CT Green Scene

Paper Planting

by Eileen Weber

Have you heard? The days of wrapping your holiday gifts in paper you throw out are over! Take that wad of balled up silver and gold and plant it. Yes, that’s what I said. Put it in the ground and wait for spring. It’s that simple.

Little Kay Gardens provides and eco-friendly alternative to what has typically been, well, a big fat waste. They take their 100% recycled “Gift Wrap That Grows” and embed wildflower seeds.

As early as two weeks, you can begin to see growth. The pre-seeded paper comes with an assortment of flowers like baby snapdragons, black-eyed Susan, and corn poppies. The company, founded by Lynn Shoshani and Jim Johansen, is happy to point out all the environmentally responsible ways the paper avoids pollution.

Creating Eco-friendly Christmas Traditions

by Angela Hotaling

Preparing for the Christmas holiday is no easy task. Depending on family traditions, one is often pushed into buying many material gifts, using more energy, over-consuming, and getting really stressed out. Cultural Christmas traditions can be somewhat exhausting and can cause one to question whether it’s what they really want.

On December 20th, The Huffington Post gave some suggestions on how to alter some Christmas traditions in order to be more environmentally conscious: Send electronic holiday cards; light your tree with LED lights; use recycled magazines or newspapers to wrap gifts; and give non-material gifts (personalized coupons, park memberships, gym/exercise class gift certificates).

Superpowers or Superfoods?

by Chitra Esther Chelladurai

At one point or another, every one gets sick and winter tends to be prime cold and flu season. Whether it's relatively benign or full-blown pneumonia, what really determines how often we get sick and how are immune system is able to counter those illnesses depends on what kind of lifestyle we lead, and often times what we eat.

There are so many "super" foods, medicines, herbal remedies, and so on that sometimes it's difficult to narrow down what we actually need. The market has been inundated with products and produce lauded for its anti-oxidant and cancer-fighting properties. It can be hard to keep track of what is actually a power-packed source of nutrients and what is not.

So, I have compiled a short list from Suite 101 of inexpensive common household foods that yield great benefits for different ailments:

Holistic House: The Latest Sustainable Blog

By Eileen Weber

Trudy Dujardin was green long before the color described more than just your front lawn. She built her design business in 1982. By 1987, she saw the need for an environmentally friendly approach. She now refers to her designs as “eco-elegance.”

Dujardin, President and Founder of Dujardin Design Associates with offices in Westport and Nantucket, has been quoted as saying that a healthy home is the ultimate luxury. But when asked why she feels that way, she was almost a little stumped. She has been living and breathing the green industry for so long that, for her, it would be one “big goof” to have a home that wasn’t healthy.

“Why would you want anything toxic near your family?” she countered. “A home can be beautiful and it can be healthy. How luxurious is it if you’re smelling off-gasses?”

Staying Optimistic About Climate Change Policy

by Angela Hotaling

The 2010 climate change conference in Cancun has stirred up lots of controversy. The conference started on November 29th, culminating on December 10th. The 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which set emission reduction guidelines, will expire in December 2012 and there are pessimistic predictions for a legal continuation of the agreement.

Pessimism is a common theme of the media coverage overcastting the two week conference taking place in Cancun, Mexico. Last years summit in Copenhagen and its offspring, the Copenhagen Accord, has fallen short of making desired progress. There are many possibilities for what will come of all of this and those of us here who care about progress in climate change politics should really reflect upon the breadth of this issue.

CT Environmental Headlines EVENT!!

Hope to see all of you at Chris' event. He's done great work and is committed to fostering a sustainable Connecticut. There will be great peeps to network with, wine and cheese and a knowledgeable speaker. I must admit - I can't wait to go to someone else's green par-tay! :)

 

Peak Oil?

By Chitra Esther Chelladurai

Supply and demand go hand in hand. And, so it is with oil and coal. Long considered the bane of any self-respecting environmentalist’s existence, some experts believe that the days of cheap coal and oil are numbered. Many countries are looking at a cap time of 2020; some estimates are as early as next year.

According to the Environmental News Network, after the peak, production will decline because supplies are being depleted and no new sources are to be found. For peak oil, the rate of production will come to an end when maximum extraction is reached. After that, production is expected to decline. Predictions vary as to when we will reach our peak. But one thing is clear: The peak will come at some point.

Track Deforestation? It's a Snap!

