Greener Me

Beautiful and useful ideas for “greening” your office… come on, you know you want to do it, it is sooo “it” right now. But putting aside the green trend that seems to be everywhere lately, some of this stuff is indeed awesome and helpful. Though you really need to remember: reduce, reuse and recycle before ever thinking of buying something new…

(Source: Mashable)

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Read!

We, in the Western world, like to demand environmental protection from the rest out there, while siting behind computers, with our air-conditioner on and out fridges full with food. While people are literally killing each other. And to be honest, if I believed any of that would actually lift Brazil’s poorest from their state, I wouldn’t be so stricken by the thought of all those trees being destroyed. But as with everywhere, the poorest will only get a tiny part of the profit, just so they keep coming back to work. People’s greed is killing people. I read somewhere that poachers get something of the amount of $50 for an elephant tusk, while it is re-sold for tens of thousands later on. It’s a mad world that I really don’t understand for the most part any more :(

A new photovoltaic park has opened in Les Mées, in the southern department of Alpes-de-Haute-Provence. Spread across 36 acres, the park, built by Belgian firm Enfinity, joins several other plants built on the vast Puimichel plateau. By the end of 2011, solar panels will cover 200 hectares and produce around 100MW, making it the biggest solar array in France. Enfinity’s €70m investment has included work to preserve the landscape with space for grazing and a system without a concrete foundation

And here I have the retard government of my beautiful country that wants to build a NUCLEAR plant that will produce 2000 MW at the rough cost of 6-7 billion euro and that is just the initial price… not what the end cost will be… /angry angry angry

I was thinking of making some splendid firework post of my 100th entry at this blog. Instead I will keep it super short:

It pisses me to no end when I see posts and re-posts of “Coca Cola Green Policy” and the likes. Get this straight into your pretty little heads, my darlings, coca cola is a freaken poison in a bottle, it’s the very essence of a unnecessary, unhealthy, wasteful product that is green-washing its costumers with fancy words and flashy ads when the bottom line is it’s crap in a bottle and there is no way to green its production, distribution or consumption based on its very nature which is damaging your health-brainwashing shit that makes you fat, eat more and get sick.

There are a gazillion links on the subject, please educate yourselves. And stop being naive about such clear and obvious things.

It’s good to remember capitalism is simply an economical theory. It might have been raised into a dogma and a way of life for the whole world, but this doesn’t mean it will stand the test of time. Though its end will come as a shocker to most people and it won’t be fun for anyone I’m afraid….

(Source: greener-me)

I’ve stopped buying bottled water at all.

I’ve got my beautiful bottle for 6 euro (and that’s an expensive one!)

and I never go out of the house without it.

Also:

Reusable bottles and cups

Bottled water produces 1.5 million tons of plastic waste per year, and these bottles require 47 millions gallons of oil to produce, according to Food and Water Watch. By simply refilling a reusable bottle, you’ll prevent some of these plastic bottles from ending up in landfills and oceans — but don’t stop there. Bring a reusable cup to coffee shops and ask the barista to fill it up, and keep a mug at your desk instead of using plastic, paper or Styrofoam cups. The average American office worker uses about 500 disposable cups a year so you’ll be preventing a lot of unnecessary waste.

I live in an apartment.

Any advice you have for me regarding composting?

It’s pretty clear for me when it’s about a yard compost system, but apartments are a gray area for me.

Please send a message if you have any advices! Thanks in advance!

I’ve been meaning to write something in the lines of health, lifestyle and sustainability for a while now and this morning, hopping from link to link, I read some stuff that just needs sharing.

First off, I have to say - I am not sick, that I know of. I feel amazing, I have energy, I’ve been enjoying great health for a long time now, my hair is shiny and my nails are not fragile and I can do 5 pull-ups (one at a time) and 12 push-ups in a row. So yes, I feel awesome. It’s not easy being awesome though :D

I’ve been eating low-carb high-fat for a long time now. Sidetracking from time to time but mainly I am sticking to the guidelines. I firmly believe that our lifestyles are making us sick and that governments, being the multinational-corporative bitches they are, have no interest in telling the general public how to be health. Next to arms, medicine is probably the most lucrative industry in the world. And how else would it be - you spend the first 40 years of your life getting sick and the next 40 years using their drugs to feel better.

