Please welcome today’s guest poster, Louise Baker.

The importance of continual, proactive recycling cannot be over-emphasized: humans produce many pounds of waste every day through thoughtless consumerism, while not limiting their consumption or making any attempt to re-use their possessions. However, a little effort put toward recycling can prevent functional products from filling up landfills; they can begin to save the planet, one recycling act at a time. What follows is a list of 5 great recycling websites that promote recycling, and thus a sustainable future. Read more…

Image credit: http://www.himachal.us/

You may have heard about Sustainable Dave, the man who saved all his garbage for a year. Imagine it! Piles of plastic wrappers and take-out containers stacked all over the house.  It surely got stinky along the way, but Sustainable Dave’s experiment with trash gave him a clear idea of just how much we consume and how little we think about what we’re consuming.

Inspired by this adventurous man, I decided to tackle a smaller challenge.  Whenever I put a new liner bag in the trash can, I write the date on the bag. Everything that can’t be reused or recycled goes into the trash, and the date (written in big black permanent-marker numbers) reminds me that I’ve come home from a shopping trip with more unnecessary packaging or one-use items that can’t be recycled.

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For information on how to help sea turtles, especially during the oil spill crisis, check out Save the Sea Turtle.

Today’s post is by guest Greenist Deborah Adams.

The oil spill in the Gulf has been the lead story on every major news broadcast for weeks now. Like most people, I was horrified and sickened by the images on the screen and in my head. The devastation of wetlands and beaches, the death of wildlife, the extinction of a way of life for hundreds of thousands of people in the region, is too overwhelming to consider for more than a few seconds. The worldwide impact of this tragedy is impossible to know at this point. We may as well try to grasp the size of the universe.

At first I was angry at BP, the company that didn’t bother to develop an effective prevention or a workable clean-up plan for such a contingency. It’s easy to make a faceless corporation the bad guy in such a situation. However, honesty compels me to admit, to myself and to you, that I am the heart of the problem. The truth is that BP and other oil companies are only supplying what we consumers demand. Like almost every other human on Earth, I am addicted to petroleum-based products.

I had to ask myself – if we, the self-proclaimed environmentally-friendly activists, had known six months ago that this oil spill would occur, would we have given up our destructive behavior? Would we have sworn off buying petroleum-based products for the rest of our lives? Is it even possible to survive in this world without oil? Read more…

Oh my, my, my, BP has been a very naughty company. Very naughty. You can look up its previous spills, its terrible safety record, and its criminal price-fixing elsewhere, but the deadly Deepwater Horizon explosion and spill are the icing on a very bad cake. I mean Cakewrecks bad. I would suggest that BP go to the Time Out corner and think about what they’ve done, but I really don’t think they will ever give a crap. With Tony “I just want my life back” Hayward watching his yacht race on the clean, untainted waters off the Isle of Wight and BP goons burning endangered Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles and other wildlife ALIVE as wildlife rescuers were prevented from saving the animals, it’s time that we put our money where our outrage is.
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I am always amazed by what can be created with patience, talent, skill, and the simplest of materials. Chuck Eblacker creates dry stone wall structures using what already exists in nature: stone, and nothing more. No mortar is used in the creation of a dry stone wall.

From an article by Building Green:
“Cement production is one of the most energy intensive of all industrial manufacturing processes. Including direct fuel use for mining and transporting raw materials, cement production takes about six million Btus for every ton of cement. The industry’s heavy reliance on coal leads to especially high emission levels of CO 2, nitrous oxide, and sulphur, among other pollutants. A sizeable portion of the electricity used is also generated from coal.”

And, according to the article the chemical process that occurs in Portland cement is “responsible for roughly 1/2 ton of CO 2 per ton of cement.”

So, creating stone walls without cement is a markedly greener practice. It’s also an art form. Dry stone walling is said to be the world’s oldest craft. There are only a handful of people in the United States certified to build dry stone walls.  If properly built, the way in which the stones are laid creates gravity and friction enough to create a wall that can stand for 100 years or more. Read more…

Image credit: zianet.com

Disgusted. Discouraged. Sick to my stomach. Helpless. These are just some of the words that describe how I feel every time I hear about the hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil being spewed into the Gulf of Mexico every day. By far, the worst of these is the feeling of helplessness. Most of us can’t personally do anything to get all that oil out of the ocean, so what can we do? I don’t know about you, but I don’t like feeling helpless. So I went researching for ways to help.

