Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Beginner Blogger...
This is my first foray into the world of blogging, so here goes! I wrote a few entrees over the past few days, and they will follow. Thanks for reading!
~Morgan
~Morgan
EcoBlog: July 28, 2008
July 28, 2008:
To share my enthusiasm, I’ve decided to start a blog related to my efforts to be more Eco-Aware and active in my day-to-day life. My maternal grandparents, both of whom lived through the Great Depression, left quite an impression on me. It was totally normal for them to collect food tins, cans and bottles both in their home and on their property and drive (no recycling pick-up in Connecticut in the 80’s) to the Transfer Station to drop off and collect the deposit money related to the type of container. They were very aware of curbing waste and making sure that very little went to waste. And, as the materials that could be recycled expanded, my grandparents evolved along with the improvements and brought more items to the Transfer station.
Thus I became a recycling fanatic, and have been known to bring home recyclables from places I’ve worked with no recycling to be picked up in my home-recycling bin. I just hate to see so much go to waste when it can be reused, refashioned, recycled, etc. instead of just pitched in the silly landfills. My father does not currently have recycling pick-up in his county north of here, and I’m working on convincing him to bring his recyclables to our bin for pick-up.
Last week I started reading “the green book” by Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas M. Kostigen, published by Three Rivers Press. I thought that it may be a lot of info that I already knew, and some of it is, however they pair suggestions for reducing our impact on our world with figures that express what kind of possible effect we can have, such as saving x-amount of paper napkins going into landfills if just a certain percentage of the population switched to cloth napkins, and the amount saved would be equivalent to a paper napkin of a massive size, etc, etc.
Regarding cloth napkins, my boyfriend Jason and I have gotten into the serious habit of using only cloth napkins for our meals at home, and use a combination of paper and cloth towels and cellulose sponges when we clean. For surfaces we use Method brand cleansers as well as Meijer’s new natural all-purpose cleanser, and I’m about to switch from Comet cleanser to a non-chlorine abrasive cleanser for those times when we need to really scrub the sinks or tub.
Last week, inspired by this little book and disturbed by the amount of non-recyclable or reusable trash that I personally create, I decided changed two things in my daily behavior, and this is really what I want to share, and why I decided to try this Blog-thing.
Each time that I visit the restroom, I, of course, wash my hands after I am done, and dry my hands with the least amount of paper towel that I can manage. Even with trying to use as little as possible to dry my hands, this action still created waste, and I cringed at the daily pile of paper towels I was creating, and what that would look like at the end of the week, the end of the month, and each year. Yarg.
So, with some inspiration from this little green book, I had a little brainstorm. I decided to bring in a hand towel from home, and start to use it, rather than the paper towels, for each time I dry my hands. This may seem like a weird, inconvenient thing to many, many people. I’ve always been weird, so there’s no worry there for me. As far as inconvenience, perhaps more folks need to get over themselves. It’s not like you are using those old hand-towel things that used to be in bathrooms. This is a towel that is for you only, and you bring it home as often as you see fit to launder it and bring it back, and maybe this suggestion would help. As an avid backpacker, I realized that I happened to have a quick-drying towel at home that would be perfect for this situation. It’s an Aquis Adventure microfiber towel from a company by the name of Britanne, and in addition to the full-size towel, I also have a face cloth, in a lovely shade of turquoise, and that is what I have been trying out for the past few days. It’s small, doesn’t look like I’m on my way to shower in the bathroom sink, and dries fast. It’s got a loop on it, so I can hang it on the hook on the inside of the stall until I’m ready to wash my hands. When I return to my office, I drape it on the back of the plastic-framed chair that I sit on at my desk, and it starts to drying. It and similar products by other manufacturers can be found out local outdoor outfitters and sports stores, or online.
