A Child’s Introduction to the Environment

A Child’s Introduction to the Environment: The Air, Earth, and Sea Around Us- Plus Experiments, Projects, and Activities YOU Can Do to Help Our Planet!

This book stresses the interconnections of all living things and the impact of humans on the environment. Suggestions for simple experiments to “discover for yourself” accompany discussions of topics such as the water cycle, urban ecology, and wind energy. The authors provide ideas for ways that readers can take steps to conserve energy and reduce waste. The conversational writing style, plentiful watercolor illustrations, and varied page layouts add reader appeal. No single subject receives in-depth treatment, but the Driscoll’s touch briefly on weather, biomes, global warming, food chains, landfills, and desertification. The book has an extensive glossary and a list of related books and Web sites, but no index. A reusable lunch sack, stickers, and a poster with suggested conservation activities in English and Spanish come with the book. More useful for browsers than report writers, this eclectic volume offers a starting point for those wanting to tie environmental awareness to concrete action.

Re-Bound: Creating Handmade Books from Recycled and Repurposed Materials

Re-Bound: Creating Handmade Books from Recycled and Repurposed Materials

I love reading. It is one of my favorite things to do. I especially love reading old weathered books. I don’t know why I prefer them broken in, but it just adds to my reading experience. Lately I have been trying to find books that will teach me what I can use at home to make myself and my home greener. While typing recycled into my search box Re-Bound: Creating Handmade Books from Recycled and Repurposed Materials came up somewhere towards the end of my page. This can take my love of reading even further. This is an excellent way to share your love of reading with others or make the perfect gift for someone even fix a book that may have been damaged.

Description:
Re-Bound is a beautiful book on bookbinding with a fun green twist-all the projects use recycled and upcycled materials. This book shows you how to take everyday materials from around the house, flea markets, thrift stores, and hardware stores and turn them into clever and eye-catching hand-made books.

The Weather Makers

The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth

Yesterday I was given a suggestion to read this book The Weather Makers by Tin Flannery yesterday on The Green Beagles Facebook page. I decided that it was a good idea to find the book and post it for everyone to read.

PRODUCT REVIEW:

An international best seller embraced and endorsed by policy makers, scientists, writers and energy industry executives from around the world, Tim Flannery’s The Weather Makers contributed in bringing the topic of global warming to national prominence. For the first time, a scientist provided an accessible and comprehensive account of the history, current status, and future impact of climate change, writing what has been acclaimed by reviewers everywhere as the definitive book on global warming.
With one out of every five living things on this planet committed to extinction by the levels of greenhouse gases that will accumulate in the next few decades, we are reaching a global climatic tipping point. The Weather Makers is both an urgent warning and a call to arms, outlining the history of climate change, how it will unfold over the next century, and what we can do to prevent a cataclysmic future. Originally somewhat of a global warming skeptic, Tim Flannery spent several years researching the topic and offers a connect-the-dots approach for a reading public who has received patchy or misleading information on the subject. Pulling on his expertise as a scientist to discuss climate change from a historical perspective, Flannery also explains how climate change is interconnected across the planet.
This edition includes an new afterword by the author.

Who killed the electric car?

Who Killed the Electric Car?

With the oil spill, BP’s, and Obama’s reluctance to actually get things done I was reminded of a great documentary I saw a long time ago. I thought that this was very appropriate now that this spill has happened. Who Killed the Electric Car? is a great example of how our government and large corporations decided what was in their best interests above what was in the environments best interests. If you haven’t seen this yet you should. It is very important to be aware of how our government continually keeps their pockets lined while keeping our earth and its citizens in a constant state of duress.

Product Description:
In 1996, electric cars began to appear on roads all over California. They were quiet and fast, produced no exhaust and ran without gasoline. Ten years later, these futuristic cars were almost entirely gone. What happened? Why should we be haunted by the ghost of the electric car?

Toolbox for Sustainable City Living

Toolbox for Sustainable City Living: A do-it-Ourselves Guide

Sustainability is defined as the capacity to endure. In ecology the word describes how biological systems remain diverse and productive over time. For humans it is the potential for long-term maintenance of wellbeing, which in turn depends on the wellbeing of the natural world and the responsible use of natural resources.
Book Description:
With more than half the world’s population now residing—and struggling to survive—in cities, we can no longer afford to think of sustainability as something that applies only to forests and fields. We need sustainable living right where so many of us are: in urban neighborhoods. But how do we do it?

