MetaFilter posts tagged with Environment and sustainability

Article about the environmental impact of pets.

Neekee — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 17:51:37 -0800

Should owning a great dane make you as much of an eco-outcast as an SUV driver? Yes it should, say Robert and Brenda Vale. Article about the environmental impact of pets.

What Would It Look Like?

netbros — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 09:13:44 -0800

The Global Oneness Project is exploring how the radically simple notion of interconnectedness can be lived in our increasingly complex world. They travel the globe gathering stories from creative and courageous people who base their lives and work on the understanding that we bear great responsibility for each other and our shared world. They hope that by showing the diverse ways oneness is expressed—in the fields of sustainability, conflict resolution, spirituality, art, economics, indigenous culture, and social justice—others will be inspired to create solutions to personal and community challenges from their own lived understanding of oneness.

home planet

nickyskye — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 18:34:24 -0800

June 5th was established in 1972 as World Environment Day by the United Nations General Assembly. Home, the movie by Yann Arthus-Bertrand, which premieres today for the occasion, has some nice aerial visuals. Related. The movie's home site.

Two Google searches use as much energy as boiling the kettle for a cup of tea

nthdegx — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 15:39:25 -0800

Revealed: the environmental impact of Google searches - "Physicist Alex Wissner-Gross says that performing two Google searches uses up as much energy as boiling the kettle for a cup of tea."

Ecuador has a new constitution

PercussivePaul — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 15:52:52 -0800

Voters in Ecuador appear to have approved a new constitution yesterday, guaranteeing rights to clean water, universal healthcare, pensions, and free state-run education through the university level. It also may allow President Rafael Correa to remain in power until 2017. Particularly of note is a world first bill of rights for nature which grants inalienable rights to nature. This portion of the constitution was drafted with the assistance of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, a group which "[provides] free and affordable legal services to community based groups and local governments working to protect their quality of life and the natural environment through building sustainable communities." The specific provisions state: (source) "Chapter: Rights for Nature Art. 1. Nature or Pachamama, where life is reproduced and exists, has the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, structure, functions and its processes in evolution. Every person, people, community or nationality, will be able to demand the recognitions of rights for nature before the public organisms. The application and interpretation of these rights will follow the related principles established in the Constitution. Art. 2. Nature has the right to an integral restoration. This integral restoration is independent of the obligation on natural and juridical persons or the State to indemnify the people and the collectives that depend on the natural systems. In the cases of severe or permanent environmental impact, including the ones caused by the exploitation on non renewable natural resources, the State will establish the most efficient mechanisms for the restoration, and will adopt the adequate measures to eliminate or mitigate the harmful environmental consequences. Art. 3. The State will motivate natural and juridical persons as well as collectives to protect nature; it will promote respect towards all the elements that form an ecosystem. Art. 4. The State will apply precaution and restriction measures in all the activities that can lead to the extinction of species, the destruction of the ecosystems or the permanent alteration of the natural cycles. The introduction of organisms and organic and inorganic material that can alter in a definitive way the national genetic patrimony is prohibited. Art. 5. The persons, people, communities and nationalities will have the right to benefit from the environment and form natural wealth that will allow wellbeing. The environmental services are cannot be appropriated; its production, provision, use and exploitation, will be regulated by the State."

Inconvenient Truths: Get Ready to Rethink What It Means to Be Green

nthdegx — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 07:09:06 -0800

Inconvenient Truths: Get Ready to Rethink What It Means to Be Green. Last month, Wired published what it called "10 green heresies" which makes the case for urban living, intensive forest management and, er, air conditioning, among other things.

Are dead-tree magazines good or bad for the climate?

finite — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 22:12:14 -0800

"So by this analysis dead-tree magazines have a smaller net carbon footprint than web media. We cut down trees and put them in the ground. From a climate change perspective, this is a good thing" explains Chris Anderson, Wired Magazine's editor-in-chief. While some decry this type of carbon footprint accounting as "cheating", the paper industry has lately been eager to convince the public that they are carbon-neutral.

