The Party Cup: An Inconvenient Truth

The National Recycling Coalition declared today America Recycles Day. With this “holiday” on my mind, as I was walking down a street heavily populated by frat houses, I couldn’t help but notice the abundance of cans and party cups scattered across the sidewalk.

This didn’t bother me quite as much as I would have expected. Perhaps I have been desensitized, as a lawn freckled with shiny red plastic cups is commonplace every Saturday morning here on campus. Yet part of me (the part enabling my friends to test, at my expense, their repertoire of granola eating-birkenstock wearing-tree hugging humor) wondered what becomes of the usual remnants of a Friday night. Party cups, an undeniable staple of collegiate nightlife, are as wasteful as they are convenient. I don’t mean to pin this down solely on the Greek kids on campus; lack of recycling is something to which we are all guilty.
Just a thought. Happy recycling day.

urban ecology: an oxymoron?

Edible City Trailer 1 from East Bay Pictures on Vimeo.

Edible City is a documentary scheduled for release in fall of 2009, and focuses on the modern food crisis as an issue of social justice and community development. It opens with a powerful and counterintuitive statement explaining that record grain harvests and record profits of the industry are accompanied by record levels of hunger. The program makes me really pleased and I hope to see more of this in my neighborhood!

free coffee+democracy

(A little election day humor) .

"drill baby drill"

Fueled (no pun intended) by my Halloween costume and a speech given by Sarah Palin on energy this past week, I feel the need to question her concept of energy independence.

Palin’s speech emphasized the need for America to become energy independent. I found it peculiar that she cited offshore drilling as a viable answer, but neglected to emphasize that to which her audience of Xunlight employees/engineers advocates: solar energy.

The problem, I feel, is deeply rooted in the flawed way we view energy use in America. I feel like this platform taken here feeds the addiction rather than offering alternatives. Our culture endorses over consumption (on multiple levels), and it is rather absurd to believe that we can eliminate dependence on foreign oil solely through offshore drilling without significant investment in alternative energy technologies and conservation efforts. America consumes 25% of the world’s oil, and owns a mere 3% of the world’s oil reserves. The answer to this crisis lies not with finding more oil, but in weaning ourselves from the “addiction” through legislation focusing on conservation, and promotion of alternative energy sources. There needs to be a change in the way we perceive energy use.

I guess “Conserve baby conserve” or “Alternative energy baby alternative energy” doesn’t roll of the tongue nearly as nicely as “drill baby drill”...

Wouldn’t a drastic change in the way our culture views energy use, rather than sustaining habits detrimental to the environment, be an idea a self proclaimed “maverick” would support?

“You Betcha”.