Lots to do

Tell HHS to undo the abortion coverage ban here.

Prevent toxic mining runoff in Bristol Bay here.

Save Polar Bears: Stop the Dirty Air Act here.

Stop inhumane wild horse roundups here.

Clean up politics and save gulf wildlife here.

Boycott Target and sign the petition here.

Click here to take action on all kinds of issues.

I'm baacckk!

Sorry for the extra long hiatus. Today's actions are all oil related. Of course. Ugh.

From the Sierra Club: 

The Keystone XL pipeline requires clear-cutting ancient forests, sucking up water supplies and leaving behind toxic lakes so big they can be seen from space. 

These toxic lakes are where they store the waste from the production of this dirty fuel. Unfortunately, the waste isn't "stored" but seeps out about 2.9 million gallons per day.

The comment period is open on the Keystone XL pipeline. Click here to send your comments to the powers that be in the Department of State.


From Greater Good: Click here to tell Shell "HELL NO" to drilling in the Arctic. And here to demand a ban on offshore oil drilling.


Ban BP...it's working. From Democracy in America: 

When we started our Boycott BP campaign, we knew we had to get their attention in a language BP understands - profits. Now, we know it's working:

A chain of Convenience Stores in Philipsburg, Pa decided to debrand three of its BP-branded stations:

"We are debranding BP. We will no longer be associated with BP by the end of the month. We are doing this because of the backlash and bad publicity from the handling of BP's catastrophe," Sean Lay, vice president of operations, said in the report. "We don't want to be associated with them anymore. We've had enough."[Convenience Store News]

Our campaign has been covered by everyone from the New York Times to industry trade newspapers. You can be sure that BP is paying attention. Now, let's turn up the heat.

Click here to join the boycott and get bumper sticker. 


From the League of Conservation Voters:

You've got to be kidding us. Sarah Palin doesn't think BP is to blame for the ongoing oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. No, she's blaming groups like LCV, whom she's calling "radical environmentalists" for fighting to protect our country's wildlife reserves and coastal economies and working to transition away from dirty fossil fuels to a clean energy future. She's serious. 

Click here to make BP pay for the damages.  


This is sort of oil related - from Defenders of Wildlife:

But what is happening in the Gulf of Mexico right now is an unprecedented ecological disaster. It is threatening sea turtles, sperm whales, dolphins, brown pelicans, Atlantic bluefin tuna and scores of other species… along with entire ecosystems. 

Today you can help me save one of most visible victims of the Gulf offshore oil disaster: imperiled loggerhead sea turtles. 

Click here to urge President Obama to improve protections and list them on the Endangered Species Act.


More on Palin and oil - from Alternet:

It's an outrageous and absurd plan, but it's not surprising when you consider the source. Sarah Palin's response to the ongoing environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is to advocate for expanded oil drilling in a pristine natural habitat, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Click here to send the message that "drill, baby, drill" is not okay. You betcha. And, also too. Wink.


Let's move beyond oil. Seriously...it's way past time. Click here for more info and to take action.


From the UN Foundation:

World Environment Day is Saturday, June 5. At a time when oil is gushing into the Gulf of Mexico and when we’ve just experienced the warmest April on record, it’s a challenge to stay hopeful.   

But climate change is not only about coal mines and oil fields. The good news is that our fields, farms, and forests have untapped potential to create energyand keep greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere.

We’ve overloaded the sky and the oceans with carbon dioxide, but our terrestrial system – both the soil and the plants that grow there – can absorb much more. The first step is to reduce deforestation, because trees act as carbon sponges, and cutting them down is a major contributor to global warming. Here are some other solutions from the land:

• We can produce clean-burning biofuels to replace oil, especially from abundant grasses and crop materials that now go to waste – even from algae!   

• We can capture methane – natural gas – from landfills and animal waste to use as an energy source and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. 

• We can harness solar, wind, water, and geothermal power from South America to Siberia.

• We can store carbon and keep nutrients in the soil through such practices as not tilling the soil, rotating crops, and planting cover crops in the winter.

Even better, these solutions from the land are home-grown. There’s no need for a supertanker to navigate the high seas or divert dollars away from local economies.  

By saving water and increasing soil productivity, we can also produce more food and adapt to climate change as our population grows. Learn more about the UN Foundation's solutions to combat climate change. 

