Over the course of a couple of years’ worth of posts on this blog, I’ve tried to offer a broad range of content for those with environmental concerns and an interest in a green lifestyle.  I hope I’ve conveyed the general message that there are numerous solutions-in-waiting for the ecological problems that we confront in the modern era.  The main focus here has been on bamboo, of course, and its tremendous potential to curtail global warming and contribute to the overall development of a sustainable resources industry.

But bamboo fits into a larger context, too, and there is no shortage of personal and consumer behaviors that we can change and promote in order to encourage a greener future. It is my hope that this blog’s occasional anecdote and attempt at a life lesson will inspire my conscious attention to environmental impact in some readers. I still find it astonishing how cavalier many people are about the everyday activities that contribute to keeping environmental degradation as the status quo.

Still, if there’s one such behavior that needs changing it’s what we buy and how we shop. And in a culture in which consumer spending is the backbone of the economy, the importance of this cannot be overstated.  In this context, bamboo has been a wonderful thing to focus attention on, because it’s an environmentally beneficial resource in its own right, and it can be manufactured into such an impressive range of eminently sustainable goods.

That is the more specific lesson that this blog calls attention to. Among its hundred of posts the reader can discover a wealth of different products that are currently and potentially could be produced using this most sustainable of resources. It goes without saying that bamboo makes a green alternative to cotton and wool by yielding viscose-from-bamboo fabric that’s turned into moisture-resistant shirts, cashmere-soft bedding, and plush, absorbent bath towels.

Of course, it’s even more well-known that bamboo is an exceptionally sustainable alternative to common timber. And the benefit of that alternative is by no means limited to the fact that it can be quickly re-grown, shooting up by some three feet in a single day as bamboo often does. As this blog has pointed out repeatedly, when bamboo is used as a building material it produces constructions that are remarkably resistant to earthquakes and high winds. And when planted in disaster-prone regions bamboo crops themselves can limit the impact of flooding and landslides.

And these benefits, particularly crucial to the third world, can be achieved using a resource that can be grown practically anywhere and is often readily available in impoverished countries.  In fact, this blog also calls attention to the ways in which bamboo has been used and still can be used to advance the economies of developing nations and tribal peoples.

And naturally, the benefits of bamboo are not limited to those seemingly faraway contexts.  This resource has great potential for Western society as well, and some forward-thinking companies have taken the initiative to source domestic bamboo and design products around its remarkable sustainability.  It’s hard to imagine how the resulting products could be more diverse in character.  As this blog has pointed out, they range from toys and bicycles to electronics, to vehicle frames, to biofuels and replacements for coal.

Despite many of these kinds of products being featured in this blog, I worry that precious few people are really aware of the things that are available which are almost futuristic in their eco-friendliness.  And ultimately it is absolutely essential that the public be aware of emerging options in the global marketplace.  Imagine it: if one single resource offers so many options for sustainable development and environmentally friendly consumption, how many other green alternatives must be available besides?  What, other than ignorance and a cavalier defense of the status quo, could be holding us back from taking advantage of these things to build a future that will surely be more livable for generations to come?

An Overview of Bamboo and Green Alternatives is a post from: Green Earth News

I set myself to thinking about all the current events that I might want to focus on with this post, but I find myself hung up on a bit of personal communication that seems somehow more important than all of that.  The last time I met with my mother, a few days ago, we parted after sharing a series of like-minded rants, as befits the slightly hot-headed family we’re a part of.

The spark that set off the conversation was a motorist who nearly trapped my mother’s car in a supermarket parking lot.  I was present to this and at first thought that the individual had parked outside the exit, perpendicular to the nearest parking spaces, and left the car. But after my mother had inched back and forth enough to get free I found out that there had actually been someone sitting in the driver’s seat, watching the whole thing.

