Unsustainable Lifestyles? – Rubbish

Talking Sustainability & Making Real Change with a Professor of Environmental Philosophy – an interview with Prof. Kathleen Dean Moore

This podcast covers our fascinating interview with Professor Kathleen Moore, who recently joined us as a William Evans Fellow at the University of Otago Centre for Science Communication. Before I tell you more about it and about Kathleen, all I can say is LISTEN TO THIS PODCAST – it’s a long’n, but it’s a good’n! I am Kathleen’s new biggest fan and I really really love what she has to say. She has basically converted me in my thoughts about sustainable living, cured my green fatigue and succeeded where science, logic and guilt completely failed to change me.

Her message is incredibly simple, POSITIVE and based around beauty and love of our surroundings, plus we get to serve our self-interests (in a good way). While you listen, head over here to learn a bit about Kathleen and what she does.

Her description of how we create “channels of emptiness” in our world, the explanation of how we have a sliding scale – I dig the whole message. Let’s just look after what we love and what is around us, because what is around us and what we love is good! Couldn’t be simpler, so shrug off that green guilt everyone and get to it!

Listen to our interview (approx 19 min length) with Professor Kathleen Moore here:

Kathleen is a distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Oregon State University. She teaches in Philosophy of Nature, Environmental Ethics, and Critical Thinking and coordinates a course on Native American Philosophies. Kathleen has authored “Riverwalking: Reflections on Moving Water” and “Holdfast: At Home in the Natural world” – winner of the 2000 Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award. Her essays appear in Audubon, Field and Stream, North American Review, and many other journals.

Her areas of work include a lot of stuff I had never heard of like environmental ethics, and philosophy of nature. That said, she is pretty darn good at explaining it and it’s all in the podcast. Plus she has lots of skills and methods in thinking and writing… and she was really lovely! All round a freaking amazing opportunity to talk to her.

Sustainable Brothels?

Just a funny article I came upon today!

Brothel cuts rates for ‘green’ customers

From http://www.stuff.co.nz/oddstuff/2974796/Brothel-cuts-rates-for-green-customers

Part of Berlin’s red-light scene is going green.

One bordello, hoping to stave off falling demand in the economic crisis, has begun offering discounts to customers who pedal bicycles to the door.

“It’s very difficult to find parking around here, and this option is better for our environment,” said Thomas Goetz, who owns the brothel Maison d’Envie, or House of Desire.

Local residents in Prenzlauer Berg – a part of former East Berlin now home to scores of trendy boutiques, restaurants and clubs – had staunchly supported the Green party in recent elections and have welcomed the bordello’s offer to emphasize the environment.

The bordellos in the capital of Germany, where prostitution is legal, have seen business suffer with the global financial crisis. Patrons have become more frugal, and there are fewer potential customers coming to the city for business trips and conferences.

But Maison d’Envie has seen its business begin to return since it began offering the euro5 (NZ$10) discount in July, Goetz said.

To qualify, customers must show the receptionist either a bicycle padlock key or proof they used public transit to get to the neighbourhood. That knocks the price for 45 minutes in a room, for example, to euro65 from euro70.

Those who arrive on foot, however, are out of luck.

“We haven’t found a way for people to prove they have walked here,” Goetz explained.

Other brothels have tried different incentives to cope with the economic downturn. One Berlin bordello offered a flat-rate for an unlimited time before officials’ concerns over prostitutes’ rights and cleanliness in the club forced them to rescind the offer.

The 450,000 prostitutes working in Germany, some 10,000 of whom are in Berlin, have the same legal rights and social benefits as people in other professions.

Check out the article here: http://www.stuff.co.nz/oddstuff/2974796/Brothel-cuts-rates-for-green-customers

The Last Random and Insane Facts!!!

Here’s some random, unrelated facts to think about. Yes, they are Americanised, and no, I will not convert them all into NZ terms this time!

• Energy saved from one recycled aluminum can will operate a TV set for 3 hours, and is the equivalent to half a can of gasoline.

