If I gave my family questionable marks on its efforts to reduce, I admit that when it comes to re-using I am the Queen. When I was a teenager there was a song, ‘I was country, when country wasn’t cool.’ Well, I was re-using back when it was called hand-me-downs and everyone looked down on you for wearing them. Honestly though, I can remember being about five and having a distant second cousin visit. She had brought a bag of clothes that had been her daughter’s, who had died. That may sound morbid, but I think my smiles and thanks for the ‘new’ clothes may have helped to let go of not only the clothes, but a bit of her grief as well.
If you were to look in my three year old’s playroom, most of the toys you would see have been given to her second-hand from friends, purchased at charity shops or even salvaged from the bin…including her wonderful Little Tikes kitchen centre.
But my re-using does not stop there, if you open my kitchen cabinets you will see stacks of old containers that once held spread, cottage cheese or something else. With the exception of the air-tight sealing bowls that my husband uses to transport his food to work each day, we do not purchase or use Tupperware, Serv-rite or any other type of plastic wear. And those plastic containers that once housed my produce such as strawberries, blueberries and peaches are now being re-used as pots for my spring seedlings. I also have a cabinet full of sauce jars that I am looking for ideas on how best to re-use. I have already filled several with nuts, bolts, nails and the like. But even after getting organised myself, I just can’t bring myself to throw these into the recycle bag when I know that they are perfectly re-usable as they are. As I mentioned yesterday, I re-use the few plastic bags we get from quick trips to the corner store for bin liners in the bathrooms.
I have even taken to re-using my daughter’s Fruit Shoot bottles by refilling them with concentrate fruit and water. Of course, a tad of a warning on this one: do not freeze plastic bottles as it can cause a cancer causing chemical to leach into the drinks. So I always replace the bottles after a few uses just to be safe. But then they can go into the recycle bag (but that is tomorrow’s topic).
Even dinner last night was re-used food; better known as left-overs. Anyone that reads my blog knows I have dozens (hundreds?) of ideas for re-using food as soups, smoothies, casseroles, stir-fries or just re-heated and served. I call this creative cooking and make it a staple of not only our family’s diet, but of my blog as well: offering recipes to my readers.
I think one of the most beautiful examples of re-using is the folk-art form of quilting. Not only can worn-out old clothes be turned into colourful quilts, but they can tell a story: our history. I have also heard of people braiding old cloth to make rugs as well. Last year at the Green Show, I bought my daughter the cutest little purse made from old plastic juice boxes by a women’s cooperative in the developing world.
Thinking back to my own childhood and the used toys and clothes that I was blessed to enjoy, I am glad that it has become the ‘cool’ thing to re-use. Not only do these items still have good life left in them, but they remind us that we, ourselves, re-use life’s lessons to improve our world. So next time before you toss that item into the bin or even the recycle bag, stop and ask yourself could it be re-used instead: perhaps that wine bottle would look nice on a table with a candle or a few flowers or could that old t-shirt be cut into squares and used instead of paper towels or how about making puppets with old and mismatched socks. The ideas are limitless…I hope you will share your favourites with me as well.
Terri O’Neale is the mother of six; ranging in age from 3 to 22. She has been both a working and stay-at-home mother at various times in her life. She was also a single mother for almost five years, before re-marrying the love of her life at the age of forty. Obviously, she has a life-time of training in raising a family on a tight budget. In addition to these real life experiences, she possesses a bachelors degree in health education and a minored in environmental management in her masters programme.
Terri feels strongly that this is one of the most challenging times in history for the family, but she also believes that families with the will and resolve to address the pressing issues of saving money, becoming greener, leading healthier lifestyles and spending more time with one another can endure these challenging times and come out victorious in the end.
Through Frugal Family articles, blogs, videos and social networking, she helps modern families rediscover some lost art forms such as cooking, sewing, and gardening. The goal is not to go back in time or become fanatical, but to help all families find simple and effective ways that fit into their lifestyle to make moderate changes with huge impacts. For more information, check out her blog http://frugalfam.wordpress.com/.
“The Resource Matrix is everywhere, it is all around us. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth. You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.”
In my last water efficiency article (Water-Efficiency: Why Most Advice You’ve Read is Absolutely Inefficient), we began a slow turn away from lighting with a discussion of the 80/20 Rule and how your little positive behavioral changes with water aren’t even a drop in the bucket when your other positive behavioral changes - making homemade pizza - evaporate the entire year’s ocean of benefits in a few tasty bites.
