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.

Foster Farms Chicken investigation

Since Foster Farms chicken is a huge part of my diet, i decided to do a little bit of investigting.  Here are some things that I found out

Locally Grown - all Foster Farms chicken is locally grown in the Pacific Northwest. They wokr with 32 independent farms across the PNW. I did not know that. This fact alone will dramatically affect my eco footprint. When orignally did the questionaire, I had no idea where my meat came from, so to be conservative I chose the farthest distance I could. I probably don't consume as many planets as I thought I did. I should retake the test now to get more accurate results, but it's late and I am lazy so I won't.

No Hormones or Steroids - According to their website, they do not use steroids or hormones when growing their chickens.  All of their feed ingredients are FDA and USDA approved. Well ain't that something!

Chickens are smart - According to PETA, chickens are "inquisitive, interesting animals who are as intelligent as mammals such as cats, dogs, and even some primates. They are very social and like to spend their days together, scratching for food, taking dust baths, roosting in trees, and lying in the sun."  I too like to spend my days taking dust baths and lying in the sun. Who knew that chickens and I  would have so much in common.

Americans eat a lot of chickens -  In the United States, over 7 billion chickens are killed per year, just so we can eat them.  I blame the chicken for this, if they didn't want us to eat them then they shouldn't have made themselves so tasty.

Yuk - here is a video about what actually goes down at a Foster Farm's chicken farm.  Actually, I didn't watch it and I am not planning on it. I bet it is not pleasant. I would rather not know the reality of the situation.  USA! USA! USA!

Tooting my own ecological footprint horn

I’ve learned quite a bit about sustainability over the course of this class. I have certainly noticed some small changes in my behavior, but here is a list of things that I’ve been doing for a very long time (long before I took this class) that have been good for reducing my ecological footprint.  This is where I toot my own horn a bit.

-          I don’t have any kids – I don’t have any kids, and I don’t plan on ever having them.  Over population is a huge problem for the world. There are just not enough resources in the world for everyone to live comfortably.  So I am happily doing my part to battle overpopulation.

-          I always take the stairs at school – Over the last two years at western, I’ve only taken the elevator one time, and that was so I could continue the conversation I was having with my professor.  Even when where I need to go is on the 4^th floor, I will always take the stairs.  The exercise is good for my body and the electricity I’m not using is good for the environment.  It’s a win win situation.

-          I don’t buy very many things – the best thing about having practically no income over the past 5 years is that I can’t afford to buy stupid crap that I don’t want/need.

-          Roommates – I always live with roommates, and we share resources

-          No pets – I don’t have any pets, so I don’t have to use resources to take care of them

-          Fast food – I don’t ever eat fast food anymore. Think about all the cows I’ve saved, and all the energy I don’t use by not eating at certain establishments.  Plus, I’m much healthier than I would be if ate at McDonald’s all the time.

-          Turn the water off when I brush my teeth – I’ve been doing this for years.  Hooray for me!

-          Purchase used  products when I can – I am a firm believer that most used products are just as good as new ones.  I have purchased plenty of used cars, clothes, instruments, electronic devices, music, shoes, sporting goods, and other things that I can’t remember right now.

-          No babies – I don’t have any babies, I know I mentioned this already, but this is one of the best choices I have ever made. Absolutely no babies for me, ever!

-          Parking – instead of driving around aimlessly, searching for the nearest parking spot, I will usually take the first one I see, even if it is far away. By doing this I’m saving valuable resources, including my time.

-          Library – Instead of purchasing books, I like to use the library.  You can get them there for free and when you’re done reading them, you bring them back.  No purchase necessary.  No storing necessary.  It is great.

That’s all I can think of for now.  Look at me go!

All You Can Eat - Ben Folds - a satirical take on consumption

Ben Folds and I are good pals. There we are pictured above, hanging out at Starbucks. Look how excited he is to meet me. Ben Folds is a brilliant song writer/musician and one of my personal favorites. A few years ago he made a song called "All You Can Eat" which takes a satirical look at the current consumption habits of the U.S. You will probably notice that the song is very reminscent of the musical stylings of the lovable Randy Newman... or maybe you won't. I doubt any of you even know who Randy Newman is... I am so old. Anyhow, since we are studying this sort of stuff in this class I thought it would be appropriate to share.

Eco Footpring update #2 -

Something new I'm gonna do - unplug equipment

I own a very small recording studio (as pictured above). A friend of my lets me rent out a room in his basement. It just occurred to me that there is no need to leave all my equipment plugged in when I'm not there. An easy way for me to save energy and reduce my footprint would be to simply unplug everything.  This should be easy to do all of the gear is plugged into various power strips in the room. Unfotunatley, this won't decrease my power bill as my studio is in a different locatoin than where I live and pay the elctiricty bill.



Running Outside

In my last blog update I said I was going to try to run more outside and less indoors on the treadmill. This proved to be more difficult than I orignally thought.  Take today for example, the weather is really crappy and I know I'm not gonna run outside.  Another problem I found is that running outside takes me longer because it is hard to maintain a steady pace. On a treadmill that's not an issue, you can just program in how fast you want to go.

