There are voices in the chorus of the world that are stilled or silent from lack of opportunity, lack of education, lack of fair treatment, lack of employment; who struggle to find food and clothing and shelter rather than raising their voices in joy and harmony. You can hear the emptiness if you listen; you can help lift those voices if you take the moment to move outside yourself to think of, and act on behalf of others.
Even a small step can make a difference, especially if many participate and try to make a difference.
Houses are built to last, at least most are, for a few years.
But what happens when someone decides that a home should be replaced, and the property it’s upon should be used for another building? Usually, homes in that situation are demolished, and pieces of the building finds their way to a landfill. Much of that material is reusable, at least until it is torn apart by a bulldozer.
A New York Times article, This Old Recyclable House, explores the topic of deconstruction of homes, where the materials that make up a house are salvaged so that they can be reused.
Some stories on the environment that caught my attention today.
Smarter Housing Development with Eco-Towns
Shelter England, a housing and homeless charity, is one of the leaders of a coalition of organizations in the creation of a number of eco-towns spread around England. These eco-towns aim at affordable housing with a zero carbon impact as a whole. I hope that this is an idea that will spread to other places.
Where has the Sea Life Gone?
A video comparing the ocean life seen on two trips across the Pacific, from California to Hawaii, titled Empty Oceans.
Blog Action Day 2008 is a grass roots effort where bloggers and people who create podcasts and videocasts can help spread awareness and start a conversion on a global scale.
The date for blog action day is October 15th, and the focus is on Poverty. If you have a blog or podcast or videocast, sign up and help spread awareness by sharing your views on poverty, and helping to start a global discussion.
A new approach at Political Diamonds - I’m going to try to write some posts that share news and articles that I find interesting.
Inalienable Rights for Endangered Animals
Ecuadorians are considering a new constitution that would protect the habitats of endangered animals such as jaguars, spectacled bears, brown-headed spider monkeys, and plate-billed mountain toucans. How well will the government of Ecuador manage these new rights?
Growing up, I’m not sure that I knew what a good thing I had going. My mom and pop always had big gardens in the back yard, and we had more fresh fruits and vegetables than we could handle, of many different varieties. We had our own little orchard in the back yard too, with apples, pears, apricots, and cherries.
My parents would get up early in the morning, before the working day began, and spend time together in the backyard planting and weeding and nurturing. Many days throughout the year, they would come inside from the garden with a harvest in their arms, and mom would can a lot of stuff that we didn’t eat fresh, so that we could have the fruits of their efforts in the winter months.
Schools are one of the keystones to a more environmentally friendly world. Maybe we can learn as much as the children of the world by the greening of our schools, and by an environment concern for material in their classrooms.
The article focuses upon two different kinds of reforms happening in Connecticut schools.
The first involves the schools themselves becoming more environmentally friendly and energy efficient. The second kind of reform aims at raising awareness of environmental concerns in students who attend those schools.
Fighting the Sahara Desert with a wall of trees has been on the minds of people in North African nations since at least 2005. A Greenbelt would help stem the growth of the desert, and the first phase of the project would involved the creation of a strip of trees 7,000 kilometers long and 5 kilometers wide.
Maitre Abdoulaye Wade, President of the Republic of Senegal, recently described how alongside the wall would be built water capture basiss, to collect rain water during the rainy season, and enable farmers in rural areas to grow food all year long.
The congested streets of New York City might see a little relief this summer as plans move forward to close miles of City streets to cars on three Saturdays during the month of August.
The car-free lanes will extend 6.9-miles through Manhattan from the Brooklyn Bridge towards Park Avenue and the Upper East Side. Will removing traffic from busy thoroughfares help people think about city life in a different way? Maybe.
Copenhagen started something similar around 40 years ago (1962) by turning its main street to pedestrian use only, and has continued to develop to a more pedestrian friendly urban area since, adding more pedestrian-only streets, reducing parking spaces, and turning parking lots into parks..
