Last fall, when the school year was full of hope and promise and yet to be realized moments of discovery, activity, and friendship, I made a list.
It was a list of ideas for this column. Actually I made several lists over the first couple of months, pulling them up to mine them for a story every now and then. I did it again recently, only to realize that there was no more time to share the rest of the ideas on the lists.
A few pieces were by request: recycled content school supplies and green cleaning, for example. Others were from issues that caught my eye, have been pulling on my conscience, or had landed in front of me.
I hope sharing them with you, Preface reader, has helped you think on some things.
Actually, I hope that these ideas have spurred you to take action in your own life to make a change, learn more, do more. Ideas can be great food for thought, but even better fuel for the fire that moves people to change the world.
Learning new information and accepting new ideas into your life can be difficult and lead to struggle with habit and with convention.
Some advice, via Frances Willard: try not to waste your life in friction when it could be turned into momentum.
Hopefully the summer will allow for time to delve deeper into new ideas, into new concepts of how the self operates in the world. There are a few last green things that might help with this that never found priority seating in this column. It’s not that they aren’t important or interesting or potentially life altering. We are just out of time. For now.
Eco-Art: How to display the excessive use of stuff in this country was done brilliantly by photographer Chris Jordan. He plays with perspective and shocks with numbers and images. Strangely enticing stuff in the “Running the Numbers: an American self-portrait” exhibit at http://chrisjordan.com.
Getting a grip on all the stuff we use and toss is easy at www.storyofstuff.com If only we could all be as clear and interesting as this “School House Rock” inspired segment…
IU South Bend reaches out for the green: The green of a garden at Broadway Christian Parish, that is. At least one intern and several volunteers have already helped get this full-service community center/church ready to grow food for all who enter their doors.
Techno-Green: Even though we have the technology to hold videoconferences and virtual gatherings, thanks to the UITS services and information, why do we still send faculty and staff to meetings out of town? They drive there in cars, on roads, spending money for hotels and gas and food, using resources that may never be regained. How long does it take a new, low-impact technology to replace old wasteful and polluting habits?
What about that old, low-impact technology? Does anyone remember those old 8-pack returnable pop bottles? Sure, they were heavy and sometimes a bit scuffed up looking.
After getting the deposit back and sliding them along the rolling metal bars in the back corner of the neighborhood grocery store, they were washed and reused. How did this get to be a money-losing operation, but yet making new cans and plastic that are largely not recovered for recycling or reuse makes financial sense?
I could go on. But I can’t. This is the end of the semester and a whole summer awaits, full of hope and promise and yet to be realized moments of discovery, activity, and friendship. And, of course, some new lists.
