Comments Wren has made

Instant runoff voting

Third parties will only begin to be considered "votable" by most people when and if we ever have instant runoff voting.  Then instead of people voting for the lesser of two evils, they could vote for their fringe third party choice and then put their lesser of two evils choice as #2.  Then if their #1 choice still didn't make it their second choice didn't lose any votes, and they didn't just hand the white house to the truly evil choice simply by voting their conscience.

save the world, one click at a time: http://www.thehungersite.com (and link to their other sites while there!) : )

To Sinéad

Hello:

Just wanted to let you know that you should click on the "send Umbra" link at the bottom of the original article to ask her your question, rather than leave it as a comment in an unrelated article (I don't know if she reads all the comments or not).  I hope she does answer it, though - I'm curious!  I believe any dioxins made in the recycled-paper process would only happen if said paper was bleached in chlorine; that's why when you buy a brand of recycled paper product like Seventh Generation, it talks about using an alternate bleaching method (or none at all) to avoid making any dioxins.  Just the actual recycling part shouldn't make any dioxins that I'm aware of.  I would hope that if a company is recycling paper, than they expect their customers to be looking for eco-friendly options and would not use chlorine bleach; however, this may just be wishful thinking on my part if the label doesn't say what the paper was bleached with.  Likewise cotton, hemp, banana leaf, etc. could also potentially be bleached with chlorine, so I think the danger of that happening may be equal (unless said tree-free paper comes in its "natural" color, no bleaching at all).  I used to find spiral notebooks made of recycled paper that were not bleached at all, but I haven't seen those since the 90s.

Anywho... I hope your question gets answered! : )On Umbra on organic mattresses posted 1 year, 10 months ago 7 Responses

Reusing what is already in existence

I figure, as long as you're not buying it, you should use it until it's no longer usable in some way or another.  You did not buy the coat, in fact, the coat is older than you are, so it's the most eco friendly solution to use it SOMEHOW rather than to throw it out or let it rot in your closet when it could have a use.  The real question is whether it is SOCIALLY or maybe even MORALLY acceptable to wear it, more than ecologically.

I am a seven-year vegetarian (and yes, that means I won't buy fur or leather, either... if an animal has to die for it, I won't buy it, with the only exception of food for my cat... because cats don't generally do well on veggie diets, and I'm not going to make another animal suffer (my cat) in order to save other animals from suffering.  For cats, it is pretty necessary to eat meat; not so for humans... and yes, I have seen a vegan food for cats, but even that comes with a mess of warnings about how not all cats fare well on it, so I am not going to risk her health trying it) and I still own a few pairs of leather shoes that are yes, more than seven years old (shows how often I wear them, eh?).  I am not going to throw away something that is perfectly good and buy new ones, because that is creating waste both in the tossing of the old ones and the creation/shipping of the new ones.  Plus, I am not rich, and that is economically not smart for my budget, either.  So, I will use them until they are unusable, just like anything else, because the damage was already done by the time I came to this state of consciousness/morals, and to toss-and-buy would create MORE damage.  So I say, if it doesn't bother you to wear it, wear it (I never knew you could reverse a fur coat... that's a good idea).  If it does bother you to wear it, however, and you feel like everyone on the street is leering at you, then use one of the other (useful) ideas, such as donating to an animal rehab center (while some may think it's creepy, the little baby animal that would use the fur doesn't think to itself, "hey, this is the skin of aunt millie" ...it thinks, "warm, soft, familiar.").  You could have a custom button made for the coat if you do decide to wear it that reads something like "This coat is older than I am, and I inherited it. I am using it until it is worn for ecological reasons," or whatever.  Personally I couldn't wear it and would give it to a rehab center, but I can deal with my shoes until they're worn out, so we're all different.  Being an animal rights activist and also an environmentalist doesn't clash for me... I don't go to the extreme of one at the cost of the other.  For instance, a lot of vegan retailers advertise their "cruelty free" VINYL wallets and bags.  I'm sorry, but there are other non-leather alternatives that don't involve VINYL (for the love of Pete).  So I'm not buying their stuff just because it's not derived from dead animal parts.  On the flipside, a natural/organic/eco-friendly retailer that I love offers DOWN bedding, and I'm sorry, but that's just too cruel for me.  I don't care if it's encased in organic cotton and has no chemicals involved in it's production... there are other alternatives to chem-laden bedding that don't involve plucking some poor bird in horrible ways that I have read about and will not relate here.  The point is... it's not all or nothing.

