Another field trip today...I swear this is not all we do here! I had a fascinating tour of the Aura Light International and the MRT facilities in Karlskrona.
MRT = Mercury Recovery Technology and this is one of the only companies in the world that manufactures machines that recycle flourescent lamps and recovers mercury in the process. Why is this good....because when you throw a lamp (commonly known as a bulb even though the bulb is solely the glass tube) in the garbage it ends up in a landfill where the mercury ultimately seeps into the earth polluting our ground water among other things. Mercury is not an abundant chemical in nature and when we mine mercury, use it in lamps, then dispose of it in landfills the concentrations systematically increase over time. Nature is not able to cycle through this abundance of mercury so it has no where to go. Ever wonder why there are threats of mercury contaminated fish - particulary in large preditors like tuna - well now you know. When we eat tuna we injest the mercury and essentially pollute ourselves. So, humans started the problem and we are in turn suffering from it, go figure.
So what can we do? Ultimately, we need to phase out persistent elements and replace their use with more abundant elements in nature. This relates to Sustainability Priniple 1 -for those of you familair with The Natural Step (and if you are not familiar with these principles I will be an expert by the time I am done studying here and would love to educate you).
The good news is that a few companies understand this and are taking action. Aura Light International recognizes the harm in using mercury in their flourescent light production process and are diligently researching altenatives. In the meantime, they have produced lamps with less mercury and developed technologies to increase the efficiency of lamps so that they last longer. Not only are the folks at Aura stewards for the environment, they are also forward thinking businessmen/women. They are researching cutting edge technology which puts them ahead of the competition but most importantly they are avoiding an inevitable future when mercury is either no longer available becasue we have mined it all or the damges are so evident that legislation takes action and enforces regulations prohibitng the use of it. Either way, Aura is in a win-win situation as they will survive this fate. Make sense? It is all starting to make alot of sense to me!
The moral of the story is to take responsibility for your actions by making educated decisions. If you have not already, replace your incandesent lamps with CFL's (compact flourscent lamp). It will cost you more upfront but they have a much longer lamp life and are more energy efficient so you will save on your utility bills. And when they burn out think twice about throwing them away...you can RECYCLE them at Ikea! Thank goodness for forward thinking Swedish companies!
Hope you learned something, if not then maybe you can teach me a thing or two.
23 October 2008
15 October 2008
Surprise Guest Lecturer
This week our lectures focused on organizational learning and leadership...so it only made sense to bring in the former president of Volvo (largest business in Sweden) and Ikea (headquarters in Sweden). Goran Carstedt is his name and he is currently working on the C40 Cities project for the Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI) http://www.c40cities.org/. Goran (pronounced youron) was very humble despite his incredible success, and listening to him was simply inspiring. What I enjoyed most about his lecture was his core philosophy...he truly believes that if you do what you love then the opportunites will appear. He is certain that if you follow your passion you will find the right way...so long as you are open minded and aware.
What a relief, to hear someone of his status say these things...as my career has somewhat worked that way. I believe that I am here in Sweden studying sustainability for a reason, that a series of events fell into place one after another that ultimately led me here. Where will this experience lead me? I do not have all the answers right now, though I believe there is a path for me (and Joe) and we will visualize it at exactly the right time!
What a relief, to hear someone of his status say these things...as my career has somewhat worked that way. I believe that I am here in Sweden studying sustainability for a reason, that a series of events fell into place one after another that ultimately led me here. Where will this experience lead me? I do not have all the answers right now, though I believe there is a path for me (and Joe) and we will visualize it at exactly the right time!
11 October 2008
I have Wheels (2 not 4)
I picked up a bicycle a few weeks back and cut down my commute to school from 25 minutes of speed walking to 10 minutes of leisurly biking. Cycling is part of the culture here, it's really cool to live in a place where I don't need to rely on an automobile. Locals ride their bikes everywhere, regardless of the weather. Women ride in skirts/ tights to work, people carry their baskets into grocery stores and there are bike paths everywhere. I hear that in the winter time they plow the bike paths faster than the streets...so I plan to ride all year round.
Anyway, I love the fresh air and exercise in the morning while riding my bike along path from my downtown apartment to school. I love my bike so much that I named her 'Vanilla'. My roomate Sara has an older blue bike (in one of the pic's) that we named 'Blueberry'.
My classmate Joel filmed a short video of another classmate (Nick from Wisconsin) riding along one of the paths. The quality is not great but the music makes the video (The Hysteric Song by Marz - in case you are wondering).
Check it out
http://www.vimeo.com/1924974
Anyway, I love the fresh air and exercise in the morning while riding my bike along path from my downtown apartment to school. I love my bike so much that I named her 'Vanilla'. My roomate Sara has an older blue bike (in one of the pic's) that we named 'Blueberry'.
My classmate Joel filmed a short video of another classmate (Nick from Wisconsin) riding along one of the paths. The quality is not great but the music makes the video (The Hysteric Song by Marz - in case you are wondering).
Check it out
http://www.vimeo.com/1924974
Field Trip to Denmark
Last week 60 of us piled into a bus and headed 5 hours West into Denmark. Our first night we landed in Rosklide (pronounced Raskilda), which is about and hour outside of Copenhagen. It is a quaint little town, presumably full of money judging the expensive shops and enormous yachts in the harbor. The hostel that we stayed at was a beautiful expression of contemporary architecture (the first pic)- the only downfall was sharing a room with 7 other girls, 2 of whom snored, but that is another story.
