A Good Yarn for the Environment

No, this isn’t a long rambiling post kind of yarn, as the OED says that yarn can mean “a long or rambling story, esp. one that is implausible.” I mean yarn as in “a spun thread used for knitting, weaving, or sewing.”

Yes, that’s right, today’s Blog Action Day post is about yarn and how people who are into spinning thread can help the environement too.

The Hook and I blog has a list of ten things that yarn enthusiasts can do, here’s number nine:

9) Use your stash. Not buying new materials is probably the best way to reduce our environmental impact. It’s hard for me to say this–I love yarn companies and the people involved, many of them have strong environmental missions themselves, but it can’t be avoided that lack of consumption is better than consumption when it comes to the environment.

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 can’t be to drop out of consumption entirely, because it’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 — 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

Bloggers Unite - Blog Action Day 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.

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