Category: Environment

So through following some random links, I’ve discovered some rather fun blogs that are all about changing the world.

green LA girl – the adventures of trying to live justly in LA. I enjoy all the stories of environmentally friendly practices. She reviews companies and coffee shops in her attempts to discover how to exist without harming the world and other people. Its fun to read and a fantastic resource. She does all the research on where to find organic fairly traded items (you can get fairly traded underwear???). Anyway I highly recommend you check it out.

Then I discovered Change Everything a group site for people in Vancouver, Victoria and the Lower Mainland who want to change themselves, their communities or their world. I enjoy reading the blogs about the everyday attempts people are making to try to make this world a better place. My favorite so far is EnviroWoman’s Living Plastic Free in 2007 journal. She is chronicling her attempt to bring no new plastic into her life for one year. The writing is witty and I don’t think I’ve enjoyed reading about trash this much ever. (check out her entry about having to give up her love affair with frozen pizza). I’m discovering some random facts as well – did you know that the insides of Pepsi cans are coated with plastic (apparently its so acidic that it would eat through the can otherwise)? It made me realize how just about everything I buy has plastic in it. Not only does that do a lot to hurt the environment (in production as well as landfill junk) but the reports of toxins and carcinogens related to plastics just keep coming in. So I see the rationale behind this project, but the first thing I thought after I really started evaluating my plastic consumption was – “wow, she must not have kids.” Everything for kids is made of plastic (is it even possible to find non-plastic sippy cups?). I honestly don’t know how anyone with kids could ever do something like this, but I do admire her attempt.

If you can’t tell, I like stories. Stories of people out here actually doing stuff to change the world. The more everyday and ordinary, the more helpful I am finding it.

So does anyone else have stories they can share? Everyday ways you (or someone you know) have deliberately changed the way you live in order to make this world a better place?

I’d like to build the world a home
And furnish it with love
Grow apple trees and honey bees and snow-white turtle doves

Sorry for the 70’s flashback there. Emma’s favorite toy of the moment is a music box that plays that song (it was mine when I was a baby). Anyway she is very insistent on “mommy sing” and so after singing “I’d like to teach the world to sing” for the bazillionth time this afternoon, the current irony of those lyrics struck me.

Grow apple trees and honey bees. Well it is highly likely that the way we have been growing our apple trees (and other crops) is killing off the honey bees. I’ve been following the headlines recently about the Colony Collapse Disorder that is wiping out bee hives around the world. Since last fall about a quarter of the bee hives have just disappeared (in some areas up to 90%). The bees are rejecting the hives and dying away from home. And this is serious to our agriculture. The pollination by bees is a 15 billion dollar industry. Most of the most nutritious and healthy superfoods we eat are dependent on bee pollination. Besides producing honey, commercial beehives are used to pollinate a third of the country’s agricultural crops, including apples, peaches, pears, nectarines, cherries, strawberries and pumpkins. Ninety percent of California’s almond crop is dependent on bees, and a loss of commercial hives could be devastating.

No one is really quite for sure as to what is causing this sudden drop in bees. It is far worse than any past decline and is different than disease or parasites that have hurt bees before. There of course has been speculation as to the cause.

Some speculate about pesticides and genetically modifies crops (crops that have pesticides built into their make-up – yummy). The bees are leaving the hives to die and predators that would normally scavenge empty hives are leaving them alone. This implies the presence of a chemical(s) that the other insects and animals are instinctively smart enough not to touch. Certain new nicotine based pesticides (yummy again) prevent the bees from forming and keeping memories. So they go out and feed on this stuff (which was originally meant to treat seeds but is now being SPRAYED on crops) and can’t remember how to get home. And it also causes their immune systems to collapse, causing what would be normal organisms to become pathogenic to the bees. Others wonder about the cumulative affects of pesticides. While each individual pesticide might get labeled as “safe and acceptable” there is little research being done on the cumulative harm. One pesticide by itself might not destroy honey bees. But what happens when farmers spray herbicides, fungicides, insecticides and rodenticides on land that also has genetically modified crops with pesticides built-in? (wow this is really making me feel great about the food I eat…)

Others speculate that this problem is caused by a fungus or parasite or just a strange combination of unsustainable farming practices with some new disease. And then there are those who blame cell phones The issue is currently being investigated by the US House Agriculture Committee.

So to throw in the quote that everyone has been quoting – Albert Einstein speculated that “If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years of life left.” Dire commercial ruin for bee keepers. Devastated crops. Food shortages and price hikes. All because our worship at the alter of the almighty dollar doesn’t permit sustainable food practices?

Maybe there’s something to that growing apple trees and honey bees in perfect harmony idea…