SCA officially broke ground on Tuesday, November 13, 2007, for a much needed new building at the Charlestown Headquarters. Over the coming weeks and months, we will document the process with photos and information about the steps that we are taking to assure that this structure is very green.
Nate Tyler wants to invite you to “the dark side.”
Tyler, an SCA alum and one-time Google spokesperson, is taking on global warming with Lights Out San Francisco, a grassroots campaign to get locals to turn off their lights between 8:00 and 9:00 p.m. on Saturday, October 20. Landmarks including the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz and the TransAmerica Tower have all agreed to pull the plug.
Will Lights Out suddenly halt melting glaciers and put Al Gore out of business? Of course not. But the energy savings and reduced emissions, however minor, will be real and the message sent by those darkened SF icons should be heard loud and clear.
In fact, Los Angeles is already listening. The city plans to turn the lights off the fabled Hollywood sign, and the response from around the US has already prompted Tyler to schedule Lights Out America for March 29, 2008.
It’s always good to see SCA alums still fighting the good fight. Nate, a Connecticut native, says his mid-80s SCA hitch at Lassen Volcanic National Park in California opened his eyes to just how large the country is. If his Lights Out campaign catches on and helps thwart rising oceans that would otherwise consume at-risk coastal regions, our nation might just remain as big as he remembers it.
From Live Earth and youTube, a tribute to Michele Gardner-Quinn, SCA Intern ‘06, Prince William Forest Park, VA.
A co-worker pointed me to this article yesterday in Best Life Magazine and I’ve been shaking my head in horror ever since. It talks about plastic and the ways it, to put it lightly, destroys our oceans, our sea life, our environment, our health and our planet.
This sounds like an alarmist’s litany, but the article reads more like a well-researched report on the current state of the world. In simple terms, it runs through the list of chemicals that interact and react in various ways to interfere with our reproductive processes and the healthy genetic development. It states the easily forgotten fact that plastic lasts forever–that less than 5% of all plastic created in the world is ever recycled, and the remainder is tossed into landfills, leeched into bodies of water and bled en masse into the oceans. It shows photos of sea life, tangled in plastic netting and decomposing on beaches, packed to the gills (literally) with bits of plastic packaging and bottle caps. (more…)
Last Friday night like millions of other Americans, I was on the road, in my case to the Hartford airport, to pick up much loved and not seen often enough family. They live in Nashville, but like many, many others - witness the army of cars driving north on I91 - they love Vermont and we get together here instead of there.
The flight was delayed and it’s after midnight when we start the 99.89 mile trip to my house. Before we even get to Springfield, everyone is drowsy. “Don’t anybody go to sleep,” the driver implores. “Keep talking to me.”
They are both scientists. So I ask about something that has been puzzling me. “How much C02 does the combustion of one gallon of gasoline produce?”
There is disagreement about how much oxygen atoms weigh but agreement that they weigh less than carbon atoms. Then there is some mumbling under the breath that appears to be sleepy mental math and a guesstimate/answer - 12 pounds of C02 per gallon of gas.
I already knew the answer, I had looked it up the day before, but didn’t believe it; I was sure it was a mistake. The correct answer, according to the EPA website, is 19 pounds of C02 per gallon of gasoline.
Wow! That’s a lot. I used 13.97 gallons of gas this weekend to drive 452 miles and thus produced 266 pounds of C02. (BTW, that is about 32 miles per gallon from a 12 year old Honda, with the snow tires finally off, mostly driving at the speed limit, but running the air conditioner on the trip south on Monday afternoon.)
That’s not so bad, really, when you consider that just one chair lift at the Vail ski resort produces 300 tons of C02 in a season. But then it actually is bad, really bad, when you think about the hundreds and hundreds of other cars that were driving north on I91 Friday night. Mostly big SVU-type cars with kayaks and bicycles strapped to the top, going well above the speed limit. And, of course, they drove south on Monday.