In a four-part series, we talk about a resource besides energy: water.
Today, we begin far above this “turn off the porch lights and take short, icy showers” efficiency thing to show you how we got to where we are now both in fuels and in other resources.
Next week, we introduce the resource called water, its parallels with fossil fuels, and its role in global warming.
The following week, we continue going with the flow of water, when we show the parallel between the current hot Oil Wars and in the future cold Water Wars.
And in the final week, we tie together the articles in a symphony of three movements, showing you how all the elements hold the Resource Matrix in place and how, like Neo in the movie, you can break the code that creates the graphical user interface and see the illusion for what it really is. (At least, my version of it, anyway.)
Ready to take the red pill and see how deep the rabbit-hole goes?
We start with one of the most boring subjects known to college students, one birthed out of the Enlightenment when extremely titled, idly rich, powdery wig-headed fancy foppish men dressed like women and walked in high heels and squealed like school girls:
Economics: it’s totally insane
Economics is described as the science of allocating scarce resources. Since it’s the study of human behavior, it’s a social science rather than a physical science.
And although any individual’s behavior may not be predictable, individuals as a group can be. Kinda like the weather: you don’t know much about a single raindrop’s effect but you can track the overall storm and predict what’s next.
Economics likes to fool itself that it can predict behavior based on the assumption that people make rational choices. Understand what people think and you understand what choices people will make.
It unfortunately leaves out the other part of being human: human behavior based on emotions.
And emotions weigh heavily in how we interact with each other, especially in exchanges of value.
Maximizing returns:
“I want your goodies for nothing”
Economics recognizes that people are motivated by self-interest to maximize their benefits at the lowest cost.
On an individual basis, this can turn into a “win-lose” proposition:
I want to acquire the best stuff for the cheapest terms
I want to dispose of the lousiest stuff for the greatest terms
In short, you want diamonds and gold for nothing and they want to give you useless junk for a king’s ransom.
May the Force be with you:
getting diamonds and gold for nothing:
Economics comes out of 18th century political economy, which studied production, buying and selling, and their relations with law, custom, and government. Political economy itself comes out of moral philosophy.
This moral philosophy apparently had room for colonialism, which comes pretty close to getting your diamonds and gold for nothing: forcibly take over a country and use its people to extract its resources to be reallocated to your bank account. And make sure nobody but you has any say in the matter.
Social good in the equation:
A few people didn’t see the morality in this philosophy. Enter the lousy, meddling individual do-gooders like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Mohandas Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Upton Sinclair, and many others who messed with the “I want your goodies for nothing” crowd.
And some of the individuals do-gooders formed their own organizations like the Sierra Club and Greenpeace.
They all worked to increase awareness that there are alternatives to being forced to give away your diamonds and gold for nothing while having no say in the matter, and worked to change deals from “win-lose” to “win-win.”
The “I want your goodies for nothing” crowd, who could only lose in the change to “win-win,” found their salvation in the late 1800s with the rise of modern psychology (the scientific study of mental functions and behavior). Applied to politics, it’s called propaganda. Applied to spirituality, it’s called religion. Applied to commerce, it’s called marketing and advertising.
All these applications are forms of hypnotism, and are based on the proven principle that if you repeat anything enough times, including a falsehood, your audience will grow to believe it and then to defend it as the truth.
The “I want your goodies for nothing” crowd used economics to hypnotically declare for 250 years that fossil fuels, the air, and water were without cost. They called them “free goods.”
And they used force (”Oh yeah, and what the hell are you going to do about it?”) to declare that pollution had no consequences.
What’s an Oxymoron?
“Free Good” in economics
The free good is a term used in economics to describe a good that is not scarce. A free good is available in as great a quantity as desired with zero opportunity cost to society.
Earlier schools of economic thought proposed that free goods were resources that are so abundant in nature that there is enough for everyone to have as much as they want. Examples in textbooks (even in the 1980s) included fresh water and the air that we breathe. However, these are now regarded as common goods because competition for them is rivalrous.
In short, there is no free lunch.
An additional moral philosophy:
“There’s a sucker born every minute”
becomes
“How can I help you help me?”
The “I want your goodies for nothing” crowd continues to rise early and work late to craft their “win-lose” deals every day.
Yet, out of those rising early and working late, a small radical fringe discovered the curious fact that if you don’t beat a dog bloody every time you see it, it’s less likely to bite your hand off, and it even might go out and hunt down a squirrel for your evening stew.