It would have been annoying enough just knowing that that person had found the most convenient illegal parking spot and then gone inside.  But I was far more upset to know that he was still in the car, for two reasons.  First, it meant that in order to solve the problem that he himself had created, all he needed to do was perhaps turn the ignition key and then coast forward four to six feet.  To not be willing to do even that, surely a person must be either profoundly lazy earnestly committed to being a jerk.  Second, his presence in the car means that there was an opportunity to call attention to his self-centered behavior and I had not taken it.

I don’t feel too bad about this one because I didn’t know the jerk was on the scene, but there have been far too many opportunities when I could have let somebody know that they were making the world a worse place, but I didn’t.  I once saw a man finish a fast food beverage while leaving the park with his child, then simply throw the empty container on the lawn without the hint of a second thought.  There were three causes of annoyance in that: the knowledge that people litter with that much impunity; the fact that I didn’t rush to catch up to him and call him out on it; and the fact that he was setting that kind of an inconsiderate example for a toddler.

The rant between my mother and me was just more of this, a catalogue of past experiences wherein people had made things meaner or uglier for others when the effort involved in doing otherwise was equivalent to taking three steps to the left.  I’ve found that riding a city bus is an impressive showcase of human self-centeredness.  I can’t recall all the occasions when I’ve seen many able bodied young men sitting at the front of a bus, none of whom moved a muscle when an elderly woman came on board clutching grocery bags, only to have to stand up the entire ride.

I’m insufficiently confrontational.  I need to find a way to firmly but politely tell people that they’re doing wrong when they are.  And so does every other person who wouldn’t throw garbage on the ground instead of crossing the street to get to a waste bin, or block someone’s egress instead of stepping to the side, or do any number of other little things that help to spoil both the natural and the social environment of the world.

There’s a good reason why I think this is relevant to this blog.  The site itself puts a lot of focus on the social good that can be accomplished through conscientious consumer behavior and the like.  It says to buy bamboo and support sustainable industries in order to help curtail global warming and save the planet.  Such efforts are immeasurably important, to be sure.  But I worry a little bit about preaching to the choir.  After all, the only reason why you would listen to that kind of advice is because you’ve already got a basic sense of the difference that you, as one person can make.

Apparently this is not true of everyone.  The only way that I can make sense of people refusing to move out of a doorway when someone else is trying to get through it is by assuming that such people are possessed of an overriding mentality that says “my actions don’t matter.”  A person has to be actively broken of that mentality.  They have to be confronted directly and made to understand that they’re doing something wrong and that to the people around them it matters.

Maybe that doesn’t work with everyone.  Maybe a significant portion of the “I’d rather not move” crowd is comprised of psychopaths who actively want life to be harder and shorter for others.  But I can’t realistically expect to hold onto my faith in the future if at least a handful of those people aren’t merely oblivious to their own place in the world.  Surely, some of them have a sense of shame, but one that just isn’t activated by direct communication.

If I’m right about that, but it never happens that they’re called out, confronted, brought face to face with self-centered behavior, then we have to just write these people off in the effort to make the world a better place.  And here’s the thing, I don’t think we can do that and still succeed.  I think environmentalists and social activists need as many people on their side as possible, even if “on their side” just means being rudimentarily aware of the impact that one has, and knowing that that’s important.

I hope the idea that we can’t do it on our own doesn’t stand in contract to my usual optimism about how much good can be done by sustainable consumption, bamboo products, green tech, and the like.  I’m still every bit as optimistic about that, as well as about the potential for cultural change, which can make people more understanding, peaceful, and collaborative.  But it’s always been my view that these are goals we can’t accomplish if we try to live in a vacuum.  Tribalism will get us nowhere.  Sticking with your own kind will only get you so far.

I’m as guilty of this as anyone, but I’m intent on working to fix it.  I can’t keep letting people get away with harmful behavior, free of criticism or public awareness.  I can’t risk convincing myself that by spending my money wisely or writing this blog, I’m making up for the deficits of personal communication.  Social ethics don’t work that way.  Your conscientious consumer behavior might win you bonus points, but if you first enable others to make the world a better place, the best you can do is break even on the harm you’re causing by proxy.

