Welcome to the Earthship. No, it isn’t a ship made out of earth, and no, it isn’t a spaceship made to boldly explore where no one has gone before. It’s an innovative type of home, typically built of recycled and reclaimed material, where the household itself functions like an ecosystem. The ecological footprint is minimal to nonexistent, and most of them are completely off the grid, using solar panels and wood stoves for heating, and semi-artistic designs for temperature regulation. Some use composting toilets, or just a plain outhouses in friendly year-round climates.
Category: Green Bean Tuesdays
Not having kids is the next cool fad
We humans are part of the environment. Really, all those trees, bugs, birds, sand, walruses, ice floes, endangered orangutans … we’re part of that. Call me out for pointing out the obvious, but this notion was once a big revelation for me. I studied and worked in a few different aspects of the environment; as a technologist, a student, scientist, a field practitioner, an activist, an idealist and now a journalist.
Throughout most of these experiences, I always pictured myself as an observer, but not necessarily part of any type of ecosystem. I guess you could picture it like being a plumber; you fix the pipes, but they’re not your pipes. Well guess what – they are our pipes.
Polar bear, schmolar bear
While I was doing my undergrad at McGill, I was part of a group that visited high schools to give guest lectures about different environmental subjects. I had some of the best, and worst experiences with the young ‘uns, but I am, of course, going to talk about THE worst one. My partner and I were standing in front of a West Island high school class that just wasn’t into us. They were the noisy bunch – the more difficult children in the school, grade eight if I remember correctly. We were grasping desperately at anything to get them interested in our presentation on climate change. Polar bears; the poster child of climate change were an obvious pick. Who doesn’t like polar bears?
Green Bean 2010 Review
What a year! We’re still here, so hopefully that means that we’re doing something right…or not at all if we look at the last year in eco news. Without getting all ‘told you so’ on your butt, let’s have a look to see what the Green Bean has brought you throughout 2010 … Earth Day turned 40 this year! Two days before that anniversary, the biggest accidental, and certainly most frustrating ecological disaster we’ve ever seen dominated the media for months. Yup, it’s the BP oil spill, one of the worst environmental disasters of all time, but Obama did good by banning offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico until 2017.
Leaving only yourself behind
It’s the strangest Christmas present I’ve ever helped to give. This week, my mom and I will be putting our beloved cat, Bobo to sleep forever. He’s been suffering with a tumor and can barely lap up food any more. After months of treatment, we have decided to call it quits and give him our own holiday gift: an end to his suffering. Pets bring a lot of comfort and we’ve been lucky to have one of the best cats ever over the last ten years. Like everything on the planet, everything has its final hour. With this bleak holiday message, it brings to mind what will happen with everything else we may be leaving behind. The holidays are a conundrum of giving, taking and waste. At the end, we leave behind our own trail of consumerism. We have the power to diminish our impact on the planet, but what about when we die? What legacy will we be leaving behind when we’re committed to the earth?
The swirling vortex of death – our plasticized ocean
I couldn’t help it when a groan slipped out while reading yet another email about horrible, terrible, very bad plastic. Another outcry against the toxic, non biodegradable stuff, killing the poor innocent creatures of the ocean, blah blah blah. All this while sitting comfortably in my warm home, sipping tea to my heart’s content. I live so far away from the Texas-sized swirling vortex of plastic floating in the Pacific Ocean and all the litter lining every shoreline on earth. It’s easy to ignore one little email and go on with my day when I’m not face to face with it.Well, lucky for us that there’s a group of guys who decided to make it their business
Breaking eco-news: Harper officially hates the environment
This message is directly copied from an urgent email I received last night. Its urgency required me to just get the word out as quickly as possible.
Step 1) read the pasted article below
Step 2) Call Stephen Harper, like I did, at 613 992 4211
Email him: http://pm.gc.ca/eng/contact.asp
Tell him that canceling Canada’s only climate act right before COP16 was an incredibly stupid, undemocratic thing to do.
Step 3) Share this blog posting with everyone you know.
And now, the message:
Some very sad news. Tonight the country’s only federal climate change legislation in Parliament, the Climate Change Accountability Act, was defeated in the Senate 43 to 32.
JR goes green as Larry Hagman endorses solar energy
He is known as an oil man, through and through, or at least his character is….make that was. For years on the hit TV show Dallas, actor Larry Hagman portrayed the quintessential Texas black gold tycoon JR Ewing. Now Hagman is playing JR once again, this time in a commercial for solar power. In the ad for Solar World, a German company that makes photovoltaic modules, Hagman, as JR, announces that the oil business has been very good to him over the years but it’s far too dirty now, which is why he’s gone solar. Then, in a parody of Sarah Palin’s famous “drill, baby, drill” line, he urges the audience to “shine, baby, shine!”