Do you live in Missouri and want to know what you can do to help make our state greener? Check out these websites for great ideas:
Operation Brightside makes neighborhoods more livable, downtown more vibrant and the entire region more sustainable.
What makes a difference? With Operation Brightside, it's the people that make the difference and the benefits are even more significant than mere physical enhancements.
Cleaner neighborhoods make people feel safer. Cleaner, greener communities result in higher property values. Attractive areas invite investment, including new homes and commercial enterprises.
The Missouri Recycling Association has great tips on recycling. Also learn how to become an advocate for good environmental policy.
Check out The National Recycling Coalition website to learn about America Recycles Day on November 15th, 2009.
National Recycling Coalition
Interested in learning how to make purchasing and investment choices that promote social justice and environmental sustainability?
Tired of corporate irresponsibility?
Want to help promote green and fair trade businesses?
Then check out Green America Their mission is to harness economic power—the strength of consumers, investors, businesses, and the marketplace—to create a socially just and environmentally sustainable society. This is a great website!
Check out A Better Footprint for fair trade, earth-friendly, organic, and multicultural products.
Our Footprints are the impressions we leave on the earth, a unifying symbol of its people, and a trail for future generations to follow. In our society today, we're not always proud of our footprints. Thus, our mission is to leave A Better Footprint.
Specifically, A Better Footprint was founded to help some of the world's poorest artisans and farmers. We strive to create a positive impact, or footprint, on the community level and create trails of hope for future generations, especially in some of the world's poorest countries. We accomplish this through Fair Trade sales and education. Our commitment to sustainability also shows that while we want the human impact of our company to be great, we try to reduce our environmental footprint.
WARNING: THIS VIDEO DOES CONTAIN GRAPHIC MATERIAL SUCH AS BLOOD AND BRAIN TISSUE. DO NOT WATCH IF YOU GET SICK AT THE SITE OF BLOOD AS THIS SHOWS PICTURES OF SURGERY.
This slideshow/video is of my trip to Nairobi, Kenya for a neurosurgical mission and to Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania for a safari. Hospitals that I worked at while there where: Kenyatta National Hospital, Aga Khan Hospital, and M P Shah Hospital. We were there for two weeks. Some of our case load consisted of patients with cerebral tuberculomas, occipital encephaloceles, myelomeningocele spina bifida, nasal encephalocele, cerebral mucocele, and hydrocephalus. All of these conditions were preventable birth defects with the exception of the cerebral tuberculomas and the cerebral mucocele. The mothers did not get enough folic acid in their diets prior to and during their pregnancies. Because of this their children were born with neural tube defects. In most countries the food we eat is already fortified with vitamins and minerals including folic acid. Women are also given prenatal vitamins to take during their pregnancies. In these countries where women get proper nutrition and health care the incidence of neural tube defects is rare. But in Africa where nutrition and health care is a problem these defects are not only common but in most cases very severe. That is why it is important that Africa gets the aid that is needed to put a stop to NTD's as well as HIV, Aids, TB, and Malaria. Want to know what you can do to help? Contact Feed The Children and/or
Africa Aid
and/or UNICEF
Why Folic Acid is So Important
Folic acid is a B vitamin. It is used in our bodies to make new cells. If a woman has enough folic acid in her body before she is pregnant, it can help prevent major birth defects of her baby’s brain and spinal cord. These birth defects are called neural tube defects or NTDs. Women need to take folic acid every day starting before they are pregnant to help prevent NTDs.
Super Size Me is an Academy Award-nominated 2004 documentary film, directed by and starring Morgan Spurlock, an American independent filmmaker. It follows a 30-day time period (February 2003) during which Spurlock subsists exclusively on McDonald's fast food and stops exercising. The film documents this lifestyle's drastic effects on Spurlock's physical and psychological well-being and explores the fast food industry's corporate influence, including how it encourages poor nutrition for its own profit. During the filming, Spurlock dined at McDonald's restaurants three times per day, sampling every item on the chain's menu at least once. He consumed an average of 5,000 calories (the equivalent of 9.26 Big Macs) per day during the experiment. The following is the trailer for the documentary Super Size Me. I highly recommend this documentary.
Check out this experiment from the documentary Super Size Me.