Life Lesson: Don’t Be a Jerk-Enabler is a post from: Green Earth News

I fear that the celebration of Thanksgiving is starting to be restricted to a smaller and smaller proportion of Americans.  Specifically, I’m worried that it’s a feast and an occasion of togetherness only for people who aren’t service employees.  I understand that some cooks and servers, clerks, stockpersons, janitors, and others have always been made to work the evening of Thanksgiving.  It’s not as though the world stops spinning on the fourth Thursday in May.  But the sheer number of people on employer schedules year after year is growing faster than bamboo at the height of summer.

I wasn’t fully aware of the situation until last week.  My two older brothers have always worked on Thanksgiving, only to drag themselves, haggard and half-asleep, to the home of one of our parents, where we share a meal that seems cursory by the standards of many other Thanksgiving celebrations.  This year, though, the holiday was briefly cancelled among our immediate family, when it appeared that my nearly sixty year-old mother might also be working a part time retail job on the same day.

That turned out to not be the case, and now the shared meal is back on schedule.  But the uncertain circumstances led me to wonder why on Earth the store she works for would even be open on Thanksgiving in the first place.  Only afterwards did I realize just how many national retailers are opening their doors on a holiday that has generally seemed almost sanctified in its encouragement of togetherness and national rest.

During the time that I thought Thanksgiving was off for my family, I considered what to do with the day instead, assuming I didn’t just put myself to work as well, for lack of a better alternative.  But I decided that there was a better alternative, and that I’d take the opportunity to make the rounds to all of the stores that are going to be open on Thanksgiving, not to buy anything, but rather to offer home baked cookies to all of the employees who were working that evening and tell them that I think it’s inexcusable of their employers to compel them to do so.

Hopefully doing so would shame any customers in the area to rethink their priorities.  Fortunately, in articles like this I can take a more direct approach and tell readers directly: if you’re thinking of getting a jump on your Black Friday shopping by paying your favorite store a visit on Thanksgiving, don’t.  Or even if you think it would just be a good opportunity to pick up some toilet paper, or shampoo, or socks, don’t.

Corporate retailers wouldn’t make these decisions if they didn’t have good reason to think they will pay off.  And that good reason is every customer who shops mindlessly whenever they can, paying no heed to the calendar or the human consequences of their own lack of restraint.

Not that I think that description applies to any readers of this article.  If you visit this site regularly because you’re concerned about the environment and interested in bamboo, then you probably shop consciously and pay attention to the impact that your consumer decisions have on your own lifestyle, your community, and your world.

If that’s the case, then even if you want to shop on Thanksgiving for some reason, you won’t have to go to Dollar General or Wal-Mart, or Macy’s, or any of the many other retailers that are thoughtlessly putting full staff on their sales floors.  If anyone feels that they must shop on Thanksgiving, they can just do it online.  As you probably know, you can find better made, more sustainable, lower impact goods online anyway.  So not only can you get elegant bamboo towelsand bedding, you can do it without supporting the sorts of corporate decisions that prioritize profits ahead of employees, their families, and their participation in the best of American traditions.

Thanksgiving for All! is a post from: Green Earth News

It is impossible to conclusively link any single weather event to anthropogenic climate change.  And although there is no sensible way of denying the seriousness of the problem, it does a disservice to the science behind it if we try to use an individual hurricane or heat wave as proof that that problem is real.  Nevertheless, for those of us who accept the fact of man-made global warming, it can be helpful to take a keen look at extreme weather events as they’re happening, and recognize that these are the kinds of things that we must try to prevent from recurring more frequently in the future.  Potent images of enhanced natural disasters have the potential to serve as motivators for the international community, and those motivators are desperately needed.

