besides switching our vocabularies and our mindsets to more positive connotations in our own language, there are certain concepts and terms nonexistent in the english language that would aid in our envisioning of a better future.

published later this year, the collection loanwords to live with: an ecotopian lexicon against the anthropocene seeks to assemble a disparate lexicon that describes “not what exists in fossil-fueled capitalism but what should be: ecological terms and phrases that intimate and inspire better ways of life.” ecotopian language in the anglosphere pits mankind as separate from nature, deepening the divide between us and the environment. reaching beyond english and the dominant narrative of humans triumphing over the elements, we provide here a list of 6 words or terms of potential topics in the collection to reinvent how we talk about climate change and our relationship to the rest of life in the ecological web.

1. nahual

in ancient mayan mythology, each person was believed to have a companion animal that shared their soul and fate – as such, human and nature were intimately connected. the relationship between a person and their nahual is described like wearing a mask: one hides behind the other. the quetzal, guatemala’s national bird, was said to be the nahual of a mayan prince who fought the spanish conquistadors. when the prince was felled by a spanish spear, the quetzal which was circling overhead in protection, flew down and landed upon the prince’s wound, dipping its breast feathers in his blood – this is why the breast feathers of the quetzal are said to be a fiery red.

your nahual is assigned to you at birth, and similar to a zodiac, influences one’s character traits.

2. empath 

the term empath is borrowed from science fiction writing, most notably from octavia butler’s parable of the sower which is a hopeful tale set in a dystopian united states. an empath is a person with paranormal ability to perceive the mental or emotional state of another individual. butler’s protagonist in this novel became a “sharer” or empathy because her mother took a drug while pregnant. the protagonist shares the pain of all those living around her, and the connection she has to the rest of the world through compassion and empathy, rather than selfishness, become the guiding principles to a new society that the protagonist founds. empathy and sympathy are central to the concept of universal humanity, and nurturing our capacities to be empaths, or emotional sponges, from a young age, will allow us to engrave the importance of other life (human and non-human) into our consciousness.

3. pachamama (and other earth gods/goddesses)

pachamama is an earth goddess of the andes mountains who survived the spanish conquest and is still revered today. in incan mythology, pachamama presides over planting and harvesting and has the power to embody mountains or shake the earth. in english, pachamama most closely means mother earth. pacha means earth, cosmos, universe, time, space etc. in quechua and aymara, and mama means mother. the deity is claimed to be the origin of the elements of the world as we know it – the four cosmological quechua principles of water, earth, moon, and sun come from pachamama. the relationship to pachamama is visible to this day in the practice of challa, or the sprinkling of drops of beer/alcohol on the ground before drinking as a way to give thanks to pachamama.

the veneration of earth deities is most common in places where people are more closely bound to the cultivation of their own livelihoods and sustenance. as more of the world’s population continues to move into cities, we must not forget importance of balance in nature. in south america, many believe that problems arise when too much is taken from nature because they are taking too much from pachamama.

4. forest bath (森林浴)

the longevity of the japanese may be tied to their practice of “forest bathing,” or essentially meditation in nature. there’s no water involved in this bath. it is rather a submerging of oneself into the elements of nature; quality time in the forest without distractions. the practice of shinrin-yoku was part of a national public health program introduced in 1982 when the forestry ministry coined the term. since then, there has been proof of beneficial health effects. the magical, rejuvenating boost that a walk in the woods gives you is rooted in naturally produced allelochemic substances known as phytoncides, or pheromones for plants. when humans are around these phytoncides, they help to decrease blood pressure, alleviate stress, and strengthen the immune system. garlic, onion, pine, tea plants, and oak trees give off phytoncides (and that’s also why they are so aromatic!).

