May '10 Full Moon EcoHint

What on Earth is a Locavore?

Distressed about that oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? Who isn't? And it's easy to put the blame on Bad, Bad BP. The idea of boycotting them is interesting but what are you gonna do? Buy your oil from someone else? I'm not sure that's going to help anything. What we really need to do is consider our own contribution to the problem by examining our individual dependence on oil.

We all know about curbing our driving habit - running out to the grocery store for one item, driving to work instead of riding the bus, etc. But what about the oil spent to bring stuff to us?

What I want to suggest for this month's EcoHint is the idea of eating locally. Most of us never think about where our food comes from. I know I didn't up until a few years ago. But the truth is, most produce grown in the United States travels an average of 1,500 miles before it gets to your table. And then there's all that food we buy out of season from even farther away: grapes from Chile, tomatoes from Holland, garlic from China, apples from New Zealand, oranges from Australia… the list just goes on and on. In most places in America the summer food growing season is just getting started so it's a good (and easy) time to begin thinking about eating locally.

So think about all the oil required to move that food half way around the world. According data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration and “The Oil We Eat,” by Richard Manning in Harper’s Magazine, Feb. 2004, if every US citizen ate just one meal a week composed of locally grown and organically raised meats and produce, we would reduce our country's oil consumption by over 1.1 million barrels of oil every week! With that kind of savings we wouldn't need that 25,000 barrels that's gushing into the Gulf of Mexico every day!

Here are some ideas about how to get started.

1 Shop weekly at your local farmers market or farm stand

2 Join a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) and get weekly deliveries of the season's harvest

3 Buy from local grocers and co-ops committed to stocking local food

4 Support restaurants and food vendors that buy locally produced food

5 Preserve food from the season — freeze, can, dry — to eat later in the year

6 Grow your own food in your yard or community garden plot

7 Visit local farmers and "u-picks"

9 Ask your grocer or favorite restaurant what local foods they carry

To find out what's local when in your neck of the woods, check this site: NRDC Food Miles

For more good reasons to eat locally check here.

Take the challenge: Eat Local

Other info: Sustainable Grub

And for an inspiring and entertaining read on the subject, check out "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver.

Bon Appetit!

March '10 Full Moon

SPRING CLEAN GREEN!

Happy Spring to one and all. It is that time of year again, isn't it?

But before you get started, let's talk about cleaning products.

I know we all want a home that clean, fresh, and healthy. The problem is, many of those products you purchase to accomplish those ends really do the opposite! Consider these facts:

• Cleaning products were responsible for nearly 10 percent of all toxic exposures reported to U.S. Poison Control Centers in 2000, accounting for 206,636 calls. Of these, nearly two-thirds involved children under six, who can swallow or spill cleaners stored or left open inside the home.
• According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the air inside the typical home is on average 2-5 times more polluted than the air just outside—and in extreme cases 100 times more contaminated—largely because of household cleaners and pesticides.
• During World War I chlorine gas was used as a weapon because it destroyed soldiers' lungs.
• Children exposed to non-ecological cleaning products have a 400% higher risk for asthma.

Does that sound clean, fresh and healthy? I don't think so.

And what about the impact on our environment?

• In a 2002 U.S. Geological Survey study of contaminants in U.S. stream water, 69 percent of streams sampled contained persistent detergent metabolites, and 66 percent contained disinfectants.
• Dishwashing detergents often contain phosphates that pollute the groundwater and threaten water quality, fish, and other wildlife.
• And of course, there's the matter of packaging. All those single use plastic bottles of window cleaner, toilet bowl cleaner, floor cleaner, bathroom cleaner, furniture polish, bleach, and amonia are made from petroleum (a non-renewable resource) and then end up in our land fills, creating toxic waste if they are not disposed of properly.

