be a hunter gatherer... only way to save the Earth?

^{is separation from nature,” she says. “We don’t see that we are connected to the natural world.” With more people living in cities than in rural areas for the first time in human history, the delusion of separation is likely to worsen. A recent scientific study found that more children knew the characters of the video game Pokemon than could recognise an oak tree or an otter, according to the Ecological Society of America, a Washington DC-based organisation of 10,000 ecological scientists. Visits to national and state parks in the United States have declined by as much as 25 percent in the last decade, while kids remain indoors watching TV and playing computer games. And yet there is ample evidence that children who connect with nature perform better in school, have higher academic testing scores, exhibit fewer behavioural challenges, and experience fewer attention-deficit disorders, the ESA said in a recent statement.}

from OneWorld.net’s article, Happiness is a small eco-footprint.

is this Sunday. Worldchanging has several thoughtful articles on the subject for anyone interested.

i’m planning to sit down with my big worldchanging book and hopefully get some ideas on the best ways to build a green home in rural alaska. all suggestions welcome.

versus us.

Slate has a green challenge going on. and you could win a t-shirt! (woohoo!)

but more pertinent to the issue at hand, this week’s focus is food:

^{It takes 17 percent of the fossil fuel consumed in the United States to produce the food we eat. The result is three-quarters of a ton of carbon dioxide emissions per person, according to researchers at the University of Chicago. And that doesn’t account for the fuel it takes to get the products to market. Food travels an average 1,500 miles before it’s bought and eaten. Even carbon-friendly organic food comes with an emissions price tag—the CO2 given off by processing, packaging, and transportation. As organic food becomes mass-produced, there’s increasing debate about whether the movement is losing its soul and its ethic of sustainability. Whatever the upside of big organic, there’s no question that eating locally grown foods and shopping at your farmers’ market help reduce CO2 emissions by cutting down on transport.}

solutions? they’ve got ‘em. here’s an overview:

-Change agricultural practices (go no-till, organic)
-Buy locally grown food
-Buy organic food
-Avoid processed foods
-Cut back on meat
-Buy food that comes with minimal packaging
-Plant your own garden
-Read The Omnivore’s Dilemma
-Hunt
-Gather

^{The world’s fish and seafood populations will collapse by 2048 if current trends in habitat destruction and overfishing continue, resulting in less food for humans, researchers said on Thursday. In an analysis of scientific data going back to the 1960s and historical records over a thousand years, the researchers found that marine biodiversity - the variety of ocean fish, shellfish, birds, plants and micro-organisms - has declined dramatically, with 29 percent of species already in collapse.}

^{The decline in marine biodiversity is largely due to over-fishing and destruction of habitat [...] This loss of biodiversity makes ocean ecosystems less able to recover from the effects of global climate change, pollution and over-exploitation.}

source.

i think i need to make a biodiversity goal next.

from the October 12 article, “200,000 years for all trace of Man to vanish from the Earth”, in The Times Online.

additionally, there’s this article from ScienceDaily about a new Press/Pulse theory of mass extinction which has this to say:

^{“We came up with the idea that humans themselves act as both Press and a Pulse,” said West. “Humans began manipulating the environment – the Press – from the advent of agriculture. However, that alone did not trigger the current mass extinction. That seems to have been triggered by the pulse of industrialization and the demands for energy and resources that came with it.”}

^{That’s great, it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes, an aeroplane…}

By Noreen Parks
ScienceNOW Daily News
26 October 2006

The number of oxygen-starved “dead zones” in global marine waters has jumped by more than a third in the last 2 years, according to a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report released last week. The latest figures reveal some 200 dead zones worldwide, up from 149 since 2004. The affected waters are robbed of fish, oysters, sea grasses, and other marine life, damaging food supplies for millions of people worldwide, the report warns.

read the full article at ScienceNOW

• The weather channel has launched a broadband chanel called One Degree which aims to “create a national dialogue around and humanizing the impact of climate change”. One degree refers to the “one degree of warming that has occurred in the last century and the fact that what seems small – just one degree – can make a big difference in the climate and in people’s lives.”

• The world hit it’s annual sustainable resource overshoot on Monday, past which we live beyond our collective environmental means for the rest of the year.

• And then on Tuesday this week, the US hit it’s 300 million population mark. There’s an interesting comparasion at the end of this article looking at the difference in consumption and waste between the US and the rest of the World.