Religion & Climate Change

Category : Uncategorized

I recently received an email from the Environment Defense Fund about religion and climate change.  I think it’s great clergy are getting involved by encouraging their members to take better care of the earth God has given us.

from the letter…

A number of religious leaders of Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist, and other faiths have formed a growing movement to transform society from their pulpits by emphasizing the connection between ecology and religion.

Their sermons inspire, educate and mobilize people with topics including climate change, renewable energy technologies and public policy to cut greenhouse gases.

This doesn’t mean environmentalism is turning into a religion, Browning explains, but that religion harnesses the power of love and faith, both of which bind us to nature, other humans and the health of our planet and inspire us to take action when these are in danger.

“The fact is,” Browning writes, ”in order to succeed in significantly altering the global course of climate change, we are going to have to harness all the power we have, whether it is the power of the market, the power of technology, or the power of heart and soul.”

check out the article!

No Impact Man

Category : Food & Beverages, Garden/Patio, Household

Have you heard of No Impact Man?  This guy is great and it is absolutely amazing how he, his wife and young daughter lived for one year making really no impact on the environment.  Check out his video below and then definitely go to his website.  Also take a peek at the trailer for the No Impact Man Film!

Green Dining Best Practices Help Companies Cut Costs, Waste and Pollution

Category : Dining Out, Food & Beverages

It is great to see corporate dining operations making an effort to lighten their carbon footprint and to be kinder to the planet.  I hope the idea catches on!

NEW YORK, N.Y. — Random House and the Hearst Corporation have found that serving up a menu based on green dining practices can save their companies thousands of dollars while cutting down on waste and pollution.

Company dining rooms at New York offices for the firms were the test sites for a comprehensive set of Green Dining Best Practices devised by the Environmental Defense Fund and food service firm Restaurant Associates. EDF and the food service firm released the guidelines yesterday.

The best practices cover everything from purchasing, packaging and transportation of food, to preparation, presentation, facility operations and cleaning of commercial kitchens and dining rooms.

By putting the ideas into practice, Random House and Hearst are on track to save $85,000 at each of two test sites, avoid 275 tons of greenhouse gas emissions and cut landfill waste by 60 tons a year, according to the EDF and the food service company.

Read the full article

Forced Vegetarianism by 2025

Category : Food & Beverages

A recent article from Foreign Policy suggests that by 2025 we won’t have the resources to keep up our meat eating habits (me not included – I’ve been a vegetarian for 17 years and a near vegan for the last 2 years).

“According to the FAO report, 33 percent of the world’s arable land is devoted to growing crops for animal feed, and grazing is a major factor in deforestation around the world. It’s also incredibly water-intensive. The average U.S. diet requires twice the daily amount of water as does an equally nutritious vegetarian diet, reports the Worldwatch Institute. Meanwhile, there will be more than 8 billion people on this earth, and two-thirds of the world’s population will live in water-stressed regions.”

“A National Cancer Institute report released last March found that people who ate the most red meat were, as the New York Times put it, “most likely to die from cancer, heart disease and other causes.” The biggest abstainers “were least likely to die.”  Those who eat five ounces of meat daily, (the equivalent of one and a half Quarter Pounders or Big Macs) increase their risk from cancer or heart disease by 30 percent compared to those who eat two-thirds of an ounce daily — a stark difference.”

Biking to Tomorrow

Category : Food & Beverages, Travel

I just read this in Seventh Generation‘s Newsletter…

What do you get when you climb on a bike and ride from Belfast, Maine to Seattle, Washington? Aside from a great deal of exercise, you get a glimpse of the future as it’s unfolding in communities from sea to sustainable sea. That’s what cyclist Nathan Winters is looking for as he bikes across the nation searching for unsung heroes engaged in personal acts of conservation, reuse, and (of course) recycling.

Since his ride began on May 10th, Nathan has been gathering their stories, learning what they have to teach, and sharing it all online mile by mile. It looks like it’s going to be a fascinating exploration of different perspectives about what it means to live sustainably, and Nathan has promised to stop by Seventh Generation’s headquarters on his way through Vermont.

You can follow his adventures on the Greenopolis website.

In the meantime, as Nathan heads into his first stops along his journey, it seems like an apt occasion to point out that May is National Bike Month an event meant to promote the mode of locomotion that’s clearly the future of local transportation. In the meantime, go Nathan go! We are rooting for you.

VeggieDag – Veggie Day

Category : Food & Beverages

Steven Vidler / Eurasia Press / Corbis

Ghent, Belgium is taking a stand to combat climate change by declaring every Thursday VeggieDag or Veggie Day!  It is not compulsory but the entire town will be encouraging each other to cut out meat on Thursdays if not every day.  On VeggieDag vegetarian meals will be served in schools and public buildings and restaurants will be highly encouraged to offer plenty of vegetarian options.  What a great idea!  Apparently other cities across the world are inspired by this idea and are working to create the same program for themselves.

GreenWashBall – Loving It!

Category : Household

I wanted to follow-up on my earlier post and let you all know that I’m loving my new GreenWashBall!  Check out how it works.  I’m saving money on detergent and my clothes are clean and fresh.  They say you don’t necessarily need to use fabric softener as it also softens clothing but I like things extra soft so I’m still using it.  It is a great feeling to know that I’m not wasting all of that plastic on detergent containers nor contributing to carbon emissions from the shipping of heavy detergent from factories to warehouses and then to stores.  By reusing this little ball I’m even saving water since a great deal of detergent is actually water!

Also, one of my favorite sites EcoStiletto has a connection with them to get you 20% off if you enter “ecostiletto” at checkout.

How Meat Contributes to Global Warming

Category : Food & Beverages

  • Pound for pound, beef production generates greenhouse gases that contribute more than 13 times as much to global warming as do the gases emitted from producing chicken. For potatoes, the multiplier is 57.
  • Beef consumption is rising rapidly, both as population increases and as people eat more meat.
  • Producing the annual beef diet of the average American
    emits as much greenhouse gas as a car driven more than 1,800 miles.

Maybe it’s time to wean yourself off beef and pork?  You’d make a HUGE impact on the environement by eating less or even no animal products!

Taken from The Greenhouse Hamburger by Nathan Fiala, published in Scientific American, February, 2009.