Pre-Class Post Week of 10.28.09

What a great book! Thanks so much for suggesting this Mike, I really enjoyed it and was inspired to think more about my own consumption choices.

I thought that the last two chapters of Cradle to Cradle were the best and most inspiring, focusing on what we should be doing in industry and in our daily lives to be more eco-effective. The concept of nourishing the earth and not just sustaining it is a novel one but also a one that should have been obvious to us (look at the rest of the planet). Perhaps that is the "good versus bad" concept that we were bumping up against in The World Without Us. The question should not be "is what we are doing bad for the earth?" but rather "how does what we are doing promote life (of all things) on earth?". And even with this concept Cradle to Cradle avoids "isms" and recognizes the importance of Economy and Equity in designing products (fractal tile page 150).

The redesigning of the Ford plant using experts different sectors and backgrounds reminded me a lot of SMC. Being "undisciplinary" in addressing problems or engaging ideas is crucial to this redesign effort.

If someone could help me understand the heating and cooling system that they described on pages 134-135 that would be much appreciated, between distractions while reading and my inability to visualize it I could use some help on that front.

I think an interesting idea for a next assignment might involve creating a proposal for a landscaped area at Lehigh using only native plants and materials that are eco-effective. Though it is a small and easy step I think this type of assignment (as a group project perhaps?) would be a proactive step.

Post-Class Post Week of 10.21.09

Pre-Class Post Week of 10.21.09

So this post comes two hours before class... certainly late. I apologize to you all but hope that it will be thought provoking for those of you who have a chance to read it before class starts.

I appreciated the authors' concern not only with industry or the environment but with both. The idea of a biosphere and a technosphere is really interesting but I do see one problem with particularly the biosphere disposal system that is proposed. I do think that most people would like to have their technical waste taken care of by the industries that created them, but I could definitely see an unwillingness or even inability to deal with biological waste in the appropriate ways. Does this simply mean that all biological waste can go to a landfill (which becomes a giant compost pile?) or will people be expected to compost at home? Very few people have enough space available to compost all of their biological waste. Beyond that, many people will have an aversion to dealing with a compost pile (which is essentially rotting matter), frankly some people just aren't into worms.

An interesting way to deal with this in our current climate would be to add another waste management system... a compost management. For those of us who would like to allow our bio-matter to feed the earth (which it clearly can't do contaminated by toxins in landfills) who are unable to compost due to location it would be a great idea to have a compost-management program that picks up our compost. This could probably be a free service (or at least very low cost) since profits could be made selling the fertile soil that the compost will create.

Chapter three mentions a "green" building that the authors worked on. I thought it was great that their ideas extended beyond being eco-friendly and that the building was also worker-friendly. "In fact this building is just as energy-efficient as the first, but that is a sisde effect of a broader and more complex goal: to create a building that celebrates a range of cultural and natural pleasures- sun, light, air, nature, even food- in order to enhance the lives of people who work there." (p74). This idea made me wonder how our "STEPS" building will rank both in terms of energy efficiency as well as enjoyable and healthy for people to work and study in.

Post-Class Post Week of 10.14.09

To preface this blog entry I'm going to mention that I'm currently sitting in my apartment under three blankets and my nose feels like an ice pop (silly heat that won't work). So, if this blog is incoherent let's agree to blame it on the fact that the most warmth I have access too is the heat coming from the bottom of my lap top.

"Cradle to Cradle" seems like it will be mostly about how industry could produce things differently to be less wasteful and how to create products that are healthier for humans. My hope is that the "scare-tactics" are over because, frankly, I'm on board. While the introduction was effective in convincing me that we need to change the way we make things I hope that the rest of the book isn't just a big list of how bad everything around me is for my health.

Admittedly, last class I was very caught up in an idea that was a bit different from this topic in particular. Specifically, I was trying to reconcile how we would get companies to even create these products. Perhaps the authors will address this later in the book, but as of now it seems that companies make things the way that they do not for a lack of innovation (we create tons of new products all the time) but for a lack of will or resources.

I am inclined to think that even if companies are presented with the designs that this book will inevitably offer the products will rarely make into mainstream consumer culture. The new less-wasteful pro-human-health-and-environment products will probably be seen by companies as a luxury for the wealthy and the educated, so companies will not be inclined to produce shoes that are easy to recycle and reuse they will instead choose to produce knock-off nikes.

So, now we are presented with a dilemma (I know I should finish reading the book and see what solutions the authors offer, but what the heck). We know that it is possible to make products that are good for us and good for the environment, and we know how to make them. Whose responsibility is it to make sure that these are the goods we use everyday rather than the harmful goods? And furthermore does anybody have a right to make sure we are buying earth-friendly or non-toxic products? What if I want to buy the cheaper paint with lead in it? Should I be able to or are the environmental and medical/social costs too high? How do we quantify this?

