Exposed

I really like reading books like Exposed:The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products and What’s at Stake for American Power. I feel like most people take everyday stuff for granted and they just assume their actions aren’t effecting what goes on in the world. This however is completely wrong! I try to explain this to many of my friends, family memebers and even co-workers in hopes that they will see the error of their ways but they usually end up thinking I am some hippie nut. That couldn’t be further from the truth. I think everyone should have to read books like Exposed so they can fully understand the impact their actions have golobally. Everyone should be educated about their purchases and products so they can fully understand the world they participate in.

Description: Thanks to the successful lobbying efforts of the U.S. chemical industry, Americans are being exposed to an array of environmental and health hazards—including rising rates of infertility, endocrine system disruptions, neurological disorders, and cancer—from which many others around the world are being protected.

In Exposed: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products and What’s at Stake for American Power, award-winning investigative journalist Mark Schapiro reveals how products on American shelves are increasingly being linked with serious health hazards—hazards, like Bisphenol A (BPA) and plastic softening phthalates, that the European Union is leading the rest of the world in legislating out of existence.

Schapiro takes the reader inside the global power shift that has gone almost wholly unreported in the United States, exposing not only the health and environmental consequences of this shift, but its implications for the American economy. He demonstrates how the environmental progress underway in Europe is prompting innovation and enabling their firms to beat American companies in the global competition for markets—markets that are becoming increasingly sensitive to environmental and health concerns.

As the Obama administration considers options for reform, Schapiro also demonstrates that what’s already happening in the world’s largest single market may suggest a route out of America’s long-lasting, and dangerous, status quo.

Learn Science by Making and Breaking Toys!

I have been seeing tons of green science projects and green toys in commercial stores lately. This is something I haven’t seen before. Usually when shopping for gifts I have to do it online at green stores because they are the only ones who carry them but over the weekend while looking for some gifts I saw this My Toy Factory – Learn Science by Making and Breaking Toys!
set and I was excited! I got a few of them to give to some kids that I knew would love them.  I can’t stress enough how important it is to start teaching children at a young age the importance of our environment and being eco-friendly.  This is something that will stick with them throughout their whole lives. Click here if you want to get My Toy Factory – Learn Science by Making and Breaking Toys! of your own.

Product Description:
My Toy Factory is an entertaining and eco-friendly concept where children MAKE their own play area and play environment using everyday material like straws, ice-cream sticks and newspapers etc and then BREAK these toys to understand how they work. Children open the kit and get an appointment letter to become workers in their own Toy Factory. They make tickly whistles out of ice cream sticks, swooshing jet cars from bottles & balloons along with ten more exciting toys using their toy kit. A perfect gift to engage the creative gene pool of your kid!

Eco-Fun: Great Projects, Experiments, and Games for a Greener Earth

Eco-Fun: Great Projects, Experiments, and Games for a Greener Earth
The weather is getting nicer out and this makes all of nature seem more relevant since is will soon be sprouting all around us! This is a great time to learn how nature works, why we need to save it and out. Eco-Fun is perfect for the whole family to get involved. When the kids are bored give them this and make them learn something. Eco Fun could also be a great tool in a school setting as well as groups like the scouts.
Description: The earth they walk on, the air they breathe, the water they drink, the sun that gives them energy–not to mention animals and their very own selves: everything about our world excites children. And, with these 50 fun-filled, science-based environmental experiments, kids will discover more about how our planet works and how to make it better. Divided into five themes (earth, air, energy, water, and biodiversity), these activities show how each element operates alone and in connection with the others–and what effect it has on us and the environment. Here are real-life ecology projects to do at school or at home, and for the community. Helped by an abundance of lively illustrations, youngsters will become “supermarket sleuths,” finding out where food comes from. They can build a solar panel, make recycled paper, construct a worm composter, and create a forest ecosystem in a jar. And when they’re done with each section, they’ll take an entertaining quiz or complete a puzzle. There’s no better way to develop a child’s intimate connection with nature.

It is important for home owners to understand what they can do to their homes to make them more cost effective and energy efficient. Many people don’t live in new houses or may not have the means to completely updated their home to be as green as possible. The Green Self-Build Book helps homeowners out with some great ideas you can do yourself to be greener and more cost-effective for you.

