Consumerism Gone Wild Posts

Maybe it's because of the meetings in Copenhagen, or maybe not, but there have been a lot of posts on consumerism and/or the environment over the past few days. Here are a few worth checking out.

Vincent over at This Wonder-ful Life posted this powerpoint about bottled water. Bottled water has to be one of the biggest consumer scams of the last century. Companies like Coca Cola making billions on the life-giving source for all beings. Millions of plastic bottles being made and then tossed - creating more than one cycle of pollution in the process. And millions of people deluded into thinking that bottled water is better than tap water, when the reality is, unless there's a major contamination in your local tap source, the bottled water is no better, and might be worse, that what you drink daily.

This is an excellent post on consumerism in yoga over at the blog After the Laundry. For those of you who have, like me, written about consumerism's invasion into Buddhism, it's even worse, in my opinion, in the "Western" yoga world. From uber trendy and expensive clothes, to unnecessary props and "accessories," there's a lot of trouble in the yoga world. People still manage to wade through all that and have deep practices, for sure, but there are plenty of pitfalls for your pocketbook, as well as for your spiritual life, to be had when it comes to yoga.

Here's a blow by blow take down of both plastic and the belief that recycling will save the world. This blog is also an excellent example of someone who is doing her best to navigate the muddy waters of the modern yoga landscape in order to have a real practice.

And finally, as an art lover, this post on artists engaging the current environmental challenges was really interesting.