Unpacked: A Walker Returns Home

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! (In case the title of this piece wasn’t clear enough).

A crazy thing, life.

So I know, it’s been a long time since posting last. Gee whiz- I miss writing for Unpacked!

My sister Liron just got married and well things have been more than a bit nutty around here. Happy as ever, but a good lot nutty, too. But it sure is nice to see my little “Write a Post” screen in front of me.

I’d like to link you to a post I wrote for Climate of Change, our Jewish Climate Initiative blog, entitled Calling all Voices. I’ll give you a little chunk of it here, but give a visit to our site to read the whole thing (not that long, don’t you worry).

So a very major Congratulations and Mazal Tov and Happy Happy to Liron (and her husband, Eliyah), much love to you, and I hope to be in touch very soon!

Here’s some music with which to Unpack the week and a peaceful soundtrack for the Climate piece: The Be Good Tanyas, and their MySpace page.

And here’s the start of Calling All Voices:

“For the Jewish community to make a difference on environmental issues, we need brutal honesty to begin with. Jews are now roughly 0.2% of the world’s population; less than the margin of error on the Indian census. If all the Jews in the world recycle their newspapers it will make… pretty much no difference whatsoever. Nor if we put a solar-powered ner tamid in every synagogue, nor, more radically, if every Jew in the world swapped their existing car for a hybrid.”

-Nigel Savage, founder of Hazon.

“Our home planet Earth is undergoing rapid and sustained destruction of its eco-systems… Muslims comprise at least one fifth of the human community and they can contribute much to the thinking that is vital to re-evaluate the future direction of the human community and save its home for itself and other life forms.”

- The Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Environmental Sciences (IFEES)

What a difference one fifth of the world could make!

And us Jews? We sure are a little nation, but as history tells us, we have tremendous power to inspire ethical behavior, mobilize social change and spearhead the technology with which to bring that change about.

Click Here for the Full Article

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

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…

I’d like to Unpack this week with some quotes, from William Coperthwaite’s A Handmade Life: In Search of Simplicity.

So this is an important book. About breaking free from the over-stuff-ization that accounts for much of modern man’s struggles. I’ve been reading my sister Liron’s copy for a few months now, and Mr. Coperthwaite’s wisdom has been instrumental in helping me learn to Unpack the slowness and simplicity of the backcountry in my life in the city. Thanks Liron!

As you may recall, I apologized publicly to my kitchen knife a few months ago, after the knife complained of its woes in its kitchen drawer. Little did I know that Mr. Coperthwaite believes in apologizing to stuff, as well!

Says Mr. Coperthwaite:

“Have you ever had the experience of apologizing to an inanimate object? When we drop a cup and break it, we violate its nature. All things, be they living or inanimate, have their own nature, spirit, or essence. Whenever we come into contact with anything, we either promote or hinder that essential nature. Unless we seek to understand the nature of the things that surround us, we will be a hindrance rather than a help to our world.

“Developing sensitivity and awareness by searching for the basic nature of things is the road to understanding. When we drop and break a cup, we do violence to its spirit, its purpose, and to the work of the artisan who shaped it. We owe the cup an apology.

“Whether running a canoe aground, dulling a chisel on a nail, or puncturing a tire- instead of cursing, we owe an apology. You may respond that the object has no feelings. I would tend to agree with you. But apologies are both given and received, and the effect on the giver may be more important than the effect on the recipient.”

Mr. Coperthwaite brings some pretty incredible quotes with him in A Handmade Life, and while I’m already quoting, I’d like to share two of my favorites:

“You say, ‘Isnt it sad that a diamond, when seen to its essence, is nothing but common carbon?’ I say, ‘Isn’t it wonderful that common carbon, in its most developed form, is the finest of diamonds?’ You say, ‘Isn’t it sad that altruism, when seen in its basic structure, is nothing but base selfishness?’ I say, ‘Isn’t it marvelous that base selfishness, in its most enlightened form, is the purest of altruism?’”

-Pierre Ceresole (Swiss Engineer, 1879-1945)

And (You may recognize part of this quote from Liron Kranzler’s music/Doogree Records):

“When you work you are a flute

through whose heart the whispering

of the hours turns to music.

To love life through labor is to be intimate

with life’s inmost secret.

All work is empty save when there is love,

for work is love made visible.”

-Khalil Ghibran (Lebanese-American Poet, 1883-1931)

(I love that “work is love made visible” part. Kinda sounds like marriage…)

May our work open us up to what we already have,

A simple week to all,

Yannai

Heard any good quotes lately? Share Share!

Hi Everyone,

A happy week to you!

I am doing some work for a new project called Jewish Climate Initiative- a non-profit dedicated to developing a Jewish response to the global climate crisis by consulting ancient Jewish ethics, mobilizing our nation’s passion for social action and directing our abilities in science and technology toward solutions in sustainable living.

I’d like to refer you to a post I just wrote for the initiative’s blog, Climate of Change, called “Don’t Fall into the Doomsday Trap.” I’d really like your feedback on this one- sometimes I write something and am not super positive I agree with it (odd as that might sound). So check it out and let me know! (You can leave me comments here on Unpacked (if your comments are bad) or at Climate of Change (if your comments are good.) (Just kidding- you can leave me any type of feedback anywhere).

Also- I highly recommend subscribing to Climate of Change-the founders of Jewish Climate Initiative, Rabbi Julian Sinclair and Michael Kagan are pretty brilliant guys with credentials up the wazoo, and they always have interesting, creative (and well-written) things to say- so have a look! (As a by-the-way, “Wazoo” originally meant trap door. It’s also a nickname for Washington State University. Just thought you’d be interested…)

The post begins like this:

Environmental sensitivity has a trap: Actions too often become a “Fight Against.” I stop acting “in order to,” but rather, “to beware of”- whether that “Beware of” is carbon emissions, pollution, pesticides or the like.

Not that caution is a bad place from where to act- crises like climate change give us the urgency that (hopefully) makes us change. But that urgency should not only encourage us to ward off disasters, but to re-examine our experience in this world and discover what it is we are missing that brought about these crises in the first place.

Let’s take eating local foods as an example: Click Here for the Full Article

I look forward to hearing from you,

Yannai

Picture this:

You walk to the gym to do some exercise. You go to ride the stationary bikes.

You arrive at your favorite bicycle, and gracefully empty your laundry into the washing machine to which your bike is hooked up.

Your peddling, see, is powering the machine.

Sound crazy?

It most definitely is not. Clever mavens of energy-efficiency have been making manual bicycle laundry machines for years.

So welcome to the future- where energy not only does not pollute- it cleans! (Just remember to remove your clean laundry after you’ve showered.) (more…)