I found this funny video on YouTube about bottled water. I’m sure you’ve all heard about the negative impacts all those bottles have on the environment, from the creation of the bottles to their disposal. The actual water inside the bottle isn’t much better. Chances are, you are probably getting filtered water from New Jersey.
After I watched this video, I started thinking, “Are people so terrible for drinking bottled water?” You know, half of the time, people drink bottled water when they are on their lunch breaks from work (or similar situations). They are sitting in some pizza place and really aren’t that turned on by drinking a bottle of soda or juice with their food. What’s left to choose from? Water. They don’t want to go ask for a little paper cup worth of tap water from the guy standing behind the counter, so they buy the bottle. They buy it because it’s available.
My feelings are, if you’re going to beat up on the bottled water industry, you better start beating up on the soft drink and juice industry too. I’m not saying this because I like bottled water, I’m just trying to be fair. I don’t think I have ever even bought bottled water. I wouldn’t exactly say that’s because I’m intelligent, probably just because I didn’t want to spend the money.
Costs add up fast in the produce aisle. Save some of that money by growing food yourself. Most herbs and vegetables grow great in containers – so they’re perfect additions to a sunny deck, patio, or balcony.
Not only can insects be a nuisance in your garden, but they can ruin a perfect picnic or hike. Here are a few totally green, home remedy suggestions to repel insects without using toxic chemicals.
During the early 1900s, Parisian urban gardeners employed the bell jars — called cloches — to protect their plants and raise salad greens early in the season. This was known as a practical guide to “intensive” farming the French way.
Most environmentally aware Americans would love a personal organic vegetable garden, but how many people actually have the time to cultivate one?. Thanks to a San Francisco-based company called MyFarm, Bay Area denizens can pay a weekly fee to have a backyard garden designed and maintained by professionals.
Tea Tree oil is a great multipurpose treatment to use on a number of ailments. Whether you are looking to repel insects in your garden or if you are looking to clear up your acne, tea tree oil is a great alternative.
Weighing in at more than a quarter of a tonne, the world’s largest hanging basket is certainly going to require a lot of watering. The giant eye-catching floral spectacular measures 20ft by 10ft and took a massive EIGHT hours to winch into position.
The idea of a living wall conjures up all sorts of images, but in reality it is nothing more than a wall completely covered in vegetation. This form of urban gardening is often designed as an art form to decorate buildings in cities and has been hailed as one way to make cities more enjoyable, healthier and ultimately greener places.
There are attractive garden plants that repel mosquitoes. Mosquitoes are horrible creatures that swarm around you and suck your blood. They cause itchy rashes and can carry disease. If you are interested in a more natural approach, consider these plants that will keep those pesky creatures far away!
Grow your own food and save money. “The square-foot gardening concept is simple: Build a raised bed, divide the space into sections of one square-foot each, and then plant vegetables (and/or flowers) in just the amount of space they need…
Faced with massive population growth, melting ice caps and the need to own an ever-increasing number of gadgets, the world needs to find sustainable solutions.
A new way of comparing ground and satellite collected data on air pollution has shown that 15 of 20 highly populated cities have air pollution levels that 5 to 10 times higher than the World Health Organization’s guidelines.
Although many Texans seem to doubt that climate change is man-made, they are still firm believers in clean energy. According to a new report released by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), Texas once again leads in wind- energy capacity and largest wind farms installed, ranking sixth in the world behind Germany…
BYD, a battery and electric car manufacturer, is led by Wang Chuan-Fu. Wang has built BYD into a global leader but still wants to be environmentally friendly. To that end, BYD has developed a nontoxic electrolyte battery fluid. “If we’re going to help solve environmental problems, we can’t create new environmental problems with our technology.”
Mostly conceived by international architects, China’s eco-cities were intended to be models of green urban design. But the planning was done with little awareness of how local people lived, and the much-touted projects have largely been scrapped.
Daniel Tammet: “Our world is generating more information with more resources and technology now than at any time in history: through TV and radio programs, cell phones, magazines, email, websites, blogs, and other media… Being overwhelmed by a continuous maelstrom of information can be just as damaging to our minds as having too little of it…”
For most of us the universe is unimaginably vast. But not for cosmologists. They feel decidedly hemmed in. No matter how big they build their telescopes, they can only see so far before hitting a wall. Approximately 45 billion light years away lies the cosmic horizon, the ultimate barrier because light beyond it not has not had time to reach us.
The Swedes have a simple message to the Americans: Bite the bullet and nationalize. With Sweden’s banks effectively bankrupt in the early 1990s, a center-right government pulled off a rapid recovery that led to taxpayers making money in the long run.
It’s the “other” ivory. And this week, conservationists in London stepped in to stop its sale. It might not be as well known as the stuff that comes from elephants, but the ivory from the narwhal, the tusked whale of the northern seas, is just as much in demand – and with that demand comes a threat just as severe as the one elephants face.
