Curtailment

This book review over at Sustainablog got me thinking about ways the next century may play out. I got so lost in my thoughts, that I didn't finish the first paragraph of the review.

First of all, forget about global warming for now. Yes, it's real and we should address it, but it is just one of many reasons why there will be a lack of resources (by western standards) in the future. There are lots of ways this could play out, but if things don't change, there the bottom billion or two are in for some serious hurt. Meanwhile, those of us who helped cause the problem will have to cut back. The question in my mind is whether we can change our ways before anything really bad happens.

The Earth is a complex system of energy and resource cycles fueled mainly by the sun. If things get too out of balance, there will be a correction. Think famine and disease more than "The Day After Tomorrow." If it's not economically and politically feasible to preemptively change our ways, maybe we should try to more the global economy towards a system that will gracefully reach it's stable point rather than grossly over shoot it require a serious correction.

Hot, flat, and crowded

I just listened to an interview with Tom Friedman, author of Hot, Flat, and Crowded.

He makes the case that we need systemic change in the way we live to face the coming challenges. The primary challenges are global warming (hot), a globally growing consumer class (flat--yeah, I don't get it either), and overpopulation (crowded). It doesn't sound revolutionary in its content, but he makes very strong arguments in the interview and seems to avoid the moral imperative that seems to get many green proponents pegged as emotional extremists. Although, he does get pretty emotional about it all. Who can blame him?

I also recommend the TED presentation by Mark Bittman on the problems with the western diet. He explicitly avoids the emotional reasons to reduce meat consumption, and makes a strong argument for going (mostly) vegetarian.

Insulating the attic

insulation
Originally uploaded by mandy&john

We foolishly failed to insulate the attic before last winter set in. We chose this weekend to try to fix that. We bought 22 bales of cellulose and rented a large heavy machine to blow it into the floor. Having hauled everything up to the attic, I noticed the instruction suggest leaving it outside and using the hose to get the insulation into the attic. Oops.

Ah well, what's done is done. So far I've got 2/3 of the fiber in and am nearly 3/4 done. We'll see how much less oil we use this year. It'll be interesting.

Diapers

If you are a parent and have any thoughts about sustainability or the environment, you've thought about the great diaper dilemma: cloth or disposable. Conventional wisdom says go with cloth, but it may not be that simple if you add water and bleaching chemicals into the equation. Also, cotton is one of the worst crops from a "green" perspective.

We had Chris in cloth diapers for about 6 months while we were within range of a diaper service. Since then, like most folks, we decided it wasn't worth the effort. In theory at least, the time saved by using disposables should free us up to grow some of our own food in a garden or go cruise for reusables on the night before trash day.

We are currently attempting to potty train Chris at 20 months. We are having some success, but are aware, that we may fail and have to try again later. We figure, though, that if we can pull this off now, rather than when he is pushing 3, then we can save a whole lot of diapers. We'll see.

Sunshine

Hilarious.




While I don't think CFLs are going to be the big negative that crop-based ethanol is turning into, I still think they are over-hyped. That's a bit unfair, actually. I'm all for their widespread adoption. The lights in our house that are on the most are all CFL at this point. I'm still waiting for LED bulbs to be a smidge more affordable and the rest of our lights will drop their incandescents. (Getting closer, though)