Archive for the ‘Reviews of Other Websites’ Category

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A friend recently sent me the link to Paul Chefurka’s thoughtful website called Approaching the Limits to Growth. He writes long articles and I was pleased to see the small print at the bottom which said,

“This article may be reproduced in whole or in part , in any manner and for any purpose whatsoever, with no restrictions..”

So I tried to copy one article completely, but I wasn’t able to cut and paste the illustrations. Still, here is the start to his thoughts about consumption, overpopulation, and the planet. There’s a link at the end of the excerpt right to his page.

A fairly common belief among western environmental activists is that “overpopulation is causing our ecological overshoot”. It’s a simple idea to present, as it just requires people to accept that more people cause more environmental damage.

Unfortunately this simple idea has a number of problems.  The main one is the old conundrum of who bears the responsibility for bringing the situation back into balance.  Should rich countries whose population growth is already slowing cut their consumption, or should poor countries that are not overconsuming cut their populations?

I used to believe that population was “the” ecological problem of the world.  I’ve recently changed my mind, as the result of a variety of investigations into the Ecological Footprint. Read the rest of this entry »

At this year’s annual Feria del Arte by Lake Chapala, Mexico (near where we are living at present), I was at a booth featuring Huichol art. I started chatting in Spanish with some of the Huichol people there. One woman answered me in English that I immediately recognized had to be her native tongue, and it was.

Susana Valadez is an anthropologist who went to the Huichol region to do fieldwork. She ended up falling in love with one of the Huichol men she met. They married in 1978 and have three children.

As Susana discovered over time, the traditional ways were being encroached on. A fiesty, energetic, deeply caring woman, Susana founded the Huichol Center — that link takes you to its website. It is devoted to cultural preservation in many ways, but Susana also explores integrating non-traditional culture into the Huichol life as appropriate. For example, she has introduced the making of soymilk as an eco-friendly source of badly needed protein.

On her website is really well-made program about the Center. It runs about 12 minutes. You will enjoy it the most if you press play, then pause and wait two minutes. This will allow the video to load and be played without any breaks or buffering. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve recently been emailing with a fellow named Jacob who is one of the founders of GreenAnswers.com. Here is what he told me about the site:

GreenAnswers.com is a new social question and answer site dedicated to environmental issues.

The impetus for GreenAnswers was the realization that a lack of widespread knowledge about environmental issues is one of the greatest hurdles to positive action.

We created GreenAnswers to provide a forum where people could debate and discuss these important issues, thereby helping to educate and inform the public about the environment. Since we are a user-generated site, the quality of the answers depends on getting smart and passionate people to participate.

So I’ve been exploring the site. It was easy to register, and I do always like it when I can put up a link to this site. I saw a number of questions that I could answer, and did answer one.

Questions at GreenAnswers.com

The homepage automatically shows the questions most recently asked. Here were the first ones when I was there: Read the rest of this entry »

Recently I found myself at Zen Habits because I had come across a link to an excellent article on the site,  Simple Living  Manifesto: 72 Ideas to Simplify Your Life. It’s a guide to getting rid of what is less important to you in your life, so you can concentrate on what you really care about. That could be anything… the article is full of suggestions like decluttering, simplifying work and home tasks, eliminating the clothes you don’t wear, and so on. There are actually 72 ideas on the list, and many of them have links to other articles of his and other websites around the web.

So I lost myself in all that for a while.  I always love reading simple living tips from other people… I get more ideas that way. Think I will finally give away some of the cotton-polyester clothing in my closet that I wear about once a year, since I really prefer natural fibers.

Back to Zen Habits… There is so much there, that I was delighted to find Start Here on Leo Babauta’sminimalist Zen- style menu… that link takes you to the Beginner’s Guide to Zen Habits – A Guided Tour.  Here is part of it:

The All-Time Most Popular Posts on Zen Habits Read the rest of this entry »

“Because life’s too good to throw away” is the tagline for www.makeitandmendit.com and I’ve just been having fun meandering around the site.  Their main categories are

• Food
• Garden
• Interiors
• DIY
• Household
• Fashion

and they also have tabs for stories, events, resources, and a forum.

You can sign up to be a member and if you do, you get a useful free ebook on how to remove stains from everything. (Wish I’d had that quite a few times in my life!)

The site is run by four energetic women. How do I know that, since I haven’t met them? Well one them, Clare Flynn, is described this way:  Read the rest of this entry »

Wiser Earth, located at http://www.wiserearth.org/, is a fascinating community website.

First, what is it? It tells you on the homepage that it’s an online community space connecting people, nonprofits and businesses working toward a just and sustainable world.

They explain on the FAQ page that the goal is to encourage collaboration, provide people with the tools and resources they need, and thus also help reduce duplication of efforts, with the overall purpose of increasing the effectiveness of people working for sustainability and justice.

This made me think of a quote that I saw recently: Read the rest of this entry »