Their moral philosophy became a hybrid offshoot.
The Hybrids still want your goodies, but they are willing to help you get your goodies with less pain and damage to yourself so you’ll be willing to come back to them and hand over more of your goodies.
Both use the same mind-numbing hypnotic slogans: “We care about you.”
The difference is the Hybrids actually do some of those same things that someone who cares about you would do. Even if they don’t actually give a hoot about you. Contrast that to the “I want your goodies for nothing” crowd, who merely sends you more hynoptic slogans when they want your goodies.
Where Do You Want to Go Today?
Everywhere but here
We’ve all awaken to the shocking realizations that:
finite energy resources will run out
actions have consequences, and the consequences of our actions are already visible, rather scary, and quite irreversible, and
the “I want your goodies for nothing” crowd hasn’t been telling the truth
In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, you could just pop some soma and totally trip out.
But the cowardly old world we’re experiencing has quickly turned into a total bummer of a bad trip, man. Down with the Establishment and praise the Collective.
We’re all in this together, or
Toss the lousy, greedy bastards overboard
The decades of the Do-Gooders increasing our awareness of possible “win-win” possibilities and of the Hybrids backing their “we care about you” lip service with actual service has brought us to another realization:
There’s a price to everything, and if I don’t pay the price, someone else will, and somehow, some way, on some sunny day, they’re going to get even and make me pay.
And this has been an important change in the understanding of energy efficiency and global warming: the environment has a limited capacity within our human-lifetime periods to absorb civilization’s byproducts and transform them into resources. It usually needs geologic time to turn dead trees and critters into oil and gas. In the meantime, the trash piles up in the streets.
The solution: create less trash.
Thanks to the Do-Gooders, we have greater awareness or our actions and the desire to change, and have the Hybrids offering ways to change.
And the result is a shift of power away from the “I want your goodies for nothing” crowd. It’s now Power to the People.
But wait, there’s more …
to the Resource Matrix
Just because you know about fossil fuels, their finite amounts, their polluting, warming effects on the environment, and alternatives offered by the Hybrids - even if you have done your part to the best of your ability to reduce, reuse, and recycle — you haven’t escaped the Resource Matrix.
Energy to power our lives is one component of the Resource Matrix. And it’s the most visible in discussions of global warming and being resourceful. But there’s more:
Coming Attractions!
In the next three articles, we will talk about concepts concerning the resource that makes up 75% of the planet and 75% of your body:
Water.
You’ll learn that, although 75% of the planet is water, only 3% of water is potable (can be consumed), and of that 3%, only a small fraction is available, and of that small fraction, only a small fraction is potable, because the rest is polluted for hundreds of years to come.
You’ll learn how the actions of an illiterate, lice-infested, foul-mouthed peasant on the other side of the globe affects you where you are.
You’ll learn how, unlike oil, water is transferred invisibly from poor to rich by sleight of hand, like paying your utility bill through your online bank account.
You’ll learn how poor water decisions, rather than fossil fuel’s atmospheric effects described in Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, leads to those drybeds of the formerly humongous Aral Sea and along the Amazon.
You’ll learn how to measure the global water impact of any nation, city, corporation, even yourself - to the nearest gallon or liter.
You’ll learn the little changes you can make - the water equivalent of “change your incandescent lightbulbs to compact fluorescent lamps” - and still be able to take your wastefully long showers.
And all of this is for one purpose:
To help you see the Resource Matrix, everywhere, all around you.
And now I would like to offer you free access to powerful info on energy efficiency that’s easy to read and cuts through all this “green” information clutter — so you can literally start making positive changes today.
From the Department of Mixed Emotions: The New York Times’ Green, Inc. blog is reporting that a new solar thermal plant is going to be built in Coalinga,
Generating Cheap Solar Power For Homes. Is solar power for homes a feasible idea? Can we cut our electricity cost by using a solar power for homes system? Check out to get all the answers about Solar Power. Date Published: …
Home Solar Power in Phoenix, Arizona arizona solar homes Residents of Phoenix, Arizona might be able to get by without using much power at all for a decent.
Chevron will partner with BrightSource Energy to develop 29 megawatts of thermal power from the sun. The process uses mirrors to concentrate the solar rays onto.
