Learning about and engaging with the environment involves the integration of many disciplines and combines the classroom experience with work in the field, fusing theory and practice. At The New School the nucleus of this engagement is the Tishman Environment and Design Center. It is a place for students and faculty from all colleges and schools to gather, interact, and explore shared experiences. It facilitates research, curriculum development, internships, and fieldwork opportunities. It stimulates critical thinking and builds relationships through lectures, public programs, workshops, and conferences.
The center is exactly that, a center of creative work and experience that allows students and faculty to explore the curriculum, share and interact on projects, and research and work with the community at large to explore opportunities for collaboration.
Our environment is the larger New York metropolitan area. There are many opportunities to work with towns, cities, states, non-governmental groups, corporations, other universities, and other organizations. Through the Tishman Environment and Design Center, we hope to connect students and faculty to this broader coalition to enhance learning, civic engagement, and research.
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
One Downside to Bicycle Commuting: Biker’s Lung
If you bike to work, you’ve probably got pretty nice thighs. Your lungs, though, may not be in such great shape.
New research has found that bicycle commuters inhale more than twice the amount of black carbon particles as pedestrians making a comparable trip. That healthy bike ride to and from work might be getting you out of a car, but it’s not getting you out of the way of the automobile emissions.
The study, led by Professor Jonathan Grigg from Barts and the London School of Medicine, looked at bicycle and pedestrian commuters in London to determine whether different modes of travel exposed commuters to higher levels of black carbon. By comparing levels of carbon in the lungs of five healthy bicycle commuters to the levels of five healthy pedestrian commuters, the researchers found a large disparity. The bicycle commuters had 2.3 times more black carbon in their lungs. They claim that the probability of this happening by chance is less than one percent.
Read more at The Atlantic Cities
sustainable-sam: gotitgrowingon: unconsumption:
Texas to get the first packaging-free grocery store in the U.S.
In.gredients, which is slated to open this fall in Austin, will sell loose and bulk items, including “local, organic meats, dairy, baking goods, cooking oils, spices, grains, seasonal produce — the whole spectrum.” Customers will need to bring reusable containers from home (or use the store’s compostable containers), and weigh them before filling with the products they want.
In.gredients’ package-free, zero-waste retail concept, similar to that of Unpackaged in London, is a great business model. The benefits of precycling — avoiding wasteful packaging — and buying only the amounts you need of locally sourced products, creating less landfill and saving money in the process, are many.
If you have friends in Austin, encourage them to support in.gredients. And let’s hope in.gredients will expand to other markets. [Hi, Houston next, please.]
No matter where you live, check it out: You can follow the company’s progress here (blog and Web site), here (Facebook), and here (Twitter).
Yes, one in Houston please!!
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This is so amazing!!! More stores need to follow.
THIS!
This is the kind of mind-blowing - and more importantly, mind-opening - idea that can really help our dying planet. It amazes me how much waste our culture produces, and so this idea is really a good wake up call and a model for how to help address it.
I also wonder if it’ll help encourage people to eat real food, and not all that processed garbage that we’re being taught to get used to.
Either way, this idea is awesome, and I really hope they have one in Seattle, where I’m moving in two months.