Chicken Consumption

I'm doing a pretty good job at this, i think even better than I orignally thought I could do.  I've reduced my chicken breast consumption to one and half pieces a day. I'm a lot hungrier but I'm also being a lot more eco friendly.  Good for me.

eco footprint update

As you can tell by the above saddy face, I am doing a very poor job thus far at reducing my eco footprint.  I have done well with changening my recycling habits, I'm actually actively recycling as much as I can, however, i have yet to use the bus, or limit my driving trips to Seattle.  And quite frankly, i don't see those things as possiblities at this point.  Time to rethink this...

new things i'm gonna try:

Running outside: I currently run about 20 miles a week, all at the WWU rec center, and all on the treadmill.  Since the weatehr is nicer these days, my new goal is to run at least 10 of those miles outside on the track.

Stop eating so much meat: i eat a lot of chicken breast because it is high in protein and low in calories. I  generally go through about 3 giant bags of Foster Farms chicken breast from Costco a month.  I am going to try to reduce that to one bag a month. I think I can do it.

Go team!

Writing Assignment #2 - Irish Spring Soap ingredient investigation

Ingredients

• Soap (Sodium tallowate, Sodium cocoate and/or sodium palm kernelate)
• Water
• Hydrogenated tallow (skin conditioner)
• Petrolatum
• Glycerin (skin conditioner)
• Coconut acid
• Sodium chloride
• Fragrance
• Polyquaternium-6
• Aloe barbadensis leaf extract
• Pentasodium pentetate
• Pentaerythrityl tetra-di-t-butyl hydroxyhydrocinnamate
• Titanium dioxide
• Chromium oxide greens

OED Toxicity List

Dioxins appear on the OED toxicity list, and I assume that titanium dioxide is a dioxin, however, according to the Skin Deep database, titanium dioxide is a low toxic hazard

Dioxide - A compound containing two oxygen atoms per molecule

Dioxin - Any of several toxic hydrocarbons that occur as impurities in petroleum-derived herbicides, disinfectants, and other products. Dioxins are composed of two benzene rings connected by two oxygen atoms, and the most familiar kind, called TCDD, has two chlorine atoms attached to each benzene ring. TCDD was once thought to cause cancer and birth defects, but subsequent research showed it to have only mild toxic effects except at very high exposure levels.

 

EWG Skin Deep

All of the ingredients in Irish Spring have a low hazard toxicity score on Skin Deep except for Fragrance, which has a high score of 8. It seems especially bad for causing allergic reactions. Fragrance is an ingredient that appears to be very vague in its description.  What exactly is Fragrance? I assume it’s the ingredient that makes the soap smell so Irish Fresh, but I have no idea what goes into it.

Chemical structure of polyquaternium-6

Polyquaternium-6 (PQ-6) is the polymeric quaternary ammonium salt derived from the homopolymerization of diallyldimethylammonium chloride (DADMAC) monomer

Polyquaternium-6 is used to make Irish Spring Soap. It sounds dangerous, but apparently it is some kind of comple chemical compound that is mostly harmless and it is good for your hair and skin. There are many different types of polyquaternium (Polyquaternium-5, polyquaternium-7, and polyquaternium-47), the number that follows indicates the order they were registered and are unrelated to their chemical structure.

Wikipedia says:

Polyquaterniums find particular application in conditioners, shampoo, hair mousse, hair spray, hair dye, and contact lens solutions. Because they are positively charged, they neutralize the negative charges of most shampoos and hair proteins and help hair lie flat. Their positive charges also ionically bond them to hair and skin. Some have antimicrobial properties.

What am I gonna do about it?

During this assignment I found nothing that would make me want to stop using Irish Spring Soap. Seems as though the biggest harm from using the product could come in the form of an allergic reaction and I have yet to experience any sort of skin allergies.  I am in no way loyal to Irish Spring soap or any other skin/hair care products.  I find that there is little difference between them.  Price is the main factor in my purchasing decision.

If it were the case that Irish Spring were extremely toxic, I would probably try to avoid it. There are plenty of other soaps on the shelf to choose from. But then again, I am pretty lazy about all this and I could see myself buying Irish Spring again if it was the most affordable, even if it might eventually kill me. 

Ecological Footprint

According to my ecological footprint calculations, if everybody lived like me we would need 5-7 planets to provide enough resources. My food consumption contributed to my footprint the most, 45%. This is probably because I eat a lot of meat and I don't care where it comes from.

One of the things I plan on doing to reduce my footprint is to recycle more, thus reducing the amount of waste I produce.  Often I don't recycle because it is not convenient enough for me to do so and I am really lazy.  Not that it would take much effort on my part, but it would take more than what I am currently willing to do. For the rest of the quarter I plan on making recycling a priority.

I also plan on taking the bus to school more often, at least twice a week.

I usually go Seattle about once a week, either for work or social gatherings.  I am going to try to limit my Seattle trips to twice a month.

I think that reducing my ecological footprint will be very diffciult for me to do, espcecailly since I have very little interest in the matter.  I tend to be too lazy and too wrapped up in my own affairs to really pay attention to the enviornment and the things that are happening all around me. It will be intersting to see what impact taking this course will have on my future lifestyle decisions.

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