Adam Clare

Consumers Can Make a Difference

Continuing this week’s focus on the successful Blog Action Day is an editorial from LifeHack. Dustin Wax waxes ecstatic about how the best solution for the environment is for us to buy less, just stop consuming. I agree with his conclusion, but how he gets there is not something I will blindly support. It’s a good read though and I encourage to go read it (and also to buy less).

For most of us, simply dropping out, growing our own food and living off our own labor, is not an option and is hardly desirable even if it were an option. The answer to the dreadful over-consumption that fills our landfills with completely unnecessary crap, pollutes our water sources, kills off species after species (something like 40 a day!), and leaves us in a world of ever-diminishing beauty and diversity canâ€™t be to drop out of consumption entirely, because itâ€™s simply not an option.

But we can change the way we consume, and more importantly lessen the demands we place on consumption to complete us as individuals. This means developing a higher sense of self-reflexivity about what we do buy, and replacing our identities as consumers with identities as part of our families and communities â€” and maybe even as producers, once again.

Costa Rica to Stay Beautiful

Costa Rica is a gorgeous country and so it’s really good to hear that their forests will continued to be protected. A US-based conservation group has arranged $26 million of Costa Rica’s national debt to be alleviated in exchange for a section of the rainforest to be preserved and used for scientific research.

“We in Costa Rica protect four to five per cent of the world’s biodiversity, and our territory is much, much smaller than four to five per cent of the global territory,” Mr Dobles said.

“So we feel that we are also protecting humanity’s biodiversity, so all the support such as this one is always welcome.”

Negative Carbon Output

Terra preta is apparently wonderful and will help us fight climate change. World Changing has a great post about the human made fertilizer that will probably answer all your questions about terra preta.

Because terra preta locks so much carbon in the soil, it’s also a form of carbon sequestration that doesn’t involve bizarre heroics like pumping CO2 down old mine shafts. What’s more, it may reduce other greenhouse gases as well as water pollution: according to Biopact, a network that promotes biofuels and biomass energy…

The Secret to Helping to the Planet

The Blog Action Day posts continue!

There is one “secret” that will save the planet that will litterally make a world of differnece. Lighter Footstep has the secret and it’s so simple that it’s onlyfive words. Click here for the secret.

From below the secret:

The era of single-occupant, six thousand pound vehicles is over. So is the expectation of limitless fresh water, productive farmland, and the energy to bring food and goods to market if we continue to apply yesterday’s solutions to contemporary problems.

There’s good news, though. People get it. In just two short years, the environmental movement has gone from being on the ropes to being on the front page. Green advocates and big business are working hand in hand.

Green Concerts Rocks Your Socks

Here in the province of Ontario there’s the Hillside Festival, and it has been the greenest event I’ve ever been to (their website shows that they have tons of energy). Going to a place to hear great music, exchange great ideas, and help the environement while doing it is more fun than it sounds 😉

The idea of running a green concert has caught on and now a company, Sustainable Waves is helping to make sure that the (green) band keeps playing.

But can the green message be at odds with a rock extravaganza? Festival organizers know that outdoor concerts leave a big footprint, and they’ve worked hard to reduce Echo’s impact. Electricity for sound and lights at one of the five stages will be provided by an array of solar panels; generators at other stages will run on bio-diesel fuel.

Even the temporary fencing around some stages and tents will be built out of an Earth-friendly product â€” in this case fast-growing bamboo harvested by Franklin of the nonprofit enviro group Change of Atmosphere.

A fraction of the price of each ticket will be contributed to a tree-planting project, and, for an extra $4, patrons can buy green tickets that pay for “carbon offsets” elsewhere â€” an investment in 500 kilowatt-hours of renewable energy, such as wind energy.