One way to reduce carbon emissions is to can your own vegetables, fruits, jams, jellies, preserves, sauces and chutney's. As a child I helped my mother and grandmother
can food for our family. Back then it was a necessity because we didn't have a lot of money and it was a cheaper way to obtain food for our family. Now I believe it is still a necessity but for different reasons. When you can instead of buying commercially canned and pre-packaged foods you are not only providing healthier foods for your family but you are also reducing the carbon emissions in several ways. First if you buy from a farmers market you are buying locally which means that the food did not have to travel far to get to the market. Second if you buy in bulk ( which you usually do for canning) it reduces the amount of packaging. It is also cheaper than buying commercially canned foods. Plus there is nothing prettier than canned vegetables, sauces, chutney's jams and jelly's lined up on a shelf!
Freezing is another option for preserving fresh foods. There are jars available now that can be frozen as well as plastic containers. Both are reusable.
There are "how to" books available online and at books stores. Follow this link to Amazon.com
There are also many websites devoted to the art of preserving foods. For more information just click on the links:
If this video disturbs you as much as it did me and you are interested in a meat free, vegetarian lifestyle then follow this link for a free PETA vegetarian starter kit. There's lots of information about animal rights out there. Do your research and then decide the direction that is right for you.
"The packaging for a microwavable "microwave" dinner is programmed for a shelf life of maybe six months, a cook time of two minutes and a landfill dead-time of centuries." -David Wann
"Nature provides a free lunch, but only if we control our appetites." -William Ruckelshaus
“I can remember when the air was clean and sex was dirty”
- George Burns
We have a moral responsibility to protect the earth and ensure that our children and grandchildren have a healthy and sustainable environment in which to live. -Jim Clyburn
If we want to move towards a low-polluting, sustainable society, we need to get consumers to think about their purchases. -David Suzuki
"The difference between animals and humans is that animals change themselves for the environment, but humans change the environment for themselves." -Ayn Rand
"Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans." -Jacques Cousteau
"And Man created the plastic bag and the tin and aluminum can and the cellophane wrapper and the paper plate, and this was good because Man could then take his automobile and buy all his food in one place and He could save that which was good to eat in the refrigerator and throw away that which had no further use. And soon the earth was covered with plastic bags and aluminum cans and paper plates and disposable bottles and there was nowhere to sit down or walk, and Man shook his head and cried: "Look at this Godawful mess." ~Art Buchwald, 1970
"Oh Beautiful for smoggy skies, insecticided grain,
For strip-mined mountain's majesty above the asphalt plain.
America, America, man sheds his waste on thee,
And hides the pines with billboard signs, from sea to oily sea."
~George Carlin
"How can we look our children and grandchildren in the eye, and say that when we were kids we loved the pandas, lions and whales, but then as grownups we destroyed them? How can we tell other nations to protect their resources while we destroy our own? How can we spend billions of dollars searching for life in outer space while we spend billions of dollars destroying irreplaceable species of life on earth?" -Melissa Mathis of Greenspan
"Nobody did worse than he who did nothing for fear he could only do a little." - Edmund Burke
"In America today you can murder land for private profit. You can leave the corpse for all to see, and nobody calls the cops." Paul Brooks
"It's amazing how quickly nature consumes human places after we turn our backs on them. Life is a hungry thing."
Scott Westerfeld
"I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day." -EB White
"This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness."
Dalai Lama
Heroes
We are all custodians of this earth, our only home. The planet is where we find shelter and food. It is only right that we take care of it, value it, and cherish our freedom to do so. To abandon Mother Earth would be to surrender our freedoms and abandon our morality! I share with you, the people, my belief in our power to do the right thing! May we be successful in this non-political race which we must win; and in doing so, find for us all something more precious than anything that can be measure: OUR FUTURE. -- Erin Brockovich, Environmental activist/educator
"There have been 5 mass extinctions in the Earth's past, and 7 out of 10 biologists now believe that we are experiencing another mass extinction of living things. Unlike prior extinctions, this "sixth extinction" is the first to be human-induced, and the fastest in the 4.5 billion year history of Earth."
"70% of scientists believe that over the next 30 years as many as one-fifth of all species will become extinct, and 30% of scientists think that as many as half of all species will perish in that time." - Melissa Mathis of Greenspan
"If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man."
