credit: Design*Sponge
Showing posts with label solutions. Show all posts
Biodegradable and compostable picnic disposables
Happy Birthday Earth Day and Green Up Day!
Happy Earth Day!! Not only is today is the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, it's also the 40th anniversary of Green Up Day in Vermont. Green Up Day takes place on the first Saturday in May across the state of Vermont. Kids and adults alike gather in their communities to clean up liter. If you have ever visited Vermont, you will notice right away the impact this one day of action has. Not only do the roads, sidewalks, streams and trails get a facelift, but new generations learn the importance of keeping our environment clean. As a kid, I participated in Green Up Day with my classmates every year. I learned the importance not only of putting trash in the garbage can, but also the how important it is to recycle and to reduce the amount of trash we create. While scanning the ground, bushes and ravines for trash, I began to notice how our garbage impacts the habitats of small creatures in my community. Suddenly one day of action turned into a year-long effort to reduce trash, recycle and protect the natural habitats in my town.
If you live in Vermont, you can participate in Green Up Day on Saturday, May 1st. If you live elsewhere in the country or world, why not start your own Green Up Day? All you have to do is gather a friend or two, a parent or teacher and get greening!
The living reef...Here today, gone tomorrow?
Coral reefs are home to the greatest diversity of life on Earth. They protect our shores, contribute to our food chain, and provide us with medicines to keep us alive and healthy. Despite how important the coral reefs are to life on Earth, they maybe gone in less than 30 years due to global warming, over fishing, and the acidification of the oceans.
The reefs need your help! Read NOAA's 25 Things You Can Do to learn how you can help the reef.
what if...
Let's not let leaders and neighbors ignore the problem any longer. Add your voice to the millions around the world demanding real solutions at the Copenhagen Climate Summit this week. Join the movement at Hopenhagen.org.
**images copyright Vanity Fair Magazine, 2006
NYC School Recycling Workshop
The United Federation of Teachers will be holding a school recycling workshop this Monday, November 23rd at 5pm at the UFT headquarters, 52 Broadway, New York. Register here, it's free!
Going Green with Kids: Top Ten Green Activities and Projects
Here are some of my top 10 favorite green activities and projects I have written about over the years. Have fun!
Recipes from the Garden: Delicious recipes from veggies grown right in your backyard
Bug Off, Bugs!: Concocting your very own non-toxic bug spray for plants
Container Gardening: Planting a mini garden
Grow Your Garden: Designing your very own garden
Dirt Glorious Dirt: Composting 101
The Nature Journal: Creating a nature journal from recycle materials
Green Cleaners: The real dirt on cleaning products and how to make your own non toxic versions
Backyard Habitat: Creating a welcoming home for the creatures in your area
Recycling 101 and America Recycles Day
The 3 R's: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
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!
– 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.
– 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.
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.
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.
Speak Out Against Climate Change - Oct. 24th!!!
This Saturday, October 24th, tens of thousands of people from 162 countries around the world will make a their voices heard and demand a real commitment from leaders to tackle climate change. The grassroots organization 350.org is organizing this event, in hopes to familiarize the world and our leaders with the number 350. Scientists say that 350 parts per million CO2 in the atmosphere is the safe limit for humanity.
With less than two months until world leaders meet in Copenhagen at the UN to discuss a treaty on climate change, this international day of action comes at a critical time. Experts believe that the proposals on the table will not be enough to stop the worst affects of global warming.
Please join in the movement and add your voice to the millions of others around the world who demand real solutions!
Here Comes Science! An interview with John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants
It isn't often that kids and adults can agree on music. Your parent's might have been thinking less about making you happy and more about their own sanity when they bought you your very own ipod. But alas, there is hope! Parents, kids and especially teachers will all agree that They Might Be Giants' new cd/dvd Here Comes Science is totally awesome. You won't be able to resist tapping your feet and singing along to songs like "Photosynthesis" and "Roy G. Biv". And the great animations make it impossible to ignore all the fascinating facts about science coming your way. Eco-minded kids and parents will especially like the song "Electric Car". See video below (...isn't it amazing how many animals you can fit into one electric car?!?)
