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When you watch this video think about our little recession and what it would really mean to be in need.


charity: water promo featuring "Time Bomb" by Beck from charity: water on Vimeo.

There is a bottle of Seventh Generation dish soap on my kitchen counter right by the sink that has a little label on it that says “You have the right to know” and on the back it tells you everything that they put in the formula. Unlike many home products which don’t tell you anything at all about their ingredients, Seventh Generation is breaking that mold and it’s about time. But until they convince the rest of the market to be so open you really don’t have any other options…. until today. I found a way for us to find out what went into the things that we buy. It’s called GoodGuide a website that recently launched that takes on not only helping you know what chemicals are in your baby shampoo, but also lets you know if sweatshop labor used to make your t-shirt, and helps shed some light on the corporation and their practices that made that laundry detergent you use.

Just one more tool on the Internet that is giving us less and less excuses to be ignorant about our lifestyle and footprint here on earth.

Levi Benkert

Thanks Dan for sending this post over today….Interesting stuff when you look close at the details.

The people of the USA consume an alarming quantity of resources. It’s really hard to get an idea of just how big the problem is. Artist Chris Jordan’s “Running the Numbers: An American Self Portrait” does a pretty good job of conveying just how wasteful, among other things, we are as a society.

This is relatively new to me but worth listening to if you like the energy question.  Pickens is just comforting to listen to with the Texas drawl and all. Click on the link and watch the short video on the landing page.

I am a long time fan of Wikipedia, but I noticed something on there today that made me think of an idea.  There is no entry for LJ Urban…. But there should be… Right?   In the effort to not self promote I want to see if anyone out there wants to start a page and describe LJ Urban on Wikipedia.  More importantly I want someone to describe their understanding of Eco-Urbanism and our push towards its recognition and acceptance.  The more people understand the importance of living an urban sustainable lifestyle the better off the world will be.   Eco-Urban = Lower footprint, better quality of life, Less traffic more living.

Any takers?   And if you do make an entry come back here and comment about it so that others can go in and add their piece.

Levi

I am very excited about this solution for vacant urban land.  We have often talked about what to do with land that both we and others in our area own and have turned down the idea of a community garden because there are so many stories of gardens that once put in are “permanent”.  And I understand fully why that is.  But this idea takes out the permanence of that concept and allows a space to be used while it awaits future development without having to worry about what is in the dirt that could possibly contaminate the soil.

I can not tell you how inspired I am to make this happen all over the place!  I am going to be in touch with the people who did this in London and get more information on how it all went together.  I really hope that somehow Sacramento can adopt this as a interim solution and these can pop up all over the place.  The lots that now take away from the area would instead contribute to the community.   And all for a very minimal investment.   There is no doubt that gardens help build community and more than ever the cost of transportation mandates that we grow more of our own food as close to home as possible.

Who is with me?

Go here for more about the people who started it, and here for an article about its first trial run.

Jessie (My awesome wife) has been really digging this blog lately. We now have homemade hand soap, deodorant and laundry soap is on the way, all because EnviroMom is helping us think about our waste and consumption in a new way with her writing. Makes me think about what else we can produce at home…  Because its clear that a good portion of each of our carbon footprint sizes comes from the packaging wasted by the stuff we buy.

Here is the recipe if you want to get your hands dirty (or clean, either way).

1 cup water
1/4 cup liquid castille soap (like Dr. Bronners)
1 tsp vegetable glycerine

Levi

Oil consumption per capita (darker colors represent more consumption).

How does it make you feel?  Kind of guilty huh? Me too.

I have been digging into this site by Andrew Blum over the last few days and finding some pretty cool articles on urban evolution and design. Enjoy!

Cities had a good long run a while back, then came the car and the freeway. Not that I am complaining about getting 100 miles in a few short hours compared to the two day trek in a horse drawn carriage.

Now though cities are getting a second chance. This time instead of lack of efficient transportation we have to many of us with access to it. We all choose to clog the same freeway at the same time of day and thus more and more of us are deciding to take our day back and move out of the burbs and into the core.

Anyway, all that to get to my point that I think cities have a better chance this time around because of sites like this one and the connectivity the internet brings to our lives.

It allows no excuse for stepping up and making your city a better place to live.

You can do like these folks and review something, blog about something or simply decide to gather everyone to do something, but whatever you decide to do you can be sure that you are going a long way at making your city better.

Levi