• By turning down your central heating thermostat one degree, fuel consumption is cut by as much as 10%.

• Ford Motor Company indicates that 75% of every vehicle is recyclable.

• Each year Americans alone throw away 18 billion disposable diapers.  In perspective, this is enough to extend from the earth to the moon and back 7 times.
• AND about 1% of U.S. landfill space is full of disposable diapers, which take 500 years to decompose

• Glass produced from recycled glass instead of raw materials reduces related air pollution by 20%, and water pollution by 50%.

And last but certainly not least….

Americans go through, on average, a whopping 2.5 million plastic bottles per hour!!!

I have to say, if you live in NZ and you buy bottled water, stop. Stop today. You are paying for something you can get for free, it does not taste better, that’s all in your mind, some of it IS just tap water. If you are really worried, just buy a water filter. It’s cheaper in the long run. Please, I beg you.

Fuel efficiency

I just love this logic. I got it from these guys ecogeek.org. Love their work. Look at their whole website, its cool as!

“Americans weigh about 24 more pounds per person than we did in the 1970s. That weight, when we’re driving, has to be moved around with our cars.

Multiplied over the three trillion miles driven in America each year, suddenly we need a lot of gas to move around our extra chub.

If we could (preferably through walking and biking) lose those 24 lbs and reach 1970’s sizes, America would used nearly one billion gallons of gas less than we currently do.”

Epic. Just fricken epic.

Sustainable Business

Things like this really appeal – asking people not to do more, but just to do differently

10 Things Global Warming Could Change Forever

Published on 9/24/2009 under Science – by Gracie Murano – 44,874 views

There’s some interesting ideas here, but I would take all this with a grain of salt, since they seem to have very little evidence.

Great Barrier Reef may be gone in 20 years

The Great Barrier Reef will be so degraded by warming waters that it will be unrecognizable within 20 years. Charlie Veron, former chief scientist of the Australian Institute of Marine Science, told The Times: “There is no way out, no loopholes. The Great Barrier Reef will be over within 20 years or so.” Once carbon dioxide had hit the levels predicted for between 2030 and 2060, all coral reefs were doomed to extinction, he said. “They would be the world’s first global ecosystem to collapse. I have the backing of every coral reef scientist, every research organization. I’ve spoken to them all. This is critical. This is reality.”

Amazon Rain Forest may turn into a desert

Teeming with millions of species and one-fifth of the world’s fresh water, the Amazon is the world’s largest tropical rainforest. However, global warming and deforestation are reversing the forest’s role as a carbon sink, converting 30-60% of the rainforest into dry savannah. Projections show the forest could disappear completely by 2050.

Sahara Desert may become green

Scientists are seeing signals that the Sahara desert and surrounding regions are greening due to increasing rainfall. If sustained, these rains could revitalize drought-ravaged regions, reclaiming them for farming communities. This desert-shrinking trend is supported by climate models, which predict a return to conditions that turned the Sahara into a lush savanna some 12,000 years ago.

Hurricanes may became more devastating than Katrina

It has not been determined whether Katrina was linked to global warming. But there are indications that global warming will produce more Category 5 hurricanes –and Katrina was only Category 4 when it hit Louisiana. Hurricanes derive their power in part from warm water, and so forecasting models show future hurricanes becoming more severe as sea surface temperatures rise. Global warming also makes hurricanes more destructive by raising the sea level, which leads to more serious coastal flooding. (According to the EPA, a two-foot rise would swallow a chunk of the U.S. bigger than Massachusetts.)

London may disappear underwater by 2100

It isn’t only reefs and low-lying islands that are under threat from global warming. In fact, a major threat is for those large urban areas which are at risk of eventually being submerged underwater. This is caused by a change in sea levels that occurs when global warming takes place, resulting in coastal cities being destroyed by flooding. Dozens of the world’s cities, including London and New York, could be flooded by the end of the century, according to research which suggests that global warming will increase sea levels more rapidly than was previously thought. London is one of the major world capitals at high risk of this type of flooding, as depicted in this shot from the 2007 movie Flood. Scientists say that the city could be under water as early as within the next one hundred years.

