Stewardship vs. Kinship

Ready for another word verses word post? Today's topic, stewardship verses kinship. Do either of these words sound familiar? I hope so. If not, consider this phrase: "We are stewards of the Earth". This phases is quite popular with some environmentalists and other groups with concerns towards the Earth and it's upkeep and care.

So what is a steward/stewardship? It's being responsible for something else - usually life, whether it be plants, overall landscape, an animal, a zoo, etc. Really any single to group of lifeforms. Steward implies the life you are responsible and  in charge of absolutely needs your help. Like, there is no way possible for the life to continue living without outside interference.

These chickens would NOT SURVIVE without
this classy state of the art chicken coop

Kidding aside (I'm sure those chickens would be fine on their own) this illustrates my point perfectly, as you will see as I describe what kinship is.

Kinship is very similiar to stewardship but the overall principle of why you act is different. The word 'kin' invokes thoughts of family, relationships, being kin with one another. Kinship therefore, in terms of sustainability, that we are partners with the earth with equal footing, levels, respect, etc, and that we help one another. There is no dominate partner in this relationship of being kinsmen.

Or, as my professor Dr. Tuteh puts it, "a kinship relationship - that involves a basic equality of all biota, including man." His phrase for describing a stewardship relationship? (Since I know you are all curious) "Many Americans and Europeans believe man's proper environment role is as a wise steward for all biota and regions of the natural world. Our superior intelligence and natural dominance, so the familiar ethic implies, places us in this position of control to skillfully supervise all planetary wild lands."

Technical definitions aside, let's bring in the chickens again. Chickens have no problem living as chickens do, chillin' around, eating bugs and other grains on the ground, making little chickens, fleeing from predators. You know, chicken things.

See? They are great at making baby chickens.
*gasp* With no help from us?
Who'd have thunk it!

Most of what we care for we have the thoughts that the life would not be able to survive, function, or carry on with any higher meaning of life without us. But that's not true. Really the Earth and all it's inhabitants wouldn't notice that we humans were gone (though they might notice the cleaner air, water, and less noise). We haven't, as a species, been around for that long. So what makes us so qualified for making everything ours and ours to monitor alone?

So - stewardship verses kinship. What you believe is fine, just open your mind to other ideas. Traditionally how we were raised will shape which term we respond to better. Westernized cultures grasp stewardship faster while Eastern cultures see kinship as making more sense (as a common stereotype. Please, don't be offended)

Just think on the terms and how they fit into your viewpoint of the world. Does the Earth really need us as supervisors or is it fine doing Earth-things all on its own?

A Question for You

To all my wonderful readers out there, I question from me to you, for me in return.

What don't you understand? Is there something about sustainability and sustainable business you want to know more about? Confused about? Anything?

Let me know!

I am in the process of creating a topic guide that will last for the month, but just like any teacher I want to know what you want to learn about.

Leave a message below in the comments section!

Rainy Thoughts

So, how did thinking about the rain go over the weekend?

Overall, when rain falls it soaks up all the contaminants and washes it away into the nearest moving body of water. In which the water mixes with other bodies of water and either evaporate and then fall again as rain (this is how acid raid forms) or it soaks into the earth and pollutes the soil (causing plants to grow toxic and our food be tainted).

For a better, more in depth view, read Sandra Steingraber's book Living Downstream.

Something to Think About: Rainfall

www.rainymood.com

It's raining right now, there, outside my window. And as it is a Friday night and it's been a day full of essays and preparation  for a meeting to finalize the end of my internship tomorrow morning I am leaving you to ponder this over the weekend.

So soothing.

When it rains, just like in a shower, the water washes away anything it hits. Take a moment and think about what that means for the outdoors. Pesticides, herbicides, pest killer, animal waste, car wash soap, spilled oil, tossed out food containers (tossed out anything containers and even the things they contained), rust, paint, decaying road kill, escaped car liquids... the list goes on.

So what happens to all that horrible-ness when it rains?

Why it washes into your local watershed, area ponds, lakes, streams, or other labeled bodies or water. That water then either flows to connect with larger bodies of water, or sinks into the ground to mix with the soil and the underground water reservoirs. Those always then flow to even larger bodies of water like the Michigan Great Lakes and/or the oceans. The pollutants never go away, so where do they end up?

Think about it.

I'll address more on Monday. Until then, enjoy your weekend.

Current Topic Thursday: Greenwashing

Now that everyone understands a decent basic understanding of sustainability, sustainable business, and all that encompass it's time to move onto what will now be labeled as "Current Topic Thursday". On Thursdays now I will link all you lovely people an article currently published online that relates to the many, many topics that deal with either the broader sustainability, as well as the more narrow sustainable busienss.

It could also simply be an interesting article I want  to share.

Onto the first Topic Thursday article!

