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If you live in the Gulf Coast, that is. This MSNBC article corroborates what lots of local activists and residents have suspected for a long time: that not only the travel trailers, but also the mobile homes (read: bigger, nicer) that have been provided by the government to Katrina victims are producing extremely high levels of formaldehyde--levels that are making the people living in them sick and sicker.
Just more proof that if the storm didn't kill you, FEMA just might.
This one is a little old (I somehow missed it in all the madness leading up to the Katrina anniversary), but well worth glancing over: Grist's list of 15 Green Colleges and Universities. I'm proud to say that not just one, but two of the universities I attended made this list. Plus, there was that summer I spent at Middlebury, so that's gotta count a little bit, too. Interesting to see how these centers for learning are trying to tackle the problem--and, in the case of Yale, committing to helping a major global empire do the same.
Anyone else heard about this yet? It's a new search page from Google, with one major difference: the screen is black. What's the point? The dark screen (it's black, with white type) uses less energy--which is good not only for the environment, but also for your wallet. Plus, at the moment, there are none of those pesky little Google ads to contend with. Phat.
So dizzied am I by the combination of my job demands and the pesticides my super has decided to spray in our building that I can't anymore recall how I got to this site I'm about to tell you about... (Oh wait! The use of the "history" tab finally comes in handy: It was a link found in my weekly GirlieGirl Guide. Much better.) But anyway: the point is, I love this new-found site, the Green Girl Guide--which offers another good look at environmental issues and news, tailored in particular for the female among us.
You can sign up for their newsletter apparently, or just visit the site when you feel inclined. Lots of tips here for little ways to reduce your impact on the earth, as well as your exposure to all those harmful chemicals people like to assume are just the necessities of modern life.
A similar site called IdealBite is also worth taking a peek at if this is a topic that interests you. They have a daily tip they email directly to you to keep you on the up and up when it comes to staying green. Just picked by Time Magazine as one of the 50 best websites of the year... and despite that fact, I'm still gonna recommend it.
Apologies for the absence, but chalk it up to the 4th of July holiday in combination with the fact that Jessica and I just moved our home: from mid-town east to the upper east side. And it's been no easy transition: had to move our stuff out of our old place on June 29, but couldn't move our bodies into the new place until July 7, which meant a week of living in the homes of our wonderful and various friends (thanks Katie and Liz and Ingrid!). All this followed by a weekend of mad, mad cleaning, scouring, washing, drying, and generally trying to get ourselves acclimated to the new space. Whew.
All this setting up house makes me wonder: when'd I get so old? Time was, I would have been happy to live out of boxes, and without sparklingly clean floors, and never given it a second thought. But there I was, scrubbing my new kitchen cabinet until it gleamed. Gleamed, I tell you!
Not sure exactly where the shift happened, but somehow, oddly enough, I became an adult. Which freaks me out a little to realize. And so to quell my quaking fear, I look for remembrances of things past... things that take me back to the days of Lollapalooza and beer thirty; back to "We Got the Bunk" at Spring Fling and late nights at the Tropicana. Things like the Beastie Boys. Today, Mike D. waxes environmentally friendly over at Grist, and even though he's a grown-up now too, the whole thing brought me back.
Thanks for the lift, Boys. Now me and the crew are gonna drink some brass monkey.
Yesterday, while lounging on my friend Katie Sherwin's couch, I decided to indulge myself a bit by picking up the remote and seeing what there was to see. As it turned out, "Ghandi" was on, and so, for the next 3 hours and 15 minutes, I indulged myself by learning again about the life of one rather tiny man, and his mission to cure the world of our violent tendencies.
I don't think I'd seen the film since it came out in '82 (yes, I was 7 but we were a progressive family and I went to a Quaker school, and Ben Kingsley even came to speak to all of us kids about the film and the man and why his message was so important), but let me tell you: it holds up even 25 years later. Maybe it's more important now, even, than it was then. Anyway, point is, I was so inspired, and as we headed out the door after my marathon movie session to meet another friend for drinks, I said to Jess, "I want to be more like Ghandi"--and I'm sure I'm hardly the first person to feel that way.
Usually when I have sentiments like these, they've flitted from my head in a few minutes time... but this was has stuck around, and I went to sleep last night and woke up this morning thinking about how I can direct my life towards goodness. And not only that, but decreased consumption. I don't know that I'll quite be able to start spinning my own cotton, a la the Mahatma, but I think there is certainly more I (and each one of us) can do to cut down on how much we are consuming and how much trash we are spitting out onto the earth. Whether we're choosing to fight that battle on the personal level (see fluorescent bulbs) or by pushing for legislative change, my guess is it'll be worth the effort--not only in terms of saving the earth, but in terms of saving our souls, too.
That's enough of my preaching for now... But meanwhile, for a thought provoking piece on the new boom in environmentalism and how not everything labeled "eco-friendly" is actually going to change the world, read Alex Williams's piece from yesterday's NYT.
Luckily, this time New Orleans' water problem doesn't involve the kind falling from the sky. Instead, there's concern with the kind that comes out of your tap. I don't know why I never bothered to think about this before, but it turns out that NOLA has some pretty gnarly issues with "consumable" water. The city's drinking water comes straight out of the mighty, murky Mississippi--the great river that lots of the rest of the country uses as a dumping ground. Add to that the trauma of Katrina (broken pipes, backed up sewage, etc) and you've got a recipe for a less that tasty glass of H2O.
