Category Archives: Going Green

The Beauty of the Season

What can I say? I don’t expect to post much this week.

Time instead to enjoy the beauty of the season, whether or not you celebrate Christmas. Enjoy the snow if you have it. Enjoy your favorite hot beverage… hot chocolate for me, thanks!

Take a walk if weather permits. If not, get cozy as a family, enjoy a good movie, a good fireplace or play some games together.

I’ll be making cookies with the kids at some point this week and trying to get the house organized. It’s a bit tough doing all the things I’d like to do while 7.5 months pregnant and dealing with hip issues that keep me from feeling comfortable cleaning anything off the floor… good thing the kids are closer to the floor and can handle it when I insist!

I’m determined to have the time to just enjoy things. To enjoy the holiday season. To enjoy being pregnant. To enjoy my family.

I hope you do likewise.

Do You Get Involved in Green Community Efforts?

Going green isn’t just about you and your family. That’s just the first step.

Next comes green community efforts. You can really spread out your impact if you focus on more than just your home and family.

This is something I’ve not had time to do, aside from running this site, which is a mix of business and encouraging people to go green. It is tough to raise young children, work from home and get involved… especially with only one car. At least in the local community.

Local efforts can be wonderful things. And they aren’t so hard to find as they might have once been. You can search on Google or your favorite search engine for green organizations in your area.

There can be beach cleanup in the summer, groups that discuss about more ways you can go green, Sierra Club meetings, and so forth.

Online efforts aren’t a bad thing either. You can get involved in grassroots efforts online as well as in person, writing to your Representatives and bringing attention to things that matter to you.

I consider my own involvement to be a small thing, something appropriate to the amount of free time I have right now. Through the years, as my children grow, getting more involved will be a great way to show them just how important I believe our environment to be.

Ethical Shopping Help

Christmas isn’t the only time we need to be thinking about ethical shopping. It’s something to work on for the entire year.

This is a topic I’ve been thinking about a lot, mostly due to the sheer consumerism of this time of year. This year is probably better than most, since so many people are cutting back and even looking at used gift items and thrift stores. It’s a nice change, but so much more can be done.

Going through the books at Amazon, I found The Better World Handbook: Small Changes That Make A Big Difference. By the reviews, it looks like a good book.

The book gets into choosing the right bank, buying the right groceries, alternative transportation and more. Sounds to me like the kind of guide a lot of us need to cut back on the guesswork.

I have no doubt that bits of information in it are already out of date, of course. More and more stores have been adding organic selections, for example. The current economy has put many companies out of business, and others are looking for ways to cut costs, which often comes at the sacrifice of environmental efforts. But even with that I think the information is going to be good.

One reviewer didn’t like all the small changes, but as others have noted, small changes are often what lead to big changes. This looks like a nice way to get moving on more small changes.

It’s going on my wish list. Not quite in the budget yet.

Sunday Links 12-14-08

Easy Green Gift: DIY Eco-Soap – Sounds like a fun something to give out for the holidays.

Alert! New Consumer Product Safety Rules Will Make Handmade, Natural Toys Illegal – This bears mentioning over and over. Take action, especially if you love handmade and natural toys.

It’s Not Foreign Oil We Are Dependent On – It’s All Oil. – True, all too true! No matter the source, we need to cut back on our use of oil. Alternatives are out there and getting better all the time.

Don’t Flush Old Prescription Drugs – Flushing old drugs used to be what people were told to do. Some pharmacies can take them back and dispose of hopefully more appropriately.

This Revolutionary Clean Coal Facility Doesn’t Exist – Clean coal? Wazzat? They talk about it, but they really aren’t there yet, not by a long shot.

Individual action and the number of children we have – This is a tough topic, but worth thinking on. I do appreciate the point many make that population in many industrialized countries is dropping, but we still use more resources per person.

Is Substitute Sugar Safe for Children? – Honestly, I prefer to stick to real sugar, and minimize that. Best of all worlds, if rather challenging in these days of artificial sweeteners and HFCS being in so many things.

What’s Happening With Recyclables Markets? – You may not have heard about the impact the recession is having on recycling. Hard to believe that some of the areas that were thriving so well have dropped so much.

Holiday How-To, Green Edition – Various ideas on greening your holidays.

Massey Energy CEO Blankenship’s anti-environment screed caught on tape – It’s easy to be in denial about global warming. Just call it a natural trend… and don’t forget to add in attacks on those who believe we need to be doing something.