You can find more specifics at the links below, but you get the idea. So, what can you do instead without sacrificing that goal of a clean, fresh and healthy home? For starters, you can put together a Green Clean kit. All it takes is a few simple items, some of which can even be purchased in bulk at your local co-op or health food store.

Green Clean Kit

• Plain liquid soap
• Baking soda
• Vinegar
• Lemon juice
• Borax
• Some rags and a good scrubbing sponge

Try these simple, non-toxic methods

• Instead of using a standard drain cleaner, which likely contains lye, hydrochloric acid, and sulfuric acid, try pouring a quarter cup of baking soda down the clogged drain, followed by a half cup of vinegar. Close the drain tightly until fizzing stops, then flush with boiling water.
• For an effective glass cleaner, use a mixture of half white vinegar and half water.
• Baking soda and cornstarch are both good carpet deodorizers.
• To clean up mildew and mold, use a mixture of lemon juice or white vinegar and salt.
• A paste of baking soda, salt, and hot water makes a great oven cleaner.
• Or for scrubbing the sink or tub simply pour about 1/2 cup of baking soda into a bowl, and add enough liquid detergent to make a texture like frosting. Scoop the mixture onto a sponge, and wash the surface. It rinses easily and doesn’t leave grit.
• And some alternatives to bleaching those white shirts - soaking in lemon juice or adding lemon juice, white vinegar, or baking soda to the wash. Vinegar even softens your clothes and lemon juice and baking soda help remove odors.

Check out the sites below for lots more information.

Healthy Cleaning
Mama's Health
Non-Toxic Solutions

And have a sparkling, pure, healthy Spring!!

February '10 Full Moon

Rags to Riches

Let's talk paper towels. You know, that ubiquitous roll of TREE fiber hanging in nearly every kitchen in America? If you use Bounty, Viva, Scott, or some other mainstream brand, chances are you're using paper towels made of "virgin fiber". That's pretty much what it sounds like. The paper towels are made using tree pulp that has never been used for anything else. And we use more paper towels and other tissue products than any other country in the world. As a matter of fact, within the forest products industry, paper towels are a major part of the "tissue market", second only to toilet paper.

If every household in the US replaced just one roll of virgin fiber paper towels (70 sheets) with 100% recycled ones (or reusable cloth rags) we could save 544,000 trees!

Paper "tissue" products with recycled content are now available in most grocery stores. Look for the products that have the most "post-consumer" content. What is that you ask? That is content that has worked its way down the stream to be used in the manufacture of a product. (For instance, recycled cardboard boxes may be turned back into pulp and used to make newspaper, toilet paper, or paper towels.) Many products contain 100% "recycled" content but that may simply mean they have used the trimmings or rejects from some manufacturing process. The content, in this case, has never really been used so it's not really recycled.

Some of the best choices are: 365 (Whole Foods), Earth Friendly, Fiesta, Green Forest, Natural Value, Seventh Generation, and Trader Joe's. Check out the NRDC site for more information.

Once you start looking for these paper towels you may notice that some of them are brown, or at least not as bright white as your old brand. That's also a good thing since it means they haven't used chlorine to bleach the paper, which is also bad for the environment.

And when you're finished with those paper towels, don't throw them into the trash! They don't need to go into the land fill. Paper towels are easily composted. If you have your own compost pile or worm bin, just toss them in with your food scraps. And for those of you who live in a place that now allows food waste in the yard waste bin you can put the used paper towels in there too.

Finally, the best thing you can do is stop using paper towels altogether. Every roll you buy contributes to the demand, even if they're recycled. How about trying to go paperless in your kitchen? Here's a great blog posting with suggestions on how to make it work for you and your family. And think of the money you'll save!

Remember... 544,000 trees!

January '10 Full Moon

The Devil's work?

An idling engine may not be the work of the Devil but it is certainly bad for the environment.

Have you ever thought about how often you let your car sit and idle? Waiting while someone runs in to the video store or library, waiting for a passing train, picking up the kids at school or the movies, sitting in that drive-through line at the bank or the fast food joint, waiting for draw bridges (especially in Seattle), or just getting going in the morning.

