Filed under: J840 Week 1, Science + Tech, Waste + Recycling | Tags: about me, accountability, beliefs, eco-friendly, education, environment, family, pharmaceutical, recycling, waste management
Rocky Mountain National Park
Childhood experiences, surroundings, and family values help shape our perspectives on life. Thankfully, I had a second chance.
This is not a complaint or regret towards the past. It is simply a show of gratitude for the significance that came after I left home at the age of seventeen. My family is built on generations of farming, small business, and Midwestern values. Unfortunately, intolerance and selfishness had a place at home as well. A vivid image exists in my mind as I left home to become the first in my family to attend college. Breaking the family circle meant exposure to new ideas and the consequences of personal choice.
Now, seventeen years later my experiences create new beliefs to replace childhood assumptions. Central to these experiences are interactions with both benevolent and injurious people that exert influence as their currency. Negative interactions generally taught the most. Lessons on integrity, personal accountability, and hard work frequently came at a high cost. Without that cost I wouldn’t be where I am today. The price was worth it.
My immediate family, a wife and three children, is my focus today. I see a world that needs leadership on the environment to preserve it for our families, our children, and our future generations. We need new perspectives on environmental topics such as waste management, recycling, and childhood education–a concerted effort to rewire the country’s philosophy. Instill a sense of personal accountability in young and old for the future of our environment at both a local and national level.
Or more simply stated…a second chance.
My twelve years since college have placed my feet firmly in the pharmaceutical industry. I began as a research chemist and later transitioned into sales. Currently I manage a team of ten sales representatives in Kansas and Missouri. I am interested in exploring greener options for the pharmaceutical industry and ideas where innovative scientific research merges with eco-friendly solutions. I envision an industry dedicated to preserving the environment while saving lives.
Jason Merckling
Filed under: Business + Politics, Society + Media | Tags: al gore, captain planet, communication, eco-friendly, environment, global warming, go green, Lauren Keith, Leonardo DiCaprio, new movies, the 11th hour
by Mohamed Sami, energytribune.com
“This isn’t a political issue. This is a moral issue,” the former politician claimed triumphantly.
“Woo!” I called out from my theater chair, pumping my fist in the air like I was Captain Planet, ready to combine the five element rings. “You’re damn right!”
I looked around for some support from the rest of the audience, 90 percent of which was made up of half-empty cups of flat Coke and overturned popcorn buckets from the last movie that played. My fellow planeteers were nowhere in sight, even though I could have sworn that I saw Heart ducking down in the front row, apparently a little embarrassed by my outburst.
I thought my Heart was in the right place.
So I decided that if the audience wouldn’t come to the movie theater, I would have the movie theater come to the audience. I set up screenings of the documentary and invited everyone that I had even remotely come in contact with to come watch it.
Some showed up. A few of my Republican friends gave me the stink-eye when I told them what it was. “More like Al Snore,” they said.
People came and went. I gave complimentary recycle cans to people for hanging out with me, but they still didn’t seem too interested in anything Gore or I had to say.
Unfortunately, 22 showings later, I still couldn’t pinpoint why no one cared.
And then Media and the Environment dawned on me.
Environmental storytellers have a hard time connecting the dots that the audience needs to have connected for them. We tell people to recycle, to save the Amazon, to quit breathing so often, but we hardly tell them the most relevant part: why it’s important.
I don’t shop at The Merc to save the polar bears. I don’t make my roommates unplug the microwave (and soon the refrigerator, they joke) because the glaciers are melting. I do it so we can save ourselves.
We are so used to people being able to string the concepts together themselves that we don’t realize that this time we need to be the ones providing the glue of the conversation.
We are the eco-friendly adhesives.
It saddens me that a more expensive case of Bud Select has my friends more worried about the state of the environment than a carbon dioxide graph did, but I’m ready to meet them where they are: at the grocery store.
Al Gore and “An Inconvenient Truth” didn’t doom the environmental movement.
Leonardo DiCaprio and “The 11th Hour” didn’t doom the environmental movement.
Our (PowerPoint) presentation doomed the environmental movement.
