Global Biodiversity Dictates the Quality of Our Life

Global Biodiversity Dictates the Quality of Our Life

Global biodiversity dictates the quality of our life. You might compare it with our personal health. It’s one of our most important assets. The reason of course is that it makes us feel good. Yet, there is more. We perform better when we are healthy. Physically and mentally. We measure our well-being by our health. Our quality of life is measured by our health.

There are a lot of pines where we live. All the neighbours in our street spray poison against the pine processionary caterpillar. This spraying is totally nonsense and goes against every biodiversity logic. All the natural enemies of this caterpillar live here: the praying mantis, dozens of bats, cuckoos, and the great tit. Our neighbours consciously destroy the habitat of these animals and are a threat to the biodiversity in this area.

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How to Diminish our Ecological Footprint? Some (Mostly Easy) Tips

How to Diminish our Ecological Footprint? Some (Mostly Easy) Tips

An individual’s ecological footprint tells how much space he or she needs to live. We are not talking about how big your home is here, but how your lifestyle impacts the environment and how we can diminish our ecological footprint.

Ecological footprints are also referred to as CO2 footprints. Are you an emission-intensive person or do you live frugally?

You cause less environmental damage with a smaller footprint. It has been shown in a number of studies that if everyone had an average footprint of 1.8 hectares, nature could restore itself.

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How to Attract Insects to our Garden and Support Biodiversity?

How to Attract Insects to our Garden and Support Biodiversity?

Do you like spiders? Flies? Mosquitoes? Most people don’t. Sometimes for good reasons, sometimes because of ancient-old ingrained fears. 

Would we want to attract insects to our garden?

It turns out that people hate invertebrates. Bad news for those poor creatures, because they make up 98% of the animal species. And all humans do is try to destroy them.

In the movies, invertebrates come off badly, and in the Bible, too, they are portrayed solely as pests and exterminators. Small children usually have an intuitive fear of anything that has more than 2 legs – spiders, crabs – or less, such as snakes.

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Sustainability Sucks when Embedded in a Growth-Driven Economy

Sustainability Sucks when Embedded in a Growth-Driven Economy

Through discussions, much reading, and writing, I sharpen my mind about the state of the earth. More and more I come to the conclusion that it is almost impossible to be sustainable.

In other words, sustainability sucks when embedded in a growth-driven economy.

But as one of my current sources of inspiration Thomas Rau says: “Let’s do what is necessary, not what is feasible.”

This article is a bit more negative in tone than my other articles but is a way to deepen my thoughts, and hopefully yours, and to keep or regain hope.

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Biodynamic Farming and its Unknown Monumental Impact on the Ban of Pesticides

Biodynamic Farming and its Unknown Monumental Impact on the Ban of Pesticides

Silent Spring is one of the most prominent books regarding the negative effects of pesticides, with direct influence on government, industry, and civil society.

More specifically the book was a fierce complaint against the use of the pesticide DDT, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane.

The book was published in 1962 and was written by Rachel Carson. The impact of the book was immediate and substantial. Silent Spring lies at the roots of the rapid and extensive growth of the environmental movement in the 1970s. 

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Basic Principles of Sustainability: What Should we Pay Attention to?

Basic Principles of Sustainability: What Should we Pay Attention to?

How do we distinguish the basic principles of sustainability? Sustainability can be divided into subtopics in various ways.

Tom and I usually keep it at 3: planet, people, profit. And those 3 can also be subdivided.

Recently I found a list that seemed very interesting to me: social, economic, cultural, and environmental, each of which is subdivided into 6 principles.

This article gives an overview of all our articles that belong to such a subtopic.

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What is a Sustainable Home and How Can We Develop One?

What is a Sustainable Home and How Can We Develop One?

The question – What is a sustainable home and how can we develop one? – requires an answer from 2 perspectives. 

The first perspective is that of the current state of the environment and the circumstances in which our home exists. 

The second perspective is that of the design and the construction of the actual home. What materials are used or do we want to be used? What are the esthetics? How much space do we desire?

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To Walk or to Cycle, Which is Better? Either Way, they’re Both Sustainable

To Walk or to Cycle, Which is Better? Either Way, they're Both Sustainable

To walk or to cycle, which is better? There has never been any doubt in my mind that cycling and walking are the 2 most sustainable modes of travel.

However, the more we discuss sustainability issues in our articles, the more the question pops up in my head which of the 2 is the most sustainable. To walk or to cycle, which is better?

From the example of the city of Copenhagen and our own experiences, I tried to construct an answer to this question. As it happens, both walking and cycling are the most sustainable modes of travel and transport.

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