Well, it turns out that even idling for a few seconds wastes fuel and pollutes the environment. And it may even be more harmful to your car!

Vehicle exhaust is the leading source of toxic air pollution here in Washington and I'm sure it's just as bad, or worse, in many other parts of the country. Exposure to vehicle exhaust increases the risk of death from heart and lung disease and lung cancer.

Idling consumes from 1/2 to 1 gallon of fuel per hour and wastes more fuel than turning your engine off and on. And idling produces twice as much pollution as stopping and starting your warmed up engine. The EPA estimates that for every minute a typical car engine idles it emits 6.6 grams of pollutants. Multiply that by the 62 million registered vehicles in this country and if every driver stopped idling for just two minutes a week, in a year's time we could save over 45,000 TONS of pollutants from being released into the air we breathe.

It is more efficient to turn off most warmed up cars than to idle for more than 30 seconds.
Excessive idling can be hard on your engine. Modern engines need no more than 30 seconds of idling on winter days before starting to drive. Most engines even warm up faster by gentle driving as you get started.

And global warming???? Don't even get me started.

Visit Puget Sound Clean Air for details and more links.
And while this site is geared toward school busses, there's lots of good information about idling engines. CleanSchoolBus

So, turn off that car while you wait.

Or better yet, get out of the car! Park and walk into the bank or fast food joint.

And when you're getting ready to head out in the morning, put on your seat belt, adjust the mirrors, find your radio station, and THEN start your car.

Remember my original pledge to give you information about simple, easy things you can do that will make a difference? This is about as easy as it gets!

Don't sit idle. Turn it off.

Blue Moon 2009

RESOLUTIONS!

Well, we've come to the end of another calendar year. This night is also considered by many to be a Blue Moon, being the second Full Moon in a calendar month. Blue Moons only happen once every two or three years so perhaps that auspicious timing may give extra energy to those resolutions humans are wont to make when looking forward to the new year.
I would like to suggest that among your resolutions to exercise more, eat healthier, quit smoking, or learn to speak French you include at least one resolution dedicated to reducing your impact on our environment. I've provided you with several possibilities this past year.

• Have you changed out all of those incandescent bulbs for CFCs?
• Have you started using your own bags whenever you go shopping?
• Have you stopped buying water in plastic bottles?
• Have you stopped all those catalogs from coming to your home?
• Have you turned down your thermostat this winter?
• Have made your refrigerator/freezer more efficient?
• Have you cut down on your meat consumption?

If you've followed through with any one of these I commend you!
If you haven't managed to take them all on yet, I encourage you to add at least one to your list of resolutions for 2010.
So, to that end, let me just provide you with some thoughts to encourage you. You might also want to check out some of the videos or other sites I've linked to over there on the right>>>>>>>>

I hope that in the coming year you will try to be mindful of how each of your actions impact the environment. That's my goal!

Wishing you all a healthy, wholesome, and happy new year!

To waste, to destroy, our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them. ~Theodore Roosevelt

The change of mind I am talking about involves not just a change of knowledge, but also a change of attitude toward our essential ignorance, a change in our bearing in the face of mystery. The principle of ecology, if we will take it to heart, should keep us aware that our lives depend on other lives and upon processes and energies in an interlocking system that, though we can destroy it, we can neither fully understand nor fully control. And our great dangerousness is that, locked in our selfish and myopic economies, we have been willing to change or destroy far beyond our power to understand. ~Wendell Berry

It wasn't the Exxon Valdez captain's driving that caused the Alaskan oil spill. It was yours. ~Greenpeace advertisement, New York Times, 25 February 1990

I think the environment should be put in the category of our national security. Defense of our resources is just as important as defense abroad. Otherwise what is there to defend? ~Robert Redford, Yosemite National Park dedication, 1985