Description:The Green Self-Build Book is a highly illustrated, practical handbook on eco-friendly building for homeowners.
Whether you want a turf roof, solar-powered hot water, a straw bale home, or a super-insulated (and cost-efficient) house, you need to know the essential elements of the process. In The Green Self-Build Book, Jon Broome gives an overview of the different methods of sustainable and eco-friendly construction techniques for non-professionals.

The Green Self-Build Book gives inspiration and information to guide you through the green building process. It is intended for anyone who is planning a do-it-yourself project, and for housing professionals, students, and teachers.

Paper Recycling Kit

 How fun ist this? You can teach your children or class about recycling paper and actually show them! This is great for a science project or for something to do around the house! Once your kids learn how to do this it can be a practice carried on through their lives to remember the importance of recycling! Green Creativity has amazing products for learning and fun! Learning to be green is great to start when you are young! You can get your Paper Recycling Kit here.

About:

Repurpose old paper into new paper with Green Creativity’s Paper Recycling Kit! This kit is designed to help your child understand how paper can be recycled.Learn how paper is made and recycled. Create lots of different textures and patterns and make them into unique bookmarks, notepads, greetings cards and more!Another great educational children’s toy that will help your child learn and care for our environment.Kit Includes: 50g of paper, paper making tray, net, 3 tubs of paint, 1 paint brush, colored yarns, silk flowers, ribbon and detailed instructions.

Connected Wisdom Illustrates the inter-connectedness we as a world share. Every action effects your surrounding environment accordingly. This concept may be difficult for children to grasp but Connect Wisdom defines the meaning of a Living System perfectly for everyone in terms that can be come a “fairytale” of positive sorts for generations to come.
Everyone agrees that to create responsible and aware adults the lessons must come from childhood where these ideas can be cemented in to a child’s impressionability before they have time to be negatively influenced by outside efforts. This may sound almost like brain washing but if you think about the fairy tales that you remember as a child most of them had little to no relevance to real life other than wait patiently for prince charming to come save you. You grow up being delusional even if you know better somewhere deep down you wish for Prince Charming right? In the case of Connected Wisdom a child can know deep down what is right so as children and then adults they can make good decisions regarding their environments for current and future generations.

About Connected Wisdom:
Living Stories About Living Systems gathers twelve stories from different cultures that each reveal a unique example of a “living system.” Through them, Linda Booth Sweeney shows that what we now call systems thinking has been around for a very long time.

A Balinese folktale tells the story of a gecko who cannot sleep because of the sparks from a firefly. He traces the cause of his complaint from one animal to another to the mosquitoes he depends on for his survival. Like this gecko, young readers will understand that all life is inter-related, and will be able to grasp the concept of the living system of “interdependence.” In a Burmese folktale, a king spills a drop of honey on his windowsill, too little to bother cleaning up. Yet the drop draws a fly, which attracts a lizard, which is followed by a cat, then a dog, and the owners of the cat and the dog, each armed with a stick. When civil war erupts, the king and readers understand the living system of “linearity,” in which an effect is disproportionate to its cause.
Says Sweeney, “If kids understand living systems, they’re more likely to think and act in informed ways and less likely to jump to blame a single cause for the challenges they encounter. As kids appreciate and learn about living systems, they see that connections in nature, people, problems and events bind us all.”

No Impact Man

I know there are other similar books like No Impact Man, telling the no waste time period story out there but I think it is important for us to read them all. We can learn something from everyone’s story. To take a no waste challenge on for an entire year is extremely difficult for anyone and more so in Manhattan which is a land of grab,go and throw. You notice is in the constantly over flowing garbage’s on the streets or on garbage day outside of apartment buildings. You can see many of the items being disposed of are items that are easily recyclable or reusable. When I lived in Manhattan I was totally one of those people who could take perfectly good items home to reuse. I know it happens in many more area’s than just Manhattan but living there gives you many good examples despite the green good works that do go on there.
As for No Impact Man, I respect a family wanting to take on this challenge. I haven’t read the book yet but I can only imagine what one would have to think of doing with items that may not be recyclable and having to find another use for them. I am looking forward to reading about this family and what they learned from this experience. I hope you do too.

