Bamboo--the versatile, sustainable, eco-wonder

In Dance Rose and other villagers roll out a bamboo dance floor for a night of dancing under the stars.

Used worldwide for food, medicine, clothing, furniture, housing, bicycles, weapons, boats, packaging, kitchen and household utensils, bamboo is the eco-wonder of the world.

Stronger than hardwood, and touted as the fastest growing plant on the planet (some species grow 1-3 feet a day), bamboo is a highly renewable resource. Resilient and persistent, bamboo is reported to have survived the bombing of Hirsohima, according to the Florida Caribbean Chapter of the American Bamboo Society.

But that's not all. Bamboo consumes carbon dioxide and soil toxins and returns 30 percent more oxygen to the atmosphere than trees. Because of its rapid growth and root structure, it can stabilize soil destroyed by overgrazing and over-building.

And if all that weren't enough, bamboo is just plain beautiful.

Native to all continents except Europe and Antarctica, bamboo grows in climates both tropical and frigid. There are estimated to be more than 1200 species worldwide, with about 450 of them in the Americas, according to Gilberto Cortes, Regional Director of Bamboo in the Americas. Only one species, Arundinaria gigantea, commonly known as Cane Brake or Cane Reed, is native to the United States.

Using bamboo does not mean we are off the hook environmentally. Bamboo is the major food for endangered pandas, bamboo lemurs, and mountain gorillas, whose habitat shrinks daily.

Civilization increasingly encroaches on bamboo forests and plantations. Make sure the bamboo products you purchase are from sustainable plantations that do not destroy habitat or endanger other species.

For more information on bamboo, its uses, and the people and creatures who depend on it, visit these sites:

• International Network for Bamboo and Rattan, for bamboo as housing construction material and as a way out of poverty, especially for women


• Bamboo Web


• World Bamboo Organization


• American Bamboo Society, lots of info on non-native plants, where to find them, and how to grow them
  
• 1000 Things Made of Bamboo, a sometimes repetitive list, has lots of images
• Wayne's Word, comprehensive scientific data presented in a lively format including good images and fun bamboo trivia
  
• WSU Extension Bamboo Research, studies bamboo as food crop (bamboo shoots) and as construction material crop (bamboo poles)


• Wikipedia on Bamboo, for general info, good images, and more links


• Environmental Bamboo Foundation, for environmental data as well as some cool graphics showing how to build a bamboo house and a bamboo shelter (it appears they have them backwards, however, with the house on the shelter link and the shelter on the house link); site includes a pharmacopoeia of ways some cultures use bamboo as medicine

Music and Books

Sometimes a villager in Ordinary mentions a book or song title that exists in our world. In those cases, I link to a commercial web site, such as Amazon.com, where you can learn more about the book or song.

I prefer Amazon because I'm a tad lazy, and they make it easy to find book excerpts and audible song samples.

Below is a list of titles that have appeared in Ordinary posts, as well as on this blog.

The list is divided in two sections: Books and Music. It includes the original post in which the title appeared, and a link to the commercial web site where you can find information and, frequently, excerpts and samples.

Enjoy!

Books

• Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh, by Helena Norberg-Hodge; appeared in Learning from Ladakh, 6/17/05, Ordinary Peace, 1/23/06, Chi choen?--What's the point?, 2/5/05



• Sent by Earth: A message from the Grandmother Spirit after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, by Alice Walker; appeared in Welcome the Children, 8/6/06



• Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World, by Alan Weisman; appeared in Gaviotas--A Real Village, 9/11/05



• Start Where You Are, by Pema Chadron; appeared in Why Do We Kill People?, 1/18/06, Ordinary Peace, 1/23/06, The Slave Trade--alive and flourishing, 2/9/06



• The Mistress of Spices, by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni; appeared in Nest on 7/26/05



• Medicine Cards by Jamie Sams and David Carson; referenced in Bonnie on 8/18/05



• Silk Roads and Shadows by Susan Schwartz; appeared in Amends on 1/21/06



• The Mind of the Dolphin: A Non-Human Intelligence, by John C. Lilly; appeared in Something Wrong with this Picture on 9/9/05



• Communication Between Man andDolphin: The Possibilities of Talking With Other Species, by John C. Lilly; appeared in Something Wrong with this Picture on 9/9/05



• Toward a Psychology of Being by Abraham Maslow; appeared in Chi choen?--What's the point?, 2/25/05



• Freakonomics: A rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything, by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, Welcome the Children, 8/6/06

Music

Note: To find the audible song samples, scroll down the page. It may be necessary to expand the track selections as the web site does not display them all at first.

• The Garden Song, (audio sample on Disc 2, Track 8); appeared in Weed
  on 6/21/05


• The Erie Canal, (audio sample available); appeared in Rain on 7/17/05


• You Never Can Tell, (audio sample on Track 9); appeared in Dance 9/15/06


• Do Ya, by K.T. Oslin (audio sample on Track 5); appeared in Dance 9/15/06

This post will be updated as new books and song titles are added.