I can’t do anything about other people who drive SUVs as a lifestyle thing. But there are some concrete things I can do, and will.
I commit to carpooling to work four days a week, every week, which means I drive three days and only two if I work at home one day a week. My commute is approximately 70 miles round trip. So, if I don’t drive three days each week, that’s 210 miles saved. At 32 mpg, that’s about 6.5 gallons I didn’t use or 123.5 pounds of C02 I didn’t create each week. Multiply that by 50 weeks, and that’s 6,175 pounds of C02 per year that I didn’t create.
What if we all did something like that? How much C02 can we not produce? I challenge you to commit to reducing your carbon production. Calculate how much C02 you can save.
Tell us how and how much, and I’ll keep a running tally here.
*This began as a response to a comment posted under Sandra’s recent entry, Climate Change - what YOU can do.
“There is no justification for raising animals for human food.” - Hayduke
This week marks my first full year as a vegetarian. Prior to last year, I had been eating mostly processed meats: Frozen chicken patties, the “on-sale” bologna from the supermarket deli, and whatever comes inside those frozen burritos at the gas station. I’d tried vegetarianism before, but would only last a few weeks before the sinful smells of sizzling bacon would lure me back to the dark side. Eventually I arrived at the realization that I could not bear to kill an animal with my own hands, and that it would be wrong for me to continue to let animals die at the hands of others for my benefit. However, while eating my fill of soy, broccoli, rice, and beans over the past year, I’ve had some conflicting thoughts about the benefits of a meatless diet.
A February post from Joshua Stearns, SCA Board Member and Alumnus
A few weeks ago we got the first snow storm of the winter here in Western Massachusetts. My wife and I decided we would treat ourselves and order take out from a new restaurant in town called Sparky’s All American Food. Sparky’s was unique from the beginning. At first glance the menu suggests a classic burger and dog joint. They even serve corn-dogs, that magical combination of meat on a stick wrapped in a corn pancake and deep-fried.
However, on closer inspection it turns out all their meat is “locally-raised, grass-fed, humanely treated beef, chicken and pork with no hormones or antibiotics†and their burgers, dogs and fries, come with toppings like homemade chili, garlic, chive, and white cheddar cheese, or buffalo sauce and blue cheese. Their veggies are organic and locally sourced (as much as possible) and they make all their toppings in-house. Perhaps best of all, their corn-dogs are vegetarian. But this essay is not about their menu, it about their delivery. (more…)
I’m generally of the notion that living simply has a direct correlation to environmental responsibility and overall happiness, so when I read about No Impact Man and his family in the New York Times this week, I was intrigued.
No Impact Man, otherwise and formerly known as Colin Beavan, is shepherding his wife and baby daughter through a year-long lifestyle experiment to minimize their impact on the planet. The rules of the experiment, as the New York Times explains, are constantly evolving, but are focused on eating only local, organic food, producing no waste, using no paper, shopping for nothing but food, and using no carbon-fueled transportation. It’s an ambitious goal for anyone, but more so for a family living in the heart of Manhattan and accustomed to the conveniences and luxuries of upper class urban life.
Please recycle this tea bag.
(Babelfish probably completely botched that translation)
Upon arriving in Munich for the first time this summer I immediately noticed two things:
by Joshua Stearns, SCA Board Member and Alumnus
Our narratives transcend fact, for they are formed from the delicious emotional nuances of sensation: sound, smell, moods, sensuality, taste, color, shadow, texture, rhythm, cadence, tears, laughter, warmth, and coolness all experienced here, at a place on this earth.
– Robert Archibald
Recently I posted an essay by a friend of mine that points out how the “Starfish Story†of one person making a difference, teaches us a flawed lesson, if we look at it in terms of community service and conservation.
One commenter on this blog said, “I agree. So, what’s a better tale to tell?”.
I believe we need to begin telling stories about communities large and small working together creatively to address our own lifestyle and our culture’s increasingly disconnected relationship to the world around us. (more…)