Oh, and for the person who made the comment about eating the cereal is killing so many wheat and oat plants, instead of cows or whatnot... you are actually killing less wheat and oat and corn and so forth by eating the wheat and oat and corn yourself, rather than the beef.  There is always more corn, etc. involved in the raising of the cow than there is in your bowl of cereal.  There is some statistic that I am too lazy to look up right now that will tell you exactly how many pounds of grain went into making your one pound of meat.  It's always more grain used per pound of meat, because they have to feed the cow/pig/sheep of course, and they eat so much grain over their lifetime.  I never thought about that either until I read it in some veggie book. I do believe that plants are aware (For more on this subject, I highly recommend reading the book "The Secret Life of Plants").  Not only because I am an animist Pagan, but because of the scientific evidence such as that talked about in aforementioned book.  So I'm happy to know that eating the plants by themselves is not only saving the animals, but also many more plants (and after all, we have to eat SOMETHING).  So I try and remember to be grateful to the plants that died/gave a part of themselves for my food.

Anyway... I hope the original question-asker tells us what her ultimate decision was! : )On Umbra on (inherited) fur coats posted 1 year, 10 months ago 60 Responses

packaging

Just wanted to say, it's not always true that buying from big-box stores like Sam's Club and Costco saves on packaging waste.  Sure, some of the items may be comprised of less packaging: ginormous buckets of laundry soap, for example.  But lots of their products are just huge groupings of tons of little packages.  A huge package of toilet paper, paper towels, or tissues is really a dozen smaller individual packages bundled together.  A gallon and a half of soymilk is really three half gallon cartons in a larger box.  A case of frozen entrees is a bunch of individually wrapped and boxed meals inside the larger case, and so on.  In many cases, buying in bulk this way is using * more * waste (having worked in a grocery store, I know that the boxes we get full of the smaller packages are almost always bigger than the cases you get at the bulk mart, so it's not just that you're taking home the box that it would have come in at the grocery store, either).  Not to mention, when was the last time you saw eco-friendly dish soap, or 100% post consumer recycled paper tissues, in a Sam's Club?  I never have.On Could chain stores actually be good for the environment? posted 4 years ago 19 Responses

Rich enviromentalists?

First... not all enviros are wealthy.  I have always been what most Americans would consider poor, and have been my whole life.  I've been an environmentalist since I was a kid... even when my family was living in a "bad" neighborhood and receiving food from the food bank on occasion (oh yeah... and I'm white.  Yes, white people can be poor and live in poor neighborhoods too).

Second... why not fund all schools equally?  That way it won't matter where the school is, they will all receive the same economic opportunity.  Not that money fixes everything, but it can help in schools where there aren't even enough textbooks to go around, let alone money to hire quality teachers.

Third... some people mentioned parental involvement, which is great... if you have parents who give a hoot, or have the time to get involved.  If a child's parents are drunken/addicted to drugs/abusive/etc., or even good parents but forced to work 80 hours a week at their low-paying job just to put food on the table, it's likely they're not going to be around to check homework or go to parent-teacher conferences.  And this is the case in a lot of homes in the "poor" neighborhoods.

Fourth... teachers do make a huge difference.  We had our fair share of Ben-Stein-in-Ferris-Bueller's-Day-Off kind of boring teachers in my old "poor" school (and even one that was so afraid of the students that he would give out "A"s like they were candy and change lower grades to "A"s if challenged by the student), but we also had some awesome teachers that got involved and really cared about their students.  You can't, however, expect every teacher to resonate with every student the same way.  What to one student is their most hated teacher can be someone else's favorite, so how a teacher teaches can probably be pretty relative.

Fifth... there probably isn't any one solution to this problem, but perhaps we could look to countries that have good school systems for ideas on how to modify our own?  Japan is always talked about for having excellent schools, as well as many places in Europe.  Perhaps some of their programs might work for us as well?

Sixth... discussion is good.  Everyone that would like to see their local schools improve, take your ideas, suggestions, and energy and try and get involved!  A lot of good can come from a caring community rallying together to change things for the better, even one PTA meeting at a time. ^_^On School choice could be an answer to sprawl posted 4 years, 1 month ago 24 Responses