Tag Archive for 'the definition of Green'

Drake Baer from Urbana Guerilla Has A Question

jackson published on April 1, 2009 in celebrity and zeitgeist. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , .

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Good Morning SuperForest!

My good friend Drake Baer runs a great blog out of Urbana, Illinois called Urbana Guerilla. He recently emailed me with a question and I asked him if I could post the resulting answer on SuperForest, which he kindly agreed to.

Here ‘s Drake’s question:

“Jack,

So, as I might have told you, I’m doing some video work here at school as my term winds down. I’d like to do some enviro work. As my local (or remote, rather) green guru, I wonder, what are some eco-conscious habits that college kids can pick up to green-ify their lifestyles? I’m all ears.

Best,

Drake”

And  here’s my answer:

Drake,

What a marvelous question!

Personally I think the single biggest thing you can do to “green-ify” your life  is redefine two words in your mind.

Those words are: Green & Environment.

There has been much discussion over what “green” means exactly. On SuperForest, we define green as “anything that promotes plant life, and the growth of new plant life.”

So “green” means?… More plants.
Not so green are fossil fuels, disposable plastics, war, violence, and anything else that blackens the air, spoils the beaches, or keeps citizens from gardening in peace.

Green also means prosperity, for the more people we have working towards a healthy renewable stewardship of the planet, the better off we’ll all be, and whether that means that we’re all making enough to sustain ourselves, or we’re all working towards the creation of a system that sustains us, we all win in the end.

Now for environment. In the SuperForest Humanifesto we say that the environment is everything that disappears when you close your eyes and ears.

When you think of “the Environment” you should think of whatever room you’re sitting in. Then think about the building that room is in. Then the town surrounding the building, then the freeway you drove to get to that town. Those things, the room, the building, the freeway; those are the Environment.

If you want to “save the Environment” there’s but one place to start: Exactly where you’re standing or sitting.

Look around you. Are there plants and sunlight? Could there be? Are there piles of trash? Could they be recycled, composted, or re-used? Are there drab grey walls and boring art? Could someone paint those wall? Could someone hang new art?

This is the new environmentalism. Start with yourself, right now. Then the room you’re in, then the building. Then the town. Then the freeway. Connect with others and share your experiences so that everyone can learn from you, and you from everyone.

Start a blog and write about the world around you. Read other blogs and get to know the people who write them.

Say please and thank you. Look people in the eye. Hold the door for stangers and help old folks across the street. Set up victories for yourself and those around you.

There’s ever so much fun to be had, and new things to learn and share.

But above all,
Green = more plants.
The Environment = the room you’re reading this in.

Knowing what those two words really mean is the biggest step.

Much love, and read SuperForest.

-Jackson
Check out Urbana Guerilla, it is smart and sexy and tall and smells like chocolate.

And thanks for being such a good sport, Drake! Cheers.

The Definition of "Green"

jackson published on October 16, 2008 in Uncategorized. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , .

Good Afternoon SuperForest!

Jackson here.

I think I may be onto something…

Thinking last night about a subject that has caused me and my fellow neo-environmentalists (Pinks) much consternation and teeth gnashing.

What is “Green”? What does it mean? And what is its opposite?

I think I may have cracked it.

Green literally means: more plants.
Its opposite is black, which means: more smoke/dust.

All carbon based energy tech has at the present two massive problems: When you utilize them they create smoke and it’s nasty sibling, dust.

Look around our cities, on the walls of buildings, even in our houses, and you will see the end result of our carbon burning systems: sticky black soot accumulated as dust.

What fights the spread of sticky black soot and smoke? Plants.

Plants, as carbon eating machines, purify the air they take in, absorbing the carbon and turning it into more plant, while exhaling clean oxygen.

So as an ethos, green means to head in a direction away from ash, smoke, and dust, and towards increased plant life, and the subsequent systems that spring up whenever plants take hold (meadows, tundra, fields, forests, and all their respective living ecosystems.)

Obviously, we cannot all live in pristine meadows, but we can live like this:


“Singapore’s upcoming EDITT Tower, or the “Ecological Design In The Tropics” Tower, is green inside and out. Designed by the architects at TR Hamzah & Yeang and sponsored by the National University of Singapore, the 26-story structure features a prominent living wall of plants that adds some color, ventilation and dedicated biogas generation.

The plants take up about half of the structure and it’s planned that it’ll be made from local vegetation. Ramps will connect EDITT to the surrounding shops and offices, so people can pop in for a visit to check out the garden. The building is also covered with photovoltaic panels that’ll account for 39.7% of its power, and rainwater will be collected for both plant irrigation and supplying the building’s water supply — for flushing a toilet, for instance.”

-dvice.com

To incorporate more “green” into our lives means adjusting the balance between plants, technology, and energy usage/production. The hybridization of technology and nature is one of our main interests at SuperForest, and I hope that this definition, as simplistic and seemingly obvious as it is, will help to convince yet more people that a green future is not only possible, it is vital, and that we can all have so much fun creating this new green world together.

Green = More plants.
Black = More smoke.

There you have it. The definition of “Green,” and its antonym.

With Love and respect to All,

Jackson

(As always, I mean this only as a discussion-beginner, not as though I had the “final word” on the definition of anything. We SuperForester are scientists at heart, so everything must be vigorously debated and exposed to the bright lights of logic before a consensus can be reached. Let the discussion commence!)

((special thanks to flickr user cdheiner for the exquisite picture of the smokestacks, and to dvice.com for the tip off on the EDITT tower.))

Live the Dream. The creamy, creamy Dream.