This comes from Grist.org, a site I browse through frequently. It's not long, so take a moment to read though it.

http://grist.org/food/is-the-natural-label-100-percent-misleading/

So... how do you feel about your food being 'all natural'? Annoyed, foolish, enraged, hopeless, depressed... I could go on but I think we all know how we feel.

100% Eco FALSE

Cheated.

The ploy you have just read about is a term called greenwashing. Green-washing is not regulated or controlled. Anyone can slap the label of 'natural' 'eco- friendly' 'planet friendly' on it, add some smiling flowers, green leaves or plants, fresh looking air - anything that would lead you to believe it was sustainable - good for you, having no or little harmful effects, healthy, better for the planet, etc.

But it's not.

That's greenwashing.

But it can be even sneaker... How you ask?

Pick up an aerosol can and it will probably say "NO CFC'S! (CFCs = chlorofluorocarbons, an ozone destructive material). You would say, "That's great!" But did you know CFCs have been banned from use in the United States since the year of 1978? No aerosol cans in the United States have CFCs in them anyways. So why advertise it? CFCs may not there in to begin with, but having that stamp of NO CFCs makes their product look better and therefore more people purchase their product. Told you they were sneaky.

Google greenwashing if you wish to learn more. Yes, tons more information will come up and it is overwhelming and depressing. But important to know and understand. My hope is that I spurred enough thought in your head and gave you enough basic information that you will think before blindly believing facts printed on a package or in an advertisement.

Sustainability vs Sustainable Business

Those who have been keeping up to date will have noticed I use two different terms when speaking about things that are sustainable: sustainability and sustainable business. They, as I learned when speaking with my professor Dr. Tueth about an upcoming lecture like volunteer speech I was to give at a local high school, are two completely different things. Until that point I had no idea.

First - sustainability!

I defined sustanibility my very first post, and I will re-post it here.

sus·tain·a·bil·i·ty

[suh-stey-nuh-bil-i-tee] -noun-

1. The ability to be sustained,  supported, upheld, or confirmed.

2. Environmental Science . the quality of not being harmful to the environment or depleting natural resources, and thereby supporting long-term ecological balance: The committee is developing sustainability standards for products that use energy.

 I then wrote this: Sustainability is simply the way of having an item, thing, process, whatever, being so awesome it keeps going on without the help of anything else. 

This is still true, but it is not 100% complete either. Now don't get upset. I didn't want to overwhelm you the very first day. Sustainability also includes this important fact - it (item, thing process...) does not harm others like it, where it lives, or negatively effects anywhere or anyone else in the world. There is also a continual loop cycle with nothing being waste. Everything is for a purpose to either help the current organism, its surroundings, or its future generations.

Now before you say, "Well, some animals hunt one another, and plants get eaten! And what about weird fish that sticks onto whales and other fish and suck the life out of them?" let me say this: harm is not done purposefully for the sake of being harmful. There are always reasons animal and plants do what they do as a general rule.

This is how humans become different. We do things that harm others for the sake of harm. We design products that have highly negative attributes when there could be another way, or a different product all together. For us to be sustainable there would have to be no negatives associated with any of our ways of living, products, or services.

That's pretty big to wrap your mind around, isn't it? I hope it makes you think, and as always, if you have any questions let me know!

Now for sustainable busienss, this is the easier one. It's what has been spoken about for the past few days. The three legged stool.  A sustainable business is a business model, not the whole world of sustainability. 

I know this has been mostly a repeat of what was said my first post, but it is worth repeating. The two terms are not the same and interchangeable. I learned it the hard way with my professor sternly correcting me in that 'you are being foolish, think!' voice. Trust me, you don't want to be subject to it.

Think of the two as a circle within a circle. There is the first larger circle of 'sustainability' with a smaller circle inside of it labeled 'sustainable business', as well as others like 'sust. living', 'sust. transportation', 'sust. building', etc.

Now you're thinking with circles!

What is: Financial?

The last leg of the sustainable business stool is the financial leg. This is the easiest to understand and here's why:

Financial is how a business traditionally runs, how it makes money, and stays in business, manages it's funds, etc.

Crazy simple, right!?

Sure there are more aspects to the financial side, but that's the gist of it. And I'm here to make things easy to understand. In later posts I will talk in much more details specific aspects and traits of each of the three stool legs but for now I want to be sure everyone is on the same page - the basics of the three legs and why they are important.

Since the only pictures for financial related topics are (in my opinion) boring, here's a picture of the the newly discovered upward track we are all hiking together.

It's steep, but worth it.

Just think how rewarding it will be when we get to the top!

And if anyone has any questions or request in a topic being cleared up that you are confused about just leave a comment! I promise you I will do my best to answer the question with my knowledge and/or otherwise look up and research a topic I'm not as firm on.

We must stick together after all.

For science.