This first person dispatch on Grist from Wayne Curtis, who recently moved to the city, breaks it down pretty poetically. I'll give you the results of my own taste test in October, when I'm there for my friend Trina's wedding. Not that I tend to drink much water anyway when I'm down there... my MO is usually to stick with the portable alcoholic beverages (is there anything better than a margarita in a to-go cup??) to help wash down those powder-perfect beignets.
Late last week I got an email from Media Matters informing me that (no surprise here) I've been in the right all along: extensive polling and research has now found that the majority of Americans are, like me, PROGRESSIVE.
Never mind what the conservative thought leaders and media-makers tell you--the majority of us in this country believe in Government taking responsibility for its citizenry--even if it means more spending. The majority of us want a higher minimum wage; are for conservation; want to protect a woman's right to choose; want health care coverage for all; and see that it's long since been time to get the hell out of Iraq.
I like being right, so this is very good news, indeed. For more details, see Eric Lotke's article on AlterNet this morning (via TomPaine.com).
Turns out, it depends on what state you live in. Via Grist, news today of a ranking of all 50 states in terms of their energy-efficiency, put out by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. Topping the list: California (way to go, Governator), Vermont and Connecticut, who all tied for first place.
As a born and bred New Yorker, I was pleased (and, frankly, shocked) to see that we come in at No. 7 on the list. Maybe we don't need those hybrid taxis after all.
From Grist, a revealing interview with News Corp's head honcho, the one and only--and apparently earth-loving--Rupert Murdoch. In case you were as busy (and as crippled) as I was last week, and thus missed the news, Rupe-dog has pledged to take News Corp and all of its holdings (Fox News Channel, the NY Post, 20th Century Fox, to name but a few) carbon neutral in the coming years--and he wants you to make the same promise to the earth.
I hate to say it, but the man has done a good thing. It may have taken some "arm-twisting" by his son James, but a good deed is a good deed--especially when it comes to safeguarding the earth's future.
If you live in the Gulf Coast, that is. This MSNBC article corroborates what lots of local activists and residents have suspected for a long time: that not only the travel trailers, but also the mobile homes (read: bigger, nicer) that have been provided by the government to Katrina victims are producing extremely high levels of formaldehyde--levels that are making the people living in them sick and sicker.
This one is a little old (I somehow missed it in all the madness leading up to the Katrina anniversary), but well worth glancing over: Grist's list of 15 Green Colleges and Universities. I'm proud to say that not just one, but two of the universities I attended made this list. Plus, there was that summer I spent at Middlebury, so that's gotta count a little bit, too. Interesting to see how these centers for learning are trying to tackle the problem--and, in the case of Yale, committing to helping a major global empire do the same.
Anyone else heard about this yet? It's a new search page from Google, with one major difference: the screen is black. What's the point? The dark screen (it's black, with white type) uses less energy--which is good not only for the environment, but also for your wallet. Plus, at the moment, there are none of those pesky little Google ads to contend with. Phat.
So dizzied am I by the combination of my job demands and the pesticides my super has decided to spray in our building that I can't anymore recall how I got to this site I'm about to tell you about... (Oh wait! The use of the "history" tab finally comes in handy: It was a link found in my weekly GirlieGirl Guide. Much better.) But anyway: the point is, I love this new-found site, the Green Girl Guide--which offers another good look at environmental issues and news, tailored in particular for the female among us.
Yesterday, while lounging on my friend Katie Sherwin's couch, I decided to indulge myself a bit by picking up the remote and seeing what there was to see. As it turned out, "Ghandi" was on, and so, for the next 3 hours and 15 minutes, I indulged myself by learning again about the life of one rather tiny man, and his mission to cure the world of our violent tendencies.
Luckily, this time New Orleans' water problem doesn't involve the kind falling from the sky. Instead, there's concern with the kind that comes out of your tap. I don't know why I never bothered to think about this before, but it turns out that NOLA has some pretty gnarly issues with "consumable" water. The city's drinking water comes straight out of the mighty, murky Mississippi--the great river that lots of the rest of the country uses as a dumping ground. Add to that the trauma of Katrina (broken pipes, backed up sewage, etc) and you've got a recipe for a less that tasty glass of H2O.
Late last week I got an email from Media Matters informing me that (no surprise here) I've been in the right all along: extensive polling and research has now found that the majority of Americans are, like me, PROGRESSIVE.
Turns out, it depends on what state you live in. Via Grist, news today of a ranking of all 50 states in terms of their energy-efficiency, put out by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. Topping the list: California (way to go, Governator), Vermont and Connecticut, who all tied for first place.
From Grist, a revealing interview with News Corp's head honcho, the one and only--and apparently earth-loving--Rupert Murdoch. In case you were as busy (and as crippled) as I was last week, and thus missed the news, Rupe-dog has pledged to take News Corp and all of its holdings (Fox News Channel, the NY Post, 20th Century Fox, to name but a few) carbon neutral in the coming years--and he wants you to make the same promise to the earth.
