Final Eco Footrping Blog - improved (a little)

I improved over the course of this class.  I went from consumeing 5.7 planets to 4.1.  Hooray for me!

New EF score -  4.1 planets

Old EF Score - 5.7 planets

Were you able to achieve the EF reduction goals you set for yourself?

I was able to reduce my EF reduction by 1.6 planets, I guess that’s pretty good.  But I’m not sure if it had much to with what I was doing as it did that I learned that the majority of the food I eat is much more local that I originally thought.

I didn’t really follow through with any of original EF reduction plans other than the recycling one.  I never took the bus, and I had difficulty reducing my car trips to Seattle because that is where I work. I never moved my running routine from the treadmill to the outdoors. This wasn’t entirely my fault, I put all the blame on the unusually crappy spring weather we’ve been having.  However, all the recycling I’ve been doing has been pretty easy. Before I started all this, I recycled only when convenient.  Now I do it as much as I can. Hooray for me!

Not really reflected in my new EF score are all the little things that I have been doing over the course of the quarter. I’ve been using slightly less energy by making sure that the appliances and electrical devices are left unplugged when not in use. I no longer charge my telephone overnight because it only takes a couple hours to recharge it to full capacity.  Instead I charge it when I get up, that way the phone charger spends less time plugged into the wall not doing anything. It was difficult to gauge an actual result from my power bill because I live with roommates and we split the power bill four ways.  Also, I don’t pay the electric bill where my recording studio is located, so once again I have no reference point for my power usage.  I do know that I’ve been using less power, and that’s a fact, Jack.

Will you be able to continue these practices?

Yes, I can continue my new love of recycling.  It is really easy to do, not sure why I took me so long to get on this recycling bandwagon. I will also very easily be able to continue my conscious effort to use less energy.  The electronic devices are already unplugged, there is no reason to plug them back in unless I’m gonna use them for something. I will be able to continue these activities because they really didn’t take much effort on my part. If I keep it up I will make a dramatic impact on reducing my ecological footprint.  Yes, I could have done more. You can always do more but it is important to realize that any action that results in a reduced ecological footprint, regardless of how small that change might be, is beneficial for the planet. No change is too small.

I’ve certainly am more conscious of the things I purchase, and how I dispose of things. For instance I try not to use paper towels, if there is an alternative way to dry my hands I will try use it, even if it may take a few extra seconds. I always make sure I turn off lights when I’m not in the room.  I even go so far as to turn off my friends lights when I’m a guest in their homes.

Unlike most of the marketing classes I’ve taken at Western, I really enjoyed this class.  I would highly recommend taking it to anyone.

Is there any value to the world's most beautiful music when it is played by a busker at a subway station?

I read an article featured in the Washington Post a few days ago. It was an older article, written in 2007, but this was the first time I had come across it. The Washington Post decided to conduct a social experiment.  The basic of idea of it was they wanted to see what would happen when one of the world’s finest musicians performed as a street musician at a busy bus station in D.C.  Would anyone notice what they were hearing? Would people stop and pay attention? How much money would he make?  To conduct the experiment they recruited the help of the most brilliantly renowned violin player in recent history, Joshua Bell.  For about an hour he stood in the bus station, incognito style, playing some of the most beautiful y dramatic music ever heard by man, on a violin that was three hundred years old and worth more $3.5 million dollars. The surprising thing, hardly anyone noticed that he was there.  Out of the one thousand people that passed him only seven of them stopped to take note.  At the end of the day he made about $32. This is a man, a few days earlier who sold out Boston’s Symphony Hall for a minimum of $100 a seat (and that was just for the crappy seats). Typically, his talents earn him about $1000 per minute.

My point is that this is all a lesson in perceived value.  It is not as though the music he was playing at the bus station was any less beautiful or played with any less passion than he normally plays with.  But the context in which he was playing it in, as a busker at a bus station, created less value because he was perceived as just an ordinary street musician playing ordinary unrecognizable music and not as the grandeur master violin player that in reality Joshua Bell actually is. The people passing by had no idea of what they were hearing because they were hearing it out of context.  It was the context that created the lack of value for them.  Had they known that they were being exposed to some of the greatest music performed by the greatest musician in the world, it would have been more likely to have been perceived as such.  A lot more than seven people would have stopped to listen.