These Come From Trees

nthdegx — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 08:18:12 -0800

These Come From Trees "Testing shows a 'These Come From Trees' sticker on a paper towel dispenser reduces paper towel consumption by ~15%"

100-Mile Diet

Miko — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 12:56:42 -0800

How Much Fossil Fuel Does Your Dinner Burn? Ingredients for the average American meal travel well over 1500 miles to reach your plate. Our food might be inexpensive, but it's costing the planet a lot (and doesn't taste so hot either, since it's bred to withstand shipping and have long shelf life rather than to taste good). So what happens when people reject the large-scale industrial food system? One recent development in the growing localism movement is the 100-Mile Diet, originated by a Canadian couple who spent a full year eating only foods grown or raised within 100 miles of their home. They'll even give you a road map to having a 100-Mile Thanksgiving. For other variations on the eat-local idea, check out ideas like the Eat Local Challenge, Slow Food, and Locavores encourage you to rediscover your place on earth, build community, and enjoy the Local Harvest.

Is it really time to upgrade your mobile phone?

nthdegx — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 11:37:40 -0800

Dead Ringers: the Science Museum asks us the question "should we upgrade our mobile phone?" "No" and "no" say the Times and the Observer, but we still do: on average every 18 months. What's the problem? Well it isn't just the lead, arsenic, beryllium and brominated fire-retardant cases (pollutants all) disappearing into our land fills (which are not covered by the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive [WEEE] in Europe). Coltan also goes into our phones. It occurs mainly in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and as such our demand for upgrades has been contributing to a war (despite mobile phone companies' claims to the contrary, coltan is not regulated like timber). If we must upgrade, we can at least recycle or hack our old phones.

Limits to growth redux

wilful — Sun, 12 Feb 2006 15:39:43 -0800

State of the World 2006 , an annual research report prepared by the Worldwatch Institute, has just been released, with a special focus on China and India. Although Limits to Growth type predictions have had their critics, many of the stats and projections presented have a certain brutal inevitability about them.

folktrash — Mon, 12 Aug 2002 19:17:15 -0800

Trash homes a.k.a. earthships sound like the way to go. Now if they would start building them here in Seattle...

specialk420 — Sat, 06 Jul 2002 22:18:09 -0800

outer space will have to be colonized "The United States places the greatest pressure on the environment, with its carbon dioxide emissions and over-consumption. It takes 12.2 hectares of land to support each American citizen and 6.29 for each Briton, while the figure for Burundi is just half a hectare." ....meanwhile...its too hot (we're wondering why) here in mid-america - lets go to the mall and forget about it..

taumeson — Wed, 16 Jan 2002 15:19:25 -0800

"We have entered the Century of the Environment, in which the immediate future is usefully conceived as a bottleneck: science and technology, combined with foresight and moral courage, must see us through it and out."

Or so says Edward O. Wilson in February's Scientific American. Consumption and production can NOT be infinite, no matter what "near-horizon timelines" predict. But will capitalism rise to the occasion and will the free market fix the wrongs it's committed?

skinsuit — Wed, 07 Nov 2001 23:16:20 -0800

UN warning over plundered Earth EARTH is being plundered at an unprecedented and unsustainable rate which needs to be curbed quickly to avoid disaster, the United Nations says.

Will the conflicts of the 21st century be based around the control of water, the needs of food production and economic inequality? Maybe it's time to consider these issues. We can't totally blame the poor and weak for their own circumstances.

frykitty — Sun, 08 Jul 2001 08:11:09 -0800

Fish or Folk? Farmers along the Klamath took matters into their own hands last week, opening an irrigation floodgate that had been closed to protect local fish. It isn't just about fish, but also fishermen. A complex issue of humans v. the environment, broken promises, and a big ole' sense of entitlement.

Mr. skullhead — Fri, 20 Oct 2000 15:59:18 -0800

Humans Pushing Planet Earth Beyond Capacity.

Kiss your asses good bye.

I say, good f**kin' riddance.