When we moved here, I asked a few people who have been here for a while, what type of winters we were in store for. I wasn’t expecting huge changes from what we were used to, since we are only about two hours away from where we used to live. The responses I got ranged from, “same thing as your hometown,” “about 6-8 good snows per year,” and “a lot of ice.”
We have already experienced the snow storms. They feel about the same as where we just came from. Now, we are experiencing the ice.
See, describing winter in New York to someone is a tricky endeavor. There are many micro-climates. I think the temperatures vary to some degree, but what varies even more is the snowfall amounts. Rochester is a far cry from Long Island. Even the Catskills are much different from Westchester.
When Laura and I were out walking one day back at the old house, we stopped to chat with one of the neighbors. We started talking about snow, when she laughed and said, “Oh, you have never experienced a winter around here?” I was like, “C’mon lady, gimme a break. We are an hour away from where we used to live.” She was sort of right, there was a little more snow than we were used to.
Way, way, way back in the day, like 12 years ago, when I was attending Westchester Community College, we had an ice storm. This storm left the roads completely covered for an entire week. It didn’t help that it was about 12 degrees outside for all that time, keeping the roads frozen. I remember that I couldn’t get to the first week’s worth of classes because of all the ice. I would drive about 3 miles in the car down through town and turn around. It was maddening.
When I finally made it to class, I expected everyone else to talk about all their terrifying experiences trying to get to school. The funny thing is that no one even knew what I was talking about. They all lived in Westchester and got no ice. Either that, or it just melted faster.
Connecticut is a bit different from New York. The way it was explained to me from the sales guy at the John Deere dealership was like this: There are basically three zones in Connecticut. The first one is from Interstate 84 and north. They get snow. From Interstate 84 down to Interstate 95, we get icy, slushy mix. From 95 south, they get rain. Of course, that’s not always true, but most likely would occur in the early season and the late season. That’s fine with me.
We got some freezing rain a few days ago. It coated the ground and pavement and has been hanging around ever since. Yesterday, the sun melted most of the driveway, but not all of it. I was walking around on it today and nearly killed myself. For some reason, it’s like a magnet to me. It calls out my name…”Jay, come over and do the moonwalk on me. Act like you are walking on a treadmill. Do the robot and the running man, like Rob.” It just happens, I can’t help it.
Icy sidewalk
Icy driveway
Today, while we were at Home Depot getting some paint for the next bedroom, I went over and grabbed some calcium chloride snow melt stuff. It’s like little white beads. I think it was calcium chloride or the other stuff. The one I got said it wasn’t as bad for the environment than the calcium chloride. It could have been magnesium chloride or potassium chloride. It probably would have been a good idea to read the bag before I started writing. Either way, I got the snow melt stuff.
As you could have guessed, I was excited to throw some of it around on the ice to see how it worked.
When we got back to the house, I unloaded the bag, dropped it on the floor, raced over to get a small bucket and went to work. When I got everything situated, I started tossing the little white pellets all over the place. It was pretty fun. After I unloaded my first batch, I stood back and listened. I always like to hear the soft, “crack, crack, crack” of the ice being melted by the whatever chloride.
I did this a few times and some of the ice was melted. I think I need to add more because I now have a sheet of ice with about a million little holes in it. I always try to be conservative with this type of material, so I don’t think I get the best results. Plus, I don’t want to throw the whole ten bucks away at one sitting.
For eight years the US has been seen as a global outlier on climate issues. Now, with just 12 months to go until the world decides on a new Kyoto protocol, it is catch-up time for president-elect Barack Obama. What can he reasonably achieve in that time?
A new study by sociologists at the University of Maryland concludes that unhappy people watch more TV, while people who describe themselves as very happy spend more time reading and socializing. The study appears in the December issue of the journal Social Indicators Research.
The online image editing space has grown rapidly in the past year, providing great free and subscription-based options for users of all levels. These well-rounded services let you import images from your social networks, touch up photos, promote your work, and more.
This is the dilemma that 30 years of Reaganomics (the real Reaganomics — keeping the economy overstimulated with huge deficits and irresponsible consumer borrowing — not the fantasy Reaganomics of government run like a family and tax cuts that pay for themselves) has left us with. So what do we do?
Usually, the weather is a subject for polite, uneventful conversation with people you don’t know very well. But sometimes the weather is weird, or even downright scary. Here are a few examples of weather events that gave neighbors more than enough to awkwardly discuss.
Where Do Readers Stand on Direct Action? Yesterday, Greenpeace announced that, in order to highlight the ongoing deforestation occurring in Indonesia due to expanding oil palm cultivation, it had stopped a palm oil shipments from leaving port in Dumai, Indonesia. The activists locked themselves to the ship’s anchor chain to prevent its departure.
