Mind Opener

None of us like to feel regretful. We want to believe our decisions lead us in the right direction. But often that isn’t the case. What do we decide on something that didn’t work out quite as planned…and we hold ourselves responsible?

Regret is … an unavoidable result of any loss, for in loss we lose the tomorrow that we needed to make right our yesterday or today.

GERALD LAWSON SITTSER, A Grace Disguised

Often regret is very false and displaced, and imagines the past to be totally other than it was.

JOHN O’DONOHUE, Anam Cara

Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.

SYDNEY J. HARRIS, Sam Horn’s Tongue Fu!

Remorse is the poison of life.

CHARLOTTE BRONTE, Jane Eyre

In history as in human life, regret does not bring back a lost moment and a thousand years will not recover something lost in a single hour.

STEFAN ZWEIG, Stellar Moments in Human History

So it is with all life. A tedium that includes the expectation of nothing but more tedium; a regret, right now, for the regret I’ll have tomorrow for having felt regret today.

FERNANDO PESSOA, The Book of Disquiet

Of all Sad Words of Tongue or Pen, the Saddest are these, “It Might Have Been.”

GEORGE ADE, More Fables

Is it really so difficult to tell a good action from a bad one? I think one usually knows right away or a moment afterward, in a horrid flash of regret.

MARY MCCARTHY, My Confession

Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.

AMBROSE BIERCE, The Devil’s Dictionary

Regret, which is guilt without the neurosis, enables us … to move forward instead of back.

JANE ADAMS, When Our Grown Kids Disappoint Us

You’ll never regret writing any letter out of love. However, it’s a good idea to reread anything you’ve written in anger.

MARY MATALIN, Letters to My Daughters

Regret is an odd emotion because it comes only upon reflection. Regret lacks immediacy, and so its power seldom influences events when it could do some good.

WILLIAM O’ROURKE, Idle Hands

The designers understood the risk. The city waited with baited breath. Would one of the largest living roofs flourish or flop? Well, the answer is somewhere in-between:

It’s been three years since the green roof was planted on Vancouver’s new convention centre.
Is it a success? Is it as good as they promised it would be?
The answer is that some parts are terrific — attractive, quality planting; a beautiful habitat for songbirds and insect life.
But other areas are untidy, scrubby, a bit of a mess; you might even say, an eyesore, and a fair ways from what they could or should be.

Overall, the roof is more a success than a flop, but there’s definitely room for improvement, so the designers should not spend too much time patting themselves on the back. There’s still some refining work to do.
Covering 2.4 hectares (just over six acres), it is still the largest living roof in Canada and the largest non-industrial green roof in North America.
But being 10 storeys above ground, you can’t see much of it from street level, say from outside the Fairmont Pacific Rim at Canada Place.
The roof is mostly visible to people working in adjacent highrise office blocks, such as the Shaw Tower, or living in luxury condos opposite.

Read more at the Vancouver Sun.

Uber Composter

If you’re even somewhat ecologically conscious, you’ve probably heard of composting, the process by which we compile and compost food and other organic products into a usable resource. When you dump food out in the trash, it does nothing in landfills. Sure, it breaks down but the end-product is very little use to anything or anyone.

Now some schools and colleges are using these incredible composters (seen above) that help the environment and teach students about the food cycle:

Sending food waste to landfill is unnecessary, unsustainable and costly. Discussing the problem in an Exmoor pub one night were Richard Gedge – an ex-stockbroker who now runs an award-winning farm for its green credentials – and Dan Welburn, a former formula one engineer. Together, after experimenting with prototypes, they created the Ridan composter.

Capable of composting up to 400 litres of food waste a week, they have helped divert over 1,000 tonnes from landfill in two years, according to the company. They are proving popular with hotels, National Trust sites, prisons and even climbing centres.

Perhaps most importantly, colleges and schools are using them, not only to save money on disposal costs, but to help raise environmental awareness about the food cycle – helping young people to learn to appreciate food and think about prioritising locally sourced food. Food miles are usually considered with the distance from where it is produced to where it is consumed. But perhaps less often does anyone factor in the distance that wasted food travels to be disposed.

The ‘in-vessel’ composter is simple to use say its manufacturers, and it is suitable for all food waste, including cooked and raw, meat and dairy. The Ridan composting process requires no electricity and is carbon negative. Its design led to it being a finalist in the Devon Environmental Business Initiative (DEBI) awards in its first year. It was recognised not only for its sustainable practice in dealing with food waste, but also for savings in emissions. The process saves in combustion emissions through eliminating transportation, as well as reducing the methane from decomposing matter, which occurs in landfill.

“We are proud of what we have achieved so far and are now expanding rapidly. One day it will be standard practice for every catering facility to compost on-site,” says Dan Welburn. And his best moment since their system was launched? “Watching ‘I’ve got a brand new Ridan Composter’ sung by children at an assembly to the tune of Wurzels.”

Source: Positive News