New York SBDC Research Network

Already getting swept up in the Christmas blitz of stuff, this morning I opened my email to find a message from a friend with this link to a short film that I thought was very relevent. I thought I would share it here. This is from the Story of Stuff website describing their intentions: "The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns, with a special focus on the United States. All the stuff in our lives, beginning from the extraction of the resources to make it, through its production, sale, use and disposal, affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues and calls for all of us to create a more sustainable and just world. It'll teach you something. It'll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever." There is a d

In the midst of this cold snap many of us are enduring, think back to the balmy days of December 2006. That unusually mild month may have put the year into the record books. About.com has an article describing the process of determining the temperature, which is over two degrees Fahrenheit higher than the 20th Century mean, which may suggest evidence of global warming . I note this, in part, because of the fact that there is apparently more than one way to measure these things, and that 1998 may instead be the "winner". Something for clients, advisors, and especially librarians to remember when they look for, or receive, information is that there may be more than one way to parse the data, about global warming , the number of small businesses, or anything else. (I do believe, BTW, that there IS global warming, and that humans have contributed to it; it's the different methodologies that I wished to comment on.) And speaking of heat, here's a list of individuals curre