Everyone knows that urban living is less impactful on the environment, but if you’ve lived in a city, you also know that it’s important to get your fix of open space and nature – especially in a city like New York City. That’s why projects like the High Line, where they literally took an old abandoned rail track and converted it into a gorgeous elevated park are both so interesting and so important.
I visited it when I was in NYC a month ago, and can vouch for the fact that it is amazing. It’s beautiful and unique and just fits into the urban landscape in such a seamless way.
Take a look at the High Line website for more info and photos. Also fascinating is the story about how it came to be. Take a look!
I was pondering how population affects our environment, when I came upon this article in the Yale Environment 360 called, “Too Many People,
Too Much Consumption” by scientists Paul and Anne Ehrlich at Stanford. In it, they argue that we need to reduce our population if we are to solve our enviromental problems. I could not agree more. Once someone is born, they are free to pursue life happiness, a car, a house and the American dream right? It seems obvious that best way to avoid the problem is to have fewer people.
But I read the article, eagerly looking for the part where they talk about how we reduce the population, but found very little. Their suggestion is to do so (I kid you not):
Through a global dialogue in which people discuss the human predicament and decide whether they would like to see a maximum number of people living at a minimum standard of living, or perhaps a much lower population size that gives individuals a broad choice of lifestyles.
Huh? Really? That seems kind of a like a recipe to do nothing.
I think a much more straightforward option is to make sure that women around the world have access to education. Quoting the National Center for Health Statistics study, there was, “a direct relationship between years of education and birth rates, with the highest birth rates among women with the lowest educational attainment.” This means that those of us who feel strongly about the planet should support the efforts of those who are working to educate women around the world. It’s a huge way we can make a difference.
If you’re like me, you probably take less public transit than you could – I blame it on transit maps, which are always so freaking hard to figure out! But these days, with gas prices the way they are, and the whole planet melting and all, it’s a good time to find a workaround.
Fortunately Google offers great transit instructions in 50 cities worldwide, including the US, Canada, Australia, Japan, Austria, France, Italy, Poland, Russia, Swizerland and the UK? Just go to Google Transit, and enter your start point and destination!
This link shows the results I get from Google Transit for a trip from my alma mater, the University of California at Berkeley to the Google campus.
You can also get the same transit help on your mobile phone via Google Maps for Mobile (GMM), which is actually a great app that I use all the time. Go to the GMM page to download the app to your phone (works on some phones) or just to learn more. There’s even a video about how it works!
As a frequent salad eater, I am always wracked with guilt when I go to my favorite supermarket for salads – Draegers Market in San Mateo – because their salad containers are the clear plastic variety. But man, their croutons are great.
So today, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Whole Foods now offers EATware decomposable containers for their salads! According to the site, EATware containers, which come in a variety of shapes and sizes, decompose in soil in 180 days, and disperse in water in 2 weeks! They also don’t have any laminates or coatings, and yet are oil, water and heat resistant. Pretty awesome.
I’m going to take the container I got with my salad today and stick it in my compost bin, just to see how long it takes before it decomposes. I’m also going to write an email to Dragers, and tell them that until they switch over to something like EATware, my salad business is going to Whole Foods.
The Onion reports that Al Gore has taken drastic action to save his infant son from our burning planet. All hope is lost!Â