That’s where Toolbox for Sustainable City Living comes in. In 2000 the dynamic Rhizome Collective transformed an abandoned warehouse in Austin, Texas, into a sustainability training center. Here, with their first book, Scott and Stacy, two of Rhizome’s founders, provide city dwellers—those who have never foraged or gardened along with those who dumpster-dive and belong to CSAs—with step-by- step instructions for producing our own food, collecting water, managing waste, reclaiming land, and generating energy.

With vibrant illustrations created by Juan Martinez of the Beehive Collective and descriptive text based on years of experimentation, Stacy and Scott explain how to build and grow with cheap, salvaged, and recycled materials. More than a how-to manual, Toolbox is packed with accessible and relevant tools to help move our communities from envisioning a sustainable future toward living it.

Scott Kellogg a Stacy Pettigrew are co-founders of the Rhizome Collective, an educational and activist organization based in Austin, Texas, that recently received a $200,000 grant from the EPA to clean up a 10-acre brownfield that they are transforming into an ecological justice park. Toolbox developed out of R.U.S.T.—Radical Urban Sustainability Training—their intensive weekend seminar in urban ecological survival skills.

To me this is very exciting. People need to be taught because we as a global community have forgotten the simpelst of things due to technology. We need to get back to those do-it-yourself roots to save our world. All of our ancestors didn’t have the luxuries that we possess today. If something broke they had to figure out how to fix it. If they needed food they had to learn how to grow it. They obtained knowledge through actual physical activities. Their minds and bodies were constantly working to sustain themselves, their families and their future. This is a quality many of us lack but should return to. The idea of thinking about the future seems foreign in a day where instant gratification is a must. This book is an excellent start to learning how to mantain your surroundings in a way that will last without hurting the environment.

Deepening Affirmations

I have been reading a few books that use positive affirmations as a way to change many aspects of your life. I have been taking my time in researching them and using them in my daily life. At first I think I thought they were not very effective but through my daily search for the perfect affirmation I still find one that completely explains exactly how I feel or even better how I want to feel on that particular day, even in that particular moment. I very much appreciate my searches for the perfect daily affirmations.

Affirmations set up expectations for change and facilitate change by reprogramming our “inner computer”. Affirmations provide very powerful methods for self-healing some say.

Self-healing affirmations can offer benefits for physical and psychological problems. One can explore different avenues for dealing with problems through the affirmations for self-healing presented in the e-Book Deepening Affirmations. You will learn sophisticated ways to use affirmations for maximum effectiveness.
The authors claim that:
* WHEE Affirmations are powerful because they are wholistic – addressing body, emotions, mind, relationships and spirit.
* Self-healing affirmations enable you to address your pains and other symptoms as challenges that invite you to discover more about yourself.
* You will learn to deal with your symptoms, dis-ease and disease with tools that are introduced in this e-Book

The Little Mermaid Illustrated by Alan Marks (Hardcover)

Click here for made in Europe toys at ChildTrek.com – Toys, Books & Gifts for a Green Generation.
Product Description

The Little Mermaid lives at the bottom of the sea, where the water is as clear as glass and the sand as fine as powder. But she longs to see the world above the waves…This classic tale is beautifully retold, with lyrical text and enchanting illustrations by Alan Marks.

Benefits of Fairy Tales

Young children are preoccupied with fantasy and make believe. It’s normal and can be a lot of fun. Reading fairy tales allows children to imagine different worlds and be exposed to varying degrees of idealization. With proper guidance, such fantastical stories can offer life lessons and social truths that might otherwise not interest the young mind. For example, in this retelling of The Little Mermaid, the plan to marry the prince does not work out. However, the sea world offers her a welcoming refuge back. Sometimes, the bigger love is home.

Made Of / Made In

The Little Mermaid is made with paper from sustainable sources and printed using child-safe, non-toxic inks. Meets or exceeds new US children’s safety laws.