After getting the ball rolling with the cloth towel for my hand-drying, I had another idea to start bringing a cloth napkin with my lunch. I rarely buy lunch, so I am either home to eat, or home to prepare lunch and bring it back to the office. For the meals at my desk, I threw in a cloth napkin one day after getting my lunch ready. This worked out especially well, as my office is new, and I don’t have a waste-bin yet, so it’s one less thing to carry out to the trash bin in the lounge-area! Bringing my lunch, incidentally, is not only economical, but greatly reduces waste as well, especially if you endeavor to pack your food in reusable containers.
The green book, trendy as it is, has reminded me that making new things takes energy, materials, and water. Reusing one thing regularly conserves all of that, and that is key. Conservation is really what we need to be doing.
To share my enthusiasm, I’ve decided to start a blog related to my efforts to be more Eco-Aware and active in my day-to-day life. My maternal grandparents, both of whom lived through the Great Depression, left quite an impression on me. It was totally normal for them to collect food tins, cans and bottles both in their home and on their property and drive (no recycling pick-up in Connecticut in the 80’s) to the Transfer Station to drop off and collect the deposit money related to the type of container. They were very aware of curbing waste and making sure that very little went to waste. And, as the materials that could be recycled expanded, my grandparents evolved along with the improvements and brought more items to the Transfer station.
Thus I became a recycling fanatic, and have been known to bring home recyclables from places I’ve worked with no recycling to be picked up in my home-recycling bin. I just hate to see so much go to waste when it can be reused, refashioned, recycled, etc. instead of just pitched in the silly landfills. My father does not currently have recycling pick-up in his county north of here, and I’m working on convincing him to bring his recyclables to our bin for pick-up.
Last week I started reading “the green book” by Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas M. Kostigen, published by Three Rivers Press. I thought that it may be a lot of info that I already knew, and some of it is, however they pair suggestions for reducing our impact on our world with figures that express what kind of possible effect we can have, such as saving x-amount of paper napkins going into landfills if just a certain percentage of the population switched to cloth napkins, and the amount saved would be equivalent to a paper napkin of a massive size, etc, etc.
Regarding cloth napkins, my boyfriend Jason and I have gotten into the serious habit of using only cloth napkins for our meals at home, and use a combination of paper and cloth towels and cellulose sponges when we clean. For surfaces we use Method brand cleansers as well as Meijer’s new natural all-purpose cleanser, and I’m about to switch from Comet cleanser to a non-chlorine abrasive cleanser for those times when we need to really scrub the sinks or tub.
Last week, inspired by this little book and disturbed by the amount of non-recyclable or reusable trash that I personally create, I decided changed two things in my daily behavior, and this is really what I want to share, and why I decided to try this Blog-thing.
Each time that I visit the restroom, I, of course, wash my hands after I am done, and dry my hands with the least amount of paper towel that I can manage. Even with trying to use as little as possible to dry my hands, this action still created waste, and I cringed at the daily pile of paper towels I was creating, and what that would look like at the end of the week, the end of the month, and each year. Yarg.
So, with some inspiration from this little green book, I had a little brainstorm. I decided to bring in a hand towel from home, and start to use it, rather than the paper towels, for each time I dry my hands. This may seem like a weird, inconvenient thing to many, many people. I’ve always been weird, so there’s no worry there for me. As far as inconvenience, perhaps more folks need to get over themselves. It’s not like you are using those old hand-towel things that used to be in bathrooms. This is a towel that is for you only, and you bring it home as often as you see fit to launder it and bring it back, and maybe this suggestion would help. As an avid backpacker, I realized that I happened to have a quick-drying towel at home that would be perfect for this situation. It’s an Aquis Adventure microfiber towel from a company by the name of Britanne, and in addition to the full-size towel, I also have a face cloth, in a lovely shade of turquoise, and that is what I have been trying out for the past few days. It’s small, doesn’t look like I’m on my way to shower in the bathroom sink, and dries fast. It’s got a loop on it, so I can hang it on the hook on the inside of the stall until I’m ready to wash my hands. When I return to my office, I drape it on the back of the plastic-framed chair that I sit on at my desk, and it starts to drying. It and similar products by other manufacturers can be found out local outdoor outfitters and sports stores, or online.
