Archive for the 'Environment' Category

Happy Earth Day, Everyone

Published
by
Taylor
on April 22, 2008
in Environment
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I had a post on web politics all fired up and ready to go (ahem), but I’d be remiss if I didn’t use this space, today, to direct your attention elsewhere.

On this Earth Day, why not pledge to plant a tree…or a billion?

Why not take in a baseball game on hallowed ground…Fenway Park.

Or listen to a podcast with one of today’s most inspiring environmental leaders.

Or, in the very least, read Grist’s Earth Day Superlatives.

I hope you have sunshine on Earth Day 2008…I’m stuck in rain and fog, but I’m counting on Spring arriving soon. Happy Earth Day.

UPDATE: Is anyone else a little disappointed in the Google Earth Day logo [no longer the logo, but will be posted here soon]? Doesn’t seem as cool as their past efforts.

Image used under a Creative Commons license courtesy of Flickr user inel.

Monday Links: April 21st, 2008

Published
by
Taylor
on April 20, 2008
in Careers, Design, Energy, Environment, Google, Monday Links, Politics, Space and Sustainability
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Another week closer to Spring…or so we hope.  This week’s links are very heavy on environmental stories.  I apologize for the one-dimensionality, but Jarred has some Web 2.0 stuff planned for this week to even things out a bit.  Links:

  • Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. offers three major environmental policies for the next president: a carbon cap-and-trade system (wisely endorsed by Senators Obama, Clinton, and McCain); smart grids and modernizing energy delivery infrastructure; and drastic improvements in energy efficiency for buildings and machines.  Sounds like a start [Hat Tip: Grist].
  • Treehugger features stories on space debris (click through to see the image…pretty unbelievable) and the “Pacific trash vortex“–an area twice the size of Texas in the middle of the Pacific Ocean that’s entirely covered in garbage (more here).  Further proof of the attitude that out of sight is out of mind…until our children grow up, anyway.
  • The latest version of Google Earth includes a feature that shows users when a satellite image was taken; this is enormously important for conservation efforts aimed at tracking land and water conditions over time.  Also helpful for spies.

You could train a recent college graduate to do your job well in a few days or less - This demonstrates you do not need any experience or knowledge learned over time to complete your tasks, which implies busy work or menial duties.

  • The New Yorker featured a really fascinating article on something I rarely give a second thought: elevators.  The story includes an account of the horrific experience of a guy trapped in an elevator for 41 hours.  The time-lapse video of his ordeal makes me think I’ll be taking the stairs for a few weeks.
  • I keep procrastinating on a green architecture post; in the meantime, this is one of the coolest green building concepts I’ve seen recently: urban skyscraper farming, courtesy of the Dwell Magazine blog.  Check out this design, and follow the link for details:

dwell city farm

  • I’m giving Jarred this raw meat themed iPod case for his birthday, just to send Ashish (and Steve Jobs, for that matter) over the edge.  Fortunately for you, Ashish, it’s way too expensive for a gag gift.

Enjoy those links while I go read the NY Times magazine “green issue.” More to come….

Monday Links: April 14th, 2008

Published
by
Taylor
on April 14, 2008
in Business, Cooking, Culture, Education, Energy, Environment, Monday Links and Search
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Happy Monday. I decided to start the week (sharing with coworkers, naturally) with Whole Wheat Apple Muffins, following this recipe from Smitten Kitchen. Del.icio.us. (nerd joke!). Enjoy a few links as you consider how good an apple muffin would taste right now (answer: unbelievably good).

  • Could Google benefit from asking users to input their race before searching? The NY Times reports on Rushmore Drive, a new search engine that delivers search results catered to specific racial groups. The company behind Rushmore Drive started with an African-American focus, but plans on expanding to other races; from the article:

[The site] offers search results that, at first glance, border on stereotypes. A search query for “Thanksgiving recipes,” for instance, yields sites featuring recipes for sweet potato pie and collard greens. But according to Johnny Taylor, the chief executive of Rushmore Drive, the results are based on years of search data from IAC’s Ask division.

Rushmore Drive analyzed search results for 3,000 of the most popular search terms in areas with large black populations and found that when people in those areas searched for recipes, they were much more likely to click on pages with soul food. Those searching for hair products, dance, cars, fraternities and sororities also ended up on vastly different Web sites than people who lived in areas with smaller black populations.