In the wake of the devastation wrought by Typhoon Haiyan in his country, Philippine climate change commissioner Naderev (Yeb) Sano attempted to deliver just such a motivator to the other attendees at the first day of two weeks of climate talks in Warsaw.  The UN-led gathering began on Monday, and the day was largely highlight by Sano’s tearful plea for the nations of the world to solve the climate change crisis without delay, before it can contribute to more disasters like the one that reportedly killed some 10,000 people last week.

Sano also expressed commitment to a period of fasting until a solution is agreed upon by the participants at this, the 19^th conference of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.  He explained that for people like his compatriots, who are especially threatened by rising sea levels and ocean storms, it is practically unimaginable that the process should have to drag onto a 30^th or 40^th convention before something truly significant is done to curtail rising levels of greenhouse gasses.

Not all nations of the world feel quite so directly pressured by this globally-diffused problem.  Unfortunately, that means that not all of their representatives are as motivated as Sano.  The goal of the current convention may seem ambitious by some standards, but it continues to delay serious action.  All that is really expected is that the results of these talks will set the stage for a decisive agreement at talks scheduled for 2015 in Paris.  The conclusion of these two weeks may well be indicative of progress, but it seems almost certain that Sano will be leaving hungry.

Still, if he has succeeded in giving a human face to the problem for the duration of these talks, then his fast will have been worthwhile.  After all, national governments and the people who represent them at these conferences might tend to be excessively distant from the problems they’re trying to solve.  That’s no small problem when it takes so much advance planning and political maneuvering to put country-level initiatives into action.  They do not have the leisure that individuals have to do their part through simple, straightforward changes like choosing to buy eco-friendly bamboo products.

Whether Typhoon Haiyan is or is not attributable to anthropogenic climate change, we should personally look at the resulting tragedy as a source of motivation to do our part with lifestyle changes, charity, and forward-looking investments.  We all should recognize the problem already, but we can benefit from some poignant reminders of what is really at stake.  Hopefully, the people and institutions with greater power to change things will be roused by those reminders, as well.  But it will take time for them to act.  So in the meantime – and even once an agreement has been signed at long last – let’s all play our individual parts.

Citizens and Governments Both Need Motivation to Fight Climate Change is a post from: Green Earth News

The state of Tripura in India produces about one and a half million metric tons of bamboo each year, which is in fact over one tenth of the entire country’s output.  In recognition of both the economic and the cultural significance of the resource to that region, the government of Tripura has recently created a unique Bamboo Heritage Club.  The new organization was established with the goal of bringing broader attention to the works of local artisans who utilize regional bamboo, and to support further activities by similar residents of the Indian state.

Maybe I’m just feeling particularly cynical today, but I’ve begun to get a little frustrated by how often I am able to report on stories like this from faraway places, compared with how often they come up as being driven by Western governments, business organizations, charities, and entrepreneurs.

On one hand, the Bamboo Heritage Club is unprecedented even in India, so perhaps it’s not so much that the United States and other western nations are way behind in terms of public support for sustainable resources.  Maybe it’s just that given the vital importance that bamboo already holds for Tripura, that specific region is well ahead of the curve.

On the other hand, there are already organizations like the International Network for Bamboo and Rattan, which recognize the economic and environmental value of those products and exclusively devote their efforts to the organization of events and the promotion of development projects that help to realize bamboo’s true potential as a global resource.  INBAR’s mission statement, however, specifically describes its efforts as operating within some of the world’s poorest countries across Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

That is a highly laudable goal, and indeed I have tried in the past to emphasize some opportunities that exist for bamboo to help alleviate national poverty in places where it is commonplace and harvestable.  But what about wealthy, First World nations?  There’s really no reason why they should be excluded from visions of industries that rely on bamboo and other sustainable materials for everything from building construction to furniture, to food, fuel, and bamboo clothing and linens.