5. heyiya-if, from ursula le guin’s always coming home

famous sci-fi author ursula le guin integrates taoist beliefs into a cultural group called the kesh in her book, always coming home. the kesh are a peaceful people who reject domination over nature. the double spiral of the heyiya-if is a holy symbol for the kesh. it resembles the taijitu, or the ancient symbol of yin yang. the swirling motion of the heyiya-if describes the divine circle of life. its endless movement represents the constant change of the world and its cycles, where night becomes day which turns into night again; all births culminate in death, which leads to a re-birth. the opposing but complementary forces present in everything show how our own life cycles are interconnected and dependent on the natural world. when our lives and fates are intertwined with the rest of nature, we cannot exist separately.

6. buen vivir

buen vivir literally means a good life or well-being, but it also encompasses a social philosophy inspiring movements in south america. in just two words, buen vivir includes concepts of degrowth, dematerialism, alternative development, happiness, and collectivism. similar to some of the other loanwords, buen vivir has its roots in indigenous society.

buen vivir is loosely translated from sumak kawsay, or the cosmovision (world view) of the quechua. this world view sees humans and nature existing in communion based on harmonious totality of existence (the necessary interrelation of beings, knowledges, rationalities, etc.). the term has inspired social movements advocating for an alternative paradigm of development that is balanced, culturally-appropriate, and communitarian. the defining principle of the collective in buen vivir paves a path separate from that of capitalism and the mechanisms created to put a price on nature, such as ecosystem services. under the outlook of buen vivir, humans cannot own the earth – we can only act as stewards.

the ideas coming into fruition today from the belief systems of indigenous cultures like the quechua are visible in concepts like the sharing economy or collaborative consumption.

———

our words are our ultimately our tools to construct a vision of the future. we must stretch ourselves beyond the limits of the anglosphere to incorporate multiculturalism and multilingualism in understanding how we talk about our relationship with the earth and our connection to future generations. with the publication of loanwords to live with, we can begin to speak in the way we wish to act, living in harmony.

was it your granola bar wrapper? the packaging from your latest amazon purchase? your grocery bag? 

we are addicted to plastic. it’s in grocery stores, in hospitals, in our homes. it’s everywhere. but where does it all go? according to the epa, only around 9% of all plastics are recycled. 

it’s not enough to just use less plastic. since plastic takes upwards of 450 years to decompose, most of the plastic that has been made since its invention in 1907 still exists on earth. as it decomposes, it releases hazardous chemicals into the atmosphere and the ocean. 

but what if there was a way to use plastic waste?

enter ecobricks. 

when jonathan cerdas first stuffed plastic bottles to the brim with discarded plastic in costa rica, he never would have expected how much this simple act would change the way volunteers from all over the world think about plastic consumption. he may have just started a revolution. 

how did he do it? see for yourself. 

as a definitive rule of nature, human beings (yes, this includes you) are creatures bound by a certain degree of non-permanence. despite the cloud of fear and anxiousness that surrounds it, death is as naturally a part of the cycle of life as birth. as far as the living are concerned, the real threats of death have nothing to do with fire and brimstone.

the funeral industry, like many other industries, has made massive contributions to the pollution of our planet. the true terror of the great beyond is that it’s actually killing the environment. the world which we living people must occupy has become overburdened by millions upon millions of our dead – more specifically by how we’ve chosen to deal with our dead. traditionally, the american funeral industry has presented us with two options for laying our loved ones to rest: burial or cremation.

it may come as a surprise to the less ‘death-conscious’ of us, but burial is not as simple as shoving a body in the ground. the practice of embalming removes the natural bodily fluids from a corpse and replacing them with toxic, carcinogenic embalming liquids has become a matter of course in the industry. funeral directors often lead grieving families to believe that embalming is the safest, most loving, most respectful way to care for a loved one after death. they rarely let on that a cadaver in its natural state is not a biohazard, nor do they inform that the united states is one of the only countries in the world to routinely embalm their dead.

as a result of these misconceptions hundreds of millions of people are led to believe there is no choice about embalming, and so each year americans pump some five million gallons of poisonous phenol, formaldehyde, and glutaraldehyde deep into the earth. this means that there’s enough hazardous liquid to fill more than one olympic swimming pool leaking from caskets all across the country and draining itself straight into our groundwater and underground ecosystems.