Is Obama#8217;s Plan To Build Windmills And Solar Power Plants Better Than Mcain#8217;s Plan For More Oil Wells ?/a/lilia rel=nofollow target=_blank href=’http://www.dirpop.com/solar-energy-turned-energy/’ title=’Permanent Link: How Is …
We’ve all read the stories about how municipal water systems in the United States are contaminated with toxins such as lead, mercury, copper and even bacteria. In some parts of the country, stories of raw sewage leaks into fresh water supplies have made the news. And, people have reacted by drinking expensive bottled water as a supposedly healthier alternative to ordinary, inexpensive tap water.
City Water Supplies Are Safe
Of course, the truth about the safety of the nation’s municipal water supplies has finally come forth - drinking water from household taps virtually anywhere in the country is safe, pure and incredibly inexpensive. And, we’re learning that bottled water isn’t as healthy for us as we first thought.
Get Off The Bottle
First there’s the plastic container, or bottle itself. That convenient, plastic water bottle we’ve gotten used to carrying around is made from plastic material that contains cancer-producing toxins called phthalates. These toxins actually leach into the water in the plastic bottle and accumulate in our bloodstreams. Studies show that the concentrations of phthalates in our systems are increasing with each generation, mainly as a result of drinking water bottled in toxic plastic containers.
Plastic is Hardly Boidegradable
These plastic bottles aren’t biodegradable. Plastic throw-aways now represent at least 25% of the contents of our landfills. And plastics won’t break down for around 10,000 years - some plastics can take even longer to degrade. So our healthy-water myth has turned into a big health hazard. What can people do?
A Nice and Effective Alternative
Fortunately, there are many easy and inexpensive alternatives to our drinking water challenges.You can easily install a simple charcoal-type filter system on your kitchen faucet. These inexpensive filters can remove up to 99.9% of heavy metals and other toxins that may (or mostly may not) be present in your city’s drinking water. And you can now buy a portable water filtration system that’s as convenient as your old plastic sports bottle, but the bottle is not made of toxic materials.
Cheap Filter Removes Most Contaminants
The filters that can be attached to your kitchen faucet are cheap (generally under $50) can be found at most hardware stores, reduce chlorine and heavy metals, and generally make your tap water taste better. For example, the Brita system costs about $20 - 40 for a starter set, and $20 for each replacement filter. It will filter about 100 gallons of drinking water and lasts for about 4 months.
Portable Filtration is the “Wave” of The Future
For about the same price, you can now get a 16 ounce portable water filtration system from Back to the Tap, which actually filters as you drink. It uses a number 4 LDPE plastic bottle, which is the kind of plastic that doesn’t normally leach phthalates. The filters are replaceable, and you can refill anywhere with plain tap water. It can be refilled about 300 times, and that’s 300 disposable plastic bottles you’re not throwing into already full landfills.
Going green does take some conscious thought and careful planning, but it’s getting easier every day to go green. In this case, you will be rewarded with better health and less plastic in landfills - and more money in your wallet. Remember - bottled water costs MUCH more than gasoline, per gallon. So, save your health and the environment and tons of cash - by drinking water from your own household tap!
There’s no reason to poison your family and spend thousands of dollars just to have a clean home. Clean your house with simple and pure natural cleaners - and save enough money for a really nice vacation! Want to find out how to go green, save money and save Planet Earth? Click HERE to find out how being green can save you green!
From the Department of Mixed Emotions: The New York Times’ Green, Inc. blog is reporting that a new solar thermal plant is going to be built in Coalinga,
Generating Cheap Solar Power For Homes. Is solar power for homes a feasible idea? Can we cut our electricity cost by using a solar power for homes system? Check out to get all the answers about Solar Power. Date Published: …
Home Solar Power in Phoenix, Arizona arizona solar homes Residents of Phoenix, Arizona might be able to get by without using much power at all for a decent.
Is Obama#8217;s Plan To Build Windmills And Solar Power Plants Better Than Mcain#8217;s Plan For More Oil Wells ?/a/lilia rel=nofollow target=_blank href=’http://www.dirpop.com/solar-energy-turned-energy/’ title=’Permanent Link: How Is …
Chevron will partner with BrightSource Energy to develop 29 megawatts of thermal power from the sun. The process uses mirrors to concentrate the solar rays onto.
Concerns about dangerous climate change and large biodiversity loss are visible throughout the world: unprecedented rates of temperature increases and species extinctions are a reality. In 1999 Dr. Peter Raven, president of the International Botanical Congress, published a paper in which he states that “current extinction rate is now approaching 1,000 times the background rate and may climb to 10,000 times the background rate during the next century, if present trends continue. At this rate, one-third to two-thirds of all species of plants, animals, and other organisms would be lost during the second half of the 21st century, a loss that would easily equal those of past extinctions”. He then outlined seven “Points to Slow the Extinction of Plants”, including financial and capacity building instruments to help developing countries protect 80% of the world’s biodiversity they host. As far as climate change is concerned, the responsibility of developed countries is high in providing the most threatened regions in the world with good instruments to cope with this challenge (or at least examples of them to implement autonomously).