While my opinion isn't completely formulated I think (at least until I'm convinced otherwise) that government and industry should partner with the scientific community that is already researching these harmful substances and create a system to (at the very least) easily inform consumers of the dangers of certain products. Every time I buy a pack of cigarettes I am reminded that they can give me cancer. If a t-shirt can do the same thing it should also be labeled with a skull and crossbones. Or (at the more invasive end of the spectrum) government should ban certain ecologically and medically harmful substances from even being used in production. I'm sure the right answer is somewhere between those two extremes.

Wow, sorry about the rant. My fingers are a bit warmer now...

Pre-Class Post Week of 10.14.09

So to begin with, I think this book is going to be really interesting. It does a good job of presenting "facts" like the World Without Us but is much better at integrating it into a story and I'm hoping for more interesting solutions. Here are a few of my thoughts. * What if we found a way to regulate the waste that products create? If there were taxes on products based on the amount of waste it produces we would address the social costs of a product that aren't addressed now (kind of like the taxes on cigarettes). Or we could have flat-out limits on how much waste we're willing to associate with a certain product (life-saving products maybe would be allowed more waste than hair straighteners and cosmetics for instance). A more consumer-driven version of this same idea could be to force companies to lower their prices to cover the cost of waste to consumers (we do have to pay to have our trashed picked up, right?) * I found it really interesting that most of what we "consume" isn't actually consumed, it's thrown away. When I thought more about it most of what I bring home from the grocery store is packaging... and I probably pay much more for the food precisely because of the packaging it's in. That doesn't seem quite right... I pay more for my food/household items so that their containers can be hazardous to the environment. *The bit about diapers was also interesting to me. That diapers fill up landfills more than any other product seems strange and like something we could definitely find a way to tackle. Why don't we use biodegradable diapers more? Cloth ones? Joan- as the only person in our group with a real personal investment in this matter what's your take?? * What struck me the most was probably our societies idea of "progress" as economic well-being (in the form of a high GNP). What an economically liberal concept that has completely infiltrated our collective unconscious (or conscious) and has become a global disease. It's strange too, because as people we usually recognize that well-being is not completely tied to money in our personal lives. Unfortunately it also seems that developing countries are buying into this "well-being-as-growth, progress-as-industry" model and probably killing their collective sense of well-being in the process. It would be interesting to look at how people in what we consider "developing nations" live, and judge nations based on rates of depression, suicide, mental health disorders, familial relationships, etc. and see where the US and other "industrialized" countries rank. It seems that with progress and economic gain we've also inherited a myriad of problems. Is it even possible to retain the benefits of industrialization and economic growth without the negative side effects? If not, then would we rather live unhappy and wealthy or happy and simply or even (god forbid) without any luxury?

Post-Class Post Week of 10.7.09

Pre-Class Past Week of 10.7.09 "Catch Up"

So this post is a little bit less than a week late, but in my attempt to be diligent about blogging I'm going to write it anyway.

PANDEMIC II... what a concept. Let's create a disease and try to kill the world, a bio-terrorist's dream game. And as sick as it may be the game is actually quite interesting. While I grew board with the game quickly I was really excited when I learned that my disease had spread to another region, or that the first death as a result of my disease had occurred. So, what's wrong with us!?

Playing PANDEMIC forced me to wonder just what it is about mass extinction is so interesting to us humans. Of course we're all interested in death, but for some reason it seems like the end of the human race is a hot topic for each of us. Even though it probably won't happen in our lifetime (or our great great great grandchildren's for that matter) and we definitely won't see much of it (we'll be dead or on our way to dead) we still want to know about it. I think this might have to do with wanting to know how to pre-empt the forces leading to human extinction.

This brings me back to "The World Without Us", and the author's point in writing the book. I think that maybe Weisman was trying to get us interested in what would happen to our "stuff" if we disappeared the same way we're interested in the way that the disappearance would occur.

Post-Class Post Week of 9.9.09

This past class the main idea that stuck with me is "What We Do With Our Dead". It makes me wonder not only about how different rituals surrounding death effect the earth, but to what extent we need to respect these rituals regardless of the changes they cause in the earth. Soo, again all hail google, I've looked up some death and funeral rituals to see the way that different religions impact the earth using death rites.

Jewish: Upon death eyes are closed and the body is covered. Embalming, the removal or organs, and cremation are all prohibited. Contact with the earth is essential and bodies are generally buried wrapped only in linen.

Muslim: Bodies are never cremated and always buried. Bodies are draped in linens as soon after death as possible. Postmortem examinations are considered sacrilegious as they desecrate the holy body.

