More on Bottled Water
A few weeks ago I blogged about an artist who takes pictures of massive collections of garbage. One of the pictures that stuck with me was a massive number of empty bottles. I was reading the business geek press tonight and ran across an article in Fast Company about plastic water bottles. From the Fast Company article -
"Bottled water has become the indispensable prop in our lives and our culture. ... We--a generation raised on tap water and water fountains--drink a billion bottles of water a week."That is a whole bunch of garbage, oil use (both for making the bottle and for trucking them around) and pollution from an item that no one really needs.
Since Fast Company says that water bottles are a fashion accessory, I thought I would include this picture of a stunning Nalgene bottle from the REI website. For just $8.50, it is possible to have cool water bottle, for life. I liked in the previous thread where a commenter called the bottle "pacifiers." That was right on.
I'm counter the current trends and use the drinking fountain at the gym and a glass at home. At work, I have an English beer stein that a friend bought me long ago (it has been on my desk at work since 1988, I think) and in my wood shop I have a plastic cup from my favorite pizza place. We are blessed with the best water in the world here in the USA, maybe we can help save the world by using it straight from the tap?
Of course, your comments are welcome.
7 Comments:
Not too long ago I was looking at some of the updated statistics on PETA.org / + goveg.com .
If you think it`s wasteful to produce/ sell bottled water (it is), you would be SHOCKED at what the meat industry gets away with:
it`s responsible for consuming 30% of all the petroleum used in the world,
it produces more green house gas emissions than all the cars and all the trucks - in all the world.
Diets heavy in animal proteins are linked to the number 1, 2, and 3 top causes of death in the US (+ don`t forget epidemic obesity)!
Also:
Every pound of edible animal flesh requires 16 pounds of grain, and 2 to 5,000 gallons of water to produce.
75% of the children (age 5 or under) in Guatemala are malnourished, ...instead of feeding them (what would be a surplus of healthy food), Guatemalian farmers feed it to cows/ pigs/ chickens, and they export 40 million pounds of meat to the US each year.
The simplest + most effective thing you can do to help: the environment, animals, your own well being, and 840 million starving people worldwide - is to go vegan/ vegetarian, or eat less meat if you can`t do that.
A 1 Acre farm can produce 165 pounds of beef, or it can produce 20,000 pounds of potatos.
Good point Ryan, thanks for writing in.
Ryan,
Would you happen to have a link to this stat?:
it`s responsible for consuming 30% of all the petroleum used in the world,
That seems a bit high and I'd like to check it out. If it is true, that's an amazing stat. Too bad I love a good steak.
Keep in mind that statistics can be manipulated by any party to make it favor their cause. This is a common practice in politics, religion, ethics, environmental issues, etc.
The way it works usually is that a "cause" goes looking for statistics that will make them look "right". There are a million studies out there. So there is bound to be the "right" stats to fit the cause. They reject any studies that go against them.
On a personal level, I tried to be a vegan. I actually got a Phd in Holistic Nutrition to guarantee I did it right. I wasnt playing around. Nobody was eating healthier than I was. I took supplements...just in case too. And after 6 months, I felt like a tractor had run over me. My hair fell out. My skin was dull. I had no drive and other complaints. Within 2 weeks of eating meat again, I felt like a million bucks. I still mostly eat vegetarian because I like veggies. But I have to have some meat....
I know so many vegans and vegetarians that look dreadful. Men who are skin and bones. Women who no longer menstruate. When I was using my Phd in private practice, I found that very few people can actually tolerate a vegan diet. More can do vegetarian, but still a lot suffer because of it.
What does this have to do with art anyway???
> What does this have to do with art anyway???
I think that art is a reflexion of the world we live in. As we see the trends emerge, it drives certain segments of artists to reflect it. Personally, I feel that we are out of balance in the US and it is interesting to talk about what is out of balance and ways to identify the specifics.
This has nothing to do with building furniture and has nothing to do with painting still life bowls of fruit, but for some artists there is a social change happening that will drive their work in new directions. For me, I just like to tie art, with business information and see how it interacts in my thoughts. I like to talk about this here, because I'm interested in what people will write in the comments.
I'm learning new things, so this is a good thread IMHO.
Sorry, I looked for the past 10 minutes - All I found was 30% of all the petroleum produced in the US. http://goveg.com/environment-wastedResources-energy.asp
That`s a lot less impressive than what I wrote before (used in the world).
I beg your pardon. It might be there somewhere, but I don`t have the time to look at present, and, it may well be a case of me mixing up the bits of data.
In a groundbreaking 2006 report, the United Nations (U.N.) said that raising animals for food generates more greenhouse gases than all the cars and trucks in the world combined. Senior U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization official Henning Steinfeld reported that the meat industry is “one of the most significant contributors to today’s most serious environmental problems.”
These sites cite their sources:t peta.org, goveg.com, + macveg.com -I`ve been trying to translate - explain to Japanese school kids (some reasons) why some people won`t eat meat.
A lady who had lived in the same little village with me, was in the US for a few years; She went vegetarian, + said she has a hard time going out with anyone in Japan
- they think she`s "uncooperative" because she won`t eat what everyone else eats.
There`s another lady in the town I`m in now who keeps it a secret. It`s okay for me to be different, but I`m clearly not Japanese.
She told me that one of the blood types: A, B, AB, O (I dunno which) - has a hard time getting by without meat.
I have seen a lot of gaunt - unattractive vegetarians in my time, but for myself, and nearly all the people I know who`ve switched - we`ve never felt better.
What this has to do with art:
My art is the spirit of nature kind of thing. Water in bottles (occasionally dirtier than tap water), off-road vehicles that never ever go off road, and factory farming are that opposite side of the spectrum.
(......also, people will find a way to squeeze what they want to talk about into conversations that were only remotely related.)
People are saying "these comments were manipulated" when most are from the United nations and the U.S.D.A. GO TO GOVEG.COM They have EVERYTHING sited!
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