! Actual Ethical Consumerism's topics - tribe.net

Are you ready to overspend for Christmas?

2008-03-04T14:39:36Z

Hello all, we stopped doing christmas several years ago when I realized that I was buying decorative scotch tape! It took us a few years to totally ween the kids, but after we started erecting and decorating the annual christmas ladder we never looked back. Every year it gets a little more difficult to stay outside of the pressure, but we do it.

We have an event the first weekend in Dec here in NYC and we are looking for folks with similar views and stories about alternatives to the spending frenzy known as christmas, folks with new traditions that are not commercialized, scary stories about sitting on Santa's lap, etc. We would love to hear from you.

Peace.

posted in ! Actual Ethical Consumerism - 5 replies

"Too Much Stuff"

2008-02-16T16:45:50Z

Please join my new tribe, "Too Much Stuff" about our relationships to material possessions, how we think about them, how we justify them, The pros and cons of hoarding vs. getting rid of them, etc., anything relating to our "stuff". Here is the URL:

tribes.tribe.net/asceticsandpackrats

Thanks!
Margi
Moderator of "Too Much Stuff" tribe

posted in ! Actual Ethical Consumerism - 0 replies

Simple living and Affluenza.org

2007-11-01T15:02:06Z

I also want to make sure we have a thread started for discussion of these very important concepts.

Affluenza.org and the related books and TV shows, available to borrow from most good libraries, is a great roadmap for anyone interested in or curious about simpler living, ethical consumerism, reduced environmental impact or just saving money and having more time to be with friends and family, or time to make/meet them.

I highly recomend that everyone check them out.

posted in ! Actual Ethical Consumerism - 4 replies

Buy locally

2007-08-20T14:18:11Z

By the way, since this is a thread that tends to stick around, the current discussion of this is in the thread started by Diane:

http://tribes.tribe.net/realethics/thread/0de5c766-d258-45c8-b893-33271008f0f0

posted in ! Actual Ethical Consumerism - 7 replies

local producer has delema

2007-08-14T16:06:55Z

I'm going to post this in a couple tribes to try to get as many points of view as I can. I run a CSA in central Alberta. Mine is not certified organic, for two reasons. One, my members trust that I will discuss with them anything that matters to their health. I send a newsletter everyweek and inform on pretty much every issue there is. And two, the size of our property disallows me to grow feed for my animals, so I get it off-farm. I can't afford organic feed to be brought in, so they get what's available at the local feed store. Consequently, the animal byproduct (manure/fertilizer) I use on my fields are not organic. That I can use on-farm fertilizer at this point is more important than becoming certified. I grow according to standard as it is.

Now, the delema:
One of my members has a condition (sorry, don't know the name of it) that we'll call extreme sensitivity. She can't be near people with deoderant, shampoos, perfumes. She can't enter homes with new anything. I thought tile would be OK but the glues effect her. The garden was OK 'til I told her I use rotenone, then it was off-bounds. Rotenone is an organically 'restricted' treatment, which means that it can be used under strict guidlines, which I follow. Knowing this, she joined and asked if I could let her know when the chemical has touched her food, that she'd test it to see if the required amount of time between dusting with it, and her receiving the vegetables was enough. It wasn't. Last week, she asked that her bin not be filled. This week, we've tried putting everything in except the treated vegetables; cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower.

My problem is that I want to be able to satisfy all (a pipe dream, I know), and that these crops are extremely work intensive, some years we don't even get any. I haven't done a cost analysis, but I'd bet that these veggies would be at the top of the list of most costly. I've done a poll, and am awaiting answers from the rest of my 26 families to see how important the non-chemical thing is to them vs the importance of having those crops on their table. I'd be interested to hear what y'all think. Is it worth the space, time, effort to grow them without the chemical, only to have cabbage moths distroy them? Would the education be worth it? Broccoli and Cabbage would be the 1st and second choice of most, does it seem wise to grow these simply for the joy of getting some every couple years?

posted in ! Actual Ethical Consumerism - 1 reply

The Tribe ! Actual Ethical Consumerism has been posted at

2007-05-29T23:43:58Z

The Tribe of unknown web sites

Do you know a great web site that gets little or no traffic? Post it at

http://tribes.tribe.net/unknownsites

posted in ! Actual Ethical Consumerism - 0 replies

We live very close together. So, our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them. – 14th Dalai Lama

2007-05-09T03:42:11Z

I believe that the key to turning around many of the wrongs in the world is to spend money only where you know it is doing good, or at least “doing no harm.” The best way to do that, IMO, is to buy from folks you know, or at least have contact with…. IOW, buy locally.

There are other benefits. Did you know that if you eat locally “grown” honey, you are less likely to suffer pollen-type allergies? http://www.naturalfamilyonline.com/2-h&w/54-honey-help-allergies.htm If you are a meat-eater, the same goes for (organic) meat, because they are eating from local fields.