Bamboo grows here too, after all.  It is suitable to most climates.  Furthermore, it’s becoming increasingly crucial to the same, seeing as it has an exceptional ability to replace carbon dioxide with oxygen and help curtail global climate change.  For this reason and others, bamboo is, or at least will be, a globally important resource.  If it’s going to be used on that scale, its growth and economic value ought to be promoted on that scale, and not just among countries that have fewer modern industries or that have an existing heritage built around bamboo.

A sustainable future must involve some sort of union of the modern and the traditional.  No doubt we in the West expect developing countries to learn something from us about business practices and using technology to achieve self-reliance and greater wealth.  Perhaps things like INBAR are good examples of the conscientious use of typically Western organizational structures.  But the West can learn from places like Tripurta, as well.  I wait with shrinking patience for our answer to the Bamboo Heritage Club – something that recognizes American and European bamboo not as a link to some past cultural history, but as a natural source of entirely modern economic and environmental potential.

Where’s Our Bamboo Heritage Club? is a post from: Green Earth News

Check out this incredible bamboo home that was recently featured in New York Magazine!  There is a slideshow of six stunning images at their website:

http://nymag.com/homedesign/articles/2013/10/globaldesignissue/bali/

This touches upon so many topics that we have covered here at Green Earth News over the years, such as the role of bamboo in economic development in Bali, how well that resource can be used to protect structures against natural disasters, and, obviously, bamboo’s potential as a general construction material.

This six-floor mansion is called Sharma Springs, and it was designed by Elora Hardy, who studied fine arts in the United States but grew up in, and ultimately returned to, Bali, where she helped to further advance a trend of eco-friendly bamboo construction which had already been established by others, including her father, jewelry designer John Hardy.

Looking at images of this house – particularly the fifth in the slideshow, depicting a luxurious hammock overlooking the heavily-wooded Balinese setting – inspires me with a clearer, renewed vision of what a modern green world will look like, hopefully in the near future.  The curving structure looks perfectly contemporary in design, and yet perfectly free of long-term environmental impact in its construction.  The material that it’s made out of is ideal for both purposes.  It’s astonishing flexible, so as to achieve the rounded, post-modern edges that give the building such a flowing sense of embrace.  At the same time, it’s eminently renewable and local, so nothing needs to be transported from afar or removed from the area’s landscape for very long.

What reason could there be to not bring more buildings like this into the world?  The appeal of local sourcing for the bamboo isn’t limited to East Asian or Pacific countries.  The bamboo can grow, and swiftly re-grow, practically anywhere.  And it doesn’t have to be only in places like Bali that a sustainable bamboo structure blends in so wonderfully with its surroundings.  Even in an urban setting a bamboo design like that of Sharma Springs can easily be covered over with recycled materials or other sustainable ones that give a structure the sort of look that matches a modern, developed setting.

Personally, though, I hope those sorts of settings, namely the familiar American landscape, start to shed some of their former trappings, and opt to actually look green in addition to being green.  Opinions vary, but to my eyes, that bamboo mansion is more beautiful than any home of comparable size that I’m likely to find in the US.  If I were to make a lot of money and retire to Florida or some other place where it’s warm all year round, I’d much rather live in a modern tree house than in some damn condominium or McMansion.

I’m sure that if more people catch sight of these modern, eco-friendly structures – and if I do make a lot of money – then modern-designed bamboo houses won’t be hard to come by when I’m at retiring age.  Not only will those of us who move into them be awed almost daily by the beauty of our own abodes, but also our consciences will be happy, knowing that luxury in our golden years came with very little impact on the environment.

When such sustainable housing becomes commonplace, it will just be a matter of furnishing and decorating the place in an equally eco-friendly way.  The furniture in Sharma Springs certainly extends the building’s design and reliance on natural materials.  I haven’t seen anything yet about what kinds of sheets are on the beds, but I know that if I lived there I would make the bamboo theme complete with something from here.

