We Are Complicit

I am so sad about the environmental destruction devastating the gulf coast as a result of the oil spill from a BP drilling platform. The first photo of an oil-coated bird appeared online yesterday, and I wept in pain, and continued crying when I heard on the radio that the oil was headed towards the marshlands where brown pelican are just now hatching. But the truth is, we are all responsible. It calls to mind an advertisement Greenpeace placed in The New York Times following the Exxon Valdez disaster:

It wasn't the Exxon Valdez captain's driving that caused the Alaskan oil spill. It was yours. ~Greenpeace advertisement, New York Times, 25 February 1990

Make no mistake - BP and other oil companies were not in this alone. (Though it is not surprising that the first entity to mobilize to help BP with the spill was Shell, another oil company.)  It is our dependence on oil, and our short-sighted focus on our own convenience that allows these tragedies to happen. Check out this New York Times editorial for more.

New York Times Opinion Piece
Satellite Images from Thursday, April 27

The Poverty Penalty

Stuart Hart, a professor of Business at Cornell University, has written extensively about the "bottom of the pyramid" (or the largest, but poorest group of citizens around the world.) He discusses how investing in eco-friendly technologies can help reduce the poverty in a recent EnvironMinute podcast.

This theme is also present in the "Design for the Other 90%" exhibit curated by the Cooper-Hewett Design Museum, and now on exhibit at the National Geographic Museum in Washington, DC.

Things Ithaca Needs

• Bead World
• Green
• An Ethiopian Restaurant
• A Middle Eastern Restaurant (that I like)
• A Whole Foods Market
• A Circle K or Quick Trip (for good fountain Diet Cokes)
• Less extreme winters ; )
• A pug meetup

Ithacans: BENEFIT CONCERT FOR HEALTHY FOOD FOR ALL!

Friday, April 30, 2010 a benefit concert will be held at The Giving Tree Cafe, 310 Stewart Ave. Collegetown, to support Cornell Cooperative Extension's Healthy Food For All program. The concert will feature local student musicians- Side Salad of Soul, Z-Gress, Dan Dan Duo, and Casey Martin & the 19th Ward. All donations will support low-income families CSA shares through Early Morning Farm. The event will also highlight and promote Community Supported Agriculture and local CSAs offering summer shares. Please come and enjoy good food and good music while supporting our community on this evening!

For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/

Quotation of the Day

“Nobody talk to me! Nobody HUMAN has anything to say to me today!”
--Doctor Who, The Beast Below

BAD RAP Blog: elephants save stray Houston pit bull

What an awesome story!

BAD RAP Blog: elephants save stray Houston pit bull

Quotation of the Day

"We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect."
~Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac

Pug's Earth Day Message

Honor | Wisdom | Earnestness

Today was the Beta Gamma Sigma induction ceremony. Instead of the usual conference room set up at La Tourelle, Susie organized a brunch at the Taughannock Farms Inn, which has a lovely view of Cayuga Lake. I was tapped to give the explanation for "gamma" or wisdom, and it was fun, even though I felt very ill.