  • Here’s a quick Fast Company featurette on the new D.C. Nationals ballpark. It’s the first professional ballpark to receive LEED certification. Can’t wait to catch a game (or 3) there in May
  • This is old news, but in case you missed it (or didn’t understand the details), here’s a Washington Post article describing the new partnership between Google and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. The U.N. will use Google Earth to draw attention to the plight of refugees around the globe and to illustrate their forced emigration.
  • [slaps head for not thinking of this]: Here’s a simple idea for storing your ever-growing list of frequent flier/hotel reward program/valued shopper numbers…file them away in your cell phone under a specific heading. Brilliant…the Internet is a beautiful thing.

Happy Monday.

The Birth Of BLUE (Long Live Green)

Published
by
Taylor
on April 13, 2008
in Consumer Behavior, Environment, Sociology and Sustainability
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Adam Werbach is a very controversial figure in certain (mainly older and/or purist) environmental circles. His company, Act Now Productions, works with a variety of companies (including Wal Mart) on improving sustainability. He’s criticized the traditional “environmentalist” movement, even declaring it dead. He gave a speech last week that’s worth highlighting. Apologies for the gratuitous excerpts, but I found it impossible to leave much more out. Courtesy of Grist (emphasis mine):

Tonight I invite you to join me in Wonderland. I ask you to consider joining me in building a movement that goes beyond the political to the personal, that views the existential threat of global warming as a chance to change the way we treat ourselves and the planet, that aspires to have one billion active participants across the earth. Tonight I’ll contend that we need to invest more time in making a difference through our routine activities and the things we buy every day. To achieve this we need a broader platform than green. [...]

[All over the world], I’ve seen people seeking something broader than a green or environmentalist solution to the myriad problems they face in their lives. Yes, they believe climate change is happening, but they also want to feel good about the way they look in the mirror and the way their kids look at them at the dinner table. They want to be part of something larger than themselves without having to sacrifice their identity. They want joy, not guilt, and a little money in their pocket so that they don’t have to trade down on yet one more thing in their life.

Building this new movement will require a commitment to the mainstream that we are unaccustomed to in San Francisco. It’s not enough to have a revolution that consists only of Mac users. It’s not enough to have a revolution that exists only in coastal states and college towns. It’s not enough to attack China as the home of lead-painted toys and neglect the aspirations of the hundreds of millions of people who have been brought out of abject poverty because we’ve bought those toys.

Something is happening now; progress seems at hand. We don’t know what to call it. For now let us call it the sustainability revolution — we are beginning to understand how human culture will harmonize its relationship with the living world. [...]

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Pork Across the Pond and Here at Home

Published
by
Taylor
on April 10, 2008
in Agriculture, Animals, Business, Cooking, Environment, Health and Sustainability
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hogsLast night’s winner on Top Chef served grilled shrimp with a pickled chili salad and miso smoked bacon.  The dish looked delicious, and who can blame the judges for going with the clear winner: bacon.  What self-respecting meat eater doesn’t love the salty, crispy stuff?  On a recent episode of Iron Chef America, Cat Cora referred to maple and brown sugar bacon as “pig candy,” which I find both hilarious and a little disgusting.  Regardless, one thing is clear: many of us freaking love bacon.

Here’s the bad news: Smithfield Farms, the world’s largest hog producer (based, regrettably, in my home state of North Carolina) is responsible for true environmental injustice in rural communities in NC and IA…and now they’re expanding to Europe.  Grist reports (emphasis mine):

In the 1990s, Smithfield perfected the meat industry’s infamous “vertical integration” strategy that it’s now unveiling in Eastern Europe. In an old-school meat market, packers bought livestock from independent farmers. But starting in the early ’90s in the United States, dominant meat packers began to raise vast numbers of their own animals, stuffing them into concentrated animal feedlot operations (CAFOs).

In doing so, they put independent farmers in direct competition with [Smithfield's] own livestock operations — a game that the meat packer usually wins. Farms go out of business in droves, unable to sustain themselves on the low prices offered by the packers; survivors scale up, mimicking the packers’ intensive techniques. That is, they CAFOize, using debt to erect large confinement buildings into which they stuff thousands of hogs. Most of them essentially cede their independence, working under contracts wherein the packers supply the feed and the hogs.

The trends now playing out in Poland has already flattened small farmers in Iowa and North Carolina. When Smithfield first bulled its way into Poland in 1999, after buying an old state-run processing plant, it declared its intention to make Poland “the Iowa of Europe.”

Continue reading ‘Pork Across the Pond and Here at Home’