Climate change plays a significant role in this human-induced mass extinction because it is increasing the already large biodiversity losses caused by habitat destruction and fragmentation, water and air pollution, introduction of invasive species. Marine ecosystems will be affected by an increase in sea temperature, but also by ocean acidification, because of the higher concentration of dissolved carbon dioxide (carbonic acid): in fact this reduces the shell formation ability in many organisms. Polar (and mountain) ecosystems are particularly vulnerable to climate change, with effects such as thawing permafrost, decreased snow cover, losses from ice sheets and changes in ocean temperatures. Large impacts on Arctic biodiversity are already evident, pictures of polar bears wandering lost on small icebergs being a scary and sad symbol of the era we live in (even former U.S. President Bush, at the end of his mandate, recalled this image to show his fellow citizens he cared about climate change …)
In this rapidly changing environment it is therefore extremely important that conservation plans include adaption measures for ecosystems accordingly to the predicted regional climate patterns (but models need still to be improved a lot at this scale): dynamic approaches are needed to set good options for future ecosystems and landscapes. It will be necessary to facilitate the movement of species to new geographical locations, as they follow the shifting habitats.
The public concern is growing: in Africa last 28 February young people organized a march from impoverished urban areas to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro to raise awareness on climate change, together with the Kilimanjaro Initiative and the UN’s global UNite to Combat Climate Change campaign. It seems though that the global attention on climate change doesn’t fully consider implications for biodiversity yet: while the negotiations and speeches on climate issues are very popular (and the Nobel Prize was awarded to the entire IPCC together with Al Gore in 2007) the meetings and decisions of the Convention on Biological Diversity (http://www.cbd.int/) don’t raise comparable interest. Is it because the anthropocentrism is (still) the prevailing philosophy and animals and plants are mainly seen by people as beautiful “supporting actors” on the planet we live on? Right when we are losing control of the global situation it is probably time to reflect on our role of dominant species and acknowledge the fundamental contribution of other organisms to our livelihoods, despite many of us live in the so called Technosphere.
Policies to protect the climate avoiding irreversible effects on the ecosystems need to be strongly interconnected with conservation strategies: preserving natural areas while helping them adapt to the changing climate means hopefully to leave better, or not as compromised, ecosystems to future generations. Climate and biodiversity, though ever changing and evolving, are common goods and they need common policies: if we reduce the human Ecological Footprint both the atmosphere and the biosphere will be better off (and our children and grandchildren living in them).
Written by Luca Marazzi on behalf of Responding to Climate Change.
For further information on Climate Change please visit the Responding to Climate Change website - http://www.rtcc.org
The Ecological Footprint is a measure of human demand on the Earth’s ecosystems. It represents the amount of biologically productive land and sea area needed to regenerate the resources a human population consumes and to absorb and render harmless the corresponding waste. Using this assessment, it is possible to estimate how much of the Earth (or how many planet Earths) it would take to support humanity if everybody lived a given lifestyle. For 2005, humanity’s total ecological footprint was estimated at 1.3 planet Earths - in other words, humanity uses ecological services 1.3 times faster than Earths can renew them. See also: http://www.footprintnetwork.org/
Ideas For Earth Day and Beyond: Helping Kids Care For the Earth
Earth Day is April 22, and while it’s important to get involved on this day, there are things we can do as families that will make a huge impact throughout the year.
It starts with helping our kids to celebrate the world in which we live, and it continues with helping them to love it so much that they want to do everything they can to help protect it. Here are six ideas to help your kids celebrate and care for our earth:
1. Get out and enjoy it. Researchers are now saying that simply getting kids outside in nature may be the most effective way to raise their awareness of environmental issues. Suddenly, these problems that they hear about on the news and in the classroom have a real impact on their daily lives. They see firsthand how a forest or a beach or a tidepool or a meadow is teeming with life, with ecological relationships that are interdependent, delicate and complex.
To encourage your kids to get out there and enjoy the natural world, you may have to purposefully inject some extra excitement in the idea, but just at first. Take your dog (or a friend’s dog) for a walk in the woods. A dog’s love for nature, and subsequent enjoyment of it, is infectious. Create a list of things to find and make your adventure into the outdoors into a scavenger hunt.
