We went to Disneyland last year too, and one of the things that was noticably different this time was that Disney has started selling re-usable bags, organic cotton t-shirts, and fresh fruit in the park. The cynic in me says: Disney wants us to think they’re green? How about not inflicting more plastic crap on the world? Or taking some responsibility to clean up some of the mess that the old cheap plastic crap has already caused? The more reasonable part of me says that this is a first step and that if it proves profitable, they’ll expand it and if Disney did start buying organic cotton, how much change could they effect? Probably a lot.
I bought one of the shirts and a bunch of fruit to improve the sales numbers.
When I play Zoo Tycoon
with my daughter, I always, always try to get her to put elephants in her zoo as soon as possible. Who doesn’t love elephants? They’re awesome.
Which is why this is awesome news: there was an unexpectedly high elephant count in a Malaysian national park.
Delicious is being cranky at the moment and not accepting any updates. So instead of using the handy widget in the sidebar to highlight some interesting articles, here’s a post intead:
The parking lot next to the building I work in is slowly being reclaimed by nature. (See the picture.) When I walked past it this morning, there were two men cutting the grass, one with a machete-like device and one with a normal lawn mower. They were making slow progress. There was also a sign saying that some development company is going to build a new 7 story office building. Which, given the current real estate climate, probably isn’t needed.
Sometimes more isn’t better.
Real estate agent Amy Levin bought a historic, three-story house in Washington, D.C., more than a year ago, gutted it and rebuilt it. But it wasn’t your standard renovation. Levin used as many environmentally friendly, nontoxic and recycled materials as she could find, and she’s seeking what is known as LEED platinum certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.
- npr.org
I heard this on the radio last week. Interesting.
I guess this is the new version of What Kate Is… I’m only able to post links to what I’m reading online.
- Food Rant: America’s Fat Problem from ruhlman.com. I know there are people with genuine health problems who need to cut back on salt and fat for valid reasons. (My dad, who’s recently had to do both, has discovered a long-neglected love of spices.) But I have to say that, for those without health problems, real fat and salt when you cook are largely good things.
- American Gods by Neil Gaiman. The whole damn book, kids. For free. It’s really, really good. Not to mention that it gives you a whole new appreciation for kitschy roadside attractions.
- No Country for Fat Chicks. A list of the decade’s most misogynistic movies.
- A Girl’s Guide to Understanding Fashion Writing. Pairs well with Awesome British Lass Gives Women’s Magazines Her Best Left Hook, which has a great rundown of all the stories from 1950 women’s magazines, and they’re almost all the same today.
- Why All Female Superheroes Look the Same. What I’d really like to see is another line on that graph at the top to see how they compare to supermodels — do female superheroes have an even lower BMI than models do?
- Green as a Thistle. The writer’s made one green change to her lifestyle every day for the last year. Tomorrow’s the last day. It’s quite the list.
- The Twenty Science Fiction Novels That Will Change Your Life. Sadly, I’ve read very few of these. I’m kind of ok with that, but there are a few I’d like to change (A Fire Upon the Deep
, in particular).
- Apartment Therapy: Domino’s Gallery of Bookcases.
- Apartment Therapy: Kitchen Counter Compost Chute
- From last week’s Economist, “Put down that Xbox, young man.” Environmental groups are worried that as kids spend less time outside, they’ll care less about nature.
- Apparently, Bay Area schools have something called “Ski Week” in addition to spring break. Schools are closed all next week so families can go skiing. In a month or two, there’ll be the normal week off, too.
- Cute: Order of the Science Scouts of Exemplary Repute and Above Average Physique merit badges. Includes the “Has ‘frozen stuff just to see what happens’ badge (level II). In which the recipient has frozen something in dry ice for the sake of scientific curiosity.”
- News Break! The books people actually read aren’t the ones with magical realism or talking dogs. People read books about “life, and it is exactly as we know it.” The two SLIS classes I took at UW hammered that point home: the books people want in libraries aren’t elite in any way shape or form. Most people read for entertainment. I can tell you from personal observation that the new Pynchon has been lingering, unchecked out on my library’s New Books display.
- The Manolo quotes Cary Grant on shoes.
Reason magazine has a lovely demonstration of why definitions and measuring are very, very important.
Spinella spent two years on the most comprehensive study to date – dubbed “Dust to Dust” — collecting data on the energy necessary to plan, build, sell, drive and dispose of a car from the initial conception to scrappage. He even included in the study such minutia as plant-to-dealer fuel costs of each vehicle, employee driving distances, and electricity usage per pound of material. All this data was then boiled down to an “energy cost per mile” figure for each car (see here and here).
….
For instance, the dust-to-dust energy cost of the bunny-sized Honda Civic hybrid is $3.238 per mile. This is quite a bit more than the $1.949 per mile that the elephantine Hummer costs
….
As for Hummers, Spinella explains, the life of these cars averaged across various models is over 300,000 miles. By contrast, Prius’ life – according to Toyota’s own numbers – is 100,000 miles. Furthermore, Hummer is a far less sophisticated vehicle. Its engine obviously does not have an electric and gas component as a hybrid’s does so it takes much less time and energy to manufacture. What’s more, its main raw ingredient is low-cost steel, not the exotic light-weights that are exceedingly difficult to make – and dispose. But the biggest reason why a Hummer’s energy use is so low is that it shares many components with other vehicles and therefore its design and development energy costs are spread across many cars.
Georgia has these special license plates to help support their DNR. I just saw one on a Hummer.
Out of guilt? Out of some misplaced sense that by giving an extra $10 to the DNR every year they’re going to make up for the gas and pollutants? I just don’t know what to say.
On the drive into work this morning, I saw a car with a bumper sticker that said: “How many lives per gallon?”
If the second person in your car is in a car seat? You should not be in the HOV lane. You are not getting another car off the road. You are using your two-year-old as an excuse to avoid traffic.
