Serious about the environment? If so, build an earthship

If you're really serious about preserving the earth's resources, you can build and live in an "earthship." Each type of earthship is defined by the following set of principles: * Thermal/Solar Heating & Cooling * Solar & Wind Electricity * Contained Sewage Treatment * Building with Natural & Recycled Materials * Water Harvesting * Food Production For instance, with regard to electricity,

Earthships produce their own electricity with a prepackaged photovoltaic / wind power system. This energy is stored in batteries and supplied to your electrical outlets. Earthships can have multiple sources of power, all automated, including grid-intertie.

Lots of photos and details regarding earthships can be viewed at this website. There are many varieties, including retrofitted pre-existing housing, described here, this section serving as another review of the basic principles. Here is a video introduction:

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People Are Idiots. A Cynical Observation

The video below from TED is chilling in many ways. Michael Specter touches on observations about the resistance people have toward anything that seems to threaten their hobbit-hole view of the world. A little of this, as he rightly points out, is fine, even agreeable, but when it burgeons into matters that threaten lives and seek to derail all that has made this present era as wonderful as it is---and it must be stressed, in the face of overwhelming negative press, that we are living in a magnificent period of history---then it loses whatever quaint appeal it might otherwise have. We respect the Amish, but they don't tell the rest of us how to live and try their level best to be apart from the world they disapprove. When you see people filing lawsuits with the intent to halt necessary, beneficial progress because they have bought into some bogeyman horror movie view of science or politics or morality, it behooves us to come to terms with a fundamental reality with which we live today. First, though, the video. Watch this, then read on. Okay, what reality? That many people are just idiots. I cannot think of a more tasteful way to phrase it. But when you consider the list, justifications and rationalizations fade. The Tea Party. The Anti-vaccine Movement. The Birthers. Young Earth Creationists. Medjugorje. Deepak Chopra. PETA. Free Market Capitalism. Global Warming Deniers. Holocaust Deniers. Abstinence-Only. Just Say No. The Shroud of Turin. Astrology. Texas Board of Education. Evolution Deniers. Frankenfood Protesters. Homeopaths. Herbalists. Psychics. Scientology. I could go on. [more . . . ]

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Woody Tasch discusses destructive economics

In this three-minute video, author Woody Tasch compellingly illustrates that "Economic growth is not synonymous with well being." In fact, much of what we call "economic growth" is destructive. Woody concludes: "We can't just continue to grow our way out of our problem. In fact, 'economic growth' is often destructive.'" My strategy is to disparage the ubiquitous media reports that applaud when the GDP is "up," or when the "economy" is humming along. Those numbers assume that strip mining is better for the economy than conservation measures. They assume that rampant crime is better for the economy than fixing many of the root causes of crime-- e.g., the "war on drugs," injects violence into drug use and "allows" us to hire a lot more police officers, whereas decriminalizing drugs might cause the loss of law enforcement jobs. The many commentators who fetishize the GDP embrace a principle that prefers a violence-ridden police state. We need to dramatically shift our focus from measuring numbers of dollars flowing through the system to (admittedly more difficult task of) measuring the real quality of life.

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Comprehensive moral instruction

We've all seen many Internet lists offering suggestions for improving one's life or state of happiness. This list, by a young man named Henrick Edberg at The Positivity Blog, caught my attention today, perhaps because it includes some of my own favorite bits of productivity reminders and folk wisdom, including the "80/20 rule" and the advice to not beat yourself up for making mistakes. His list also includes a nice twist to the golden rule: Give value to get value, not the other way around. Another item on his list reminds us to express gratitude to others in order to enrich our own lives, reminding us that expressing gratitude is socially contagious. What also intrigued me was Edberg's pre-list commentary: He laments that the nuggets of advice in his list aren't taught as part of the high school curriculum.

But I still think that taking a few hours from all those German language classes and use them for some personal development classes would have been a good idea. Perhaps for just an hour a week in high school. It would probably be useful for many students and on a larger scale quite helpful for society in general.

I think I know why there are no such classes in public schools. Teaching advice on how to navigate through the complexities of life in a positive state of mind would too often trigger discussions regarding "morality," which too often trigger discussions of specific religious teachings which, in turn, tend to anger at least some parents and students, which would then shut down the course (in public schools, anyway). I suspect that this causal chain is a big reason that so many schools tread lightly on teaching students how to navigate through life, even though there is an immense amount of information that needs to be discussed. Instead of vigorously teaching what the students need to know to be functional and virtuous, most schools ostensibly defer to families and churches (though they actually defer at least as much to pop culture, including magazines, "news" programs, television shows and movies) to fill that "moral" vacuum of students. In America, however, even "serious" teachers of morality often insist that the way to best live one's life is by obeying a standardized set of "moral" rules. Is the advice to follow any set of rules really the best approach for instructing us how to get along with each other down here on planet Earth? Is it even possible for any form of obedience to serve as the foundation for a high-functioning society? I think not. I'm going to digress at this point . . . [more . . . ]

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The power of a nickel

Look what happens to the use of plastic bags used by grocers and restaurants when you require the merchants charge five cents per bag. This is a big win for the environment:

In its first assessment of how the new law is working, the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue estimates that city food and grocery establishments issued about 3.3 million bags in January, which suggests a remarkable decrease. Prior to the bag tax taking effect Jan 1, the Office of the Chief Financial Officer had estimated that about 22.5 million bags were being issued per month in 2009.

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