Final Exam

After my third update of my ecological footprint, it looks like I really did make a difference in my habits and lifestyle this quarter. I was a little concerned when I took my mid-quarter checkup, as I had gone from almost eight earths all the way down to a little over four in only a few weeks; Surely I had made a mistake or inadvertently changed some numbers.

However, on my third try, I confirmed that I really have made that big of an improvement, and am still consuming a little over four earths' worth of resources. This is by no means commendable in and of itself, but at least I'm moving in the right direction and not getting worse. I couldn't tell you any necessarily big steps that I've taken. It has been more a bunch of little changes that I've made across the board where I can, and it turned out to improve my footprint by nearly 50%.

Just goes to show you, little changes make big differences.

Happy Thanksgiving (maybe..)

My parents live in Portland. They did not consult me before moving to Portland. If they had, I would have told them that it was a horrible idea. Admittedly, my primary reason for thinking so is simply that it takes me that much longer to get home when I want a meal that consists of something more than processed starch.

Regardless, I am absolutely thrilled to climb onto a train at the crack of dawn and sit there for six hours to get to Portland, because if there is one thing my parents do better than most, it is Thanksgiving dinner. In the spirit of my impending journey, I decided to look

into the Rose City's offering of unnatural abominations that can kill me.

And the winner is..... Chromium 6! Yes, it seems that the deadly chromium 6 is the flavor of the day, and lo and behold, Portland seems to offer an abundance of it. According to this guy, chromium 6 inexplicably spikes in concentration in the hours of 9am and 1pm. In accordance with tradition, nobody knows why.

Now, as far as profound medical effects, chromium 6 has been linked to ulcers of the septum, decreased pulmonary function, and adverse respiratory effects.

Come to think of it, that sounds quite similar to the profound medical effects of any family holiday.

Green Jobs

I came across this article about the fastest growing (salary-wise, at least) jobs that pertain to sustainability. Many of these are kind of obvious.. You have your run of mill environmental engineer jobs and environmental scientist jobs, but the interesting thing was some of the more mainstream jobs that, if you think about it, really do have the potential to improve overall sustainability.

Construction managers, for example, have alot of say as far as when, where, and how to use better and more environmentally friendly materials and practices in their construction projects.

Some of the even less obvious ones include plumbers, pipe fitters, carpenters, and electricians. Just goes to show that no matter what you do, odds are you have a chance of helping the planet while you do your job.

Another perspective...

Right now, it seems to me like the majority of the sustainability movement revolves around the "Save the (insert element of the natural biosphere here)!!!" Well.. I found this randomly today, and it really put things into a different perspective.

Yeah, humans have managed to alter the ecosystem in ways that may take a very long time (as far as human history goes) to recover. But the fact of the matter is, we are a microscopic blip on the vast timescales of Earth's history.

Yeah, we may get to the point one day where the Earth has a tough, if not impossible time sustaining life as we know it. But lets face it, if scientists and geologists are correct, a giant chunk of rock slammed into the Earth and ended life as the dinosaurs knew it, but here we are.

Moral of the story being, there is very little that we as humans could do to truly end the cycle of life or do any serious permanent damage on Earth. Only catch is, at this rate, it's going to reject our ways and go on just fine without us after a quick recovery (geologically speaking) if we don't make some big changes.

As the poster suggests, maybe we need to first start worrying about our well being as a species and a civilization before we can start worrying about the planet. Maybe on some level, we need to get people more involved in their own survival and that of their descendants, and the changes necessary for the planet to recover will come.

After all, as the poster says.. "The planet is fine... The people are fucked!"

LEED for weeds

The LEED certification for sustainable architecture and buildings has been around for a while now, and ever since, huge strides have been made in the quality and sustainability of buildings both public and private.

Of course, a big part of architecture has always involved the nature and quality of the landscaping that surrounds it. With that in mind, the American Society of Landscape Architects pioneered a new standard (still in its preliminary case study phases), that could eventually enable the landscaping surrounding buildings to clean the soil, groundwater, and even clean wastewater. Could be pretty neat once they get the initial studies done!

Making progress! (?)

So I checked on my carbon footprint again.. And either I turned into Ghandi over the last month or I over or underestimated many of the questions on one of the two quizzes. I'm not using up just over 4 Earths now as opposed to 7 at the beginning of the quarter. Hmm...

http://www.myfootprint.org/en/your_results/?id=711652

To be fair, all of the goals I said that I would be trying to achieve have made it there. I have changed the vast majority of my light bulbs to eco-friendly ones, I've gotten really good about turning off lights and computers and televisions when I leave a room, and I've been recycling at home as much as possible. Of course, this is all relative to my roommate here, who I can't seem to get on the bandwagon with the whole recycling thing. Oh well, he's moving to Hawaii in about two weeks.

SC Johnson Takes a Step in the Right Direction

Companies who produce cleaning or air freshening products are not required by the EPA or anyone else to list the ingredients they use. For a long time, it has been a common and understandable assumption that anything capable of dissolving three month's worth of grease and nastiness from the inside of your oven can't be too great for your health.

