War! huh-yeah What is it good for? Absolutely nothing Uh-huh

I wish the country would get riled up and motivated to do something about war, as much as they do about health care revision.

Wow, seems our priorities are a bit skewed.

Don't get me wrong, our health care system is way out of whack. Super sized out of whack. And it NEEDS to be fixed, I just wish people had the same passion for anti-war.

I saw these 2 bumper stickers:
"You can't be Pro-Life and Pro-War" &
" War, It's stops a beating heart...Thousands of them".

Let's fix the horrible state of affairs for health care, but let's also put the same amount of energy, and actually more, into fixing how we handle war.

Plant a Tree w/ Your Phone

"A small band of idealists comes together to further the causes of human rights, women’s rights, peace, environmentalism and an entire progressive agenda. They have an idea about helping people spend in a socially responsible way, turning everyday purchases into automatic acts of generosity.

So they establish a company called Working Assets. It is 1985.

And then - long before “corporate social responsibility” is a buzzphrase - they develop an innovative long distance service where 1% of your charges goes to progressive nonprofits you vote on, your bill serves as a progressive newsletter and your phone company as a progressive lobby.

And something really clicks with consumers.

This Working Assets movement grows steadily over the next 23 years, providing steadily growing support for a wide range of progressive nonprofits, before taking the natural next step into mobile phones - along with a name that better reflects their current business: CREDO Mobile.

To date, the company and its members have donated more than $60 million to amazing groups - groups that members themselves help select - like Doctors without Borders, the ACLU, the Global Fund for Women, Greenpeace, Planned Parenthood, and more, while generating 5,652,914 letters, 15,785,829 emails and 932,992 calls to political and corporate decision-makers.

And though the name may have changed and the business evolved, the company’s philosophy and mission remain the same: to make it easy for passionate progressives to make a difference."

https://www.credomobile.com/

Polyester is a Plastic Disaster

It is my firm belief that we should not have polyester filled pillows, comforters or any type of bedding. It is very hard to find 100% all natural filled products for the home. Couches are definitely not eco-friendly or health friendly
Why is it that so many things are filled w/ anti-healthy polyester? Cost. Cost is the answer. It always comes down to the mighty dollar. Who cares about customer's health when there is $$ to be saved?
Well, I for one am sick of the textile industry and it's overuse of un-natural fillers. But what is a consumer to do? We are pretty much pigeon holed into buying only polyester filled items. Natural filled items are few and far between.

As a consumer, when I find a real 100% natural product, I write the company and thank them. If we as consumers write more and more companies to thank them for their 1 or 2 natural products, maybe this would spark them to add more and more natural options and reduce their use of poly fill.

My firm belief is that recycled plastic and poly fill should only be used on items that we are not wearing or snuggling into 12 hours of the day. Recycled plastic should be left to items like outdoor furniture, reusable shopping bags, "wood" planks for decking, etc. Not clothes, Not filler for bedding or pillows, Not for the inner lining of my winter jacket.

See where I'm going with this?

Stop surrounding yourself w/ endocrine disrupting poly fill.

Trashity Trash

Eco-Facts

• Recycling creates 6 times as many jobs as landfilling.
• Each person throws away approximately four pounds of garbage every day.
• Recycled paper requires 64% less energy than making paper from virgin wood pulp, and can save many trees.
• 14 billion pounds of trash is dumped into the ocean every year
• 84 percent of all household waste can be recycled.
• Americans throw away enough aluminum to rebuild our entire commercial fleet of airplanes every 3 months
• Recycling just one aluminum can saves enough energy to operate a TV for 3 hours.

Water Bottles Sunk

Australian Town, State Govt Ban Bottled Water
Residents of rural Bundanoon, a picturesque tourist destination 150 kms
(93 miles) southwest of Sydney, voted overwhelmingly this month to rid
the town of bottled water to combat the carbon footprint from bottling
and transporting it.
Local businesses in the town of 2,500 people have agreed to replace
all single-use bottles with reuseable bottles that can be filled from water
fountains and to bear the loss of sales.
Read the full story

Consider the Impact
For some figures on the environmental, financial & health concerns
associated with bottled water, download this alarming presentation:

Ecoutlet’s Bottled Water Blog
Ecoutlet’s Bottled Water Blog explains why drinking bottled water is
environmental madness:
• Bottled water is on average 1000 times more expensive than tap
water
• Labelling of bottled water carries no requirement to reflect its chemical or bacteriological content
• 22 million tonnes of bottled water are transported between countries every year
• Most water bottles are made using PET (Polyethylene terephthalate) - less than 15% are recycled and PET takes up to 450
years to break down in landfill
• In 2004, the plastic bottles that delivered 26 billion litres of water to Americans required more than 1.5 million barrels of oil
• One third of the money spent on bottled water would be enough to halve the number of people without ready access to clean,
safe drinking water

San Francisco Ban on Bottled Water for City Staff
San Francisco city workers have not had bottled water to drink since 2007, under an order by Mayor Gavin Newsom.
Newsom estimates San Francisco could save $500,000 a year under his directive, which also addresses environmental concerns
over the amount of oil used to make and transport plastic water bottles.
‘All of this waste and pollution is generated by a product that by objective standards is often inferior to the quality of San
Francisco’s pristine tap water’ according to the order.