If possible, and if your kids are old enough to be by themselves out there, find a safe place for them to play in a natural environment. Allow them to go there to get away, to sit and think or to talk with their friends. Make a point to get the kids out in nature every day. Better yet, go with them.
2. Watch “An Inconvenient Truth” as a family for inspiration. Invite some of your children’s friends over to watch it with their parents and talk about some initiatives that you can each commit to or some larger projects that you can work on as a neighborhood or community.
3. Help your kids learn about endangered animals. Together, look into organizations that help endangered animals and see how you can get involved.
4. Reduce and re-use, then recycle. Lots of kids get excited about recycling. Fewer are into reducing or re-using. Model to your children a healthy pattern of consumption. Talk frequently about the many benefits (which go way beyond environmental) of living a simple life and of being wary of a lifestyle of mass consumerism. As kids spend more time outside and less time at the mall or watching television advertisements, this shift may feel increasingly more natural to them.
5. Teach your kids about potentially harmful chemicals and how they can be everywhere in our world: in the foods we eat, in the supplies we use to clean the house, in our paint, in our cosmetics, in our lawn care products. Turn the search for these things into a game and allow your kids to be detectives, learning about and seeking out these harmful chemicals and then finding natural alternatives.
6. The next time you take the kids to the grocery store, see how you can minimize the amount of packaging that you purchase. We have been known to purposefully not purchase an item because of the manufacturer’s use of wasteful packaging. It won’t take long for the kids to realize that the best item in the store for minimal packaging: raw fruits and vegetables.
In our family, the more we can make these life changes into a game, the more apt the kids are to follow suit. Help your kids to understand how one person really can make a difference (especially when that person is part of a committed family or group) and review often the personal impact that you all have made.
Jamie Jefferson writes for Momscape.com and Susies-coupons.com, where you’ll find discounts on ethically-made natural beauty products as well as coupons for green living and organic products.
Earth day is coming soon (4/22/09). This month we have Easter as well…so it got me thinking. How should Christians respond to Earth day?
First, I think we need to keep it all in perspective. Yes, we are to be good stewards of the planet. However, we are not to be earth “worshipers.” The earth is just another thing in our lives that God wants us to be a good steward with. Yes, it is important…However, Jesus Christ and His shed Blood is much more important. Saving souls should be above saving polar bears. You know what I mean?
So, do I think Christian’s should celebrate Earth Day?
Sure. Just make sure you have this whole eco, green planet stuff in perspective. Make sure that you are lined up with the Word and that God is your priority and His will. Do not let being green override sharing the Love of Christ and your true God-given purpose.
All that said, I thought it would be cool to add some fun stuff to do for earth day…
Earth Day Activities:
Plant a tree. This could be a fun family project.
Recycle. Take those cans you have been saving and turn them in.
Make the whole day green. Make eco choices all day long.
Clean up. Take your family to the park and clean up the junk left by others.
Make a point to add more green. Add at least one more green activity to your life.
Go on a nature walk. Enjoy the beautiful environment that God created for you.
Organic. Visit your local Ma and Pa farmer and shop for some earth friendly stuff.
About the Author: Cindy Taylor is a Christian stay at home Mom who love the Lord and cares about God’s planet. You can see her passion and writing at her website, Green Christian Network (http://greenchristiannetwork.com).
Go Green With Natural Finishes - environmental friendly finishes
Finishes are coatings that are applied to the external and inside surfaces of walls to protect them from the elements and from wear and tear. They also improve the appearance of the structure and are used to enhance the design of rooms.
Petroleum, our main source of oil-based wood finishes and paint, is a non-renewable resource. There are now paints and finishes on the market that are derived from a renewable resource, which in a small way, helps to reduce dependence on oil, and contributes to a more sustainable world.
The basis for these products is whey, which is a product of cheese making, and which has a high biochemical oxygen demand (BOD). This increases the burden on waste treatment facilities, and can also pollute our natural water sources. In the last ten years, this by-product has been used for many new purposes, one of which is natural wood finishes.
When choosing paints for your decorating, use the low or no VOC (volatile organic compound) paints. For hundreds, no, thousands of years, earth, clay and lime have been used, both in hot and cold areas of the world. And now this knowledge is being readapted for contemporary use. If you do any redecorating or new building, it makes sense to contribute to having green, healthy surroundings.
