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Sustainable studying
Vanessa Farquharson, National Post
How Canadian campuses are keeping it green
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The academic environment tends to be a sustainable one, for various reasons. Students surviving on government loans are usually forced to share living space, cook their meals at home, walk or cycle to class and lug around coffee Thermoses and reusable water bottles to save money. Also, whether you’re learning or teaching, there’s generally a heightened level of awareness about global issues, such as climate change.
At the same time, however, there are other aspects of university life that are inherently un-green, such as the paper waste that comes from thousands of essays, tests and notebooks, the energy that’s drained from 24-hour computer labs and science equipment, the junky cafeteria food, vending machines and so on.
But because the population on campus tends to be a self-conscious one, these issues usually get noticed quickly. And thanks to the informed, close-knit community of eager students and erudite faculty who generally don’t have to contend with too many layers of bureaucracy, things can start changing at a faster rate than usual.
Take the University of British Columbia…
(8 January 2009)
Wondermentalist/Matt Harvey Telling Transition Tales (audio)
Transition Culture
A few days before Christmas in Totnes, the monthly Wondermentalist Cabaret shifted its poetic gaze towards Transition…. host and local poet-in-residence Matt Harvey has been making a short film for the BBC about Transition, and so part of the show featured his thoughts on it for the programme. You can hear it using the ‘Traydioplayer’ below. His set also included his rather good Christmas poem.
(6 January 2009)
Introduction to EntropyPawsed – Adventures In Sustainable Living (YouTube and text)
Frank Gifford, EntropyPawsed
The EntropyPawsed project, physically located in southeastern West Virginia, seeks to utilize the Second Law of Thermodynamics, human development, Permaculture, Deep Ecology, medicine, and life experiences to demonstrate how to survive and thrive in the coming years. To date, EntropyPawsed has been described by its developers Frank and Bonnie Gifford as “a nature linked low energy living demonstration site.” Beginning in early 2009, EntropyPawsed will post a series of on-line articles and videos focused on issues and skills relevant to the future. In this way we hope not only to attenuate the inherent contradictions of high energy expenditure travel to promote sustainability, but also add to the growing conversation of how we design for the future.
Within the context of our sheer numbers, at first glance humans seem well equipped for future survival. However, when viewed within the context of the human population growth curve and ecological systems, human actions and reactions of the recent past several decades raise serious questions as to whether we are equipped perceptually to survive in a post industrial world. Systems upon which the vast majority of modern humans rely for basic survival needs – water, food, and sanitation – are often and increasingly centralized and/or fragile. A very real possibility exists for increasing dysfunction and possible collapse of these and other systems integral to modern industrial civilization.
(6 January 2009)
Other entires at EntropyPawsed:
Some Lifestyle Characteristics of Homo Sapiens Sapiens (on living in the “boonies”)
Making Swedish Potato Sausage
Frank Gifford writes:
The term we use is “resource stringency”, borrowed from Kurt Cobb. It maybe pushes less buttons at first glance? Peak Oil is germane to the entire article. This is the first of ten modules we are developing for a remote presentation for the Social Medicine course at the Albert Einstein Medical School of Yeshiva University in New York. We are utilizing short video modules to give some extra dimension to presentation. Coming modules will address health, water catchment, humanure, ecological overshoot, gardening, 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, modern myths, development of perceptive capacity, simple solar systems. Our website is at http://entropypawsed.org.