Description:
This book chronicles the adventures of writer Colin Beavan, his wife and their one-year old daughter as they embark on a year long journey to live waste-free for one year in downtown Manhattan, while of course still working regular jobs and living as normally as possible. The author manages to capture his own shortcomings with candor and wit and offers surprising revelations in the process that all of us can relate to in one way or another. It’s an impressive undertaken, engagingly told, which will absolutely inspire you to rethink your own lifestyle habits. An eco-activists must read!!

After having been through this earthquake (I know it wasn’t bad but still scary if you have never been in one before) and now a hurricane!! This beagle didn’t realize how unprepared myself, my home and my precious pets would be if a disaster happened. I reevaluated my home and what was in it. So now that I know how unprepared I am I wanted to make sure none of you are. Here is a list of things that you should have at all times that are easy to grab and go incase of emergency.

Usually I would go greener with these products but incase anyone is really worried and in a rush I have made it easier to get them quickly. Many of these items can be found on Amazon.com and if you are a prime member (it is worth it to be) you can get most items for free prime shipping which means you can get it next day or 2 day shipping for free or $2.99/$3.99.  If you are worried now that you are unprepared you can make yourself feel better before the storm comes.

21st Century FEMA Study Course: Emergency Operations Center (EOC) Management and Operations (IS-775) – NIMS, ICS, MAC Group, Joint Information System (JIS), CoordinationThe first step in being prepared is knowing how to be prepared. There are tons of books out there for disaster survival and preparedness. Don’t be in a situation that is so very critical and not know how to handle it. Everyone anywhere should educate themselves on disaster preparedness.

Emergency Survival Food Supply 275 Meal Pack (See all Freeze Dried Food) Food, you need it, it can’t be perishable and you might need alot of it. You can stock your kit up with survival bars or other non-perishables. It doesn’t matter as long as you have enough of it too keep you alive.

Survival Matches, Bulk Tube, NATO Approved (# 9920-00-966-9432), Military
Fire! You will need it for a million different things! Most survival kits come with matches but keep as many as you can in your to go kit so that you can be sure you won’t run out.

Gerber 31-000701 Bear Grylls Survival Series Ultimate Kit Survival kits are essential. Not only first aid but certain tools and other things can be soo helpful when you are in trouble and flustered.

First Aid Only First Responder Emergency First Aid Kit, 158-Piece Bags (See all First Aid Kits) There are smaller less expensive kits out there which may be more appropriate but for me in an emergency situation I want to be as prepared as possible. You never know what you might need and if you can help someone else along the way.

Solar Flashlight Power Panel Rechargeable Water Proof Good for Emergency Disaster Survival Outdoor Boating Camping DivingKeep this handy at all times. A solar flashlight can be helpful for many reasons.

Potable Aqua Water Treatment TabletsWater is essential! If you are in a major disaster clean water may not be an option. You can’t live without water. The stores yesterday were sold out! Also fill up your bathtubs with water before a storm. This can be helpful for flushing toilets or drinking if you lose power in your home.

Deluxe/Multiple Emergency Dog Survival Kit (See all Pet Health Supplies) Your pooch depends on you and in a disaster they cannot always save themselves. You would feel horrible if you couldn’t save them right?

Deluxe/Multiple Emergency Cat Survival Kit Don’t leave our feline friends out either!!! Both the dog and cat survival kits are important but I do understand there are many other pets out there. If you can’t find a kit for them make one of your own. You will be glad you did it.

2″ X 6″ White Unscented Pillar Candles Set 20 Wedding (See all Pillar Candles) Any candles will do but the larger the candle the longer the burning time. You can go green and get bees wax candles or even make your own out of used candles you have at home but whatever do just always have them.

Etón American Red Cross ARCFR160R Microlink Self-Powered AM/FM/NOAA Weather Radio with Flashlight, Solar Power and Cell Phone Charger (Red)
This is sooo important especially if there is no electricity and because most peple only have cell phones or cordless phones in their home.

