Great Blog on Sustainable living and Design

Calculate your carbon footprint and find out how to live greener- lots of great ideas here!

Recycle Mania: Let's Join the Fun!

Check out this website for info on Recycle Mania, a "friendly competition" between colleges and Universities across the nation. Last year, several UW campuses participated, and UW-Madison even ranked #7 nationwide! I say, let's show them that UW-Manitowoc is just as devoted to recycling. If you would like to be in charge of this project (hint, hint) please let me know! I believe the competition doesn't start until Spring semester, so we will have plenty of time to practice and to revolutionize our campus recycling efforts. This would be a great project to link to classes! 

More Thought Food

We are doomed! Sort of!
Earth in crisis, food and water increasingly scarce, people freaking out. Should you join them?

The "sustainable spectrum" is often fraught, sometimes panic stricken and the flood of information is daunting;  too many good ideas? an abundance of riches? crass commercialism disguised as concern for the environment?----  Some observations and a caveat we should probably pay attention to -- 

Locavore 100 Mile Radius Map - Manitowoc

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What's a locavore? Well, short and sweet, a locavore is a person who does their best to buy and eat foods that are grown within a certain radius of where they live. The most common radius is 100 miles.

And why do people do this? Well, for a few reasons;

Eating local means more for the local economy. According to a study by the New Economics Foundation in London, a dollar spent locally generates twice as much income for the local economy. When businesses are not owned locally, money leaves the community at every transaction. (reference)

Locally grown produce is fresher. While produce that is purchased in the supermarket or a big-box store has been in transit or cold-stored for days or weeks, produce that you purchase at your local farmer's market has often been picked within 24 hours of your purchase. This freshness not only affects the taste of your food, but the nutritional value which declines with time.

Local food just plain tastes better. Ever tried a tomato that was picked within 24 hours? 'Nuff said.

Locally grown fruits and vegetables have longer to ripen. Because the produce will be handled less, locally grown fruit does not have to be "rugged" or to stand up to the rigors of shipping. This means that you are going to be getting peaches so ripe that they fall apart as you eat them, figs that would have been smashed to bits if they were sold using traditional methods, and melons that were allowed to ripen until the last possible minute on the vine.

Eating local is better for air quality and pollution than eating organic. In a March 2005 study by the journal Food Policy, it was found that the miles that organic food often travels to our plate creates environmental damage that outweighs the benefit of buying organic. (reference)

Buying local food keeps us in touch with the seasons. By eating with the seasons, we are eating foods when they are at their peak taste, are the most abundant, and the least expensive.

Buying locally grown food is fodder for a wonderful story. Whether it's the farmer who brings local apples to market or the baker who makes local bread, knowing part of the story about your food is such a powerful part of enjoying a meal.

Eating local protects us from bio-terrorism. Food with less distance to travel from farm to plate has less susceptibility to harmful contamination. (reference)

Local food translates to more variety. When a farmer is producing food that will not travel a long distance, will have a shorter shelf life, and does not have a high-yield demand, the farmer is free to try small crops of various fruits and vegetables that would probably never make it to a large supermarket. Supermarkets are interested in selling "Name brand" fruit: Romaine Lettuce, Red Delicious Apples, Russet Potatoes. Local producers often play with their crops from year to year, trying out Little Gem Lettuce, Senshu Apples, and Chieftain Potatoes.

Supporting local providers supports responsible land development. When you buy local, you give those with local open space - farms and pastures - an economic reason to stay open and undeveloped.

From "10 Reasons to Eat Local" by Jennifer Maiser
http://www.lifebeginsat30.com/elc/2006/04/10_reasons_to_e.html

Be sure to watch for the UW-Manitowoc Locavore Challenge...coming soon!

it's time to have some fun: selecting readings for the common theme!

fresco of Sappho, from wikipedia commons, in the public domain

I've been reading some interesting books lately, especially Carlo Petrini's Slow Food Nation, about the slow food movement, and Russ Parson's How to Pick a Peach, about how to select produce thoughtfully--that is, exploring all the issues behind the plant foods we eat, whether local, sustainable, organic, seasonal or not. As you might imagine, he believes that seasonal local foods often taste the best. So, I've been eating mostly asparagus and greens and now, finally, strawberries, since that's what's in season in our little corner of the world.

Anyway, I digress. We need to start creating our green text-bank. One idea I had was to create reading clusters--say, a group of readings on green design! Green economics and business practices! Green science! Eco-literature...you get the idea. Now, what do you think of this model? Or, should we mix it up more thematically rather than by discipline? Say, a cluster of readings on green eating, which could include a range of disciplines. Now that I type this, I like the thematic model better. Think of the interdisciplinary fun we could have! 

So, I'm asking you to weigh in on how you'd like the readings to be organized; what readings you'd recommend for your discipline and/or personal interest; and finally, to think about how you would like to use the readings. 

Inhabitat - Green Design Site -

Great site for Green Design news, information and links -

Masdar- Who Knew

From Mark Morford's  "Errata" column for June 18th - "Hell of a year (so far)" 

"And just look at those United Arab Emirates, would you? Talk about your giant sun-baked mixed blessing. Those UAE gazillionaires, desperate to be taken seriously for something other than living atop giant maws of oil and oppressing women and providing the impetus for countless wars and brutal socioeconomic injustices of the world, these guys have now decided to build the weirdest, most violently garish and overpriced megalopolises known to man — Abu Dhabi, the richest city in the world, and, a mere 90 miles away, Dubai, easily the weirdest. (Average net worth of every one of Abu Dhabi's 420,000 citizens? Seventeen million dollars. Hello, Las Vegas? Ppptthhbbbbtt).

But wait, it gets stranger. Because just down the road, these same gazillionaires are also proposing to spend $22 billion to build what just might become — if it actually succeeds — one of the most forward-thinking, sustainable, environmentally conscious social experiments in the world, a mini-burg called Masdar City, a place with no cars, full solar power, advanced water-saving systems, complete energy independence, 100 percent walkability, zero carbon emissions, zero waste, full of so many radical enviro-friendly ideas it seems almost impossible, considering it's also being built on one of the least hospitable hunks of land anywhere.
Verily, it's like a bloated Republican capitalist's wet dream (Abu Dhabi) right next door to a liberal environmentalist's cute little utopia, two extremes of vision competing for your attention and tourist dollar and God's love, except it's not God at all. It's just a lot of really, really hot sand.
Never heard of Masdar City? Here, let me grab some links for you."