Modern Home Design Meets Bamboo is a post from: Green Earth News

Congratulations to Marina Shifrin on her departure from her job!  If you haven’t seen her YouTube video, which as of this writing has well over two million views, then check it out.  You’ll probably enjoy it.  People seem to love videos in which fed-up employees quit their jobs in creative ways.  It’s wish fulfillment for anyone who’s ever found herself fed-up and on the verge of walking out on a difficult employer.  That describes everyone, doesn’t it?

In that sense, Ms. Shifrin’s video may not be unique, but at least to my eye, it is particularly satisfying on account of the rationale that she gives for quitting.  Ms. Shifrin has made an overnight success of a viral video in order to announce that she no longer works for a company that makes viral videos.  More to the point, she doesn’t work for them anymore because she claims that her boss is only worried about number of views and speed of output, and not on quality.

If that’s true, then bravo to Ms. Shifrin!  And for what it’s worth, even without knowing the name of her company, and without knowing the first thing about viral video production, I have every reason to believe that her assessment is accurate.  Cavalier disregard for quality is an epidemic problem.  I’m painfully well-acquainted with it in my freelance career and I’m worried about the effects that it has on our culture.

Among all the nice possibilities that modern technology opens up for us, one of them is the opportunity to immediately calculate the popularity of content.  And for a lot of people, including individuals who run web magazines, search engine optimization firms, and apparently video production companies as well, that has come to be the only metric by which the value of any type of content is judged.  Its effectiveness in conveying a message; the amount of work and passion that went into it; any objective measure of quality – these things are considered irrelevant.  What matters is that the Google AdWords account pays off tomorrow, or that the search engine rankings creep up two spots now, even if they’re doomed to fall five spots when people realize the link they’re clicking on is irrelevant.

This truly seems to be the view that a lot of powerful people are taking these days.  I hope there’s nothing driving that other than the blinding allure of internet analytics.  If there is, then I’d really like to know why the entire world is losing its ability to understand the value of delayed gratification.  I’d like to know why, and I’d like to know how to cure it, because the continuation of this quantity-over-quality trend has the potential to make all of life a little more unpleasant for everybody.

So my congratulations once again to Marina Shifrin.  I hope to maintain the same conviction that she’s displayed.  I intend to go on striving for quality in my own work even if the professional landscape these days is one in which a person gets more offers for churning out crap than he does for having something of value to share.  Pageviews are nice, but I don’t want them if I don’t have a message to share.

I think this is a worthwhile message in itself.  We should all try to resist the modern sentiment that immediacy and a short-term rush are more important than quality and staying power.  That, after all, is a sentiment that can convince us to settle for things we don’t really want and to act contrary to our interests.  It’s the sentiment that makes us do things we know are bad for ourselves or the planet in the long run, but that are just more convenient.  And it’s one we’re normalizing even in the workplace, at least until everyone walks out like Marina Shifrin.

If you can’t walk out, then at least keep your eyes focused on quality over quantity.  And that isn’t really an issue in your work, then think of it in the other aspects of your life, like when you’re shopping.  Remind yourself to buy things that are better for you and better for the world.  Look past the unsustainable cotton goods and things like that, and reach a little farther for bamboo fabric, or recycled goods, or anything else that overwhelms convenience with an extra dose of quality or conscience.

Trends aside, I know some people still care deeply about quality.  Are you among them?

Score One for Quality over Quantity is a post from: Green Earth News

One of the things that I like so much about bamboo is that it represents a sort of happy medium and a point of meaningful union between the absolutely traditional and the fully modern.  From week to week, news stories related to the resource might deal with its use in large scale manufacturing or with its potential for bringing attention and revenue to tribal areas through their traditional bamboo crafts and constructions.

Sometimes this duality of bamboo manifests itself within the same general topic.  As reported here a few months ago, the most recent Aga Khan architectural awards recognized both modern buildings with bamboo components and the restoration of all-but-forgotten bamboo dwellings in Indonesia.  In stories like these we can see that bamboo resources still have relevance both to the pre and post-industrial worlds.

