Direct Action

101 Ways to Make the World Better

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

Here’s a nice list of 101 ways to improve your world, some of the ideas are really nice and simple while others are bit more extreme.

From the 30s:

31. Make breakfast in bed for someone you love.

32. Find something you’re good at and use it to help someone else.

33. Learn a new language, then volunteer as an interpreter.

34. Know someone who is sad and single? Find someone to hook them up with!

35. Bring coffee or baked goods to city workers who might appreciate it.

36. Help someone with a heavy load.

Conserving Energy Starts at Home

- Adam Clare

It goes without saying that saving energy is a good thing, and it’s something that everyone can do. It’s really easy to save energy and sometimes it’s easy to forget how easy it is, luckily the internet is filled with tips on how to save energy at home.

2. Make sure that the rooms in the house are neither too cold nor too warm.
Heating and cooling systems takes up most of the energy which is being consumed by a typical household. By making sure that each individual room in the house has just the right temperature, you will be saving a lot on CO2 emissions.
3. Make sure that the air filters are cleaned and the heaters are well-insulated.
Again, heating and cooling takes up most of the energy consumption in a typical home. When you see to it that your air filters are cleaned or replaced regularly, the energy will not be lost. Dirty air filters need to work doubly hard and take twice as much energy to work properly.
The same thing applies when you make sure that the heaters are well-insulated – it’s a good way to observe that no heat is escaping and you’re not using any more energy than you have to.

Creating a Bike-Friendly Sustainable Society in the USA

- Adam Clare

The New York Times has an article about a Oregon congressman who has been promoting bicycling and sustainable living for 20 years. The article goes into his hard work and how what he has been promoting has become really popular.

But Mr. Blumenauer’s goals are larger than putting Americans on two wheels. He seeks to create what he calls a more sustainable society, including wiser use of energy, farming that improves the land rather than degrades it, an end to taxpayer subsidies for unwise development — and a transportation infrastructure that looks beyond the car.

For him, the global financial collapse is “perhaps the best opportunity we will ever see” to build environmental sustainability into the nation’s infrastructure, with urban streetcar systems, bike and pedestrian paths, more efficient energy transmission and conversion of the federal government’s 600,000-vehicle fleet to use alternate fuels.

“These are things that three years ago were unimaginable,” he said. “And if they were imaginable, we could not afford them. Well, now when all the experts agree that we will be lucky if we stabilize the economy in a couple of years, when there is great concern about the consequences of the collapse of the domestic auto producers, gee, these are things that are actually reasonable and affordable.”

Six Recommendations for Sustainable Food in 2009

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

People are becoming more aware about how to live a sustainable life, and now we know of at least six ways to make our food more sustainable. The suggestions range from the everyday to the larger issues to support the sustainable food movement.

5. Continue to support local gardening / farming efforts. We need to keep our focus on urban gardening and small-scale farming. It has been said before, but the answers to our global food problems are not more genetic modification and massive globalization, but rather a return to small and simple. We need to bring more people into direct contact with food production, because with contact comes understanding.

6. Cement the relationship between Eco, Green and Healthy. It is undeniable that what is good for our personal health is good for the planet, and vice versa. With the dawn of the new year, we need to cement this relationship with both words and action. I believe that this is one of the ways that the sustainable food movement can reach a larger audience, and allow those participating on the fringes of the movement to go deeper into eco-eating through concerns about health. This is already one of the largest reasons people give when they choose to buy organic milk, for example, but it can be so much more than that. We need to expand the dialogue to include nutritionists, doctors, and other health practitioners as we move forward.

Tiny House for Yale Student

- Adam Clare

A grad student on her way to Yale did some math and discover that living there would cost ~$14,000. She figured she could take that same amount and built her own sustainable tiny house.

Elizabeth’s Tiny House will have a sleeping loft, storage loft, study nook, kitchen area, living area, and a bathroom. When complete, she’ll tow the entire home to New Haven for the start of the academic year.

You’ll notice the simple passive design. During the winter, the side with all the windows will gather sunlight. During the summer, she’ll turn the trailer around and leave the slanted roof facing the sun. Three solar panels will power her computer, lights, and other electronics in the home. The tiny house has a small shower, composting toilet, and propane to heat the home when necessary

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