There are things I think about frequently in many different ways... what it boils down to is that it's hard to have the big picture and even more difficult to do the best thing.
I don't like waste. I'm one of those people who uses both sides of a sheet of paper before recycling it. With a shredder, I could make animal bedding, but I don't think the paper is absorbent enough to work. I would if I could.
All sorts of food waste goes in the garbage, where it sits in a landfill. I would compost if I could. I'm considering flushing all organic waste, because I'm pretty sure that stuff doesn't get buried in the ground and abandoned.
Chicago does an incredibly poor job of recycling.
Sometimes recycling takes more energy and creates more pollution than creating new stuff. On the other hand, nonrenewable resources stay in circulation longer.
Something I hate about the idea of throwing a big party is the amount of waste that's associated with it for a one-time event. Not my sort of investment.
Millions of Americans have rooms that are rarely, if ever, used. This culture of affluence includes an architecture of affluence, which amounts to building twice the number of square feet that are actually used. In some ways, condos are attractive; most are small and force you to live small.
In suburbia, you can't get anywhere without driving. Gak, pollution.
The poor air quality in Chicago is especially noticeable if you spend any time breathing the air outside of Chicago.
We all know that older cars tend to have poor gas mileage. But newer cars produce pollution by being manufactured. How far does one have to drive, to produce the same amount of pollution by running a less-efficient engine as it takes to produce a whole new automobile?
Used clothes are great. They cost less than new clothes, it's possible to get some that are as good as new, and nothing else was manufactured in the process.
How much electricity might be saved by turning off all our office lights for a couple of hours a day, and relying on daylighting?
I have some misgivings about investing in a copper company. It's the obvious choice, because I'm an architect and am aware of what's going on in my industry. People will always need copper. It'll tend to be a winner. But copper mines mostly are in Mexico and South America. Mining can be really bad for the environment. Working conditions can be really poor. But using copper, itself, supports the business. What does investing say?
There are hybrid vehicles, supposedly green, out there, that suck up more gas than conventional vehicles. I'd like a different car with more cargo space (for moving bikes and artwork, primarily), but it has to be as good as my 25/35mph Saturn. Toyota redesigned the Scion xB and now the gas mileage isn't as good.
People have grass lawns, but in most climates you have to water grass to keep it alive because it's not indigenous. Isn't there a better solution?
Most houses' roofs drain rainwater directly into storm sewers. In Chicago, the storm and sanitary sewers aren't separate, so storm water is treated along with everything else. Most new roofs have to be hooked up - they can't just drain onto the site, for fear of flooding the neighbors' yard. I'd rather develop some way of retaining water onsite. (Actually, I have a sketch of my idea.)
That is all, for now.
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7 comments:
Your post raises all sorts of questions in my mind about how much of my "stuff" is a function of actual need and how much just a different measure of ego.
Well, you are raising a bunch of questions that people have mostly solved or acknowledged. This article appeared in the BBC recently: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/6765089.stm . The lady reuses a lot and she composts paper and table scraps. She buys secondhand and minimizes buying plastics. Recycling metals and glass are easiest. Recycling plastic is more difficult although there is a company that is able to recycle polypropylene.
Lady Bird Johnson had a building made that channeled rainwater into cisterns. Cisterns were quite popular before centralized water distribution as a means to store and hold water.There was also an old house built on the Texas coast that was hurricane proof and had cisterns at the turn of the 19th century near Port Aransas. Tuscan, Az made people xeriscape their yards using gravel and desert plants to reduce water consumption. The alternative is to build artificial water reservoirs around cities or obtain water from lakes.
If you read Jared Diamond's book, Collapse, you discover that except for oil and gas drilling which is actually ecologically friendly in terms of extracting the oil or gas since you just punch a hole in the ground and gives higher profit margins (15%), all the other ways of mining are pollution intensive due to tailings and the effects of blasting and digging and the margins are slow low (5%) that economically it makes sense for the mine companies to pollute. They move the mine's assets over to another company and let the original company go bankrupt to avoid environmental cleanup costs after the mine isn't economically viable any more.
Yes, our consumer driven lifestyle is wasteful. Yes, it is not sustainable. Some people are waking up and doing something about it. Part of the problem though is poverty. When you are poor and trying to make ends meet, the environment doesn't even enter into the equation. You cut all the trees down for fuel destroying forests and to free land for agriculture and then watch your soil erode and silt up streams and harbors or blow away. Most of the people on the planet are poor compared to Americans. The environmental degradation in their countries is horrible. People are killed over water or land. Animals are killed for their meat (bushmeat trade in chimps and gorillas). HIV came about due to a human killing and butchering a chimpanzee and getting infected with the chimp strain of SIV. Everything we do has consequences whether we know it or not.
The comment formatting cutoff part of the url:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine
/6765089.stm
Impressively Insightful.
I am sitting on a pile of copper, collected when the price was higher, then heard it was dropping, haven't checked in past month.
Saturn is good by me.
Grass, dirt, concrete, I don't know.
All very interesting.
Greenfrog - much of it isn't necessary, to me - but I don't think it's bad to have extra stuff... so long as one doesn't start thinking it's necessary.
JBMoore - the answers are out there, but they aren't common knowledge or common practice. They'll be my practice inasmuch as possible.
You're right, many people don't live in a "first world" society - but those of us who are more prosperous, well, it would be nice to hold a higher standard. The writer of noaz.blogspot.com lives off-grid in AZ, and I admire that.
Jim - the market's taken a beating last week because of fears over housing lending, and a lot of people/corps selling off their positions out of fear. If you've got faith in the long-term performance of your favorites, stocks are essentially on sale right now.
Well, that's one thing about my apartment living. Small forces you to live small. And I've never understood the ubiquitous idea of the subdivision. Houses isolated from businesses, cars necessary to get a bottle of milk from the nearest "convenience" store, two miles away!
The problems are not technical nor are the solutions.
I think the problem and the solution are the same.
People are followers. They will follow the crowd responding to corporate advertising and become consumers and wonder why they are not content and happy. But . . . they will follow the example of content individuals who live sustainable and simple lives.
We need more examples from people who shun needless consumption and live simple lives filled with contentment, happiness, joy and community.
You raised some interesting questions such as "How far does one have to drive, to produce the same amount of pollution by running a less-efficient engine as it takes to produce a whole new automobile?" I have a suspicion that these questions have been researched and answered. We need to find the answers and publish them.
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