Evolutionary changes are supposed to take place gradually and randomly, under pressure from natural selection. But a team of Princeton scientists investigating a group of proteins that help cells burn energy stumbled across evidence that this is not how evolution works.
The Electric Power Research Institute announced yesterday that two utility companies (Dynasty Inc and NV Energy) will test out the addition of solar thermal energy to natural gas plants in Arizona and Nevada. The EPRI is conducting the project to determine if using solar thermal at fossil fuel plants will reduce fuel costs and plant emissions.
The Center for Progressive Reform passed on their suggestions for 7 Executive Orders for the President’s First 100 Days, and here they are for you to debate, discuss and otherwise armchair analyze.
Earlier today, concentrated solar company SolFocus announced that it has signed a deal to install over 10 MW of its systems in Spain for EMPE Solar. Upon its completion in 2010, the $103 million, multi-site project will be the largest concentrated solar deployment in the world. Provides energy for 40,000 homes.
A new type of reflective coating can make solar panels far more efficient, soaking up nearly all available sunlight from nearly any angle. Current solar panels — which convert energy from the sun into electricity — absorb only about two-thirds of available sunlight.
Researchers are reporting the highest efficiency ever for one type of solar cells in a breakthrough that could lead to more widespread use of solar energy.
If you’re reading this, I probably don’t need to waste my time trying to convince you that trees are great. They absorb carbon dioxide, they can be used to power small remote sensors and they’re pretty darn nice to look at too. Now a new study by a team of scientists from Germany and the UK has discovered another beneficial property…
Generation We is new to me. Have you heard of it? It’s the Millennial Generation of Americans born between the years 1978 and 2000. They are being hailed as the next “greatest generation.†I take just a liitle offense to that statement, being GenX myself.
I am a registered Democrat. Love me if you are a Democrat, hate me if you are a Republican. I don’t care.
I am actually more of a socially liberal / fiscally conservative Independent. I guess that would make me one of those coveted swing voters. I’m probably not, because I have never voted Republican in my life, but just the same, I would like to be one of those coveted people.
I was just reading about our two presidential candidates for 2008, again. I am pretty psyched about this race. I think the Democrats have a good thing going and, if what I am reading is true, the Republicans need some help.
Let me just say this off the bat…I don’t dislike John McCain. Actually, I didn’t before the election. He is starting to get under my skin though. I think I never really disliked him because I never really saw much of him. I just saw what was on the news. I always thought his heart was in the right place. The more I see this guy, the more he is starting to annoy me. I think it’s because (in my opinion), he has zero charisma. If I hear “friends…” one more time. Also, for the life of me, I have no idea why in the world he is bringing up William Ayers. Hardly anyone knows who this person is and, right now, hardly anyone cares. Perhaps if this William fella was in the news for the past 3 years for doing something terrible and had some more name recognition, there would be some impact. But seriously, wasting valuable air time on a no-name dude like this is…well, wasting valuable air time. There are bigger issues at hand.
I have long thought that presidential politics was just a popularity contest. I mean, who in the world knows what these people are proposing? It seems to be all about style. If someone is a good speaker, they can pretty much say, “I will rob you blind” and still get voted in. I mean 95% of these people and a $5000 tax credit for these people…who knows what is going on? Seriously, about 5% of the public really cares.
Can you really vote for someone based on what they say they are going to do while in office? Remember what the current president said during all his debates with Al Gore? Small government, follow the rule of law, war as a last resort, fiscally conservative…oh man. I mean, the last 8 years was kind of like winning the lottery and getting your car repossessed in one fell swoop.
As much as I hate wedge issues, they seem to play a large part in who gets voted in to office. Abortion, religion, gay rights, immigration…all of them play a very weighted role in who gets to live in the White House for the next 4 years. It is a real shame, but the facts are the facts.
I can say to a McCain supporter who pays too much in taxes, “Yeah, but Obama says he is going to lower taxes on those who make less than $250,000 a year.” They might say back to me, “McCain is pro-life.” I guess they are voting for McCain. No one can really say whether or not these issues should be important to people, they just are. I keep thinking that when voting for the next president, you are voting for someone to fill a spot in the Executive Branch of government. I am not sure what gay rights has to do with the Executive Branch, but if you oppose gay rights, you oppose gay rights. Ain’t nobody going to change your mind. Well, the president does get to nominate justices for the Supreme Court…hmmm.
I would like to hear what is going through the minds of people out there. I am going to go out on a limb here and tell you what concerns me in this election and I hope you will do the same. I don’t care who you are voting for, I just want you to tell me your concerns. What issues make you vote for who you plan on voting for?
My concerns are (in order of importance): environment, economy, the war(s), taxes, health care, our standing in the world and having some honesty back in government.