cremation is no better. although it’s seen as the harmless, cost-efficient alternative to burial, cremation is only marginally less detrimental to the environment. cremation, rather self-explanatorily, is the process of burning bodies. in this process crematories must release carbon dioxide. there’s no getting around it. sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, and many more hazardous atmospheric pollutants are simply an inextricable part of cremation.

so what is a mere mortal to do when there seems to be no real environmentally friendly way to die?  enter alkaline hydrolysis cremation, the new kid on the block. alkaline hydrolysis also known as water cremation or resomation, may be one of the greenest innovations ever to reach the funeral industry. it’s a low cost, low waste, method of body disposal that follows a relatively simple procedure:

step one: your body is placed in a pressure chamber along with a mixture of either water and liquid lye or potassium hydroxide, then the chamber is heated to 320 degrees fahrenheit, and the contents are left for 3 to 6 hours.

step two: after the contents of the chamber has been allowed to cool, the liquid (which at this point will mostly consist of liquefied tissue and water) will be drained. what will be left behind is ashy-white processed bone matter.

step three: remaining bones are put through a cremulator machine which grinds them to a fine powder that will later be placed in a new container and presented to the deceased’s family.

this whole process is reported to use less water than a family of four uses in a few hours, and compared to cremation or burial, its resource use is nearly null. what’s more, the end product is almost identical to ashes we see as a result of cremation. the family can be presented with the remains of their loved one to do with what they please, just like in cremation. the ashes produced by alkaline hydrolysis may be kept in a urn, buried or even released in a spot that held emotional significance for the deceased.  

despite the monumental potential for the widespread use of alkaline hydrolysis, its low cost, and the fact that it’s the foremost “green” method of body disposal, it’s only been legalized in some parts of canada and at least 14 states.

the funeral industry is, at the end of the day, an industry like any other. it currently runs on high waste, high prices, and high profit. alkaline hydrolysis is posed to rock the industry in a big way. lobbyists for the funeral industry worry that alkaline hydrolysis could potentially cause dramatic decreases in exorbitant “funeral frills” like luxury coffins lined with velvet, or cosmetic embalmings.

there is also the matter of uninformed decision makers: legislators who have chosen to vote for the suppression of alkaline hydrolysis because they’re simply uncomfortable with it. a board of embalmers and funeral directors in ohio, for example, called their colleague, jeff edwards, “immoral and unprofessional” for practicing alkaline hydrolysis on his own clients with the families’ consent, according to court documents. even in traditionally progressive states, there are retrograde opinions about it.  when a bill to legalize it in california failed in 2010 and then again in 2013, it wasn’t because there was a substantive reason to oppose alkaline hydrolysis. it was because the california catholic conference campaigned against it, demanding that senate members vote “no” to legalization on the grounds that alkaline hydrolysis “does not appear to respectfully treat human remains.”

just like in the 1900s when the rise of cremation was met with controversy and outrage, opposers of alkaline hydrolysis may simply be afraid of the unknown. however, as citizens, it is our duty to demand knowledgeable and unbiased decisions from our legislators. it’s ridiculous that the corpse of a former eco-warrior could be harming the environment posthumously because their state does not provide the option of a green death. it’s up to us to demand changes in legislation, changes that go beyond just alkaline hydrolysis. we should have the option of a natural burial if we want to, and insist that funeral directors keep embalming toxins out of our bodies. it’s up to us to take agency over our deaths and make sure that they reflect the lives we led.

can startups save the world? jimmy stice and his employees think so, and their answer is kalu yala, a startup “eco-city” in the panamanian jungle.

although stice isn’t a silicon valley entrepreneur or a typical venture capitalist, he’s encouraging disruptive models for water conservation, farm to table culinary and housing without walls to build a very different product: an ethical real estate business in panama’s tres brazos valley.

