Guide to Dealing with Skeptics

Okay, so I'm really bad at updating regularly. But here are a bunch of articles that will help you talk to climate change skeptics!

Green Building in EUROPE

Here is an article about sustainable architecture across the pond. Especially relevant to Wes might be the bit about LEED standards...

"The LEED guidelines, which were drawn up by the U.S. Green Building Council, a nonprofit group founded in 1993, are a voluntary program that is now more than a decade old...In most cases, the decision to make an efficient building still rests with the client.
What’s more, the guidelines often lead to a constricted idea of what sustainability means. 'In Europe the guidelines tend to have to do with broader organizational ideas,' Thom Mayne, the founder of the Los Angeles-based architectural firm Morphosis, told me. 'Energy consumption, the organization of the workplace, urbanism — they’re all seen as interlinked. Here, the whole focus is on how to get these points. You just check them off: bike racks, high-efficiency air-conditioning units — it’s very narrow.'

DUMP AND RUN

look for DUMP AND RUN drop-off boxes in your hall! you can donate things and EON will store the stuff over the summer and have a sale in the fall.

THINGS TO DUMP:
furniture
dorm decorations
shoes
books
bedding
clothes
music
working lights and appliances and electronics

DON'T DUMP:
living things
broken things
toiletries
food
medicines
(basically garbage and perishables)

Environmental Tip of the Week

Buy a reusable grocery bag or save grocery bags and reuse them next time you go to the store. Here are some facts from the Sierra Club:

• Reusing a bag meant for just one use has a big impact. A sturdy, reusable bag needs only be used 11 times to have a lower environmental impact than using 11 disposable plastic bags.
• In New York City alone, one less grocery bag per person per year would reduce waste by 5 million lbs. and save $250,000 in disposal costs.
• Plastic bags carry 80% of the nation's groceries, up from 5% in 1982.
• When 1 ton of paper bags is reused or recycled, 3 cubic meters of landfill space is saved and 13 - 17 trees are spared! In 1997, 955,000 tons of paper bags were used in the United States.
• When 1 ton of plastic bags is reused or recycled, the energy equivalent of 11 barrels of oil are saved.

These facts can be found here

Also, items such as jam jars or frappuccino bottles can be reused to hold homemade sauces and salad dressings. I use my jam jars as cups actually…but that’s another story…

Environmental Tip of the Week

When at all times possible, avoid buying products with excess packaging. Excess packaging acounts for about one third of our trash! For more info go here