Low and no VOC paints have less smell and less impact on air quality. EPA studies have shown that indoor air quality is up to five times more toxic than outdoors, mainly because of toxic emissions from paint and finishes. This particularly affects anyone with allergies, asthma, or chemical sensitivities. With the new “green” paints, there will be lower contamination of landfills, groundwater, and the ozone.
Switching will not cost you more. Cleanup is easily done with soap and water, instead of toxic chemicals, and brushes can easily be cleaned and reused. The paint is still washable, and is far less harmful to you, your pets, and the environment.
Lisa is a freelance writer with a specialty in Internet content and SEO articles. She has written thousands of articles, hundreds of ebooks and thousands of website pages and related content. She has also authored her own books and works as a consultant to other writers, Internet marketers and Internet businesses.
Professional wordsmith for hire: gamer, wife, mother, entrepreneur, published poet, co-owner of game guides company (http://www.liti4.com), public speaker and Internet business consultant. You can learn more or follow Lisa’s blog from her website: http://www.freelancewriter4hire.com
Giving Our Planet for Earth Day a Huge Birthday Party!
If you have a computer, imagine how you could make a difference!
How you say?
That is all I do, show others how to promote Earth day with a Professional Events Marketer that is sharing their knowledge specifically to get an important message out. Just imagine sending one note, or just telling a friend or colleague your business Supports Earth day!
It is not just about prestige it is about you creating value in your network. When you are seen to have a heart, this is attractive to people in all lifestyles. This can make your businesses look very good. Its attractive seeing a business you are involved with supporting a worthy cause!
Let me explain.
We have created Groups that are Non-profit just for helping with education, one is called Recycling Renegades, 10×10 at Face book and we have used many services that many do not know are there but used them strategically to spread the message about Earth Day. We are just getting the word out that Earth Day can Help Corporate create a better image.
To make it worthwhile for a businessperson to get involved, we have managed to get a great set of training on Social Traffic Media to get them interested in helping us with Earth Day.
Just look at the Fun we are having, but I have to say, it is a very serious message. Its not taken lightly as its global warming, pollution, rain forests rebuilding, forestry’s, clean ups on oil slicks and more. We have demonstrated our dedication with the work going into promoting Earth day and all the people fulling you tube channels and other Medias, just to get the word out about earth day, we are taking this serious.
Warning, it is not pretty! What is happening to this earth has been hidden and covered up, please if you have a weak stomach do not look and investigate.
Now look at all the Professionals that want to be part of this big picture and give a little time to learn better skills and Promote our Earth.
If over 2000 People see the Value, will you? Many together can make a loud voice for earth day do you not think it would be exceptional for your business to be involved in such a momentous occasion.
Get with it or be left behind, it is a simple decision!
Within a matter of minutes, the engine will be purring away. 31D9J52fL0L__SS500_. Product Features. Solar-powered charger engineered to maintain your vehicle’s 12-volt starting battery. Extends battery life using the sun’s power …
The year is 2009 and our world is disintegrating faster than ever. The automakers are made to convert to replenish-able energies if they want to survive and the.
If you are planning to install a solar power system in your home, you will need to know your current rate of energy consumption. Usually, you can get this.
Airport officials said Wednesday they will ask the City Council for approval to sign a contract with two companies to develop the 1.6-megawatt project on about nine acres north of the airfield.
With the current economic problems, hopefully more people are interested in saving money and recycling. Businesses are always interested in keeping the customers they have and getting new ones.
The cost of fuel has been big in the news for years but, when compared to plastics, it’s a small percentage of petrochemical use. Saving on the use of petrochemicals for making plastics can extend the timeframe before peak oil and lower the price of fuels.
Most grocery stores offer a five cent per bag discount if you bring in your bags. You can do that in a variety of ways. One is by taking the old plastic bags back and another is using cloth bags, which can often be purchased at the store. Usually, grocers will sell cloth bags with their advertising on them at their cost, which is cheaper than an equivalent type bag can be purchased elsewhere. By doing that, the grocer gets their investment back and advertisement as well. If your grocer doesn’t have a program of that type, tell them about the advertising value and mention that you take your bags everywhere, including their competitor’s store.
If you don’t want to spend the money on cloth bags, reuse your old plastic ones. Plastic bags aren’t as durable as cloth and it’s a good practice to double bag when using a plastic bag more than once or twice.