The next morning we visited the eco community of Svanholm which was extremely interesting. It was pouring rain outside so the tour was cut short but we spent a few hours talking with some of the members. The community was started the year I was born and has grown into 60 members who live and work together in the most sustainable means possible. They farm their own organic food, they raise their own animals and they are completely self sufficient in terms of energy. The experience has inspired me to contemplate; how can we integrate the principles and concepts from this small eco community into the already existing suburbs in the US - how can we transform suburbia into a sustainable society? Potential thesis project, perhaps, but the topic is so broad and intimidating that I'm not sure I would see any feasible results after a mere 5 months of research. It was an eye-opening, compelling day and I encourage you to check out their website for more info http://svanholm.dk/en.php.
Next we were off to Borrevejle, about 30 minutes outside of Copenhagen, where we spent the next 2 days in workshops. The hostel was in a very secluded, wooded site along a lake and the air was brisk - perfect weather for a campfire which is exactly what we did that evening. When we walked into the rooms I immediately felt like I was in summer camp - what better way to get to know your colleagues than to share a room with 12 of them! I can't complain, my tuition is free and the school funded most of this trip. It was so ridiculous that it was hilarious - the bunk beds were stacked 3 high so I naturally climbed up top. It was no suprise when I woke up in the morning, tried to sit up and banged my head on the ceiling - that caused a good laugh amongst everyone! It was not all just fun and games, we held another 'open space' session and discussed numerous topics - I hosted a conversation regarding my potential thesis topic and was pleasantly suprised that so many people were interested. We also had a 'world cafe' in which you sit in small groups and discuss a topic, then after a certain amount of time you switch tables and continue the conversation with other people. This occured several times throughout the morning, after which each table presented their ideas and collectiviely we came to some conclusions. It is a very effective way to foster communication and has been used strategically throughout the world to bring people together of different backgrounds to share new perspectives, insights and ideas. It was an interesting few days, but I was ready for some city time.
I spent most of the weekend exploring Copenhagen with some of my classmates. I really loved this city, and it was nice to be back in an urban environment again - if you think Madison is small come check out Karlskrona sometime! Copenhagen has a great bike rental program where for a small deposit you can take a city bike off the rack and when you return it you get your deposit back - problem was there were no bikes! We assume they were all stolen since they were essentially free - sounds good in concept but not quite realistic. Either way, we spent the weekend on foot, wandering through the town square, down Stroget (the world's longest pedestrian street), through Nyhavn where all the pretty, colorful buildings are, into Chistiana, to the Danish Architecture Center and the Design Center...and so on.
I really enjoyed Copenhagen and will be returning in 2 weeks to meet Joe for our 1 year anniversary!!! I am very much looking forward to spending a long weekend with Joe in such an amazing place.
The next morning we visited the eco community of Svanholm which was extremely interesting. It was pouring rain outside so the tour was cut short but we spent a few hours talking with some of the members. The community was started the year I was born and has grown into 60 members who live and work together in the most sustainable means possible. They farm their own organic food, they raise their own animals and they are completely self sufficient in terms of energy. The experience has inspired me to contemplate; how can we integrate the principles and concepts from this small eco community into the already existing suburbs in the US - how can we transform suburbia into a sustainable society? Potential thesis project, perhaps, but the topic is so broad and intimidating that I'm not sure I would see any feasible results after a mere 5 months of research. It was an eye-opening, compelling day and I encourage you to check out their website for more info http://svanholm.dk/en.php.
Next we were off to Borrevejle, about 30 minutes outside of Copenhagen, where we spent the next 2 days in workshops. The hostel was in a very secluded, wooded site along a lake and the air was brisk - perfect weather for a campfire which is exactly what we did that evening. When we walked into the rooms I immediately felt like I was in summer camp - what better way to get to know your colleagues than to share a room with 12 of them! I can't complain, my tuition is free and the school funded most of this trip. It was so ridiculous that it was hilarious - the bunk beds were stacked 3 high so I naturally climbed up top. It was no suprise when I woke up in the morning, tried to sit up and banged my head on the ceiling - that caused a good laugh amongst everyone! It was not all just fun and games, we held another 'open space' session and discussed numerous topics - I hosted a conversation regarding my potential thesis topic and was pleasantly suprised that so many people were interested. We also had a 'world cafe' in which you sit in small groups and discuss a topic, then after a certain amount of time you switch tables and continue the conversation with other people. This occured several times throughout the morning, after which each table presented their ideas and collectiviely we came to some conclusions. It is a very effective way to foster communication and has been used strategically throughout the world to bring people together of different backgrounds to share new perspectives, insights and ideas. It was an interesting few days, but I was ready for some city time.
I spent most of the weekend exploring Copenhagen with some of my classmates. I really loved this city, and it was nice to be back in an urban environment again - if you think Madison is small come check out Karlskrona sometime! Copenhagen has a great bike rental program where for a small deposit you can take a city bike off the rack and when you return it you get your deposit back - problem was there were no bikes! We assume they were all stolen since they were essentially free - sounds good in concept but not quite realistic. Either way, we spent the weekend on foot, wandering through the town square, down Stroget (the world's longest pedestrian street), through Nyhavn where all the pretty, colorful buildings are, into Chistiana, to the Danish Architecture Center and the Design Center...and so on.
I really enjoyed Copenhagen and will be returning in 2 weeks to meet Joe for our 1 year anniversary!!! I am very much looking forward to spending a long weekend with Joe in such an amazing place.
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