After getting the ball rolling with the cloth towel for my hand-drying, I had another idea to start bringing a cloth napkin with my lunch. I rarely buy lunch, so I am either home to eat, or home to prepare lunch and bring it back to the office. For the meals at my desk, I threw in a cloth napkin one day after getting my lunch ready. This worked out especially well, as my office is new, and I don’t have a waste-bin yet, so it’s one less thing to carry out to the trash bin in the lounge-area! Bringing my lunch, incidentally, is not only economical, but greatly reduces waste as well, especially if you endeavor to pack your food in reusable containers.
The green book, trendy as it is, has reminded me that making new things takes energy, materials, and water. Reusing one thing regularly conserves all of that, and that is key. Conservation is really what we need to be doing.
EcoBlog: July 26, 2008
July 26, 2008
The other night Jason & I watched Penn & Teller’s new show “Bullsh*t”. I’ve watched it before, an episode about NASA, and enjoyed the program. This particular broadcast focused on global warming and issues surrounding it like “carbon credits” or “carbon offsets”, and the huge amount of energy that Al Gore’s new home reportedly used not long ago. The gist of the show is that we don’t know for sure if global warming is real, but that there are companies preying on folk’s feeling of guilt for their impact on the environment, and people willing to pay to have that guilt absolved, just like the Catholic Church before the reforms of Martin Luther. The problem is that there are little regulations on these companies and folks too lazy to do the research to find out what their money is actually going to. Additionally, I was a little bothered that a seeming lack of information was presented. I’m not saying that Al Gore is a saint. What I am concerned about is that before we call VP Gore lots of names and such, we might want to look at the subsequent energy usage of his home. The large amounts of energy used supposedly took place during the conversion of Gore’s home to more energy-efficient things like solar panels and such. Installation would take energy, no? So my only query would be this: What does Al & Tipper’s energy bill look like post-conversion? If it’s still high, by all means, fling the mud with wild abandon. If not, Penn & Teller need to do more homework along with all of the homework that they already do.
I was irked that the hosts in their ire stated that we shouldn’t have to change our way of living. Of course we should! I’m not saying that everyone should only take one shower a week and live on a commune. What I am saying is that the majority of Americans have un-realistic expectations. Our way of living has not always been as it is now.
For generations around the world, even right here in the USA, people have had the understanding that conservation of food, resources, energy, etc, is so incredibly important because you don’t know what will happen next year, or the year after that. Will there be a drought? Will there be floods? Will there be war or other violent strife? We have not only become too comfortable, we have become spoiled. When it comes to consumption, we seem to focus on ourselves and our families primarily, and not on the population as a whole, whether that be of our country, or the world. Not to say that Americans don’t care, we do, but we have lost touch with what our grandparents and their parents understood as far as ONLY TAKING WHAT WE NEED and NOT MORE. We throw out tons of food every year, we take multiple trips in our cars when we could be more conservative in our movements, we “forget” to save money and buy things that we can’t afford and then get in to trouble trying to pay for them, we throw away perfectly good items that others could use simply because we are too lazy or too “busy” to take them to a Goodwill or another group of the sort, even though many of these organizations will come to your door and pick items up for you.
This isn’t a city or country thing either. In cities, folks see the poverty of their neighbors, or at least my family did, and would share with them what they could. In the country, where farming was, and in some cases still is, predominant, waste is a sin, and you use everything that you can, not knowing when you will have the provisions that you need. This was the case everywhere during the Depression and in other countries during war-times, such as Europe during WWII.
When did we become so short-sighted? When did we decide to only think about today, and not give a damn about tomorrow? When did we decide to fear the past, and only embrace the latest and the greatest? I believe that it may have been in the 50’s, so why are still living with a half-a-century-old mentality?!
Technology is fabulous, and as an artist I use it in my artwork along with primarily analog components. But I am getting so sick and tired of us not having a clue about the world around us, and how to live in it, not just in our own little make-believe worlds. Global warming may not be real; it may just be natural climate change. Regardless, smog is real! Landfills are real and getting bigger! Car pool, dammit! Ride a bike, for crying out loud! Take the bus already! Recycle that bottle in the bin RIGHT NEXT TO the trash! Take a moment to do the things that the “experts” suggest, and maybe, just maybe, our way of living may actually be even better than it is now.
