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"If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life." Rachel Carson





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Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Focus the Nation Webcasts


Here's a great webcast about one organization's, Architecture 2030, idea to put a stop to global warming.

Tomorrow, Thursday January 31st, is Focus the Nation. You can log on to earthdaytv.net to watch their interactive webcast called The 2% SOLUTION. Join in with others for a discussion of global warming solutions.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

The 3 R’s: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

racoon
We’ve all heard this catchy phrase. The last R, recycling, tends to get all the credit. Reducing and Reusing, however, are even more important. If you can reduce the materials you consume you will not only create less waste, you also won’t need to worry about what to do with all the things that you buy when you are done with them. Reuse is a great way to make the most of the things that you do buy. Once you no longer need or want something, pass it on! One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Buying or trading vintage, refurbished and used items is a fun way to get cool stuff while preventing pollution and saving the earth’s precious resources.

You can recycle up to 84% of your trash simply by taking it out of the garbage can and putting it in the recycling bin. Items made from recycled materials take far less energy and create only a fraction of the pollution to produce than items made from brand new materials. And of course, imagine the natural resources that are saved!

Here are some great ways to Reduce, Reuse and Recycle:

– Buy only what you need and use all of what you buy.
– Avoid buying things that use excessive packaging and buy in bulk.
– Buy durable things that will last a long time
– When things break, see if they can be fixed before throwing them away.
– Wash and reuse plastic cups, utensils and bags.
– Precycle by buying products whose packaging can be recycled
– And always bring your own bag! If you are just buying a few things just carry them in your hands.
– Complete the cycle and buy products made from recycled materials. When you buy products made from post-consumer recycled materials you are helping to reduce carbon emissions and saving resources.

Did you know?

–If all the other people on the Earth used as much "stuff" as we do in the U.S., there would need to be three to five times more space just to hold and sustain everybody.
– Americans throw away about 40 billion soft drink cans and bottles every year. Placed end to end, they would reach to the moon and back nearly 20 times. Recycling an aluminum soda can saves 96% of the energy used to make a can from ore, and produces 95% less air pollution and 97% less water pollution.
– Every pound of solid waste that goes into a landfill results in 2 lbs of greenhouse gases
– Americans throw away 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour.
– Every glass bottle recycled saves enough energy for a 100 watt light bulb to be lit for 4 hours.
– You’ll save two pounds of carbon for every 20 glass bottles that you recycle.
– Only about one-tenth of all solid garbage in the United States gets recycled.
– The average American creates 56 tons of trash every year.

Here’s Your Mission:

Set up a recycling system at home and at school.

1) Ask your local municipality for recycling guidelines and bins.
2) Set up a place in your home for the recycling bins. The garage or big roll–out kitchen drawers are good places.
3) Make a label for each bin clearly listing what items belong in them.
4) Bring your recycling to the curb on recycling day.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Get ready to Focus the Nation


I get so excited when I hear about events like the Focus the Nation national teach–in on global warming solutions for America. Taking place on January 31st at thousands of colleges, universities, high schools, middle schools, places of worship, civic organizations and businesses, people will come together to educate and discuss the environmental crisis at hand. Together they will speak there minds to their local and state elected officials, propose ideas and vote on their top five national priorities for global warming action, producing a campus and citizen endorsed policy agenda for 2008.

To see if your school or organization is participating, check this map for events in your area. If you do attend, report back! We want to hear how people in your area are standing up against global warming.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Meet the ecosavvy kid...

I am excited to tell you about the site the ecosavvykid.com run by a mom and son team. Colin offers great ideas and information as he himself strives to make a the world a greener place. Check out his website and give him any ideas you might have about being green.

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

OneClimate


Ever feel like you are the only one around you who seems to care about planet? OneClimate.net is a social networking sight like MySpace where you can meet like-minded people who are concerned about the planet, too. On OneClimate, you can ask questions or write about things you're doing to combat global warming. You can post videos and pictures too. You can even form your own group and make contact with others like yourself. You can join on your own or as a group or classroom. This is a great opportunity to be inspired by the countless others who are taking a stand against climate change.

Monday, January 7, 2008

You are what you eat...

Methane

We all know that cows can really stink. But cow manure is not only lethal for your nose, it ís also lethal for the environment. Cows and other livestock produce a greenhouse gas called methane. Methane is 21 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than CO2, and is responsible for almost half of the global warming impacting the planet today. Animal agriculture produces 100 million tons of methane a year, that’s double the rate during pre-industrial times.

Did you know?


—Americans eat 10 times more animal protein than necessary for a complete nutritional diet.
—Meat—based diets require 10 times the land area to feed a person in comparison to a plant—based diet. Most of the 15 million hectares of tropical rainforest lost each year is used for raising cattle and growing animal feed. Cutting down and burning the rainforest not only spews more than a billion tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, it permanently destroys essential habitat for biodiversity.
—Some good news: While carbon dioxide takes 100 years to cycle out of the atmosphere, methane takes only 8. That means that actions we take now to lower methane levels will quickly result in a cooler planet.

What you can do:


Eat a plant—based diet. If you replace 1 beef meal a week with a plant—based meal you will save more than 40,000 gallons of water, 70 tons of grain, save 300 pounds of greenhouse gases from being emitted each year! And if you can encourage your family to do the same...just imagine the difference you can make!