Seven Generational Ruminations

On Sustainablog, Caroline Savery has an interesting point to ponder: Turning Trash Into Treasure: How Diverting Waste is the Ultimate Act of Sustainability. In the quest for living sustainably it's useful to question the goal and the means to achieve the goal. Her question is...

The personal story of Ray Anderson's realization that businesses need to embrace principles of sustainability, and of his efforts, often frustrating, to apply these principles within a billion dollar corporation that is still measured by the standard scorecards of the business world. While the path has proved to have many curves, Interface is demonstrating that the principles of sustainability and financial success can co-exist within a business, and can lead to a new prosperity that includes human dividends as well.

Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution author: Paul Hawken,Amory Lovins,L. Hunter Lovins asin: 0316353000

Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things author: William McDonough,Michael Braungart asin: 0865475873

The Ecology of Commerce author: Paul Hawken asin: 0887307043

Mid-Course Correction: Toward a Sustainable Enterprise: The Interface Model author: Ray Anderson asin: 0964595354

It seems the businesses surrounding us, the businesses that fill our stores with products, that these businesses are dependent on ever growing sales. The stock market values companies whose earnings are always growing, and punish those whose earnings are stagnant or declining. But, what does this have to do with "use it once and throw it away"?

I work in the high tech industry, and my job sometimes has me standing in a booth at a trade show trying to get the attention of the crowds. That puts me in contact with product marketing, and especially the materials used in marketing. The last show I attended gave me an epiphanette (small epiphany) about DVD packaging. I had helped produce a DVD containing the software I work on, and the DVD was packaged in the standard DVD case. It looks very nice and I'm proud of what we've put together, however it struck me how unsustainable and inconvenient it was.

An Inconvenient Truth asin: B000ICL3KG

Industrial Society Destroys Mind and Environment

Dear Group Members,

I want to share my article with you. This is about the link between Mind and Social / Environmental-Issues. The fast-paced, consumerist lifestyle of Industrial Society is causing exponential rise in psychological problems besides destroying the environment. All issues are interlinked. Our Minds cannot be peaceful when attention-spans are down to nanoseconds, microseconds and milliseconds. Our Minds cannot be peaceful if we destroy Nature.

In The deluded world of air conditioning William Saletan offers a very interesting perspective. "We're cooking our planet to refrigerate the diminishing part that's still habitable".

When you air condition a building you're taking heat that's inside the building and moving it outside. That's what an air conditioner is, a heat pump. The fluids that go through an air conditioning system? They're the medium through which heat is exchanged, or rather pumped, from one place to another.

Tree Hugger notes What Should You Do with Extra Glass Bottles? riffing off a question on Apartment Therapy. The question is, you've bought something in a glass bottle, used the contents of the bottle, and now what?

I just recycle stuff. I recycle so much stuff that I hardly ever take out "trash" as most of what I take out gets into the recycling bin instead.