We Want Tap - A Business Solution
Tap is a British Project aimed at promoting the use of tap water over bottled water, while raising
awareness of the issues and using profits to fund water projects in the developing world.
The Intention is to ‘create a campaigning brand that gets people to re-think bottled water.’
Check them out

Good Reads...Join

Eco-Facts

Agent Orange is one of 15 herbicides that were used to defoliate the Vietnamese jungles, so North Vietnamese fighters could not use them as cover.

Between 1961 and 1971, over 20 million gallons of herbicides were sprayed over the Vietnamese countryside where lingering effects can still be found.

Farm land has been a battleground where cluster bombs pollute the fields.

Advancements in military technology used by combatants have resulted in increasingly severe environmental impacts causing unprecedented levels of deforestation and habitat destruction. This has resulted in a serious disruption of ecosystem services, including erosion control, water quality, and food production.

Reflect

The Environmental Working Group’s investigation of nearly 1,000 brand-name sunscreen products finds that 4 out of 5 don’t provide protection and/or contain chemicals that may pose health hazards. Some of the worst offenders are leading brands like Coppertone, Banana Boat and Neutrogena.
Many millions of cases of skin cancer are diagnosed worldwide each year. Yet due to huge legislative gaps, companies in many countries are free to claim - but not provide - broad spectrum protection.
Stay safe and keep your children safe by switching to the risk-free, organic alternative: Reflect Outdoor Balm.
You may need to apply it a little more frequently. But what’s that small inconvenience for the reassurance of knowing that you’re protecting precious young skin from damaging rays in a safe, non-intrusive way?

Is 1% safe?

My question is this: Is 1% (or less than) safe? A lot of companies will say they use a synthetic (often toxic) ingredient and then back it up with a statement similar to "It's only in a small small amount, less than 1%".
I asked several leading professionals in the skin care, nutrition and medical industries what their opinions were, and they unanimously said that even "less than 1%" is not safe. The reasons

1. Accumulative effect
2. Multiple products x Multiple uses per day = more than 1%

It breaks down like this. A lot of toxic chemicals do not break down in our bodies or take a very long time to do so, thus they accumulate, so that less than 1% adds up over a short period of time to be more than 1%. Take for example parabens which our bodies can not figure out what to do with and they end up trapped in our fat cells, most alarmingly in breast tissue.
Next but not least is our #2 concern, multiple uses. Take a moment to tally up how many products that absorb into your skin each day and then multiple by how many times you apply/use them during the day. Your list may be shorter or longer, but here's some examples.

• Soap
• Shampoo
• Conditioner
• Face Soap
• Face Toner/Astringent
  
• Face Cream (maybe 2 types)
• Sunblock
  
• Hair Gel/Spray
• Body Lotion
• Hand cream
• Perfume
  
• Shave Gel
• After Shave
• Cologne
• etc...
  

How many products do you use? Now take that # x's it by how many times you use each product per day. Now x's that by .50 (we'll be lenient) and I bet you get a number larger than 1.
Do the math and you will see that less than 1% really does not add up to -1%. Heck it doesn't even add up to 1 or 2 %. It far exceeds that original little # the companies are trying to make you think you are getting & keep this info in your mind the next time a company tells you their small amount of toxic ingredients are safe.

Summer Eco-Facts

Eco-Facts

• 1 rider lawn mower emits the same pollution as 34 cars. The reason being, they lack catalytic converters. As of 2010 all lawn equipment will be mandated to have catalytic converts, thus reducing the amount of pollution they create.

• According to an article, by Alliant Energy, electric grills emit 99% less carbon monoxide than charcoal grills

• There are approx. 20,000 species of butterflies in the world.

• A single ladybug may consume as many as 5,000 aphids in its lifetime. That's why they are the ultimate garden defender. Encourage ladybugs to stay in your garden by placing a ladybug house in your garden.

Removing a Mountain in the name of Energy

"Clean Coal"

It emits much more carbon per unit of energy than oil, and natural gas. CO2 represents the major portion of greenhouse gases. It is, therefore, one of the leading contributors to climate change. From mine to sky, from extraction to combustion -- coal pollutes every step of the way.

Coal-fired power and heat production are the largest single source of atmospheric mercury emissions.

"Clean coal" methods only move pollutants from one waste stream to another which are then still released into the environment.

Despite over 10 years of research and $5.2 billion of investment in the US alone , scientists are still unable to make coal clean.

Instead of traditional mining, many coal companies now use mountaintop removal to extract coal.
Coal companies are increasingly using this method because it allows for almost complete recovery of coal seams while reducing the number of workers required to a fraction of what conventional methods require.
Mountaintop removal involves clear cutting native hardwood forests, using dynamite to blast away as much as 800-1000 feet of mountaintop, and then dumping the waste into nearby valleys, often burying streams.

More than 1,200 miles of Appalachian streams have been buried or damaged by mountaintop removal mining. At least 724 miles of streams were completely buried by valley fills from Appalachian mountaintop removal between 1985 and 2001.
400,000 acres of rich and diverse temperate forests have been destroyed during the same time period as a result of mountaintop mining in Appalachia.

www.cleanenergy.org

www.appvoices.org