We’ve found cloth bags to be a good investment. Most of our bags are almost twenty years old. If we save two cents a bag and buy ten bags of groceries, and do that five times a month, we’ve saved a dollar a month. That doesn’t sound like much but our cloth bags paid for themselves the first year, with the last eighteen plus years being pure savings.
Tying the bags off keeps the goods inside from spilling all over the trunk on the way home. But, tying them off presents another problem. Getting them untied, especially the plastic bags, can be difficult if not impossible. Most people consider it not worth the effort and rip them apart. There’s a simple answer to that problem. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I have a brief slide show that explains the process. Once the bags are tied in the manner I show in the pictures, they untie easily and can be used over and over.
Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I have put together a slide show tutorial. You can access the slide show by going to the URL in the resource box.
Global warming is one of those topics that I still find myself wondering what to truly believe. Is our CO2 production really the culprit in the warming of the planet? Or are there some other larger influences at play here. I have a hard time believing mankind’s activities are solely to blame for any kind of climate change.
After all, CO2 is only one of many greenhouse gases that can affect the warming trend. Water vapor is by far the most abundant and effective at influencing the greenhouse problem. But I don’t see any kind of public concern over evaporation of water in any way at all. Okay, I realize that there is little or even nothing that can be done about that but the point is CO2 is just a tiny fraction of the greenhouse gases affecting our climate. So if water vapor is by far the largest greenhouse gas then why are we so obsessed by manmade CO2? Mankind’s ego.
We see a small trend in the planets temperature rising and of course we assume it must be what we are doing. I am truly pleased to see that we are taking an interest in reducing pollution from cars and industry but I really have my doubts about the connection to global warming at least in the significant way the media would like us to believe.
The media is sounding the alarm bell which of course sells more newspapers than reporting the less extreme predictions surrounding the warming trend. The weather models produced by scientists predict a reduction in the temperature differences between the poles and the equatorial regions. This will in fact reduce the number of violent tropical storms, as there will be less of a temperature discrepancy to stimulate them. Also the warming of the regions closer to the poles will allow agricultural pursuits in areas where it was not possible before. Food production would be able to rise accordingly. The alarmist media isn’t interested in those types of stories it seems.
The change in the world’s temperature is just that, change. There is irrefutable evidence that the temperature of the planet has and most likely will always be changing regardless of what we are doing. What are we so afraid of? Do the alarmists doubt mankind’s ability to adapt and cope with a few degrees of temperature change or even sea levels rising a meter or so? There will doubtless be hardships and even some displaced people in some regions but man has the ability to adapt and change. We have demonstrated this through the ages. I am confident that we will not only survive these changes but also learn to use them to our advantage.
I live in Canada and if you ask anyone living north of the temperate zone about rising temperatures the resounding response would be “bring it on, we could use a little global warming around here”. Life will improve greatly for huge numbers of the world’s population with a couple of degrees increase in the planet’s temperature. Migration to areas that were before considered uninhabitable by most will have a more moderate climate allowing for farming and other activities. You can’t sell newspapers with stories like that.
The scientific data indicates that 1998 was the warmest year on record. The planet has been cooling ever since. A quote from Dr. Oleg Sorokhtin of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences “The earth is at the peak of one of its passing warm spells, It’ll start getting cold by 2012, and really, really cold around 2041″. So who are we to believe? A respected scientist or Al Gore who has made millions from his crusade for the planet and his questionable agenda and phony pseudo science.
If the planet is warming I can honestly say I hope so. We will get by and probably do well in the process. What really concerns me is the muzzling of real science in the debate. An objective media would go a long way in helping us all deal with the facts as they truly are. Focusing on the alarmist perspective only causes undue fear where none is warranted.
Is driving our SUV’s and minivans really the problem here? Or is our planet just going through another climate cycle like it has done so many times before? The only thing I know for sure is I can’t count on the media to provide the answers.
SciDev.Net: A leading Indian environmentalist and advisor on climate change has expressed doubts over whether India can fund its ambitious plans for solar power. Sunita Narain, director of the Delhi-based nongovernmental organisation …
An internet product reviewer has recently announced their interesting findings with a Green DIY Energy system. They have revealed some interesting facts on their website.
Softbank mobile release a new Sharp 936 SH which is a 3G phone solar powered clamshell. Featuring with 3-inch LCD screen with 854×480 pixel resolution, the.
A bureaucratic slow-down in approval of the $62.5 million federal funding for Tennessee’s large â??solar farmâ? and UT’s solar powered institute hasn’t dampened Gov. Bredesen’s confidence the project is on track. …