One Little Thing

Monday, April 16th, 2007

I resused my water bottle

Actually it was a juice bottle first.

I really needed some healthy yummy juice yesterday, so I bought a bottle (at the local food co-op in Mount Rainier, of course - Glut represent!). This morning I really needed some healthy yummy water, so I poured some from the tap (through a Brita filter of course because this is Washington DC and I have no interest in spending the rest of my week here in the bathroom), and into yesterday’s juice bottle. I carried it around with me all day — to a conference, to the park, even to a coffeeshop — refilling it in water fountains when necessary. What are the advantages of this?

(1) tap water is free. bottled water is not free.

(2) No extra bottle means 1 less plastic bottle produced, 1 less bottle of water shipped across the country, 1 less plastic bottle sitting in a landfill somewhere. If I use this bottle all week, that’s 7 less bottles. If I get a permanent water bottle, like a Nalgene, that means hundreds fewer bottles produced, shipped, and sent to landfills every year — just because of me. That feels good.

(3) I get a hint of flavor in my water.

(4) I get to carry my “Naked” bottle around longer.

Do you know that human beings spend $100 billion dollars on bottled water every year, but for just $15 billion a year everyone on the planet could have safe drinking water and proper sanitation? It’s true. Did you ever stop to think that, at $1.50-$2.50 per liter ($6-10 per gallon), bottled water costs twice what gasoline costs in the United States? Get the whole low-down on the implications of buying bottled water from this excellent OneWorld article from last year.

Friday, April 13th, 2007

I offset my emissions from my flight

Quick one tonight. I’m flying tomorrow (if the snow holds off like I expect it to), so I offset my emissions today — carbon emissions, that is. I’ve written about this before, because I think it’s important so I do it every time I fly. Actually, I should probably set up an account to offset all my day-to-day emissions (although since I don’t own a car or a home or even commute to work, my largest contribution of greenhouse gas might come from my bum — do human gas expulsions contain methane, or just cows’?).

Anyhow, I digress. So I’m offsetting my share of the airplane emissions I’ll be responsible for tomorrow. Read more about how that works here. In the future, when I’m not on such a tight travel deadline, I hope to start taking the train between Denver and NY/DC — it’s about a two-day ride crossing most of middle America and stopping for half a day in Chicago. And it costs about $200 one-way. Not quite as cheap as flying (even when I add in my emissions payment), but not too much more either.

Tuesday, April 10th, 2007

I avoided JetBlue today

I don’t have a problem with JetBlue leaving its passengers on the tarmac for hours on end. Frankly, screw-ups like that happen in all facets of life from time to time, and I can forgive them. What I do have a problem with, however, is JetBlue’s seat covering.

You see, I think animals have the right to not be raised and killed for their hides. I took back my leather jacket a few years ago. I don’t buy leather belts anymore. And I prefer not to fly airlines that use lots of leather for their seats.

You’ve probably seen JetBlue’s commercials touting their leather seats. A quick google search turns up their leather seat giddyness on their Web site, in press releases, annual reports — all over the place. Well I’m not so giddy. So, given the choice between Frontier and JetBlue, I bought a Frontier ticket today.

(By the way, if you are an animal lover, check out this global campaign for a Universal Declaration on Animal Welfare — it’s called “Animals Matter to Me” and they’re getting close to 500,000 signatures.)

Saturday, April 7th, 2007

I Saw ‘An Inconvenient Truth’

Ok, I’m doing a new thing now. I was inspired by “An Inconvenient Truth” this afternoon (depsite watching it in black and white due to an unknown TV malfunction). If you haven’t seen it, the message is basically this:

(1) the Earth’s climate is definitely changing,

(2) human activity is the overwhelming cause,

(3) there will definitely be significant effects for all of us, and probably catastrophic ones if we don’t change our ways immediately. But,

(4) we can still change course, and

(5) as individuals, it’s up to us both to change the way we interact with nature and

(6) to demand our politicians institute even more widespread changes.

I guess this blog is mostly about #5 — what we can each do in our daily lives — although More…

Wednesday, February 14th, 2007

It’s Valentine’s Day, Spread the Love

Here’s the Thing:

Buy fair trade chocolate & flowers for your sweetie.

Your honey-bunches-of-oats is going to cop a whole lot of gratitude when you pull out those Valentine’s Day proofs of your affection. You will have made his or her day.

Nothing says ‘I love you’ like goofy yellow tulips.

That’s awesome.

But with just a few clicks of your mouse, you can make hundreds of other people’s day at the same time!

You see there’s a lot of bad stuff that goes on in the chocolate and flower businesses around the world. With chocolate, the main issues are child labor and worker exploitation — primarily in West Africa. As for flowers, the issue is weak labor laws in Colombia, which is the main supplier of flowers to the United States. Flower workers there are exposed to dangerous chemicals without any protective gear and they’re forced to work long hours at repetitive tasks that often cause painful carpal tunnel injuries. (Alexandra Early’s excellent article turns over all the dirt on Colombia’s flower industry.)

So what’s the alternative? Buy fair trade chocolate and fair trade flowers. For the flowers, check out Organic Bouquet online — they’re More…

Sunday, February 11th, 2007

One Little Thing Starts Tomorrow

Watch out world…