Archive for September, 2008
So how did we get here?
2008: the year the U.S. (global?) financial system collapsed. How on earth did we get here?
This simple slide show explains it nicely. This has been circulating the interwebs for awhile (hat tip to TWG for sharing it with me) but it’s still brutally funny. Funny but true.
You will probably have to view in full screen mode to read it. Or click through and download as a PDF. Enjoy!
Filed under economics : Comments (4) : Sep 24th, 2008
Earth Overshot Day
Today marks the day in the year when the human race has collectively used one year’s worth of natural resources. To put it another way, we are on a path to use 125% more resources than the earth can generate in 2008.
You don’t need a science degree to understand that this is not sustainable.
I’ve noticed a strange trend in the public dialogue (particularly in the U.S.) about sustainability. Most people take the fact that living sustainably is difficult in our society and use that to discredit the very premise that sustainability is important or a legitimate concern.
In short, we’ve all got our heads in the sand and we’re proud of it!
Take, for example, gasoline prices. Burning gasonline is a highly unsustainable activity. Not only are we running out of oil, but the contribution to CO2 levels in the atmosphere is accelerating global climate change. In other words, we should probably find a way to burn less gas. In spite of this, politicians are scheming for ways to drive down prices and thereby encourage burning more gas. Huh?
It’s never going to be easy to convert our high-energy lifestyle to a low-energy mode. It’s never going to be cheap. But we had better start now while we still have a little bit of capital left to spend! (Oh wait, I think we just lost that this week as well.)
Filed under climate change, environment : Comments (2) : Sep 23rd, 2008
J.Crew hired a sloppy web firm
I was shopping the J.Crew website today (don’t worry, sale department only) when I noticed something strange. A number of the product images had a ‘yawah.com’ watermark.
Screenshot from jcrew.com, Sept 22 2008
I thought this was a little strange, so I did some research. Yawah is a software company that does dynamic image resizing–great for customers like J.Crew.
Evidently, the web firm hired for jcrew.com got a little sloppy and either used an unlicensed copy or forgot to turn off the watermark feature. Either way, I’m giving them a big wag of the finger for releasing sloppy code into production.
Shame shame.
Filed under technology : Comments (0) : Sep 22nd, 2008
Milwaukee : 12th Most Sustainable City
Milwaukee, Wisconsin. My home for the last 2.5 years. And the U.S.’s 12th most sustainable city?
SustainLane is a new website that uses contributions submitted by citizens around the country to rank cities on 16 attributes of sustainability. By these measures, Milwaukee ranks #12. This is an improvement from #16 two years ago.
Given the empahsis on sustainability in the city and at the state level, I would expect this ranking to improve year over year. We might not catch Portland, but I bet we could make the top 10 in the next decade.
For reference, here are the current rankings for 2008:
- Portland, OR
- San Francisco, CA
- Seattle, WA
- Chicago, IL
- New York, NY
- Boston, MA
- Minneapolis, MN
- Philadelphia, PA
- Oakland, CA
- Baltimore, MD
On Milwaukee!
Filed under Milwaukee, climate change, environment : Comments (2) : Sep 22nd, 2008
So long and thanks for all the fish!
I would like to thank Tad for his hospitality, but I figure it’s time to get my own place. So I’m off to crank on my own blog engine. You can find me at Accidental Incidents over at Blogger. Thanks!
Filed under Uncategorized : Comments (0) : Sep 22nd, 2008