Until environmentalists can reframe their argument and make the environment relevant to the general public, it will be our movement’s 11th hour.
—Lauren Keith
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Filed under: Waste + Recycling | Tags: biodegrable, eco-friendly, green pets, homeless animals, organic dog, tree hugger
When we think about reducing our family’s carbon footprints, we often are neglecting to remember the impacts of our extended family…our pets. You know, the cute little ones we can’t live without?
With almost 62 million dogs in the in US, they are unquestionably making an impact on our environment too. They poop outside, they eat unnatural food, and they chew up plastic toys that have to be replaced. Now companies are giving pet owners the opportunity to green their pets too! Organic dog toys, biodegradable poop bags, and microchip trackers are the future of the ‘green pet.’
The most important thing to do is to adopt a homeless pet. Over 50,000 cats and dogs are born every day in the US, most without homes. Adopting a furry, loving, homeless pet is a great feeling – and a huge step forward to getting rid of this problem. And remember as Bob Barker says, “Spay and neuter your pets!”
A little dog, with a big opinion.
Photo: Dasqutt, Flickr
In order to green your pet, buy sustainable goods for them. Web sites like EarthDog and GreatGreenPet offer everything from organic toys to hemp collars and leashes. While browsing through Petsmart the other day, I even came upon a whole section of organic dog clothes and toys that were reasonably priced, and also some natural doggy shampoos. Not only are organic and all natural dog foods better for you pet, they are also obviously more eco-friendly. There is a growing number of these types of foods available in pet stores and online.
An eco-friendly pet store.
Photo: ddp4566, Flickr
The main eco-concern about our animals is their poop, as fun as that is to talk about. People need to make sure to clean up after their dogs and if possible, use biodegradable bags to do so. Something little that can make a huge difference.
Without pets, life wouldn’t be the same for me. At least now we can start helping our animals live a little greener, and healthier, while making the change for ourselves as well.
-Sarah Nelson
Filed under: Business + Politics, Society + Media | Tags: Business, carbon, care, compost, compostable, conference, conserve, dream, eco-critic, eco-friendly, emissions, engineers without borders, environmental, event, green, hotel, making a difference, meeting, offset, package, planner, planning, recycle, responsible, stakeholders, sustainability, sustainable, travel, venue
I recently returned from the Engineers Without Borders conference on “Sustainable Engineering and Global Health” in Seattle. The flight on Southwest was disappointing to say the least, from an environmental perspective, but the conference was a green dream come true, thanks to a “sustainability coordinator” in charge of making the conference itself as sustainable and carbon neutral as possible.
The first thing that I noticed was the in-room recycle bin at the hotel, shortly followed by the Project Planet door-hanging in the bathroom encouraging me to conserve water and use my towels more than once.
The next morning I discovered it was a mere 10-minute stroll from the hotel to the conference venue on the University of Washington campus. Cool, I thought, no need to waste money on a taxi.
Once at the conference hall, I lost myself in the fairyland of recycle and compost bins, zero paper handouts, and fully compostable beverage cups and napkins. It only got better as I picked up my t-shirt made from 100% fair-trade organic cotton and water-based ink. Lunch came and I found myself relishing the local, organic fare pre-boxed in compostable packaging. I had never been to a conference planned quite like this before – it was exciting!
To top it all off, EWB gave each of us a “Carbon Offset Care Package” complete with two hybrid Poplar tree cuttings to plant when we got home. After all, flying the 3,105 miles from Kansas City to Seattle I had emitted approximately 1,400 lbs. of CO2. I planted them as soon as I got home, because it was going to take the two of them together almost 20 years to offset my emissions from this single trip.
(My cute little Poplar trees are already growing after 1 week!)
The whole experience made me feel good. Sometimes, I feel as if I’m one of only a handful of people recycling or bringing my own cup to the coffee place, but at the conference, there were hundreds of us walking, recycling, composting, and maybe even planting all those trees. I felt like I was a part of something bigger than me and that that something was making a real difference in just one weekend. It was a real green dream come true!
Curious about how you might create a green dream for attendees at your next conference or meeting? See my next post: Wow your stakeholders (AND please eco-critics) with your next business conference.
