MUSAC & Restorative Garden Association

So I have joined the MUSAC council at Marylhurst - it stands for Marylhurst University Sustainability Acton Committee..... acronym is much easier to say.

I am looking forward to a very busy last year at MU - adding the council will be fun and enlightening.  I don't know what committee I will be on yet, but will add data when I can. Here's to making ecofriendly changes on campus this year!

Woo Hoo

As to the other RGA -  a fellow student is forming this club and I am going to be a member as well. I don't really have any other info yet - we are working on the mission statement at this time and I am just waiting for the next email...  

Can I be a Vegan?

 I don't really think I have it in me to turn Vegan, then I come across articles like the one below and I wonder about making the change. 


Respecting Animals, Means Going Vegan


This is a graphic FaceBook page of the inhumane cruelty to animals. Don't click on it if you think it may affect you adversely. 


The Sad Story of Meat (FB)


I am not saying that slaughtering animals is new, I just feel we need to take a real critical look at how disconnected we have become with nature. Not only to allow animal cruelty but that there are people out there that perform the actions - and then go home and have dinner. 

Precautionary Principle

According to Wikipedia at this link, it is defined as " if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus that the action or policy is harmful, the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking the action."

Now, for my homework assignment over the next few weeks we are challenged to uncover what "Prominent National group of People" oppose this principle. So I have set out to Googleize the information and have come up with a few possibilities. On the Friends of the Earth website, they look at nanotechnology and how certain organizations are concerned with how the Principle could be applied. 

If any of you out there have information regarding this unknown oppositional group of people please leave a comment on my blog and I will research all the possibilities. When I have the group identified for certain I will post an addendum to this question.   

16 year old builds a "Tiny House"

Great video about living small and building sustainable. Click this to link to the YouTube video

Tell me what you think about this concept. Here are some ideas I came up with.

1. How could it be done using lighter weight materials?
2. What sustainable materials could be substituted for the ones he chose?
3. Is it possible to live like this, full time?

Locavore - what is THAT?

“Locavore” is a commonly used term for a person who attempts to eat local grown food and was the 2007 Oxford dictionary word of the year.

Excerpt from my INT 301 paper on what is local food and why the term "Locavore" makes sense.

In order to define what makes a food source local, agreement on the range the products travel to reach its destination must be decided. The idea of what makes a food “local” is largely debated to be anywhere from 25 miles from home and up to a whole state or region away, such as the North West. Another common belief is that “local” could mean no farther away than a day’s car ride. “One of the more recent surveys (Pirog and Rasmussen, 2008) found that more than two-thirds of US respondents perceived that local food traveled 100 miles or less” (Giovannucci). Logically, it is not likely that a business can purchase all their needed supplies through 100 percent local sources.

Investing in a local food sustainability system is an important part to the building of natural, social, and financial capital. “Capital” is defined as “a stock of anything that has the capacity to generate a flow of benefits which are valued by humans” (Porritt). What makes up “Natural capital” are our resources which are renewable, such as trees and grains; those that are not include fossil fuels, as they are not renewable. ”Natural capital is the basis not only of production but of life iteself” (Porritt). Social capital includes our communities, businesses, networks, and relationships, to name a few.


References:

Coyle, Stephen. "Food Production/Agriculture." Sustainable and Resilient Communities. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. 2011. 270.

Giovannucci, Daniele, Elizabeth Barham and Richard Pirog. "Defining and Marketing ‘‘Local’’ Foods: Geographical Indications for US Products." The Journal of World Intellectual Property 13.2 (2010): 94–120. Business Source Complete. Web. 28 Jan 2012.

Porritt, Jonathon. Capitalism As If The World Matters. London: Earthscan, 2007. Print