stice’s model, often called social entrepreneurship in the u.s., seeks to harness the free market to do good, letting businesses solve social problems in profitable ways and trying to meet consumer demand in ethical ways. stice, kalu yala and the business program – one of several internship programs in the community – focus on something they call the “triple bottom line.” instead of just aiming to make profit, they say, a business and institute (like kalu yala) must also promote the interests of people and the planet in its work. stice said he tried to find a career that would make value for the world, make him happy and pay his bills. that idea of “making value” for entrepreneurs and the world is fundamental to kalu yala’s mission.

to further this end, kalu yala also founded a business incubator in the first half of 2016. kalu yala’s incubator, which incubator director megan vose claims is the first in panama, seeks to help triple-bottom-line-focused companies get started to provide services for kalu yala, the neighboring town san miguel and even panama city. overall, according to the head of the business incubator megan vose, its job is to help figure out how sustainability can create jobs, both in kalu yala and in the wider world. while the financial benefit package it offers to its clients is still being worked out – “the incubator is still very much being incubated,” vose said – it provides housing, marketing, business advice and a test market (the town of kalu yala) as well as low-interest capital loans to the six businesses it is currently cultivating.

the incubator’s first beneficiary is willie dale, an american with a background in brewing and distilling. dale came to kalu yala from brooklyn at the recommendation of a friend, who was first offered the job dale decided to take. once hired, the community members helped dale construct a living space far from town square where he could experiment with making rum as part of a closed-loop system which recycles wastes, such as methanol. today, dale is preparing to legally sell his miel de caña rum, dale (as in the spanish ¡dale!), in panama.

henry heyman, 21, has also received incubator support for his business tres brazos outfitters. heyman, a former kalu yala business intern from boulder, colo., was inspired to start a sustainable tourism business during his 10-week semester in the valley. heyman, a lifelong lover of the outdoors, noticed many of his fellow interns were not exploring the natural resources around them and sought to turn his experience hiking and guiding hikes into something profitable and sustainable. he started leading kalu yala weekend warriors trips for his fellow students. in late 2016, henry drafted a business plan, secured incubator support and returned to kalu yala, seeking to promote “adventure tourism” for travelers who want low impact, educational vacations.

of course, kalu yala’s directors of culinary, biology and farm systems are still learning how to work out the kinks in the model. for one, the triple bottom line isn’t incentivized by anything in the free market except for a business owner’s personal integrity.

authors such as gus speth and naomi klein have written extensively about how industrial capitalism has no motive for long-term environmental preservation. some interns come in ready to fundamentally disrupt the systems they grew up with, believing fully that “business as usual is suicide” for the planet, and are frustrated with the familiar systems that remain in place at kalu yala, said sustainability coordinator clare bassi.

esteban gast, dean of the kalu yala educational institute, said he’s often asked if kalu yala is a community or a company. he responds “we’re a company that builds communities, right, we’re a community-building company. communities don’t have payroll, so we have to operate as a company, but our focus when we operate as a company is how can we build really strong community.”

like any company, its community building services aren’t free. for the summer 2017 session, kalu yala will charge its interns $6,495, and tuition will increase to $7,495 by spring 2018. this tuition covers room and board, and scholarships are available to panamanians and other latin americans. as the town and program grow, their costs grow as well, posing barriers for some.

those who can manage to come, though, spend 10 weeks working on a project and final presentation in the town. the kalu yala institute’s business and entrepreneurship interns learn “startup tactics,” “financial modeling” and other techniques so they can “redesign traditional business models,” according to their website. under the leadership of entrepreneurship director zouheir al ghreiwati, interns create a product and business model that focus on the “triple bottom line.”

sometimes the sustainability of their ventures comes into question. heyman’s adventure trips cater mostly to wealthy westerners, not native panamanians, who must travel thousands of miles, mostly by plane, to experience the nature he hopes to preserve. air travel is extremely carbon-intensive, producing more co2 and carbon equivalents per mile than any other method of transportation.

heyman still sees his business as sustainable, however, because he focuses on teaching his clients about environmental concerns and living a less wasteful lifestyle while guiding them. “if you want to see central america, at least you’re coming on my trip,” he said, pointing out the excessive and wasteful resource usage in this demographic’s typical tourist destinations, like resorts. sustainability, he stresses, isn’t a straightforward goal. it is most often a series of trade-offs.

