#205 - Entertaining Myself

Learning More About Environmental Issues Through Other Media

Time for another change here. I'll get back to more giving tips for The Challenge next week. But today I wanted to talk about another change I've been making here. In addition to all the wonderful information I get online, not just from my research but from other bloggers, I've started reading more enviro-books. I've also checked out a DVD or two that I definitely would not have watched a year ago.

Why is this important? Well, it helps me to learn more about these issues that are becoming so near and dear to my heart. Getting information online is great, but it only goes so deep. It tells you the "what to do"s but many times does not delve deep enough into the "how"s and "why"s.

So far, I've read Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma and the follow-up, In Defense of Food. Both excellent reads that will convince you, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you can and should stop relying on industrial food products and search out local, sustainably grown (or raised) food instead.

I've read Affluenza and Consuming Kids. Both good books about the unhealthy addiction we Americans have to our consumer goods. Not any big surprises there, though.

I've also read Deep Economy by Bill McKibben, a book I'll also give a hearty "two thumbs up" recommendation. It finally provides me with the proof to something I've known in my heart all along but have been unable to calculate in numbers: That dealing with local sellers (even if they didn't make the product themselves) is better for our environment. Also, that a "community" is more than just a housing development within which your house sits. And finally, that the old models of economics just do not apply to our fragile world and they need to be replaced with something new.

As for videos, they're a little harder to come by. If I do end up finding them in the library or at Blockbuster, I often get them home and end up without having time to watch them before they're due back. I did get to see Who Killed the Electric Car? the other week, though. It was a little disturbing and a bit hopeful all at the same time. Disturbing to think that the combined strength of industry and politics seems to continually have us by the balls. But hopeful to know that the technology IS here.

I'm a total eco-slacker though, in that I STILL have not watched An Inconvenient Truth. I'm surprised no one has taken my composter away for that one!

So the moral of this change is that you can't rely on one source (even the internet) for all of your information. Take some time to read or watch something that's not online. Odds are you'll gain a much, much deeper understanding of the subject matter than you would just browsing the net.