Oct 20th
Fracking: We Know What We’re Against. What Are We FOR?
by Maura Stephens
As antifracktivists, we are often accused of being against fracking but not offering any alternatives to “natural” gas. That’s completely wrong. Our NO message is adamant and comprehensive, to be sure: Read the rest of this entry »
Oct 4th
by Derek Cabrera
What is the Crisis?
My colleagues and I surveyed the faculty of Cornell University to identify how scientists from different disciplines thought about the most pressing crises facing humanity[1]. Respondents brainstormed 116 diverse crises, sorted, and ranked them in terms of importance and solvability. We applied multidimensional scaling and cluster analysis to their answers to the simple question, “What is the crisis?” Read the rest of this entry »
Aug 17th
If you sit by and wait for others to stop the industrialization of New York State, we’ve already lost.
by Maura Stephens
17 August, 2012
A recent thread on a sustainability list-serve ended with the words: “Gratitude to those in direct actions to keep attention on fracking issues.”
I think it’s safe to speak for antifracktivists collectively when I say they don’t want to be thanked. Read the rest of this entry »
Jul 31st
Sustainable Tompkins Climate Change Blog
Sweltering Heat and Drought:
Has This Year Been Exceptionally Warm and Dry?
By Benjamin Brown-Steiner
At home and across the nation this summer has felt unusually hot and dry. More than half of states are experiencing moderate to severe drought. Is this weather exceptional? Is it a sign of climate change?
The first step in answering these questions is to find credible data about Ithaca’s weather and climate that can be used to answer this question. I’ve gathered data from the Northeast Regional Climate Center [1], and Weather.com [2] in order to find out what’s going on. Read the rest of this entry »
Jun 5th
by Miranda Phillips
One goal of meditation or “mindfulness practice” is to promote wise action: that is, to help us act constructively despite certain common mind states (e.g. fear, anger, sadness). This in mind, mindfulness strikes me as a great potential support to sustainability activism, where fear in particular can hinder constructive action.
We live in an age of enormous and looming twin threats, climate change and peak oil: the first, with its accompanying rise in floods, droughts, fires, and warm weather diseases (malaria and smog-related asthma); the second, with its (at the least) social turmoil as we adjust to dramatically new habits, or worse, food shortages and economic collapse.
I find both of these threats deeply frightening. For most of the last fifteen years, I’ve responded to my fears in various ways: sometimes feeling overwhelmed and paralyzed to do anything; sometimes taking action but compulsively, washing out and reusing every plastic bag rather than considering: what would make the biggest difference in reducing my environmental impact? Read the rest of this entry »
May 19th
Are We Nearing the Peak?
Sustainable Tompkins Blog
Richard W. Franke
19 May 2012
Hi everybody, welcome to the Sustainable Tompkins May 2012 Blog. The ST Board is attempting to provide monthly opportunities for community discussion and May is my month. I would like to share some information and a few thoughts on the topic “Are we approaching the energy descent?” Could that approach be part of the cause of the current economic crisis? Nice, easy subjects, right? If you’re interested, read on… Read the rest of this entry »
Feb 28th
Community power. Literally. That’s the defining trait of the proposed Black Oak Wind Farm in the Town of Enfield. The project will place about 20 MW of wind turbines on the windiest hills in Tompkins County along Black Oak Road. That would be enough to power most of the county’s homes – a community’s power supply.
But that’s not the only way the community will benefit from this project. From the beginning, when former owner John Rancich first conceived of his Enfield Energy wind farm, the focus was also on community ownership of our local renewable energy utility. This dream is now becoming our shared reality. Read the rest of this entry »
Dec 14th
Nov 13th
Young Farmers Find Huge Obstacles to Getting Started
By ISOLDE RAFTERY
Published: November 12, 2011
Emily Oakley, who had worked on an organic farm in California, moved with her husband, Mike Appel, to Oaks, Okla., in pursuit of cheap farmland. But even though they had $25,000 saved, the couple could not get a bank loan. When they applied for a government loan, the loan officer threw back his head and laughed. Read the rest of this entry »
Oct 27th
Thank You, Rachel Carson
By Richard W. Franke
Professor Emeritus of Anthropology: Montclair State University, New Jersey
Resident: Ecovillage at Ithaca; Board Member: Sustainable Tompkins
October, 2012, will mark the 50th anniversary of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, published in 1962, just a year and a half before her untimely death from breast cancer and other illnesses at age 56. We in the sustainability movement today, owe a lot to Rachel Carson – to her intellectual brilliance, to her beautiful writing, to her courage and to her perseverance. And to her insistence on the people’s right to know. Read the rest of this entry »
How many planets would it take to maintain your lifestyle, if everyone lived the way you do? Find out with this Ecological Footprint calculator.
Sustainable Tompkins is proud to offer a listserv to give you the latest news of issues happening around Ithaca and the world. Sign up to contribute to the discussion, or to unsubscribe to the listserv.
