As an eco-mom to 2 year old Maxie, I couldn’t agree more with Christine’s quest. Right on, sister!
Baby steps to green parenting
Posted by Christine Gardner at 9:29 AM on 04 Apr 2007
Few things are less environmentally friendly than kids.
You know it’s true. They stand as examples of our populating an overpopulated planet. They need a lot of stuff, or at least that’s what other parents and Babies ‘R’ Us tell us. And nothing says “earth hater” more than the billions of dirty diapers now calling landfills home.
But here’s the thing: Before kids, I wasn’t much of an environmentalist.
It wasn’t until I birthed my children and moved them to suburbia that I finally made the decision to strive for a simple, sustainable existence. If I was going to stay home with them, I was going to enjoy it — and that did not mean driving around town all day looking for playgroups and sales on kitchenware. I didn’t need to drive a minivan or shop at Wal-Mart. Instead, I’d take the bus … to Target. Better, right? Maybe a little better?
World Shutdown Day is tomorrow—can you do it? Advertised as one of the “biggest global experiments ever to take place on the Internet”, the idea is to find out how many people can go without a computer for one whole day. What will happen if we all participate? If we really do keep off the computers for 24 hours tomorrow, all Emails will go unanswered, and blogs won’t be updated. During lunch breaks, people might talk to their co-workers or go for a walk outside, or buy a newspaper. At home, computer games will cease and instead we will have lunch together and talk about the world. And then read a book in the afternoon. But the real issue is how addicted are we all to our computers? On the Shutdown Day site at last glance, the running tally is 51,635 claiming that they CAN go without computers, whilst 8,075 have admitted they cannot. The site, in 13 different languages, charts people’s reactions from around the world on what they will do instead… National differences abound: in the UK: masturbation, playing the piano, Canada: smoke dope, hang out with my family, the U.S.: read one of those flappy things with the paper screens and from Sri Lanka: this is a disaster. Some of the YouTube responses are quite clever such as one depicting the smashing of computers. But never mind that, the question is: can treehuggers do it? :: Shut Down Day via :: PFSK
Bill McKibben stops by EcoTalk’s Green Street studio to tell Betsy about his new book Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future and urges you to Step It Up in your own unqiue way as part of the Step It Up global gathering on April 14th. You’ve got about three weeks to read up on how others are stepping it up, and to think about the coolest way possible you can open the public’s eyes to climate change. PART ONE (7 min) PART TWO (12 min) Picture courtesy Grist
Below is a complete listing of the articles in “How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic,” a series by Coby Beck containing responses to the most common skeptical arguments on global warming. There are four separate taxonomies; arguments are divided by:
* Stages of Denial,
* Scientific Topics,
* Types of Argument, and
* Levels of Sophistication.
Individual articles will appear under multiple headings and may even appear in multiple subcategories in the same heading.
Grist Magazine staff writer David Roberts kept a rather wily running commentary of yesterday’s congressional hearings on the White House putting their grubby claws all over taxpayer-funded science. The good guys got some jabs in, but was all the “lawyering” and “technobabble” a distraction from the fact that in the only contest that really matters (Climate Change!), we’re falling behind? “It was a political circus” Roberts says. “Trying to pretend that we’re arguing about science when what we’re actually arguing about is policy, helps the conservatives. PART 1 (11 min)PART 2 (7 min)
Interesting article from Groovy Green about the things we might find ourselves doing if the future turns out to be all dystopian, or as I like to say, “when the sh*t goes down” (and some things that make perfect sense to start doing right now).
My favorite is number 23. I’m totally going to start saving my urine in buckets for use on the garden. The wife oughta love that one. Don’t worry hon, it’ll be diluted 10 to 1. Tee-hee.
The Next 100 Things You Can Do To Get Ready For Peak Oil (And Whatever Else Comes Down the Pike)
From The Huffington Post, some ranty thoughts on why we the global climate change point isn’t getting to the masses.
On Wed. night in New York City, there was a formal debate. At issue was the statement, “global warming is not a crisis.”
Yeah, that sounds like what went wrong. When Gavin says “questions of personal morality and wider political agendas,” I think he just means, “all that stuff that’s not science.” He knows science, he’s trained in science, he’s confident in the accuracy of his scientific judgments, so that’s what he’s sticking with — even if it means losing a debate, and with it a chance to change some minds.I think that is a huge mistake, and Gavin is far, far from the only one making it. It’s not just scientists who do it, either. Many people in the environmental field — and I’d even generalize to progressives, broadly speaking — seem to be operating on a set of assumptions:
1. The facts, organized and clearly conveyed, should carry the day.
2. When facts do not change minds, more facts are required, perhaps delivered more slowly.
3. When facts do not change hearts, more facts are required, perhaps delivered more loudly.
4. Those not swayed by facts are intellectually, possibly morally, deficient.
5. If sticking to the facts means losing a debate, well, that’s the price of virtue.
Okay. So, I’ve restored our blog and updated to Wordpress 2.0. The old database is still kaput. I will be posting all of our old blog entries in a new area called “blog archives” or something like that in the near future. We are also working out some kinks with the new Wordpress and my custom theme so the blog may be a bit wonky for a bit here.
The good news is that the new Wordpress is going to make it much easier for Laura and I to update and manage the blog. The plan for the rest of 2007 is to recommit ourselves to maintaining the site. Parenthood has overwhelmed us a bit, but with Maxie past the 2 year mark and in Montessori school now, we have some more time for extraparental activities.