I wonder if I would have stopped and listened.  I would like to think that I would have, but I doubt I would. I’m usually too preoccupied with my own affairs to notice such beauty when I’m not looking for it. This makes me sad.

Here is a link to the full article.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html

dmachoice.org - a great way to reduce receiving usnolicited mail

A great way to reduce unwanted junk mail is to visit this website dmachoice.org. Reducing your junk mail consumption can go a long way in reducing your ecological footprint. I wish more people would sign up for this thing.  Think about all the resources we could save, trees, power, transportation, money. With dmachoice.org you can the mail you want, but not the mail you don't want.

http:///.www.dmachoice.org

musicunited.org -spreading the word about digital music theft

music theft is a huge global problem.  The creative people behind the art that everybody loves to steal are collectively losing millions of dollars in revenue each year.  They should be appropriately compensated for the work that they do, but digital music theft is preventing that from happening. The why should I buy it when I can steal it attitude that people have is hurting the music industry, and costing the economy billions of dollars. The only way to prevent digital music theft is to change the culture and attitudes of entire nations.  That is a tall order, but this website is a good place to start, musicunited.org is spreading awareness about the problem.  Hopefully it will make a difference.

http://www.musicunited.org/

Unplug Your Toaster - written assignment media

I couldn't figure out how to embed the SWF file, so I exported it as a quicktime instead.  It is supposed to be a flash banner ad that repeats over and over again, but I think you will get the basic idea.

here are some still images of the design:



NFL "Play 60" campaign - Too many fat kids

Kids these days are too fat. They live in a world full of video games, television, internets, and cell phones. This is how they spend their time, indoors, and on their lazy butts, essentially doing nothing.  I think that this is a problem, and so does the National Football League. A few years ago the NFL started their “Play 60” campaign. The tag line is “The NFL movement for an active generation.”  The purpose is to tackle childhood obesity (Ha! See what I did there? “Tackle”… )  by encouraging kids to go outside, and play for at least 60 minutes a day. The campaign features NFL stars and children having fun, playing, outside.  I remember seeing an ad a few years ago featuring the Barack Obama. He went out for a pass and successfully caught it.

The “Play 60” campaign is more than just a series of cleverly designed ads. The NFL is promoting healthy lifestyle choices by holding events across the country with NFL stars, and there is also a contest on their website where the kids who play the most can win something like a trip to the Superbowl. I’m a little surprised that kids need a contest gimmick to motivate them to play, but whatever, that’s the reality of the situation

I really like this campaign.  I hate the fact that kids don’t see they joy in having fun anymore, and this campaign is a step in the right direction to help combat that fact. One of my favorite aspects of sustainability is when companies do things that they don’t necessarily need to do, but do it anyways because it is good for society as a whole.

Sutainable Bellingham

Well here is something I didn't know existed until a few minutes ago. It is amazing what comes up when you type the words "sustainable bellingham" into google. You get a website entirely devoted to sutainability awareness withing the Bellingham community. sustainablebellingham.org

Their mission statement:

"To reach the goal of Sustainability, we advocate for the strategy of Relocalization – becoming self and community-reliant (not self-sufficient) at the local level and rebuilding communities based on the local production of food, energy, and goods as well as the relocalization of governance and culture. Relocalization includes a firm commitment to reducing consumption and improving environmental and social conditions."

Spreading awareness about sustainable practices is at the core of making the world a more sutainable place. How can people solve the problem if they don't know what the problem is. This website seems to good job of spreading the sustainable word about what is going on in Bellingham.

The site features a blog about the different events in the community. It also has a section on current ongoing projects and information on how you can get involved. What I think it lacks is real adequate information on what business can do to become more sustainable, but otherwise it is a pretty good website.