While this probably remains true, SC Johnson has taken the brilliant step of listing online everything that they use to produce their products, from active ingredients to those that create fragrance. You can check it out here. The site offers not just the ingredients, but also a layman's explanation of what the ingredients are and why they are used in the product.

On the downside, SC Johnson is obviously not going to explain to their customers how bad these ingredients are to their personal health, only how bad they are to the health of their various household clogs, stains, and odors. Still, it' s a step in the right direction.

Turns out being sustainable is a whole lot easier when your roommate is out of town.

I've been doing a pretty good job of trying to correct many of my detrimental habits lately; I'm recycling at home, taking shorter showers, and much to my chagrin, even eating less meat. No telling how long that last bit is going to keep up. I love meat.

But speaking of my walking ecodisaster of a roommate being out of town, I happened to stumble upon an interesting experiment that Japan-based Nippon Airlines is taking up.

While strictly a cost-saving measure with little concern about the environmental impact of the project, its a laughably simple way to lower their jets' impact as far as carbon emissions. The whole idea is, to put it in eloquent terms, "please take a dump before you get on the plane. You'll save us some gas."

Nippon's research suggests that, assuming each passenger does their business before hopping on one of their jets, they can cut down on 5 TONS (yes, as in 10,000 lbs.) of CO2 emissions per month simply due to the reduction in weight that each plane would be carrying. Also, each flush of the on-board toilet supposedly costs the airplane a liter of fuel. Not sure where they came up with that figure, but I'll play along.

Obviously, the Japanese are known for their interesting theories and concepts (see right), but this one may actually, on the long term at least, pay dividends to investors and environmentalists alike. Stay tuned.

Rickshaw Run

I'm not one of those people that operates well without some sort of a plan. Be it the choice of restaurant for dinner or where I want to move after school and start a career, I typically function much better when I have at least a preliminary idea of where I'm going, how long I'm going to be there, and so on.

This I why I have a hard time understanding people like my friend Alex.

Alex is a traveler. He is the kid that, after graduating from college, simply decided that he was going to move to Australia. On the way, he visited most of southeast Asia over the course of about three months, bouncing from country to country in no particular order and on no particular schedule. Unfortunately, three days after finally arriving in Melbourne, poor Alex managed to break his neck while wrestling around with some of his travelling buddies.

After spending six months in Boise with his family while wearing a hellish device called a halo, he had the itch to get out of the country. He and a friend of his, Ollie, soon stumbled across an intriguing option in India: The Rickshaw Run.

This crazy adventure essentially involves taking a series of those little three-wheeled taxis across the subcontinent of India, with the whole journey planned to take two weeks, stopping only for food, sleep, and likely the occasional drink.

The big idea behind this whole thing is that each team of two must raise $1600 U.S. for a charity of their choice, and Alex and Ollie settled on a good one. FRANK water.

FRANK water is a charity that operates on a water-for-water basis. They sell bottled water in the developed nations, and as a non-profit charity, with each dollar they make above of their operating costs, they fund sustainable clean water projects in Indian villages. Since its conception in 2005, FRANK water has already funded 30 sustainable clean water plants!

Definitely a cool charity, and big props to Alex and Ollie for supporting them. They still need help though. If you can donate even a little bit of money to their cause, I'm sure they would appreciate it endlessly. If they don't raise the $1600 by December, the whole thing falls apart for them. If you would like to make a donation to Alex and Ollie and to FRANK water, click here!

Mr. Gleeson? This is your wakeup call.

As a fifth year marketing student at Western Washington University, I figured that I was obligated to take at least one course regarding sustainability and the environment before graduating and parting ways. Western is more or less endearingly known as a school full of, well, "hippies," whatever that means. As such, our Environmental Science department is fairly strong, we enjoy a reputation as a "green" institution, and (as I know from personal experience) students are looked upon with scorn when they are daring enough to throw recyclable materials away in the garbage.

I suppose that makes me sort of slow learner around here. I have never really placed too much consideration into my own personal impact on the ecosystem, let alone what I could do to reduce it. However, after taking the quiz at myfootprint.org, I discovered that I live in a fashion that would require nearly seven planets to sustain life should everyone on Earth adopt my habits. You can see my individual statistics here: http://www.myfootprint.org/en/your_results/?id=641753

I wasn't necessarily shocked by the fact that I wasn't living in a sustainable manner. I was, however, concerned by the degree to which I was failing to do so. "Miserably" doesn't quite capture the scope of it.

Despite 22 years of habit forming, however, I do sincerely want to improve. I can immediately think of several easy ways to limit my impact, including switching to energy-saving light bulbs around the house, turning off my computer when I leave for school and before I go to bed, and taking shorter showers. My big project, however, is going to be improving my recycling habits at home (read: quit being so lazy about making multiple trips to the dumpster and recycling bins) rather than just recycling at school to avoid dirty looks. The hard part is going to be getting my roommate on board with the idea.