the goal of scaling up these business ideas also poses challenges. scaling a business model to serve a much wider market is a shared goal of tech companies in california and the entrepreneurs of kalu yala, but it’s hard to do in ways that are good for the people and planet. kalu yala is seeking to grow in the valley – stice has already sold residential real estate in the town – but it uses its media and marketing teams as a lower-footprint form of scaling. gast said the point of kalu yala’s “start up-y messaging” is to reach people outside of the valley. “we have this global mission because we believe we’re doing all these small changes that have a really big impact. so if we figure out a really interesting way to deal with compost, then that’s something that we want to tell the world,” he said. “so we think very startup-y in the way that we say ‘can this scale? can we have more people living like this?’”

manufacturing is an especially tricky field, where environmental concerns can often be a roadblock for new companies hoping to produce goods quickly and cheaply. shipping is another issue entirely. “i don’t think a lot of social entrepreneurship is scaled,” said al ghreiwati. “you can definitely set an industry standard and replicate it.” but he argues that effective, sustainable development, by definition, must be locally sourced and locally focused. for example, one of his spring interns, gwen michaux, spent her semester developing a business to make “koozies,” – drink holders, usually for soda or beer – fashioned out of bamboo and crocheted plastic bags.

“she’s able to tell people ‘hey, here’s a product that could be useful in your day to day life, and this is how it’s made,’ versus a koozie company in the states explaining ‘hey, here’s all the stuff we dumped into the water to make your koozie, these are all the ink dyes that are being buried and this is how much co2 emerged. it’s tracking not only your profit but also your waste,” said al ghreiwati, her supervisor.

sometimes what consumers demand and what the planet (or a society) really needs are two different things. the kalu yala staff aren’t worried about this, though. al ghreiwati believes that eco-consciousness is more than a market trend and educated consumers will continue gravitating towards products and businesses that are good for the earth. “you vote with your dollar,” he said.

stice echoed this, calling kalu yala’s mission “seducing people who might not care into caring,” then educating them about climate change, environmental issues and sustainable living. according to stice and al ghreiwati, once people know about the issues and fundamentally understand the challenges the planet faces, they will be inspired to take action – one dollar at a time.

the institution is located in the tres brazos valley — a tropical frontier only an hour away from downtown panama city. sitting on 575 acres of rainforest, the growing town offers many different programs to promote an eco-friendly community.

kalu yala offers agriculture, biology, business and entrepreneurship, culinary arts, outdoor recreation, community development and public education, design thinking, public health and wellness, media lab and an optional spanish class to their students.

in the agriculture program, students learn about permaculture and organic farming. students trek their way through the rainforest to find plots of land to grow crop on. when farming, students learn about topsoil conditions and greenhouse management. students interested in biology can set up their own ecology projects on site. from conducting water sampling to gis mapping, biology students can experiment to their needs. students who are interested in community development learn ways to educate the public school systems and promote sustainable developmental approaches.

as of now, the town is solar powered and hydro powered. with two rivers running along side the valley, the town can gather water for hydration, as well as for fuel to power the town.

throughout the world, alumni from more than 160 universities have dedicated change within the institute. out of the universities, cu-boulder is one of them. mark gavit, a cu student, is currently working at kalu yala studying outdoor recreation.

living in open-air ranchos, gavit and several other students construct hiking trails with machetes and develop ways to live sustainably. students like gavit develop leadership skills and set the precedent of how future students will live at the camp.

the camp offers classes in the spring, summer and fall. the spring session runs from january 18 to april 8. the summer session runs from may 16 to july 29 and the fall session runs from september 12 to november 18. although some of the programs may be full, applications for the 2017 academic year are also available.

in today’s society, global warming and the overproduction of goods is a major conflict. with constant greenhouse gases being emitted into our atmosphere, the world deserves a time for change. institutions like kalu yala are shaping global sustainability to an all time high. from educating perspective students about their carbon footprint and allowing innovation throughout the community, students have the opportunity to promote change.

