all the research myself. Please feel free to help me with my fact checking, criticize my points, or develop them further. Understand that you will not be compensated for your contributions even if someday this turns into a moneymaking book; it's just too complicated. But please have fun participating, and enjoy the satisfaction of contributing to our understanding and our future. Feel free to reuse your own contributions. In fact, anything published here, my ideas or yours, is to be considered "open source", that is to say, freely re-printable and free to be developed further. Exceptions would be any outside information that is quoted, referred to, or cited, that is not itself already open source. Such information is subject to the terms its owners or applicable laws place upon it. Also feel free to develop my ideas and each other's ideas into businesses, as long as you are at least as sincere about helping the planet at you are about making money.
To the extent I make any money from this blog ora related book, I do pledge to use it to enable myself to spend more time at hopefully enlightened endeavors such as this one.
Also, let me say that, starting out, I am probably only an average American when it comes to doing what's needed to make this planet a better place. I may talk more about the details of that later. My hope is to further open my mind (and heart), and to help to further open the minds (and hearts) of others, to the possibility and the reality of all of us doing more.
One problem with using a blog as basis for a book is that blog entries are generally displayed with the newest on top. Therefore, to the extent that I may be writing a book front to back, you will view it back to front. But since inspiration is to be a guide, there will also be a lot of randomness, so from the standpoint of writing a book, the blog entries might best be viewed as note cards, to be re-shuffled later. Still, from time to time as this blog (and my other blog, ravingmoderate.com) grows I would encourage folks to go backwards through earlier entries, consider, re-consider, develop and utilize the ideas therein, and feel free to keep commenting. Plus, it is likely that I will be responding to such comments, and editing the individual "notecards", over time, as ideas develop. I may even reply to myself. Yeah, good idea. I meant in a seperate reply. Oh.
:)
OK, got some of the details out there, now let's have fun, and see if we can't fix this place in the process!
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