Wondering what to do with 25 years worth of environmental satellite data? Leave it to Google. With their new Google Earth Engine, they can track environmental changes made to the planet  as easy as 1-2-3. Their data is based on NASA's LANDSAT technology and is used to monitor such things as deforestation and land use. A timely event for the talks in Cancun. See an excerpt below from Yale 360 and a link to the Environmental News Network with a more extensive look at the topic.

e360 digest
03 Dec 2010: New Google Earth Technology
 Allows Tracking of Environmental Changes

Google has unveiled an online technology that allows scientists and researchers to track and measure changes to the environment using 25 years worth of satellite data. Google Earth Engine, introduced during climate talks in Cancun, utilizes “trillions of scientific measurements” collected by NASA’s LANDSAT satellite, the company said. Google is already working on applications for tracking deforestation and mapping land use trends, including the creation of the most comprehensive scale map of Mexico’s forest and water resources ever made.

That project alone would have taken three years to process using a single computer, Google officials say, but took just one day using Google Earth Engine. “No one has ever been able to analyze that entire data set for Mexico, or even come close,” said Rebecca Moore, the project’s engineering manager. Google says it will offer 20 million CPU hours free to developing nations and scientific organizations to utilize the platform, which could emerge as a critical tool in the enforcement of such land management initiatives as the UN’s REDD program in which wealthier nations pay developing nations to preserve rainforests.

Click here for a link to ENN.com.

Image courtesy of NASA.gov.

Running out of fish?

Like seafood? So does everyone else, apparently. We're running out of sustainable fishing in our oceans. We essentially have nowhere left to go. According to an article in ScienceDaily, the University of British Columbia in collaboration with the National Geographic Society has conducted a study on the spatial expansion of global fisheries. The study indicated the "no fish left behind" mentality of corporate-run fisheries. That mentality is exactly why sources like bluefin tuna (as per a previous article on this site) are disappearing at an alarming rate and running the risk of becoming an endangered species. See an excerpt below from ScienceDaily.

'No Fish Left Behind' Approach Leaves Earth With Nowhere Left to Fish, Study Finds

ScienceDaily (Dec. 3, 2010) — Earth has run out of room to expand fisheries, according to a new study led by University of British Columbia researchers that charts the systematic expansion of industrialized fisheries.

In collaboration with the National Geographic Society and published in the online journal PLoS ONE, the study is the first to measure the spatial expansion of global fisheries. It reveals that fisheries expanded at a rate of one million sq. kilometres per year from the 1950s to the end of the 1970s. The rate of expansion more than tripled in the 1980s and early 1990s -- to roughly the size of Brazil's Amazon rain forest every year.

Between 1950 and 2005, the spatial expansion of fisheries started from the coastal waters off the North Atlantic and Northwest Pacific, reached into the high seas and southward into the Southern Hemisphere at a rate of almost one degree latitude per year. It was accompanied by a nearly five-fold increase in catch, from 19 million tonnes in 1950, to a peak of 90 million tonnes in the late 1980s, and dropping to 87 million tonnes in 2005, according to the study.

"The decline of spatial expansion since the mid-1990s is not a reflection of successful conservation efforts but rather an indication that we've simply run out of room to expand fisheries," says Wilf Swartz, a PhD student at UBC Fisheries Centre and lead author of the study.

Click here to read more of the article.

Image courtesy of ScienceDaily.

Op-Ed: Milk Getting a Raw Deal?

Milking the corporate cow

By Ryan Parker

This op-ed recently appeared in the Bangor Daily News and is being posted here with permission from the author. 

A recent Bangor Daily News article by Dr. Stephen Sears probably left readers wondering why it was relevant and what they should do about the deadly toxin raw milk. It might surprise the majority of Mainers that the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control have been spending lots of our tax dollars raiding small farms, sending FBI agents into stores with guns drawn, misleading consumers, shutting down family cheese artisans and issuing cease and desist orders to family farms (in Maine) that sell milk to their neighbors.

After Dr. Sears’ (Maine’s state epidemiologist) article, you’re probably breathing easy knowing these agencies are fighting such terrible threats as raw milk. Indeed, as the doctor wrote, according to the CDC, raw milk has been responsible for two deaths in the United States since 1998.

New Christmas Trend: Rent Your Tree

by Eileen Weber

With Thanksgiving under our belts, the Christmas season is upon us. It’s time to break out the lights and put up the decorations! For many of us, that can be a daunting task. (I had a friend who got so frustrated unraveling the Christmas lights that he left them in what he affectionately called “The Christmas Heap.”)

One Christmas tradition is taking an offbeat environmental turn. While many consumers opt for a natural Christmas tree rather than a petroleum-based artificial one, the hottest trend in holiday conifers is, well, borrowing one for a little while.

On the West Coast, the trend has been gaining popularity especially in metropolitan areas like Los Angeles. The idea is appealing to many people looking for an environmental alternative: Renting your Christmas tree and then replanting it after the last piece of tinsel has been taken down. No fuss. No muss. Just Christmas delivered right to your door.