to find out more about the kalu yala institute, including tuition rates and different programs, click here.

this article was published on the cu independent. read the original article here: http://cuindependent.com/2016/03/07/kalu-yala-brings-sustainability-heart-jungle/.

brenda and robert vale, eco-footprint experts from new zealand, concluded in their controversial 2009 book “time to eat the dog? the real guide to sustainable living,” that owning a medium-sized dog is twice as environmentally expensive as making a toyota land cruiser and driving it for 10,000 kilometers (about 6,200 miles), according to an article in the globe and mail. cats, on the other hand, were about one-fifth as taxing on the environment, or the equivalent of doing the same with a volkswagen golf, the paper reported.

and a los angeles times opinion piece said, “plastic bags of poop account for 4% of the municipal waste in san francisco’s landfills, as much as the whole city’s disposal diapers. and every ounce of it produces methane — a greenhouse gas 30% more powerful than carbon dioxide. the city of chicago’s 68 million pounds of annual dog poop creates 102 million cubic feet of unburned methane.”

of course, some people don’t bother to pick up the waste. “it’s organic,” right? the la times article said dog waste, when washed down storm drains into streams and the ocean, fuels toxic algae blooms that suck up oxygen and turn coastal habitats into dead zones. so that’s not the answer, either.

and not all of the pet conundrum stems from actual waste. pets have to eat, too. a lot of what they eat is meat, which we already know comes with a hefty footprint. but beyond that, their processed foods contain “double or triple the protein that studies show animals need,” the globe and mail article reported. so not only are they eating foods with a heavy carbon footprint to start, they’re eating more of it. yes, some pet food companies use ingredients that incorporate byproducts or leftovers from the food chain — which would reduce the food’s footprint — but it’s “not enough to offset the willingness of many animal lovers to pay a premium for pet cuisine,” the globe and mail article said.

this doesn’t even take into account the problems with chemicals used to treat fleas or ticks, or the footprint of producing and importing oh-so-cute outfits for those who take the phrase “babying your pet” to heart.

so what to do about the pet problem? here are a few tips to lessen your pets’ eco-pawprint.

food

perhaps the easiest solution here is to simply choose foods for your pet that have a smaller footprint. that includes chicken and rabbit, according to the la times. that’s still not the greenest of foods, but going vegetarian probably isn’t a great option for your pet. a recent study found that vegetarian-labeled pet food assessed in the study “were not compliant with association of american feed control officials’ labeling regulations, and there were concerns regarding adequacy of amino acid content.” so aim for lowering the footprint, but don’t expect a dramatic decrease.

waste

there are actually multiple solutions here — some which could be scaled up on a city or county level and some which you could easily incorporate right at your home.

— flush it. pick up after your dog, bring it home and then flush it. but don’t flush cat waste. why? the eggs of toxoplasma gondii, a parasite found in cat poop, may survive the wastewater treatment process and contaminate waterways, according to the natural resources defense council.

— bury it. the nrdc suggests using corn-based biodegradable bags to bury the waste, locating your holes away from vegetable plants and ensuring that the water table isn’t too high in your area so the waste won’t get into groundwater.

— compost it — in a special composter. you can either purchase a dog waste composter, such as the doggie dooley, or make your own, using a trash can. with either option you use the same enzymes as in a septic tank to help break down the waste. again, this is not for cat waste, but if you have an herbivorous pet, such as a hamster, rabbit or guinea pig, you can put their waste right in the regular garden compost.

— pick a better cat litter. skip the clay-based litters. instead, go for one made with wheat, corn, reclaimed pine shavings or recycled newspapers. there are lots of options in stores now.

— pet waste digester. you may be familiar with agriculture using anaerobic digesters, which convert manure into energy. this is the same concept, but using dog waste as the methane agent. the la times said an artist at the massachusetts institute of technology created a waste digester for a cambridge, mass., dog park, which powers the lights for the park. 

(image at top: pixabay.)