John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants was nice enough to answer some questions about their new release.
Green Guide for Kids: Did you like science when you were a kid?
John Flansburgh: Neither John nor I were good students, but we were curious about the world. Books like "How Things Work" and pop science television shows were fascinating to me as a kid, just as Mythbusters is to me now actually!--just understanding the real systems and phenomenon within nature and technology.
GGFK: In the DVD, you make being a Paleontologist seem so cool. If you weren't a musician, would you like to be a scientist?
JF: Even if I wasn't a musician I don't know if any of us have the patience or focus to be scientists! Danny put that song together, and his kids are pretty dinocentric and I think the song came out of that interest. The video for the song has gotten a little bit of criticism from actual paleontologist because it shows Danny working in what looks like an archeological site, where most paleontologists evidently do their research indoors.
GGFK: When I was listening to Here Comes Science, I learned so many amazing facts. For example, one million Earths could fit inside the sun. What's the most amazing thing you learned while making this CD?
JF: That living things are mostly made up of just four elements!
GGFK: My favorite song on the CD is Electric Car. Do you drive an electric car?
JF: My most recent car purchase was an impossibly old Ford pick up truck for hauling logs around in the Catskill Mountains. but maybe that counts just on the recycling side of things! I don't think there are any fully electric cars on the market, although every day there is another tantalizing miniature electric car prototype in the news. It would be very exciting to see them take over New York City. A couple of friends of mine have hybrids and I have to say driving in near silence is pretty cool. It just seems so much smarter in the engineering than gas cars. But while the song is kind of an idealized dream of a world of electric cars, I feel a little nervous that it's message might inadvertently end up feeding shortsightedness on our national--or really worldwide--environmental challenges. It's simply not a given that electric cars for the moment won't just shift much of the problem from one behavior to another. How we're going to fuel any vehicles of the future is a huge unanswered problem, and as a culture we urgently need to focus developing alternative energy sources. Personally I think it's important that people know there is no such thing as clean coal no matter what the ads on tv say. Okay. I'll step down from my soap box now.
GGFK: What are some things They Might Be Giants do to protect the environment?
JF: As I am on the road touring with the band is a harsh reminder that as a business we are so far away from being eco-role models. I've been able to make more progress when I'm back in New York. My wife and I actually can often eat entirely locally grown food as much when we're in the country, which isn't hard since there is so much local farming. I feel I'm just waking up to how to actually reduce my consumption in small doable ways, but it is a constant issue. Our friends got my wife and I into composting which is much less gross than I thought, and a great way to avoid creating landfill. I've completely flipped over to green cleaning products which is honestly ridiculously expensive, but I can't see ever going back. They smell way to good.
Tck Tck Tck
The clock is counting down to December 7, 2009, when leaders from all over the world will meet in Copenhagen, Denmark for the United Nations Climate Change Conference. You may be thinking, "what's the big deal about this particular conference?" Well according to scientists, the time to act to stop global warming is now. We need to not only slow the increase in greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, but actually being to decrease them by 2015. That's only 6 short years away! Every year since the industrial revolution, our input of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere has increased at a steady rate. If we do not begin to reverse this trend by 2015, the catastrophic course of climate change will already be set in motion.
As of right now, most of our elected leaders are not getting the message that global warming needs their serious attention, and fast. That why we need you! You may not be an elected leader, or even old enough to vote, but you can be a leader on this! Here's what you do:
1) Speak up! Tell your friends, family, school or church community that why this is important to you, and that our future is at stake.
2) Be bold! Call, write or email the elected leaders of your country or state. To search for your country's leader's phone number click here.
3) Call or write to your members of congress. Tell them you want them to take bold action on climate change. Search here for their phone number and address.
4) Visit tcktcktck.org to learn more about the Climate Conference in Copenhagen, and New York City Climate Week, which is a series of events and actions to get the attention of the leaders at the United Nations in town to discuss climate change this week.
5) Sign up to attend or host an event for 350.org's Day of Action on October 24th. More on this event to come!