Did you know that in the U.S., the average item of food has traveled something like 1,500 to 2,500 miles to reach your table (Worldwatch Paper #163: Home Grown: The Case For Local Food In A Global Market at http://www.worldwatch.org/pubs/paper/163/ ). Long-distance shipping relies on vast quantities of non-renewable fossil fuels, which pollutes the environment and accelerates global warming. Food often travels for days or weeks, leaving it with less flavor and nutritional value.

There are challenges to this, of course. How to I buy food locally in the winter (here in the Northeast US)? There’s a great story, produced by public radio types, at this website:
http://www.prx.org/pieces/9091 and here is a quick excerpt:
“McKIBBEN: The apples in my market annoy me. They're from China and New Zealand and Washington state, and I live in Vermont's Champlain Valley, one of the world's great apple-growing regions. So, what an annoying waste of energy to fly these Red Delicious in from halfway around the planet. And what a waste of taste? These things have been bred for just one purpose-- endurance. Mostly, though, they're annoying because they don't come with connections, with stories. They've been grown on ten thousand-acre plantations with the latest industrial methods and the highest possible efficiency. They're cheap, I give you that. But they're so dull…. Our food system operates on the principle that it's always summer somewhere, so it's forgotten how to get through winter. How many houses have a root cellar? Not mine. If I was going to make it, I would need to make connections with my neighbors….” (You’ll have to click the link and listen to the story for the rest… sorry!

So, how can you find local food to buy? Here are some links to help. To find farms, farmers markets, food co-ops, etc. in your area, see one of the following websites:
Foodroutes - http://www.foodroutes.org/
Local Harvest - http://www.localharvest.org/
Eat Well Guide - http://www.eatwellguide.org/index.cfm

Namaste.

posted in ! Actual Ethical Consumerism - 1 reply

The ethics of bottled water

2007-05-08T04:53:27Z

I'd like to continue a previous discussion I had in other tribes and continue with it.

To recap: (appologies to anyone left out as I try to edit for brevity)

Flaneuse originally posted this in another thread:

*Did you know...*
... bottled water contributes to global warming? [1]
... bottled water is less safe than our tap water? [2]
... drinking bottled water undermines confidence in public tap water?

Join us as we break the bottled water habit.
*Click here to sign theNo Bottled Water Pledge

I pledge to:

- End my daily use of bottled water

- Fill a reusable bottle with tap water to quench my thirst without hurting the environment

- Support programs to ensure all Americans have access to clean, affordable, public tap water

www.democracyinaction.org/dia/o...on.jsp

Thanks for signing up, and Happy Earth Day!

Wenonah Hauter
Executive Director, Food & Water Watch

P.S. Upscale restaurants like the famous Chez Pannise are making the switch
to tap water3--you can too! Can you forward this email to 10 friends and
invite them to break the habit with you?

[1] It takes more than 47 million gallons of oil to produce plastic water
bottles for Americans every year. Eliminating those bottles would be like
taking 100,000 cars off the road and 1 billion pounds of carbon dioxide out
of the atmosphere. "The Real Cost of Bottled Water" San Francisco
Chronicle,* February 18, 2007
www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi
<www.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp
*

[2] The Environmental Protection Agency requires rigorous testing of tap water to ensure quality. Both regulation and enforcement of bottled water safety is weaker than that of tap water safety. *Olson, Erik D. et al. "Bottled Water: Pure Drink or Pure Hype?"
Natural Resources Defense Council

[3] "Upscale Restaurants Shun Bottled Water" ABC News, March 29, 2007
abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory

Diane replied:

Can you imagine if all themoney spent on bottled water was actually funneled into projects to protect our water sources and reclaimation projects? The bottled water industry has proven that people are willing to pay to maintain water quality, we just need to figure out how to get that money where it is actually needed, in public, not private endeavors.

I replied:

Its very simple, tax bottled water with an excise tax specificly used for water projects. It will also make the local tap water and systems more cost competitive. Put in on a five year basis and renew it if needed.

We already pay for tap water in most places anyway, so that is already effectively being taxed, and quite high in some places.

Molly added:

I like to point out #2 to people who are addicted to bottled water. There is much more regulation concerning tap water than what getts bottled. Seems funny to me since people think bottled is so much better. Most places in America have fairly clean water. If you are worried about too much chlorine, you can leave your water sitting in the sun and the chlorine evaporates off it.

I also added:

Actually that is a good point Molly, althogh chlorine combines with organic compounds that are safe, turning them into toxins. It doesn't need to be in the sun though.

What works best and is cheap and low tech is what they recomend for fish tanks, put it in a jug (I use milk jugs) let it sit for at least 24 hours, then filter it.

For the cost ofthree or four of the large water bottles you can buy a filter and filter water for a year.

By the way, you can backflush a filter cartridge like they use in the pitcher style filters or the faucet ones that are replacable and it will last a lot longer than they recomend.

and there were some good points added by Maggie but I am not sure exactly where to put them in this summary so she can add them in a repost or another thread about ground water and how that is being destroyed by inadequate regulations and enforcement.

posted in ! Actual Ethical Consumerism - 2 replies