Will urban sprawl spread so far that most people lose all touch with nature? Will the day come when the only bird a typical American child ever sees is a canary in a pet shop window? When the only wild animal he knows is a rat - glimpsed on a night drive through some city slum? When the only tree he touches is the cleverly fabricated plastic evergreen that shades his gifts on Christmas morning? ~Frank N. Ikard, North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference, Houston, March 1968

Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed; if we permit the last virgin forests to be turned into comic books and plastic cigarette cases; if we drive the few remaining members of the wild species into zoos or to extinction; if we pollute the last clear air and dirty the last clean streams and push our paved roads through the last of the silence, so that never again will Americans be free in their own country from the noise, the exhausts, the stinks of human and automotive waste. ~Wallace Stegner, letter to David E. Pesonen of the Wildland Research Center, 3 December 1960

Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect. ~Chief Seattle, 1855

December '09 Full Moon (late posting)

THE HEAT IS ON!

I don't know about you folks living down south but here in the PNW, it's starting to get chilly outside. That means you've probably started using the heat at home and looking forward to those increased winter fuel bills. Conserving heating energy in your home can not only reduce your heat bill, it's good for the environment! Heating constitutes one of the greatest uses of energy in your home - about 40% for the average home.

According to WorldWatch, home heating is responsible for spewing 350 million tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year, which means more than a billion tons of the most prevalent greenhouse gas, C02. If each U.S. household lowered its average heating temperature by 6^o over a 24-hour period, we'd save the energy equivalent of 500,000 barrels of oil every day. Heck, maybe we could even end the wars in the Middle East with that!

So, consider dialing down your thermostat. Lowering the setting only one degree can result in a 1-3 percent savings. And you probably won't even notice the difference! One more degree and a sweatshirt, and you'll save yourself a few bucks and the environment, too!

For more ideas on how to conserve energy while heating your home, check this site: Greener Choices

November '09 Full Moon

'Tis the season!

Well, it's that time again. Halloween is barely over and you're probably seeing all that Winter Holiday stuff in the stores already. It's practically shouting at you, "Buy me, buy me, buy me!" Many of us can't resist, so my first little hint to help limit your environmental impact during the season of giving is DON'T GO SHOPPING!

Do you know that Americans throw away 25 percent more trash or about 1 million extra tons each week during the Thanksgiving to New Year's holiday period? In fact, 38,000 miles of ribbon alone are thrown out each year--enough to tie a bow around the Earth we're trying to save!

I don't mean to be a Bah Humbug type but let's be more thoughtful about our holiday giving. Here are some simple, fun, and environmentally friendly alternatives.

Give the gift of experience. How about a membership to the local zoo, movie passes, or sports tickets for the family? Or is there a nice day spa in your area that your sister, mother, girlfriend, wife, or daughter would love? I'm sure they have gift certificates. Or take those adventurous friends bungie jumping, sky diving, or on a hot air balloon ride. And for the more high-cultured among your friends and family members there are theater tickets, symphony tickets, art museum memberships… You get the idea, here. Many of us just don't need any more STUFF, but great experiences are always a hit!

Buy online - you can find lots of online stores that specialize in eco-friendly items like:

Uncommon Goods - for gifts made from recycled stuff

And what about gifts from the kitchen like a jar of fresh fruit jam or a yummy box of fudge? I don't know about you, but I love tasty little treats that are made with love. Find lots of ideas here.

And don't forget the wrapping! I mean, I love a beautifully wrapped package as much as the next person but let's be creative! Much of today's wrapping paper contains toxic chemicals or heavy metals, which are especially dangerous when you burn them in the fireplace. How about using plain newsprint and decorating it yourself? You can make fun stamps from potatoes or just dip cookie cutters in paint and stamp away! Or use pretty fabric and cloth ribbon or yarn that can be reused over and over again!

Here's a great one-page list of suggestions to make your holidays green.

52 shopping days left 'til Christmas!