Unpacked: A Walker Returns Home

Seamus the Cat and I have always agreed to peacefully share our apartment’s bedroom/office space in the morning. I sit at the computer and work, he sits on the bed and sleeps. And we do pretty well, too. If either one of us needs to get up for a stretch, we usually even stop by and wish one another a quick hello.

But yesterday, it all fell apart.

You see, I got up to play the mandolin for a few minutes of break. Upon hearing the very first note, Seamus grumpily glared at me, got up, did a little yawn, slumped himself out of the room and found somewhere more quiet to sit.

I’m sure you can appreciate that it did not make me feel very good.

On the other hand, though, there’s the world.

You know, the world, us, you, everyone- people in general, who are doing pretty good, I think.

I spent a few hours yesterday sifting through a list of 50 environmental blogs, in order to create our Suggested Links column on Jewish Climate Initiative’s Climate of Change. And I encountered some pretty unbelievable sites and people and solutions:

There was The City Fix, a blog that explores sustainable solutions to urban mobility. I read about Kilmarnock, Scotland, which is instituting public buses that run on biodiesel made from used cooking oil.

How do you think passengers will pay for their bus? This is true- they will pay by bringing their used cooking oil. Had a stir-fry for dinner? Well you just earned yourself a bus ride. Cool, no?

Other favorites of mine included the high school kid that figured out how to biodegrade plastic bags, the Recycle This blog that tackles reusing/recycling things like old carseats and breadmaker pans, and the EcoGeek blog for EcoTechies.

An important blog, I thought, was the Climate Debate Daily, posting arguments both for and against combating climate change. It’s always valuable to learn from and engage with the other side, right?

For more great environmental blogs, click here for Climate of Change, and check out the column on the right labeled Bloggers Fixing the World.

No doubt that our potential as humans to harm the world has gotten bigger- Nukes, Climate Change, Global Food Crises- we can do more serious damage than ever, and we can do it very fast.

But like a pendulum, the farther we go down, the farther we can go up. And the truth is really that there are a lot of people out there coming up with creative solutions to help us all do Earth better.

And so, if this list of blogs is any indicator, then I’d say we really are in okay shape. Yup- I really think all the bad stuff is gonna have a very happy ending after all.

And as for Seamus and me? Well, I give him food. He’ll have to warm to my mandolin some day…

Did you enjoy this post? Subscribe via RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Tags: Environmental Blogs, Jewish Climate Initiative, Sustainability

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 29th, 2008 at 8:39 pm and is filed under Blogging, Sustainability. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.