What’s true of building construction is also true of transportation.  I’ve written before about how some people were experimenting with bamboo as a sustainable and lightweight alternative for making car frames.  Bamboo biofuels are increasingly plausible, and artisan-made bamboo bicycles are clearly becoming more common in environmentally-conscious areas in the US and beyond.

Meanwhile, tribal artisans in places like India’s Parambikkulam forest make much older forms of conveyance out of the same material.  There, an annual festival is celebrated with a 300 meter bamboo raft race, using the same boats that members of the tribe use to cross waterways in their daily lives.  The traditional festival takes place these days on the Parambikkulam Dam reservoir, which in itself helps to portray the image of a union of old and new worlds.  But who’s to say whether people on either side of that thin divide recognize the potential of their bamboo resources to further solidify that union.

According to the Times of India, the Parambikkulam bamboo raft races are still largely unknown to the outside world.  That fact may be good or bad.  On one hand, it’s always a relief to see traditional ways of life proceeding unmolested.  On the other hand, Western sensibilities convince us that such people can have better lives.  The challenge – for which I think bamboo represents an answer – is to strike a balance between those two situations.

Considering that some Indian communities have recently begun to reclaim rights to their own bamboo forests, people like the tribes of Parambikkulam can stand to profit on their own terms from interactions with outsiders.  Is it naive to think that that group could hold onto its traditions even if they drew tourists and commerce?

It seems to me that the world’s long-standing interest in the exotic, coupled with its growing interest in sustainability, may point to a bright future for both tribal and post-industrial peoples.  Renewable resources like bamboo are practically things that people can both give away and keep.  If the tribal peoples of the world used their for their rafts and homes while also selling it to us for our cars and bamboo fabric, the societies on both sides of that thin divide would likely end up better off.

The Traditional and the Modern: Connected by Bamboo is a post from: Green Earth News

The September issue of Smithsonian Magazine introduces readers to the muriquis, a species of primates native to South America.  The large, tree-dwelling monkeys are presented by author Steve Kemper as a counterpoint to the traditional stereotype of primates as highly competitive, aggressively individualistic creatures who battle for dominance or else grudgingly subsist at a lower level of the social order.

Considering that there are such creatures as the muriquis, that stereotype needs to be broken.  Doing so is of course important for the sake of a scientifically accurate understanding of the world; but perhaps there is greater importance in the symbolic potential of recognizing the gentle character of some of nature’s more overlooked creations.

Progressive causes in general, and environmentalism in particular, could do with a better mascot.  As of now, we rely mostly on pandas to represent the imperative of conservation.  Certainly, that is somewhat appropriate.  If nothing else, the close connection between pandas and bamboo keeps the versatile plant resource in mind when one thinks about environmental progress.  On the other hand, bamboo’s characteristic versatility is hidden by the fact that it does such a poor job of sustaining the continually threatened species.

If anything will allow us to begin to realize environmental ideals it won’t be what resources we use to feed our material needs, but rather how we feed ourselves – or one another.  Kemper points out that when a number of muriquis are eating from the same tree one will pause to almost apologetically hug another before cutting in front of it to reach the shared food source.  Virtually everything these animals do is cooperative, right down to their mating habits.  Polyamorous relationships are commonplace and reproductive aggression is unheard of.  Muriqui monkeys do no subscribe to the common human wisdom that competition and an “every family for itself” mentality is good for the society at large.

Cynics often rationalize mankind’s baser instincts by appealing to their apparent naturalness.  Creatures like muriquis demonstrate that greed and social exclusion need not be natural.  If lower animals can work together to feed the community, rear its children, and generally advance collective causes, then so can human beings.  And with our intelligence and mastery over nature we can do it to so much greater effect.

