Category: Community Stewardship and Living

Community Stewardship and Living

Disposable Society?

At a dump site -- in a park
Image by Toban Black via Flickr

I can’t wrap my head around this idea. In a time where protecting the environment is everywhere you look, why are there more and more disposable items available? Have we become a disposable society that places more value on “convenience” and “saving time” then the environment? What is going to be the long-term impact of this shift? More waste, landfills filling up faster and more imported crap from other countries that no one really needs (I mean I love the Dollar Store and all but seriously do we need half the stuff in there?)

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Business and Economics, Community Stewardship and Living

Building Social Business

Building Social Business: The New Kind of Capitalism that Serves Humanity’s Most Pressing Needs
Muhammad Yunus, New York: Public Affairs, 2010, 226 pages.

As one of the recipients of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, Muhammad Yunus has often spoken out on the failure of the capitalist system to perform its duty to provide for the world’s poorest people.

In Building Social Business, Yunus expands on his self-proclaimed world-changing mechanism for social change that he introduced in an earlier book, Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism. He fleshes out the idea more fully in this work by not only defining social business clearly and providing examples of how it has been successful already, but … [Click here to read more!] Continue reading Building Social Business

Community Stewardship and Living, Law, Policy, and Standards

The Raw Milk Revolution: Behind America’s Emerging Battle Over Food Rights

The Raw Milk Revolution: Behind America’s Emerging Battle Over Food Rights
David E. Gumpert
White River Junction, Vermont: Chelsea Green, 2009, 288 pages

The Raw Milk Revolution, by David E. Gumpert, would more accurately be entitled “Milk Wars.” Any attempt to sell raw milk creates a froth of such proportions that we must conclude that it is symptomatic of something bigger.

The war is all about politics and ideology – about food control and food beliefs. So when battle lines are outwardly drawn around issues of food safety and the right of citizens to choose the food they want, it takes Gumpert’s sharp journalistic skills to uncover what risks to profits and livelihoods could lie beneath….[Click here to read more!] Continue reading The Raw Milk Revolution: Behind America’s Emerging Battle Over Food Rights

Obsessive Consumption: What Did You Buy Today?
Community Stewardship and Living

Obsessive Consumption: What Did You Buy Today?

Obsessive Consumption: What Did You Buy Today?
Kate Bingaman-Burt
New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2010

You don’t often come across a book of innocent-looking doodles that has the power to make you reflect on the deeper meaning of life. Kate Bingaman-Burt’s Obsessive Consumption does just that.

An assistant professor of Graphic Design at Portland State University, Burt documents her daily purchases of mundane everyday objects through a series of sketches. Depicting everything from credit-card statements to wedding bands, the endearingly cartoonish drawings are painfully honest and … [Click here to read more!] Continue reading Obsessive Consumption: What Did You Buy Today?

Community Stewardship and Living

Me? An Environmentalist?

Sometimes people ask me how I became
the way that I did with regards to the environment. It is a good
question because I have been this way for a very long time. I was
“into” the environment long before it became the hip thing to do. Long
before Al Gore documentaries, Earth Hour and green blogs. Back when
cloth diapering was cool (before it became uncool then cool again) and
we didn’t know the dangers of plastics and GMO’s.
What I mean is that I have
always been an environmentalist. As a child it was just part of my
upbringing. As an adult I chose to make it a bigger part of my
life…my career…my passion.

Continue reading “Me? An Environmentalist?”

Governments Work Together to Address Climate Change
Air and Climate, Community Stewardship and Living, New Brunswick

Governments Work Together to Address Climate Change

An $8.2-million adaptation program will help Canadians in the Atlantic provinces deal with the impacts of climate change on coastal erosion, flooding and ground water resources. Led by the Government of Canada and the governments of the four Atlantic provinces, the three-year Regional Adaptation Collaborative program is part of the federal government’s investment to help Canadians adapt to climate change. Continue reading Governments Work Together to Address Climate Change