Local Eating, Getting Recession Ready and More
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto 
on 08. 9.08
Eating Local or Not: It Depends The burning question: local vs. imported. When we want to make the best food decision what should we choose? Graham Hill
Product Service Systems: One You Already Know and One You Need to Know About I'm a huge fan of the "Product Service System," better known to some as PSS. Though the name is easy to trip over, the concept is brilliant: rather than buying everything you need outright, you can essentially "lease" or "rent" a product, deriving benefit from its service but not retaining ownership. Collin Dunn
Get Recession Ready! -- 7 Tips George Monbiot wrote in the Guardian earlier this year that a recession might not be a bad thing, and that perhaps there can be too much growth. Perhaps he should be careful what he wishes for. Lloyd Alter
Next Time You are Sick, Take out the Vinegar I recently was laid up with tonsillitis, which came with a very high fever -- it actually reached 105.4 (go to the hospital if your fever stays this high). At this point, the slightly terrified friend who was taking care of me suggested his mother's apple cider vinegar sock trick. Mairi Beautyman
100 Months and Counting Until Climate Change Is Irreversible TreeHugger Logo imageAccording to Andrew Simms, a UK climate change specialist, the world has about 100 months to count down before something less celebratory takes place: 100 months is the time it will take for climate change to reach that inevitable "tipping point" -- the point when the world as we know changes. Karin Kloosterman
Follow @TreeHugger on Twitter & get our headlines with @TH_rss!
Thirsty for more? Check out these related articles:
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- Forget Going Green Because It's the Right Thing to Do—Go Green to Make Your Neighbors Jealous
- Build a Greenhouse without Going Broke
- Raw Food for the Rest of Us
- Preserving the Harvest: Strawberry Balsamic Jam
- What is American Food? A Green Eating Manifesto
I think renting dvd's is great, but netflix is horrible. They purposefully send you dvds late so that they don't have to send you as many dvd's. Now I prefer the local movie rental places that rent dvds for $1 each.
Netflix is plenty fast for me, and I like the Watch Instantly service as well. I plan to buy to Roku box as soon as it has a price drop. I think shipping speeds is more an issue of the speed of the shipping center, how fast your post office is, and how obscure your DVD is. I've occasionally asked for some DVDs that had to ship between centers, but blockbuster hits and popular indie films seem to go right through.
Strange, netflix sends me out DVDs the very day they receive them(which is the day after I send them out). I basically get a new DVD each day, and save lots of money compared to $1 per disc. Not that I've even found a place that does that near here.
I haven't had a problem with netflix. I put the movie in my mailbox, a day later they have it and send a replacement. Day after that, I get the new one. Guess it pays to be close to one of their distro points.
I agree with thespyofcharles. The 1$ movie rental places are very nice.
With the "local or not" article - yes, it's good to consider the impact of local farms, and we can always learn from examples elsewhere. But the only way to improve the local systems is to take interest in them. The factors that can change are the practices of the local farms (via legislation, community action, better farms opening up because the market is there, etc). The main factor that cannot change is the transportation of meat from NZ to the UK.
The long term solution necessitates fixing domestic suppliers.
Charles I've never had that issue with Netflix. I get movies surprisingly quickly from them. There are even times when I'll put a movie to go out 1st thing and the next day I'll have the next dvd. But we live a block away from the main post office and I drop all outgoing mail there. I'm sure that has a lot to do with it. Also with their on-demand option you can watch right online.
Now this vinegar thing....I'm going to look into that.
Better yet, rent movies from the iTunes store, save gas, plastics, paper, etc. It's all digital.