10 Simple Eco-Tips

Brian Brinks 2 Comments
tide-cold-water

Some good very sensible tips that are easy to do and can make a difference. You can view the original post here, at TheDailyGreen.com. 1. Stop idling your vehicle Every moment you spend idling your car’s engine means needlessly wasting gas, as well as rougher wear on your vehicle. Idling for more than 10 seconds […]

Let’s Celebrate BUY NOTHING Friday, Instead of Black Friday, Don’t We Have Enough Stuff?

Brian Brinks 9 Comments
I shop therefore I am -

It’s all gotten a little ridiculous hasn’t it. Buy, buy, buy – don’t think just BUY! No money?- use credit! You don’t have enough stuff – you need more stuff; get a bigger house to store it all or rent a cubby at U-Store-It. That’s the new mantra of our hyper-consumeristic society. Well, it isn’t […]

Pick Your Poison, Tobacco vs Fast Food

Brian Brinks

An interesting take mirroring societies reaction and regulation of big tobacco with the fast food industry, which, sadly, seems to be causing more harm to western civilization than tobacco ever did.

Think about the people who tell you to buy their products. Many Americans grew up watching Ronald McDonald saying that Chicken McNuggets were just about the greatest food ever conceived. The Trix Rabbit’s countless failed attempts to get a bowl of our cereal made us cherish each sugary bite. Now think about those old commercials from the 1950s, when Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble light up a Chesterfield in the backyard or Lucille Ball makes Ricky happy by handing him a Phillip Morris cigarette. Why does one seem innocent and the other strangely evil? Imagine for a moment if history had played out differently, if respective epidemics were sensationalized at opposite times and a generation of Americans grew up with an alternative version of the demonized Big Tobacco industry.

Read the full article by Demian Kendall at SpliceToday.com.

TED Talks – Johan Rockstrom: Let the environment guide our development (Video)

Brian Brinks 6 Comments

A very interesting video on an important subject.

About Johan Rockstrom:

Johan Rockstrom is a leader of a new approach to sustainability: planetary boundaries. Working with a team of 29 leading scientists across disciplines, Rockstrom and the Stockholm Resilience Centre identified nine key Earth processes or systems — and marked the upper limit beyond which each system could touch off a major system crash. Climate change is certainly in the mix — but so are other human-made threats such as ocean acidification, loss of biodiversity, chemical pollution.

The Story of Stuff (Video)

Brian Brinks

“From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It’ll teach you something, it’ll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.”

I have posted the Story of Electronics and the Story of Cosmetics, well here is the original of the series which focuses more on a general nature of the overwhelming amount of stuff we use in our everyday lives.

Our Brief History with Fossil Fuels (Video)

Brian Brinks

This short animated film made by the Post Carbon Institute gives a quick and entertaining history of our use of fossil fuels to power most of our lives, and what the post-carbon world might look like … The most striking thing to me was the mention that from the beginning of the industrial revolution to now is only an amount of time equivalent to about 3 human lifetimes. So much has changed in such a short period, and it’s a reminder that we can change again. Not as fast as many of us would like, but we can do it. The important thing is to steer towards a better world.

Michael Graham Richard

Read more about our post carbon future here at the Post Carbon Institute.

The Story of Our Cosmetics (Video)

Brian Brinks 3 Comments

The Story of Cosmetics, by the Story of Stuff Project, examines the pervasive use of toxic chemicals in our everyday personal care products, from lipstick to baby shampoo. Produced with Free Range Studios and hosted by Annie Leonard, the seven-minute film by The Story of Stuff Project reveals the implications for consumer and worker health and the environment, and outlines ways we can move the industry away from hazardous chemicals and towards safer alternatives. Here’s the video:

I encourage you to read more on this subject because we are quite literally, unwittingly poisoning ourselves with our personal care products. There are alternatives we can choose, here is a website devoted to this subject.

The Story of Our Electronics (Video)

Brian Brinks

I will be writing quite a bit in the near future about our ‘throw-away’ society and the impact this is having on our planet. Today I want to talk about the overwhelming amount of electronic waste we produce. Every single computer, TV, VHS player, DVD player, cell phone, PDA, smart-phone – well, every gadget that has ever been produced, will one day end up in a landfill of some sort. Whether it is in one year, two years, five years or fifteen years the outcome is still the same – the product becomes broken or obsolete and it is tossed. Did you notice how I said ‘fifteen years’ in the last sentence, that was for effect, most devices are lucky to last 5 years. How long do you think you shinny new smart-phone will be in your pocket?

Now I can go on in more detail about the toxic legacy these gadgets carry with them; how they harm the workers who make them, how they emit toxins while you use them and how they pollute our ground, water and air when we are done with them, but here is a short video that explains it best. The Story of Stuff Project has created a series of videos, explaining simply and clearly, where our stuff comes from, where it goes when we are done with it, and the impacts of our stuff on not only us but our environment. Here is one of their latest videos: The Story of Electronics:

Ontario Takes a Step Back and Hangs-Up on Cell Phone Warning Labels

Brian Brinks
Cell phone towers are lurking everywhere

Ontario should have voted through a bill to require warning labels be posted on cell phones to create a better awareness that these devices do pose a health risk. Unfortunately they didn’t. Not that I hate cell phones, I love mine. I was an early adopter as well, buying my first cell phone in the […]

Robert F. Kennedy Jr – Inspirational Defender of the Environment (Video)

Brian Brinks
Robert F. Kennedy Jr

When I first heard Robert F. Kennedy Jr speak at Idea City in 2004 I was immediately inspired. He speaks about topics that are very near and dear to my heart; the environment, health, politics, media and of course how they interconnect. I was very impressed with his sincerity and the way he framed and […]