We live in high-stress, little-rest, low-movement, fast-food society. It’s noisy, polluted, and sick. We exercise so little, eat so much and blame it all on genetics. So comfortable to place blame elsewhere than ourselves. And so leading to being sick. You look in the mirror and you see the only one responsible for your problems. Harsh - may be, true - undoubtedly. We live in the age and information and dis-information. It is indeed hard to say what is real and what is faked, which research one should trust and which not. But being fat, sick, and without energy eating and living the way you do - doesn’t that ring a fucken bell somewhere in your head?

-end of part 1-

Hypocrisy of champagne environmentalists is deceitful and distracting

This for me sums up everything. Being green means consuming LESS… much less. Point blank. Everything else is marketing for the masses.

Revolution in the making or dust in the eyes of believers…

Time will tell I guess, but man, oh, man, am I excited!

“They include: the right to life and to exist; the right to continue vital cycles and processes free from human alteration; the right to pure water and clean air; the right to balance; the right not to be polluted; and the right to not have cellular structure modified or genetically altered.”

When I look back through the years, as long as I can remember, I am discovering I’ve been an unconscious minimalist for a very very long time. At least when it comes to the physical aspect :D Emotionally I still have a long way to go :D

Whatever and however you want to spin being green, it’s about consuming less. It’s not about buying the latest green gadget or car, or clothes, or whatever… It is about dealing without them and without their non-green equivalents. For example - in my country people drive cars. Like a lot. The bigger, the noisier, the better… Some complex left from communism times I guess. I’ve never ever understood it. Sofia - our capital and where I live, is hell to drive in. I would rather walk and use public transport. In the last 10 years there have been very few times when I regret not having a car.

Clothes and shoes - I’ve never been a fan of having lots of them… I’ve noticed I tend to wear mostly a few, which I feel most comfortable and cozy in. I also do a clean up of my wardrobe once or twice per year and always manage to get rid of a lot of clothes - I go by the rule that if I wore it two times that year, I can live without it - my mom makes sure the clothes get to people that need them. Excluding here of course evening dresses, and a few more official clothes that I need for when I have to look presentable :D

Books - that has been my passion for so many years. I’ve been a vigorous collector. And that’s gone now, that I have my kindle. It’s absolutely perfect to read from, the battery lasts forever, I can underline passages and quotes directly in it, and I have access to every single book I will ever want to read. You can’t imagine the freedom I feel since I got it.

Bottom line is I am a conscious minimalist now. I enjoy it. I have a loooong way to go of course, cause this is a never ending journey, but I love the freedom of it, and the knowledge I am leaving ever smaller ecological footprint. Be the change you want to see in the world - I see this more often now, quoted by different people. I somehow managed without effort. Because, when you think of it, what do you really need to be happy and feel good?

So, I can’t wait to read it. Hope to start tonight.

I sneak peeked the food production section and saw something that bothered me though - the staggering amount of calories per person… more than 2800. As someone that has been more or less interested in nutrition all my life, I have to say - wow! People don’t need that much calories… no wonder more and more people are getting fatter each day. The average woman in the developed world, with her sedentary job, car, and too-busy-to-workout life needs no more than 1600 calories per day. I train twice per week with heavy weights and walk every day to work and don’t eat much more than that… Stuff like that seriously bug me, especially when I read it in a report of the UNEP…

Since the beginning of Feb I’ve pledged to not use bottled water any more - including buying it when I am out of the house, or in a restaurant. It’s been a bit hard mostly because Bulgarian restaurants don’t serve tap water but insist you buy a little bottle - or a big one, but still, the water is bottled.

So, since then I’ve bought perhaps 10 bottles altogether. Not the zero I was aiming for but it is an improvement from 2-3 per evening when I go out. I hope this month will be even better.