In a perfect world, I could recommend a way to plug the oil leak and prevent any future spills. (Actually, in a perfect world, there would have been no oil spill in the first place, so scratch that.) But this is far from a perfect world, so unless you are one of the people actively trying to plug this leak, the best way you can help is to lend your time and/or money to the animals that are threatened by this disaster.

• The National Wildlife Federation is coordinating volunteer efforts to monitor the coastline for wildlife in distress, and to clean up those already affected by the oil. If you have some spare time and live near the Gulf, your efforts would be appreciated.

• Money helps, too. Text “WILDLIFE” to 20222 to donate $10 to wildlife cleanup efforts. Spread the word to your family and friends through e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, or good, old-fashioned word of mouth. You can also make an online donation here.

• Make your voice heard. You may think your elected officials don’t hear you, but they do. Write to your senator to let him/her know how outraged you are over this spill. Encourage them to support legislation for cleaner, safer energy sources. (Does this make Cape Wind seem like a better idea to you? Mention that.)

None of these things will make our ocean pristine again, but it’s better than doing nothing. And of course, the less oil we consume, the less likely this is to happen again. Walk or bike places instead of driving whenever possible. Stay away from plastic. These may seem like small things, but they add up to a big difference. Be a part of the solution.

Image credit: www.sfu.ca

If I had to define environmentalism at its most basic, boiled-down notion, I’d say it’s about reclaiming our right to enjoy nature. Sure, there are other motives we all have for going green — protecting our health, fulfilling a moral obligation, keeping future generations from living in a giant trash heap — but at its heart, it’s all about getting back to basics.

A new trend known as “yarn bombing” is exploding (so to speak) in parks and public spaces all over the country, and while this is not an environmental issue per se, I decided to post about it because I think it’s a cool example of how people are enjoying nature. As you can see in the picture above, people simply crochet or knit sleeves for tree branches, telephone poles, statues, and all sorts of things. With enough yarn and effort, these yarn bombers can make an ordinary park look like something out of a Dr. Seuss book.

Yarn bombing has been around for quite some time, though I only heard of it recently. Technically it’s graffiti, though it’s not nearly as permanent as spray-painting a bridge overpass. If you want the sleeve removed from a tree, or if you want to start over with a new sleeve, simply cut off the old one and have at it. It doesn’t hurt the tree and it brightens up the world a little.

Have you seen any yarn bombing in your community? Have you done it yourself? Is this simply a fun trend, or would you rather the trees be left alone? Comment away.

Image credit: www.earthhour.org

What are you doing this Saturday, March 27, at 8:30 p.m.? I’ll give you a few ideas: You could read a book by candlelight, or play a board game by candlelight, or sit with a few friends and have some good, old-fashioned conversation. You can do anything that doesn’t involve electricity, because this Saturday at 8:30 p.m., your local time, is Earth Hour.

Earth Hour began in Sydney, Australia in 2007 as a way to raise awareness about climate change. Since then, it’s grown to include environmentally-minded people all over the world. Last year’s Earth Hour stretched to more than 4,000 cities in 88 countries.

So what do you have to do? It’s simple: Just turn off the lights for an hour. That’s it. If you really want to get involved, you can urge others to participate through Facebook or Twitter. You could even talk to your community leaders about getting your entire town to participate. Visit the Earth Hour website (linked above) to find out more.

And of course, don’t limit your energy consciousness to one hour per year. Be aware of your energy usage all the time, and do everything you can to minimize the amount of energy you use every day.

I think it’s easy to get discouraged when the powers that be, whether they’re local, state or national, fail to do something in line with your views. Take the Copenhagen summit, for example. We had high hopes that a binding climate deal would be reached, but that didn’t happen. You can write letters and stage protests and do all sorts of things to make your voice heard, but in the end, not everything is going to go your way. Sad but true.

But there’s hope. When it comes to the environment, sometimes the biggest changes happen on the smallest scales. It’s important to keep yourself informed about national and international issues, but just as important are the local issues — and what you personally can do to make your community a little greener. Read more…