AT&T 210 Corded Phone, White, 1 Handset If you have no power you can’t charge your cell phone or cordless phone. Everyone should have one of these in their home.

Simple Food for the Good Life

Its never to late to learn new ways to live your life healthier and greener! There are individuals out there who have been living the sustainable life for decades and the mass is only just catching on. Simple Food for the Good Life shows you it is possible! People have lead the good life for much longer than we realize and it isn’t as impossible as some of us like to pretend it is. Simple Food for the Good Life illustrates how our obsession with over commodities which are so incredibly unnecessary. We could all benefit from buying less stuff which later makes less stuff! Read up and learn more about Simple Food for the Good Life

About Simple Food for the Good Life:
Fifty years before the phrase “simple living” became fashionable, Helen and Scott Nearing were living their celebrated “Good Life” on homesteads first in Vermont, then in Maine. All the way to their ninth decades, the Nearings grew their own food, built their own buildings, and fought an eloquent combat against the silliness of America’s infatuation with consumer goods and refined foods. They also wrote or co-wrote more than thirty books, many of which are now being brought back into print by the Good Life Center and Chelsea Green.
Simple Food for the Good Life is a jovial collection of “quips, quotes, and one-of-a-kind recipes meant to amuse and intrigue all of those who find themselves in the kitchen, willingly or otherwise.” Recipes such as Horse Chow, Scott’s Emulsion, Crusty Carrot Croakers, Raw Beet Borscht, Creamy Blueberry Soup, and Super Salad for a Crowd should improve the mood as well as whet the appetite of any guest.
Here is an antidote for the whole foods enthusiast who is “fed up” with the anxieties and drudgeries of preparing fancy meals with stylish, expensive, hard-to-find ingredients. This celebration of salads, leftovers, raw foods, and homegrown fruits and vegetables takes the straightest imaginable route from their stem or vine to your table.
“The funniest, crankiest, most ambivalent cookbook you’ll ever read,” said Food & Wine magazine. “This is more than a mere cookbook,” said Health Science magazine: “It belongs to the category of classics, destined to be remembered through the ages.”
Among Helen Nearing’s numerous books is Chelsea Green’s Loving and Leaving the Good Life, a memoir of her fifty-year marriage to Scott Nearing and the story of Scott’s deliberate death at the age of one hundred. Helen and Scott Nearing’s final homestead in Harborside, Maine, has been established in perpetuity as an educational progam under the name of The Good Life Center.

Ecovillages

I would sooo love to do this! Live in an entirely sustainable and environmentally conscious village where everyone holds the same respect for our environment as I do. What a dream it would be. Ecovillagesis a brief investigation into Ecovillages, how they work and what previous knowledge and experiences have been used to form the utopian-like community of eco-awesomeness. Using the past to form your future isn’t always a bad idea as long as you use it to move forward and not hold you back. A large part of why many eco-solutions don’t work on a large scale is peoples abhorrence to progress and their dependence on the past to keep them going. The past is the past for a reason, not because of time but because of innovation. Ecovillages are the wave of the future. They may be small in size now but fingers crossed eco-innovations will entice the masses to do the right thing and respect our world as much as they respect their money.

Product Info:
In the last twenty years ecovillages—local communities which aim to minimise their ecological impact but maximise human wellbeing and happiness—have been springing up all over the world. They incorporate a wealth of radical ideas and approaches which can be traced back to Schumacher, Gandhi, the 1960s, and the alternative education movement. This Briefing describes the history and potential of the ecovillage movement, including the evolution of the Global Ecovillage Network and the current developments in both North and South.

The threads that are brought together in Ecovillages include:

•Learning from the best elements in traditional and indigenous cultures
•Alternative economy: community banks and currencies, and voluntary simplicity
•Designing with nature: using permaculture design, eco-building, small-scale energy generation, waste-management, low-impact transport systems, etc
•Organic, locally-based food production and processing
•Reviving small-scale participatory governance, conflict facilitation & social inclusion as well as reviving active inter-generational community
•Creating a culture of peace, and holistic, whole person education
In an age of diminishing oil supplies, the Briefing examines the lessons that we can learn from ecovillages about how to live in a more ecologically sound and sustainable way.