Middle Island Caring for Kids Daycare & Learning Center

Stony Brook University Medical Center presents “Food, Inc.” Dietician Suzette Smookler returns with more great FREE nutritional information. She will show the documentary “Food, Inc.” and open the floor for questions and discussion.

This is a great way for parents to get FREE Nutrition Knowledge!!!

We hope you can join us on Feb 9th at 7:00pm at City on a Hill Community Church (Connected to Middle Island Caring for Kids). Please RSVP to church office at 631-924-8617 if you plan on attending.

Thank you!
See More
Food, INC.
Time:7:00PM Tuesday, February 9th
Location:615 Middle Country Rd, Middle Island, NY 11953

Avalanche Study Will Bury Pigs in Snow to Watch Them Die

I found this article on treehugger.com and I hope everybody reads it!!  Still scientists want to test on animals, why?  Even our smartest of smart people still cannot distinguish the difference between right and wrong or human and animal!! This goes to show no matter how much education someone may have they are still just as ignorant as the peasants they joke about at their cocktail parties!

Animal rights activists are up in arms about a proposed experiment which would try to better understand what factors may help people survive an avalanche–by burying pigs in snow to monitor their slow deaths. While researchers defend their study, asserting that it could help save lives, those in opposition say that the deaths would be nothing short of cruel and senseless.

The study hopes that by monitoring the buried pigs, researchers will have a better understanding the role of air pockets in surviving avalanche situations and avoiding brain damage from asphyxiation. Like in a drowning, many avalanche victims die from a lack of oxygen while waiting on rescue that is notoriously difficult.

Researchers have defended the study by claiming that the 29 pigs selected to participate would not suffer, and that they would be sedated prior to being covered in snow. Still, animal rights groups are crying foul, likening the planned deaths as animal cruelty.

The experiment, lead by Hermann Brugger and a team from Austria and Italy, was set to take place over the course of two weeks, but has been postponed due to the recent negative response from media and activists, according to Medical University of Innsbruck.

There’s no telling how long the pigs’ reprieve from their snowy execution will last, though Brugger is quick to point out that their days would be numbered anyways. In other words, if the avalanche won’t kill them, the slaughterhouse will.

Green Reading!!

This unique guide to saving our planet is targeted at teens and features real comments and tips by members of the MySpace community! By teens…for teens. What better way to get the message across to our future generations?

Canadian journalist Farquharson takes readers on her 366-day journey to live a more environmentally conscious lifestyle, making one positive change each day.

Ed Begley, Jr.’s Guide to Sustainable Living lays out a detailed road map culled from Ed’s thirty-nine years of green living. For the first time ever, a comprehensive plan is provided, from effective conservation techniques to producing your own energy.  Starting with the energy audit, Ed shows us how to create a game plan for resource conservation in the home. Then, once an adequate baseline of resource use is achieved, he leads us into more in-depth eco-matters, such as the production of alternative energy, and how to use solar and wind energy and a geothermal pump. As Ed’s guide continues, the focus then turns to sustainable lifestyle management choices, such as home gardening, and guidelines on creating a green nursery for your children. This book covers it all–small to large–in plain language and in a progression from resource conservation to energy production and lifestyle management that makes both environmental and fiscal sense.  There’s something here for everyone–new and experienced environmentalists alike–and Ed walks you through every step of the way with helpful sidebars that outline costs and paybacks, as well as essays detailing his experiences of completing these eco-projects on his own home.

As fun to look at as it is to use, Cool Green Stuff features a gallery of environmentally friendly fashions, jewelry, bags, gadgets, home decor, and other one-of-a-kind products that were designed and produced to make the world a cooler and greener place. Inspired by the latest reports of “cool hunters”—a new breed of trend watchers who travel the physical and virtual world in search of cutting-edge design—these products will amaze and tempt you. From a wine-bottle hanging lamp to floral bracelets made of vintage fabric, this collection showcases the imagination and innovation of leading designers at work around the world today. Some of the designs in Cool Green Stuff meet our environmental challenges head on, actually saving energy, water, and waste; others aim to tread lightly on our delicate planet. Each product is coupled with an explanation of its environmental significance, the materials used to create it, and its website so you can buy it (note: no one paid to be in this book).

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