May 27 2008
Personal is Political: Toolbox for Sustainable City Living
GUESTS: Scott Kellogg, Stacy Pettigrew, co-authors of Toolbox for Sustainable City Living: A Do-It-Ourselves Guide
In the second part of our 3 part series, Personal is Political, we focus today on things that each of us can do to lead lives that are more sustainable and earth-friendly, even if we live in a big city like Los Angeles. Today more than half the world’s population lives, and struggles to live in cities. Our lifestyles are wasteful and polluting, unless we work to make them otherwise. Facing shortages in food and drinking water, traditional energy sources, and a looming crisis in global climate change, it is more imperative than ever before that ordinary people move toward living life more sustainably on a mass scale if we are to survive as a species. The founding members of the Austin-based Rhizome Collective, Scott Kellogg and Stacy Pettigrew, have written a new book called Toolbox for Sustainable City Living: A Do-It-Ourselves Guide. They join us for the hour today to share their insight and answer your questions.
The Rhizome Collective is a non-profit organization based out of a warehouse on the East Side of Austin, Texas. The Collective runs an Educational Center for Urban Sustainability and a Center for Community Organizing. Scott and Stacy have built numerous sustainable systems including constructed wetlands, rainwater collectors, aquaculture ponds, windmills, passive solar devices, and bioremediation tools. They also run weekend seminars in urban ecological survival skills, and have taught workshops all over the world from the Bronx to East Timor.
For more information, visit www.rhizomecollective.org.
2 Responses to “Personal is Political: Toolbox for Sustainable City Living”
This was a very informative show and an extremely important subject. I’m convinced that each of us can make a huge difference by altering our daily lifestyles to the best of our own abilities. One simple way of saving water that I implement is reusing shower/bather water to flush my toilet (vis-a-vis buckets). It seems like I’ve saved enough water to create a lake just by doing this a few years. In regards to city regulations, they are indeed an obstacle (which I’m sure is no accident), although, I’m told that compost toilets are allowed in L.A. as long as one hjas a flush toilet installed, too (so says Julia of Eco-Home in Silverlake).
Also, it cheered me up to hear the callers describe how they’re changing their lifestyles. Here in L.A,. I seldom get the impression that people are doing anything to change their excessive lifestyles.
Perhaps KPFK could do shows from time to time where people can call in and talk about their more ecologically sound lifestyles.