That base, simian, so-called natural competition is precisely the thing that keeps us from realizing this potential.  The rationalized acceptance of it does the utmost damage to the causes of environmentalists and progressive-minded people the world over.  Because our society models itself more after the chest-beating apes of popular imagination than the gentle, hug-happy muriqui, we act stupidly and neglect our long-term self-interest.  The concepts of “good competition” and “unnatural cooperation” have us climbing unapologetically over one another in order to get at scarce or non-renewable resources.  We could, instead, be providing for one another as well as ourselves, by using alternative resources like bamboo.

Apparently such cooperation is just not in our nature.  But then again, Kemper closes his article by emphasizing biology’s lesson that natures can change.  The muriquis are in danger from largely human-caused environmental pressures, but the danger is not to the survival of the species but to the survival of their social structures.  As the monkeys become short on space and resources, they might be forced into the individualized competition that more closely matches our false stereotypes.

But if this process of social change takes place in one direction it can take place in the other direction, too.  How much more true this must be of intelligent humans than of comparatively dumb primates.  For much of the human population, resources are abundant, or at least could be if only we developed and used them properly.  It’s a sufficiently favorable situation that we should feel comfortable stopping to hug our friends before taking our turn at the food tree, rather than stepping on their heads and grabbing everything we can fit in our arms.

Do we know how to cooperate for the greater good, or do we lack the imagination to envision primates that do so?  We seem to have imagination enough to envision goals.  The giant panda is well-used as a representation of what environmentalists are fighting for.  But it does not represent how to fight.  For that, we should turn our attention towards animals that naturally understand how to work together, and we should understand how far away we are from being like that, and how close we could be.

Mankind and Muriqui is a post from: Green Earth News

A new species of mammal has just been discovered in the forests of Ecuador, and it is adorable.  To know that the olinguito is out there, looking like fluffy teddy bear, and having been overlooked by scientists the world over until 2013, a person would have to be pretty callous or uninspired to not experience a swelling of conservationism.

The onlinguito is the first member of the Carnivora order of mammals to be discovered since the 1970s.  And although its discoverer, Kristofer Helgen, thinks that a zoological milestone of this magnitude is a once-in-a-lifetime event, if this species has gone unnoticed until now, there’s no telling what other secrets are hiding deep in all the world’s ecosystems.  New mammals are rare, but it’s worth remembering that when we take into account plants and microorganisms, scientists discover about 15,000 new species every year.  It’s little surprise when you consider the diversity of everything that’s already been named and sorted.  There are over 10,000 distinct species of bamboo alone.

It’s awe-inspiring to think that the world is full of creatures that most of us haven’t even heard of, and that if you were to take a trek into the rainforest you might just happen upon something that no university or museum in the world has catalogued or named yet.  But to look at it another way, if you were to ride a bulldozer into the rainforest, as mankind is doing constantly, you might just be destroying the habitat of something that’s never seen the light of human knowledge.

What’s alarming about the discovery of the olinguito is that according to Helgen, the newly uncovered creature probably enters the scientific record as a near-threatened species, due to the loss of its native Andean cloud forests to agriculture, logging, mining, and so forth.  It isn’t hard to imagine that this species, or another equally elusive one, could have continued to be overlooked until human pressures drove it right to the brink of extinction.

The conservation movement has always had mascots of sorts, chiefly the giant panda.  We like to have something we can point at when we tell one another that we’ve got to save the environment.  But there’s a different kind of power in recognizing that we really don’t understand the damage we’re doing.  We don’t quite know what we have, so we can’t quite know what we stand to lose.

All of our knowledge is incomplete.  But by now we should recognize enough reasons and enough opportunities to contribute to the cause of conservation.  Nature provides us with both.  The reasons include all the wild teddy bears and medicinal plants that stand to make the world better.  The opportunities include renewable resources like bamboo, which we can start utilizing to curtail a bit of the demand for timber, and cotton, and wool, and non-renewable fuels.

So when you have a chance to opt for a sustainable opportunity like bamboo clothing, do it not just for the giant panda, and not just for the onliguito, but also for every hidden mystery that the world still holds for us.

New Mammal, New Motive for Forest Conservation is a post from: Green Earth News