High Gas Prices Have You Feeling Low?

jchatraw — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 03:04:52 -0400

While ExxonMobil continues to set quarterly records through prices at the pump, most Americans are scrambling to figure out how to create a sustainable lifestyle that will weather an economy on the verge of a genuine recession. Though gas prices seem to be headed down for the moment, we should continue to develop sustainable lifestyles.

David Wann has some easy suggestions in his book, Simple Prosperity: Finding Real Wealth in a Sustainable Lifestyle. This book goes beyond suggestions about how to save money and lays out what a true sustainable lifestyle can look and feel like. It is one part idealistic and two parts practical. For Wann, heaping those ingredients into the pot of life produces one deliciously sustainable lifestyle.

Here are some of Wann’s interesting thoughts—and tips—about water and how to conserve it:

"While each American drinks a daily four to ten glasses of water and other beverages, the amount of water our food “drinks” in the fields and processing plants is more like 2,000 gallons a day. About an equal amount is used in the United States by the power industry to cool natural gas turbines as well as nuclear cooling towers. (In the broiling summer of 2006, nuclear plants in both the United States and Europe were forced to shut down because cooling water from ponds and rivers wasn’t cool enough to ensure safety.) So really, the best ways to conserve water are to pay attention to what we eat, and to use energy efficiently. It’s also very important to use water-efficient fixtures in the home, and landscaping that minimizes water use. The 100 gallons a day that we each use in our homes can easily be cut by a third to a half by substituting efficient conveyances—in the form of well-designed fixtures, showerheads, toilets, and aerators—for resources. The need for water will only get stronger, since the global populations continue to expand, but the amount of fresh water remains exactly the same."

Can You Make Overconsumption Look Good?

akronheim — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 01:00:00 -0400

I got an email with the subject line: "What does a pile of 426,000 cell phones (the number retired in the US everyday) look like?" I clicked on the link and was mesmerized by artist Chris Jordan. On his series "Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait" he wrote "Each image portrays a specific quantity of something: fifteen million sheets of office paper (five minutes of paper use); 106,000 aluminum cans (thirty seconds of can consumption) and so on. My hope is that images representing these quantities might have a different effect than the raw numbers alone, such as we find daily in articles and books. Statistics can feel abstract and anesthetizing, making it difficult to connect with and make meaning of 3.6 million SUV sales in one year, for example, or 2.3 million Americans in prison, or 410,000 paper cups used every fifteen minutes." From far away, the huge 5'x6' (or bigger) photographs don't look like anything except flat color, stone, landscape, or a model, but when you move closer, the pile of waste is shown. It's like an allegory of how disconnected we are from the problem of overconsumption (as discussed on the Living Ethically and Sustainably Web page) and we have to step closer to see how to fix it.

I sent the link to my friends around campus and they said that our very own Ithaca College Handwerker Gallery has the exhibit! I was so excited to spread the word! On the reaction wall at the exhibit some comments have been: "...cell phones from a distance seem like stone...they look natural from far away and then we pummel it with trash," "USA is home to 5% (or less) of world's population, but consumes 30% (or more) of the world's resources," "What hope or solution does this exhibit offer? How can we become less of a consumerist society?"

Just to start us off on the track to becoming a more sustainable society:

1. Reduce what you buy and use on a daily basis
2. Reuse - "Paper or Plastic?" How about Neither? (an organic bag that says "neither" to paper or plastic)
3. Recycle - recycle everything your town recycling plant can handle
4. Compost your food left overs
4. Redistribute - Donate to a thrift store near you, so someone else can use them and you can get a tax write-off!

There's many other things you can do, and most blogs on Riverwired.com can help you out. Chris Jordan just shoves it in our faces that we really need to make these changes ASAP because the waste is piling up faster and faster. I cannot imagine what I would do if I was personally in front of 410,000 paper cups. We should work on these lifestyle changes together to make Chris Jordan's art a little smaller and our planet a little cleaner.