I am excited about trying new techniques to mend my clothing, in both invisible and visible ways. What remains to be seen is how welcome some of the results will be in professional settings. Even as a sustainability professional, I don’t often see colleagues wearing mended clothing, and I wonder if that is an intentional choice or the symptom of a pervasive business norm.
Most of our clothes today are made with plastic, which tends to be cheaper than natural materials but leads to pollution, climate change, negative health impacts, and more money spent in the long run compared to investing in quality garments and maintaining them. Unfortunately, many of us lack the necessary money, time, or requisite skills to opt for the more sustainable option.
For this Seventh Anniversary post, we will be looking at a very important piece of copper equipment. Approximately 10% of American women of childbearing age use “long-acting reversible contraceptives,” including IUDs. While the copper (non-hormonal) kind is less common, it’s the kind I’ve had for almost a decade. I even participated in a clinical study to test a smaller “more comfortable” model for FDA approval.
Is it possible to reduce our resource consumption without abandoning a certain quality of life? The 2000 Watt Society thinks so. I first encountered this group in a near-term climate fiction novel following the lives of people trying to avoid the worst of climate change impacts. A recent trip to Switzerland showed me it can be done better than we’re doing it back home.
Love it or hate it, McDonald’s is a global powerhouse in the food industry, and from a business standpoint, it does an amazing job of balancing menu consistency with cultural relevance across its 119 host countries. I have visited locations in at least 16 of them and make a point of checking out the locally inspired menu items whenever I’m abroad.
We were a little late in getting our COVID vaccines this fall because we caught it over the summer. In all reality, I actually enjoy getting my shots to justify a day of guilt-free loafing around the house. But with vaccine skeptics in the highest levels of government, I worry about the rise of misinformation and ever-dropping rates of vaccinations in the US and abroad.
A friend recently warned me against using my electric blanket. While there are established risks (including burns and fires), she was talking about health conditions that could be caused by electromagnetic fields. Hypothesizing about health impacts from environmental exposures can walk a fine line between conscientious public health research and pseudoscience. The difference between the two lies in what we do with answers we get.
There are clear benefits to organic gardening, but are there situations in which an organic solution can do more harm than the chemical alternative? As much as I hate to say it, there may be some grey area when it comes to the best course of action for eradicating my tenacious thistle. I found a safer alternative to glyphosate, though safer doesn’t mean safe.
While there is still very much we don’t know about the impacts of cannabis on human health, there are some clear indications of health benefits in specific situations. However, the questions we ask of the world are inherently influenced by our biases. What if some of the impacts we see on brain activity are not “bad” but simply a “different” way of using our brains?
The human race has used cannabis for 5,000 years. But for the last (almost) 100, it has been vilified in the United States as a “gateway drug” that will “fry your brain.” Federal prohibitions have limited opportunities for the scientific community to study the benefits (not just the harms) of this plant, particularly when it comes to stress reduction and a healthier Endocannabinoid System.