About me: Stopping global warming is going to be the mission of today's youth. Their challenge-- and opportunity-- will be to redesign everything: energy, transportation, food systems, every city on earth. And when they are done, they will have laid the foundation for a just and sustainable future for their kids-- my grandkids. Focus the Nation is building the biggest teach-in that America has ever seen, bringing together millions of Americans on their campuses and in their communities, to engage with global warming solutions. And it is networks like MySpace that make that possible. People are connected today in a way that is enabling a new social movement in support of clean energy solutions to grow almost overnight. -- Eban Goodstein, Project Director, Focus the Nation
I am 43 yr. old mother and grandmother. I have made the decision to learn as much as I can about global warming. I want to know what I can do to reduce the carbon emissions that I and my family produce on a daily basis. I am in no way an expert. But I am learning fast and I am already implementing what I have learned. I am also committed to passing on the information that I learn so that others can, hopefully, start reducing their own carbon emissions. I will be posting information in my blogs about recycling and other steps that you can take to conserve energy. Please visit my friends as they will provide a wealth of information on what you can do to make a difference. Just remember...big changes start with small steps.
Most of my adult life I have toyed with the idea of becoming a vegetarian. I have never been a huge meat eater, never drank a lot of milk and my consumption of eggs and cheese was minimum as well. August 30th, 2007, was a day that changed all that. I went to a friends site on myspace and watched a video entitled 'Meet Your Meat" and was forever changed. That video will always haunt me and I am grateful for it. It was the catalyst that I needed to make this decision. I hope more people will watch that video. The Dalai Lama once said, "Today, more than ever before, life must be characterized by a sense of Universal responsibility, not only nation to nation and human to human, but also human to other forms of life."I believe this with every fiber of my being. I have hopes that one day everyone around me will as well.
I have posted that video here should anyone wish to watch it but be aware that it is extremely graphic and violent. I will NOT debate this issue with anyone as it can be a very personal and hot topic. I choose to not eat meat because I have always felt that it was wrong and to see the inhumane treatment of "food animals" was the deciding factor. The plus side of this decision is that my not eating meat supports the environment. To learn more about how eating meat contributes to global warming visit the following sites:
I firmly believe that we should all make these decisions based on research and personal beliefs. Don't just take my word for it or anyone else's for that matter. Do your homework first, do some personal refections on your beliefs and moral convictions and then choose what is right for you.
This layout was handmade with love by the folks at My space or yours? Go get one!
I made my first video slideshow and wanted to share it with you. The musician (Elizabeth Ann Middleton) is one I found through MySpace, and she generously let me use her music to set to my images. Visit her MySpace page here - http://www.myspace.com/pianorama - she's fantastic! :-)
"Be Here Now" Festival Scheduled for Starks, ME, August 14-16
Starks, Maine -- The hill at Harry Brown's Farm will come ALIVE
with music, giant puppets, belly dancing, and fire twirling three days during tie "Be Here Now" Festival this August.
Organizers hope to build on the success of “Harry Hoe-Down,” the first festival held on the site this season, where thousands of people braved the late June rains to bring to life Harry Brown's vision of “free people assembling freely.” An icon of Maine's counter-culture, Brown has been hosting festivals on his land for nineteen years to support efforts to legalize marijuana in Maine.
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If you have walked in the heart of the Greenwood and have bathed in the light of its living force remember what you have felt; and whenever you pass a tree whether it stands alone in a wilderness of human making or in the depth of woodland, give a moment of your time to listen to its voice. For in many parts of the land the trees are dying only the hearts that know something of the true wisdom can save them. (Anon)
Time to welcome in the Summer, health and happiness.
Si usted ha paseado por el centro del bosque verde y se ha bañado en la luz de su fuerza viva recuerde lo que usted ha sentido; y siempre que usted pase al lado de un árbol si está parado solamente en un yermo de fabricación humana o en la profundidad del bosque, dé un momento de su tiempo para escuchar su voz. Porque en muchas partes de la tierra los árboles se están muriendo solamente los corazones que tengan algo de la sabiduría verdadera pueden salvarlos. (Anón)
Spring is here and so are the butterflies! This week I have a gallery of a particular group of butterflies called Brushfoots. Brushfoots are the most commonly known and encountered of the large colorful butterflies (excluding the swallowtails) found in Florida and the Americas. These include the monarchs, fritillaries, buckeyes, and the viceroy below (who has nearly identical markings as the toxic monarch butterfly) to keep it from being eaten by birds.... cool trick, huh? :-)
Click the butterfly below to see my gallery - and please let me know what you think!