So what are we waiting for? The answers are right under our feet.

(I realize that some of the formatting is wonky, but can't figure out how to fix it. Sorry! )

This should keep you busy for a while

Stand on the side of love here.

Don't let Kellogs buy scientists here.

Check to see if your stuff is made from toxic chemicals here.

Pledge to promote and support progressive ideas here.

Click here to take all sorts of action at the Union of Concerned Scientists site.

Click here to take all sorts of action at the EarthJustice action center.

Click here to go to the Hunger Site (you should be clicking daily, anwyay!).

Don't forget about Free Rice, either.

Click here to sign up for a webinar on how your business can reduce its carbon footprint.

Help Defenders of Wildlife by taking their survey here.

Help make pet care more affordable here.

Speak up for leatherback sea turtles here.

Click here to take action with the Sierra Club.

Stuff to do

Sorry, I've been busy, busy, busy. Here's some stuff to do:

Petition Obama to keep his promise on the Public Option here.

Stand up for Orphan's Rights here.

Support women and girls in Afghanistan here.

Tell Kraft to keep the crap out of our Mac n' Cheese here.

Sign a petition on global warming here.

Tell you Senators that the world can't wait for clean energy here.

Educate yourself on the homeless here. Affordable housing, anyone?

Mountaintop coal removal

From the Sierra Club:

Right now coal companies can receive 'fast tracked' permits for mountaintop removal coal mining through a process called Nationwide Permit 21 (NWP 21). This process denies local communities adequate input, putting them at risk from toxic coal mining pollution.

There are two days left to stop the fast track permit process for mountaintop removal coal mining - submit a public comment today!

Let the Army Corps of Engineers know that you support ending streamlined permits, ask them to stop issuing permits while the proposal is being finalized, and tell them you want the Obama Administration to permanently end mountaintop removal mining.

You can submit a comment directly to the Army Corps of Engineers through Regulations.gov. It's easy!

1. Copy the sample message in the box below.
2. Go to this page on the government website Regulations.gov and paste the message into the comment box. Please personalize it with your own words.
3. Fill in your personal information and submit.

Sample Message

re: COE-2009-0032-0001 - End Nationwide Permit 21

I applaud the Army Corps of Engineers' July 16th proposal to end Nationwide Permit 21 (NWP 21), the streamlined process for approving mountaintop removal coal mining permits. Our communities deserve greater input on mountaintop removal coal mining projects, and an individual permitting process will take us in this direction.

The Army Corps of Engineers acknowledges the blowing up mountains and releasing the toxic by-products in our streams is damaging the Appalachian region, and they should not continue issuing NWP 21 permits while this decision is being finalized. Mountaintop removal coal mining is, by its nature, a danger to the health and welfare of nearby residents. I believe it is critical that the Obama Administration not just regulate this type of mining, but end it completely to protect our mountains, streams and communities for generations to come.

I did not know about the government website that allows for easy public comments. Its called Regulations.gov and the tag line is "Your Voice in Federal Decision-Making." Also,

Regulations.gov is your online source for U.S. government regulations from nearly

300 federal agencies.

We are committed to improving your access to and participation in the federal regulatory process. On this site you can:

• Search for a regulation such as a proposed rule, final rule or Federal Register (FR) notice
• Submit a comment on a regulation or on another comment
• Submit an application, petition or adjudication document
• Sign up for e-mail alerts about a specific regulation
• Quickly access regulations that are popular, newly posted or closing soon-directly from the homepage
• Subscribe to RSS feeds by agency of newly posted FR notices

That's pretty cool. Thanks, Sierra Club!

Good Guide

Very cool site that lets you research ingredients in commonly used products and find safe, healthy, green products.

• "What chemicals are in your baby shampoo?
• Was sweatshop labor used to make your t-shirt?
• What products are the best, and what products should you avoid?

Increasingly, you want to know about the impacts of the products you buy. On your health. On the environment. On society. But unless you’ve got a Ph.D, it is almost impossible to find out the impacts of the products you buy. Until now…

GoodGuide provides the world's largest and most reliable source of information on the health, environmental, and social impacts of the products in your home."

