Posts Tagged ‘environment’
Friday, October 15th, 2010
This year’s Blog Action Day topic is water. So I thought I’d take the opportunity to share how grateful I am to have access to some of the world’s best drinking water.
But first, I want to talk about phones. Have you noticed the disappearance of public telephones? And how the remaining ones are falling into serious disrepair? This is a direct result of the migration to cel phones for those who can afford it. The fact that more and more of us don’t use public telephones allows them to vanish and fall into disrepair. As we use them less, the phone companies uninstall them to save money, while our lowered awareness of the remaining phones leads to less maintenance.
The ones who lose out are the economically disadvantaged. If you can’t afford a cel phone then you get to use the public phone a mile away if it wasn’t destroyed or barfed on by the last user. Complaining won’t do much good either as the phone company doesn’t see them as much of a profit opportunity anymore. Economic disadvantage leads to communication disadvantage while the wealthy move on to greener pastures.
What, you may wonder, does this have to do with water? It’s simple, the best way to protect the water supply is to drink from it. (more…)
Tags:activism, blog action day, blogging, canada, cel phones, consumerism, economics, environment, ethics, health, home, recycling, travel, vancouver, water
Posted in general | 2 Comments »
Thursday, October 15th, 2009
Today is Blog Action Day and the topic for 2009 is climate change. It’s an interesting topic for me this week for 2 reasons, one international and one local.
On the international scale it seems my home country of Canada has become a bit of an example of how not to act regarding our responsibilities toward climate change. The other rich nations aren’t doing a whole lot better, but some are calling Canada a “rogue state” with respect to climate change, and there’s talk that frustration with Canada may have played a large part in a recent walkout by the G77 countries at a recent climate change summit in Bangkok. And why not? Our involvement in the tar sands means Canada holds the record amongst G8 countries for missing our Kyoto targets by 33.8%.
(more…)
Tags:blog action day, canada, climate change, environment, grouse mountain, wind energy
Posted in general | No Comments »
Monday, October 15th, 2007
Today is blog action day and I thought I should join in with the last hours of the day waning.
The subject for mass action is the environment. As I’ve mentioned previously , I’ve been involved in getting the Vancouver chapter of Free Geek off the ground. This innovative venture has been “helping the needy get nerdy” by taking in old computer hardware and either making it useful or recycling it responsibly. It’s an organisation that celebrates the power of the collection of individual actions toward a greater goal.
And it’s been taking off!
(more…)
Tags:blog action day, blogging, e-waste, environment, free geek, home, recycling, technology, volunteer
Posted in environment, technology | No Comments »
Saturday, September 8th, 2007
It’s common for people to spend a lot of effort planning a trip away. Even the shortest excursion can be smoother and safer given good foresight. But few give much thought, if any, to the difficulties they might encounter upon their return.
I recently came back from 2½ months away on a meditation retreat. There were little breaks here and there but I was mostly shrouded within a very focused and protective environment, letting the rest of the world whirl and change without me. These retreats are not new to me, but I usually go for only 10 days. While I knew coming home would include an adjustment period, there’s never really any way to know what you’ll get until you arrive.
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Tags:environment, focus, home, integration, meditation, philosophy, travel, vipassana
Posted in meditation, travel | 7 Comments »
Tuesday, March 27th, 2007
An article over on WorldChanging discusses whether purchasing “green” options can help us stem the current global waste crisis. It points out the necessity to develop environmentally responsible computers and other electronics.
But another thing to consider is whether the latest and greatest is really what we need at all, and even whether alternate economic models may encourage us along greener paths.
(more…)
Tags:consumerism, e-waste, environment, free geek, free software, green, linux, open source, recycling, technology, ubuntu, volunteer
Posted in environment, technology | No Comments »
Thursday, December 7th, 2006
This is a long one!
I’ve always liked computers. I liked that they could play games and produce documents. I liked that you could use them to draw and even make music. I liked them even more when the internet landed and you could use them to communicate. But it’s long been apparent to me that without software a computer is just a fancy electricity sucker. And in the past few years I’ve become more and more aware of how the quality of and intention behind the software can affect the usefulness and even usability of the computer. Bad software and poorly motivated software development can seriously affect the social empowerment of the end user.
(more…)
Tags:amiga, environment, free geek, free software, home, internet, langara, linux, open source, philosophy, school, technology, travel, ubuntu
Posted in philosophy, technology | No Comments »
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