~ Sarah H
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Filed under: Food + Health, Local Events + Action | Tags: Amy's Meats, bridge, eco-friendly, KS, Lawrence, Local Burger, The Community Mercantile, University of Kansas, vegetarian
Paul McCartney once said, “If anyone wants to save the planet, all they have to do is stop eating meat. That’s the single most important thing you can do.” It seems that GoVeg.com is also a key supporter of this statement. The United Nations argues that the meat industry “emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problem at every scale from local to global.”
This is when I start to feel a bit guilty stopping for a quarter pounder at McDonalds on 23rd street last week because I thought it was convenient. In reality, my laziness led to increases in carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide emissions, which is only hurting our planet even more. After taking numerous approaches to become eco-friendly (using a aluminum reusable water bottle, consciously turning off lights when not in use, and turning off the water when I brush my teeth in the morning), I still have not been able to take that step towards vegetarianism. Yet, I want to save the world. I want my children to be able to enjoy beautiful landscapes, just like the KU campus. I have to wonder how I am going to begin to walk across that bridge towards this ultimate goal of saving the planet.
Fortunately, the city of Lawrence is two steps ahead of me. Lawrencesustainability.net has shown me multiple ways to begin my trek on that bridge towards saving our planet. Food joints like Local Burger support Lawrence’s local farmers by advocating the humane treatment of animals. Local Burger also recycles and composts their organic waste. The Community Mercantile’semphasis on natural and organic foods, as well as local foods exhibits their attempts to save the world, too. Amy’s Meats is also a prime example of efforts to save the world and be able to eat delicious meats. I understand where Paul McCartney and the United Nations are coming from in their attempts to show awareness about the benefits of being a vegetarian. At the same time, some unique food establishments in Lawrence speak in a way that I agree with: enjoying meat with this ideal of saving Mother Nature at the same time. What do you think? Is it better to support these innovative approaches of saving our planet by eating organic, hormone-free meat? Or is it just easier to become a vegetarian?
picture taken from
http://www.goveg.com/environment-globalwarming.asp
This right here is the one of the largest and significant contributors to today’s environmental problem. But they look so innocent!
Dena Hart
Filed under: Society + Media | Tags: earth, eco-friendly, ecological, footprint, map, misconceptions, planet, quiz, recycle, waste, world, worldmapper
When I first started recycling I was thrilled to discover that nearly everything came in a container that had the little recycle symbol with a number on the bottom. I thought to myself, “Yeah, I’m going to recycle everything!” and so I rinsed and sorted all my recyclables and eagerly awaited the day that I would have enough to justify a trip to one of the drop sites around town.
When the day finally came, I went online and did a quick search to find out where I should take my recyclables and where I could get cash for my aluminum and tin cans. As I read through the list again and again searching for #5 and #7 plastics, my heart sank. Nobody in town accepted these plastics. How could this be? Each container had the recycle symbol on it – doesn’t that mean it’s recyclable? My misconceptions about recycling became very apparent to me that day and I wondered how many others had experienced this same disappointment.
Armed with more information, a weary eye to increasing consumerism and a skyrocketing world population, I thought I was savvier than the average environista. I now know to expect this to be proven untrue, sometimes on a daily basis. The day I took the Ecological Footprint Quiz was no exception.
It turns out that despite recycling, riding my bike to work, blowing paychecks on energy efficient light bulbs, loving organic milk, and occasionally digging through my roommates trash to pick out the bottles and cans it would still take 3.6 planets to sustain us if everyone lived like me. Can this be true? I’m willing to admit that I might not be as green as I would like to be, but it’s hard to believe that my ecological footprint is the equivalent of 16 acres. But then again, I do rent a room in one of the least efficient homes in Lawrence, have a penchant for meat products, and spend many hours in airplanes satisfying my lust for travel.
Perhaps this is my one and only time to feel proud about being “below average.” It’s easy to pat myself on the back for recycling and making small eco-friendly changes. However, it turns out these are only Band-Aids on a much bigger problem.
(Foot)note of the day: David Beckham has the biggest carbon footprint in the world
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~SARAH H
J500 Media and the Environment 