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The High Cost of Free
Free. How perverted that term has become. Is this pillow and chair actually free? Not really. Sure, you can take them without exchanging any money, which is its most common definition, but a ridiculously incomplete one. Air and water are examples of things that are actually free. Through photosynthesis, green plants create oxygen, freely, which allows us to live on this planet. And precipitation falls from the sky, freely, which fills our rivers, lakes and streams enabling life as we know it. These freely occurring, natural processes under-gird our entire human existence. Material goods are never free—there is a cost for and an impact from everything. We’ve reduced free to…
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Wildness for the Weary
We’ve been watching “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea” documentary by Ken Burns. It was kind of a random selection and kind of a balm since our road trip to the Southwest to camp under the stars, last week, was cancelled, due to COVID. Wildness is a word that came up a lot in the first episode. Wildness. Wildness. I loved it. It stirred something in me. It reminded me of my own journey, which started forever ago as a young student in a new program, Environmental Studies, at a big university in a city shrouded in pollution. A university that didn’t celebrate Earth Day for the first couple of…
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Love What Gives You Air
Precious trees. You spoil us with shade, natural air conditioning, water filtration and retention, oxygen, carbon sequestration, habitat, sound absorption and calming beauty. Your incredible functions make life on this planet possible, and you provide all of these benefits, free of charge. Our reliance on you doesn’t stop once you’re felled. Your wood, the natural resource you grew while freely giving us air to breathe, is an incredible and beautiful material from which we build our homes, our fences, and our furniture. These meaningful, long term investments can stand the test of time because of your material quality. Though wooden products can last for generations, humans are operating on ever…
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Regenerative Niches Unite
Farmers are being recognized as climate change warriors. When they adopt regenerative practices, they can suck carbon out of the air, improve soil health, and create diverse ecosystems. Its radically beneficial on many levels and I love it. But I don’t live in a rural environment, my neighborhood is covered in pavement. Surely cities have players who are regenerative practitioners, too. Right? All ecosystems need to be nourished in some way. What about repair/reuse practitioners, like reupholsterers? Don’t they fill a regenerative niche? They strengthen the social fabric, diversify the economy, and reduce natural resource consumption by extending the life of goods. Plus, they keep money flowing locally and are…
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What do too many strays say about a system?
Who is to blame for the preponderance of furniture waste? Individuals? Cities? Waste haulers? Manufacturers? The system as a whole? A couch can weigh 200 pounds. It is hard to move. There are few places to take them. Used furniture can have pet dander and other hidden allergens. Street furniture are strays, used to being treated well by their previous families, now left to fend for themselves in elements they were never built to withstand. Exposure to city grime= premature death sentence. They know it. We know it. But what do we do about it?