Orthodox Christian: Cremation is forbidden and the body must be returned to the earth. A grave is required as well as a grave liner or vault. A grave marker with the sign of the cross must be placed on the grave.

Hindu: Cremation is ideal, though children are always buried. There is a ceremony associated with cremating the body, and the closest relatives light the funeral pyre. After cremation ashes and bone fragments are usually collected and placed in a river.

Buddhist: Cremation.

So it would seem that Orthodox Jews win the prize for most "green" disposal of the deceased. Very cool.

Week of 9.9.09 Pre-Class Post

So time has run away from me today and this post is going to be brief. I can promise a more intense and thoughtful one after class though.

Part 2 of "The World Without Us" was interesting but in a different way than part 1. I definitely felt a bit less of Weisman's anti-human hostility and I thought that Part 2 did a better job of just describing events as they would happen rather than blaming humans for causing some negative changes on earth.

Throughout the book I tried to keep thinking about what we as humans are doing on earth and how that can relate or compare to what other organisms do here. Are we really that different from everything else living here? One example of the way we change the Earth differently than other animals is through the creation of non-biodegradable materials. The chapter "The Petro Patch" talked a lot about rubber and other non-biodegradable materials and it left me wondering Is there anything else on earth that is not man-made and is non-biodegrable? So, I did a quick google search and was unable to find items that were not first-made-by-man materials and were non-biodegradable. Perhaps this is how our "waste" is different from the waste of other organisms here.

This led me to another question: What not-made-by-man materials last as long as non-biodegradable materials? In other words, if a piece of tire and a rock were created on the same day, which would last longer? It would be hard to estimate, I guess, because we're not really sure how long it would take for either of these two objects to degrade. My point is that maybe we're just adding different things to the earth than other animals. The earth may be equipped to deal with us (as evidenced by poppy seeds that can wait 1000 years to flower).

Weisman discusses in "Polymers are Forever" the idea that we find large number of tiny pieces of plastics on our beaches and in our oceans. Though these tiny particles do mean that otters and birds may not be dying from them it is likely that smaller organisms will consume them and have terminal consequences. While I don't think we should promote the idea of using the ocean as a plastic-storage unit I do wonder if these microscopic pieces of plastic have similar effects on small sea life that other undigestible microscopic materials do. Again, are we alone in creating material that the earth has trouble getting rid of?

Week of 9/2 Combined Post

Since I was confused this week and did not write a pre-seminar post I'm going to try to do both in this one. I'll start with my initial thoughts on the book we're reading, "The World Without Us" by Alan Weisman, and follow up with ideas and comments that struck me in our in class conversation. This might get messy since I'm sure my own pre-discussion thoughts have already been meshed with ideas from our talk today, but I'll try my best.

We started this week by reading Part One of "The World Without Us" and I was really struck by the idea that most of what we've changed about the world by living in it is mostly non-permanent. Apart from a few rogue pieces of man-made material Earth is well equipped to erase us. While a person looking at Earth after we're gone will definitely know something was here, he'd probably have to look diligently in order to find evidence of a race as "advanced" as we see ourselves. At the same time, though, we as a species have altered the Earth drastically and permanently. For instance, Weisman says that "The ecosystem (in Manhattan) will be a human artifact that will persist in our absence, a cosmopolitan botanical mixture that would never have occurred without us." (p38). Even though the Earth may erase all obvious signs of us (as Weisman clearly shows in the description of what happens to our suburban homes in chapter 1) the Earth will be forever changed from what it was before the human race existed.

This brings me to the in-class discussion portion of this. I've been really stuck on two ideas from class. The first is Joan's suggestion that we not think in terms of good/bad, or unnatural/natural, but rather stable versus unstable. I believe the suggestion had to do with whether or not conditions would change temporarily and then revert back to old conditions (which would mean that the temporary conditions were unstable), or if conditions would change and stay that way. If we follow this logic (at least in the way that I'm understanding it, which may be completely incorrect) then the most stable part of the way we've altered the Earth is actually the effects that we generally consider to be negative... for example the depletion of fossil fuels and the climate change we as humans have caused. I need to think more about this, but I wonder if we can make a claim that only unstable or stable changes are "healthy" for the Earth and how we would judge that.

The second idea is the question "Are we as humans natural??" On page 49 Weisman says "... we've become a volcano that hasn't stopped erupting since the 1700's." in response the carbon footprint we as a species have left on the Earth. I can't help but wonder if we can actually just be equated to this. Are we as humans are nothing but a freak natural occurrence (like a volcano erupting for too long) similar to those that our world has dealt with before? And, of course, if this is the case do we have a "moral" responsibility to evaluate the effects we have on the earth or should we, like a freakishly strong volcano, go about our business and let Earth deal with the outcomes of our actions?