Maybe that’s the key. Instead of beating people over the head with how mindless we are being about the world around us, the focus should be on how much better we can make our already awesome way of living.
The other night Jason & I watched Penn & Teller’s new show “Bullsh*t”. I’ve watched it before, an episode about NASA, and enjoyed the program. This particular broadcast focused on global warming and issues surrounding it like “carbon credits” or “carbon offsets”, and the huge amount of energy that Al Gore’s new home reportedly used not long ago. The gist of the show is that we don’t know for sure if global warming is real, but that there are companies preying on folk’s feeling of guilt for their impact on the environment, and people willing to pay to have that guilt absolved, just like the Catholic Church before the reforms of Martin Luther. The problem is that there are little regulations on these companies and folks too lazy to do the research to find out what their money is actually going to. Additionally, I was a little bothered that a seeming lack of information was presented. I’m not saying that Al Gore is a saint. What I am concerned about is that before we call VP Gore lots of names and such, we might want to look at the subsequent energy usage of his home. The large amounts of energy used supposedly took place during the conversion of Gore’s home to more energy-efficient things like solar panels and such. Installation would take energy, no? So my only query would be this: What does Al & Tipper’s energy bill look like post-conversion? If it’s still high, by all means, fling the mud with wild abandon. If not, Penn & Teller need to do more homework along with all of the homework that they already do.
I was irked that the hosts in their ire stated that we shouldn’t have to change our way of living. Of course we should! I’m not saying that everyone should only take one shower a week and live on a commune. What I am saying is that the majority of Americans have un-realistic expectations. Our way of living has not always been as it is now.
For generations around the world, even right here in the USA, people have had the understanding that conservation of food, resources, energy, etc, is so incredibly important because you don’t know what will happen next year, or the year after that. Will there be a drought? Will there be floods? Will there be war or other violent strife? We have not only become too comfortable, we have become spoiled. When it comes to consumption, we seem to focus on ourselves and our families primarily, and not on the population as a whole, whether that be of our country, or the world. Not to say that Americans don’t care, we do, but we have lost touch with what our grandparents and their parents understood as far as ONLY TAKING WHAT WE NEED and NOT MORE. We throw out tons of food every year, we take multiple trips in our cars when we could be more conservative in our movements, we “forget” to save money and buy things that we can’t afford and then get in to trouble trying to pay for them, we throw away perfectly good items that others could use simply because we are too lazy or too “busy” to take them to a Goodwill or another group of the sort, even though many of these organizations will come to your door and pick items up for you.
This isn’t a city or country thing either. In cities, folks see the poverty of their neighbors, or at least my family did, and would share with them what they could. In the country, where farming was, and in some cases still is, predominant, waste is a sin, and you use everything that you can, not knowing when you will have the provisions that you need. This was the case everywhere during the Depression and in other countries during war-times, such as Europe during WWII.
When did we become so short-sighted? When did we decide to only think about today, and not give a damn about tomorrow? When did we decide to fear the past, and only embrace the latest and the greatest? I believe that it may have been in the 50’s, so why are still living with a half-a-century-old mentality?!
Technology is fabulous, and as an artist I use it in my artwork along with primarily analog components. But I am getting so sick and tired of us not having a clue about the world around us, and how to live in it, not just in our own little make-believe worlds. Global warming may not be real; it may just be natural climate change. Regardless, smog is real! Landfills are real and getting bigger! Car pool, dammit! Ride a bike, for crying out loud! Take the bus already! Recycle that bottle in the bin RIGHT NEXT TO the trash! Take a moment to do the things that the “experts” suggest, and maybe, just maybe, our way of living may actually be even better than it is now.
Maybe that’s the key. Instead of beating people over the head with how mindless we are being about the world around us, the focus should be on how much better we can make our already awesome way of living.
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