Animals may shrink

Warming climate may favor small species over large ones. The research, based on analysis of body mass of fish, plankton, and bacteria in European ecosystems, comes just weeks after scientists reported that sheep on a Scottish island are shrinking due to warmer conditions.

The new study reveals that individual species lost an average of 50 percent of their body mass over the past 30 years. The reduced body size is the third universal ecological response to global warming. An earlier sheep study suggested that shorter and milder winters mean lambs do not need to put on as much as weight as they once did in order to survive their first year of life, a factor that could also impact fish populations. Nonetheless the researchers say the shift could alter food chains, with apex predators being particularly affected by shrinking prey.

2,000 Indonesian islands may disappear

At least 2,000 small islands across archipelagic Indonesia may disappear by 2030 as a consequence of excessive mining and other environment-damaging activities. Indonesia has already lost 24 of its more than 17,500 islands.

Global warming may increase terrorism

Global warming could destabilize “struggling and poor” countries around the world, prompting mass migrations and creating breeding grounds for terrorists. People are likely to flee destabilized countries, and some may turn to terrorism. The conditions exacerbated by the effects of climate change could increase the pool of potential recruits into terrorist activity. According to the chairman of the National Intelligence Council in the US, economy refugees will perceive additional reasons to flee their homes because of harsher climates. That will put pressure on countries receiving refugees, many of which will have neither the resources nor interest to host these climate migrants.

The Alps may melt completely

Glaciers are retreating in warm, dry winters and hotter summers caused by global warming, and although snowfall in the 2008-2009 ski seasons was substantial, overall recent years have seen less snow at low altitudes, and receding glaciers and melting permafrost higher up – with a significant impact on winter tourism activities. It is predicted that the glaciers will be gone between 2030 and 2050. Italy and Switzerland have decided to redraw their border after global warming dissolved Alpine glaciers that marked out the frontier between the two countries.

The Maldives may be submerged

The lowest and flattest country in the world is suffering coastal erosion, and could find itself submerged if sea levels carry on rising, with the islands growing smaller and smaller. This extreme prediction is a devastating prospect for residents and bad news for the tourists who descend on its soft white beaches and warm waters each year. Scientists give it only about one hundred years before it completely disappears into the ocean surrounding it.

Upcoming podcast

Whoa. That’s all I can say about our recent interview with visiting lecturer Dr Kathleen Moore. She had amazing insights and has pretty much converted me from my cynicism and cured my “green fatigue”.

Unfortunately, I accidentally said I felt “preached to” after the interview, but that’s so NOT what I meant! Sorry, Kathleen! What I meant was, wow, heck, really amazing and inspiring and awesomeness, like you would expect from a really great preacher!!!

This next podcast is gonna rock ur socks, so hang in there while we get it all ready for you!

It’s something special.

Your Global Footprint

I was given a tip of a cool “ecological footprint” to do. I wanted to see how students stacked up since most of us are forced to live pretty frugally. This one is way cooler than the boring number crunchers…it has animations and stuff. Yay!

I input data that I thought reflected an average student who lived near campus in a flat of five people, who mainly walked except for stuff like getting flat groceries, and who returned home to another city in the breaks. This is the result below!

Stink! You can do your own here. Its pretty fun actually and I found it quite revealing. Go to it!

Chemicals!

Is this for real?

Homeowners use up to 10 times more toxic chemicals per acre than farmers.

Especially since,

Over 100 pesticide ingredients are suspected to cause birth defects, cancer, and gene mutations.

This brings me to my pet peeve, there is another side of sustainability – a kind of medical and health sustainability. Basically germs are good, sterilising everything in our homes is bad and the result will be super-bacteria and deadly pandemics. Scary? Yes. True? Yes. I’ve given you all the links earlier on to get cleaning for cheap and green, and now you have even more reason to do it.