Month: April 2018

I had a theory before I moved to New York that people needed to get a certain amount of sunlight, a certain amount of time to trees, and just an overall exposure to nature on a regular basis. I thought that if people didn’t get this time amongst nature they wouldn’t be as happy and healthy as they actually could be. Since moving here I think more people have things such as seasonal depression and anxiety, though I’m still not sure if it’s a legitimate theory. Either way, it had swirled in the back of my mind for awhile and just last week my Cognitive Neuro professor asked me to spit ball a cognitive theory at him. I figured that would be a great time to see if my idea had any traction and I threw it out there. Strangely enough, he neither accepted nor denied my hypothesis, but instead challenged my idea of nature. He told me that we were in nature that very minute. I was confused, it was most definitely the Lang building. He tapped at the wall and scuffed at the floor, and he asked me what I thought made up this building. Various materials for construction, of course. He asked me where humans got all this material for buildings. He explained to me that even if we deem things “man-made” and create things in ways only humans can, at it’s source it’s still a product of it’s source environment, nature. The idea still sits a bit abstract in my mind, but I think I better understand what he means now. He doesn’t see the towering skyscrapers and wall to wall cement as a capitalist structure far removed from any natural essence, but rather he sees each building as relocated parts of nature, almost like wide scale nature installations. My idea of happiness being tied with nature might still be valid, but I’m now more eager to test people’s perceptions of nature within cityscapes more so than anything else.

It’s really easy for me to walk around the city forgetting that there’s actual earth under my feet. After a few weeks of being confined to the little postage-stamp plot of Manhattan I inhabit, the “real world” begins to recede in my consciousness, and the environment starts to seem more of a theoretical object than a lived reality. Since weekend trips to the countryside to rejuvenate my relationship with the planet aren’t really practical for me (I wish), I have to resort to Youtube to get my fix. My little brother turned me onto the channel Primitive Technology about six months ago, and it’s completely addictive. Much like reading Kimmerer, when you’re engaged with it you can’t help but be awed at the wealth the natural world has to offer. The basic notion of the channel is that this random Australian guy with a bunch of land goes out into the woods and films himself making tools, shelter, and food from whatever he finds (he only uses items he’s made in previous videos, so no axes or lighters or cooking pots– I think he started out with just a kind of sharp rock). The videos are completely silent except for the sounds of nature and the sounds of the tools. They’re completely mesmerizing, and while they don’t necessarily connect me to the land I’m on, they ground me in a different sense, forcing me to pay attention to all the ways my life removes me and insulates me from natural processes. At least I can begin the process of imagining the potentiality in the dirt underneath all the pavement.

The hut-building ones are my favorites.

Many car models as early as around 2012 have a new feature called ECO mode that people tend to overlook unless they have dedicated time to actually reading the car manual. What is ECO mode? ECO mode is activated through a button on the dashboard that reduces the car’s throttle response causing slower acceleration when the car does not need to accelerate quickly. For example, this will be efficient on the highway or long stretches of roads. ECO mode also improves fuel economy by reducing and modifying air conditioning responses and regulating the power used in the car. Better fuel economy means less gas being used and less overuse of natural gases. This is a good way to sustain the environment (though it will not improve it).

My mom discovered the ECO button in our family’s new car (GMC Terrain) and now will not stop using it to conserve gas. Every other weekend, my brother comes home from college in south Jersey and my parents take turns driving him back. So far, I haven’t noticed a difference in gas mileage but maybe I am just not observant of the fuel that we use on a regular basis (What does this say about me?). Because we’re students in NYC, I guess this isn’t as applicable to us as it is to my family in New Jersey but this is still a cool thing to know when you are visiting home and driving around!