H/T Credo Mobile

Renewing my TerraPass

I'm renewing my TerraPass. If you don't have one, think about getting one. It's really a bourgeoisie way to alleviate driving-induced guilt! Here's what my renewal notice said:

Dear Jill,

Just one week until your TerraPass membership anniversary. By taking just a few minutes today you can help to fund clean energy and carbon reduction projects for another full year: renew your membership today.

In just four years, the TerraPass membership has grown to over 150,000 people like yourself. Together you've supported over 1 billion pounds of carbon reductions across the United States. It's the equivalent of:

• Avoiding 1 billion miles of driving
• Replacing about 10 million regular light bulbs with compact fluorescents
• Installing 4 million low-flow showerheads

Together we are making a real difference. Individual reductions really do add up to something meaningful. Please don't let your membership lapse.

and

A LOT TO BE PROUD OF:
Your purchase of a TerraPass reduced 11,000lbs of carbon.

Every TerraPass is verified by an independent, third-party auditor, so you can be confident that buying a TerraPass is an effective step in the fight against global warming.

Yay me! It's so easy: go to the site, figure out how much Co2 your car emits, then purchase a pass. Simple, (relatively) cheap, and a really good thing.

Lots to do

Click here to urge your Senators to confirm Judge Sotomayor.

Click here to stop the killing of whales.

Click here to ask Hershey to end child slavery in cocoa production and go Fair Trade.

Click here to allow Ohio milk farmers to label their products "rBGH free."

Click here to sign a petition in support of the Public Option.

Click here to sign a petition opposing coal.

Click here to demand that reproductive health care not be stripped from any health care plan. Women's health is not a bargaining chip. Gah!

Click here to protect Alaska national parks from industrial mining.

Join CREDO Mobile on Facebook for constant updates and actions. They are making this blog obsolete!

Click here for Sierra Club's green tips for summer.

Click here to protect families from toxic chemicals.

Click here for 3 ways to help Save Darfur.

Click here to take action on climate change.

Are you daily clicking at the Hunger Site? It takes seconds, really.

Too good not to share

I know, I know, I'm on hiatus. However, CostCo now has a recycling program that I had to share:

Costco’s Trade-In & Recycle Program now puts more money in your wallet. Responsibly trade-in electronic gadgets (such as laptops, cell phones, LCD monitors, digital cameras, MP3 players, gaming systems & more) for Costco Cash good for anything in Costco warehouses or at Costco.com.

1. Click here to visit the trade-in website.
2. Find the value of the items you would like to trade-in.
3. Ship the items to Gazelle for free.
4. Once your items are evaluated, receive a Costco Cash Card within 10 days.

Costco has teamed up with Gazelle, the industry leader in electronics trade-in, to offer this program. Gazelle will evaluate your items to confirm value and then safely and securely remove personal data prior to issuing the Costco Cash Card. Free shipping is offered on all transactions with a value of at least $1.

Costco’s Program currently enables you to both trade-in and recycle electronic gadgets in more than 15 categories, and we continue to add more each month. However, for items we do not yet accept (such as faxes, printers, and TVs), you can use the Recycler Network Directory to find a local recycler near your home. Contact information is provided for each recycler.

The Trade-In & Recycle Program is available to all Costco members.

Gazelle is the industry leader in electronics trade-in and is based in Boston, MA. Gazelle is committed to providing an easy, fast, and safe way for consumers to get rewarded for selling unwanted electronics or to recycle them responsibly. To date, thousands of consumers have used the service as a way to clean out closets, get cash and help out a good cause.

Gazelle believes that data privacy and security are extremely important. All items are wiped of personal data and reset to factory settings. For items with hard drives, Gazelle utilizes Department of Defense approved software and performs all tasks in a controlled, secure environment.

EPA and ethanol

From The Union of Concerned Scientists:

The use of gasoline alternatives, such as ethanol, could play a key role in reducing pollution from fuels, but scientific findings show that biofuels can also increase pollution when done wrong. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is developing a comprehensive plan to move toward biofuels with reduced global warming emissions while protecting air quality and public health.

The ethanol industry, however, does not want science to interfere with their expansion plans. Producers want immediate permission to increase the amount of ethanol they can blend into regular gasoline before government tests are complete to determine if this could be a public health risk.

The EPA opened a public comment period on this issue through May 16. Please tell EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson to deny the producers’ premature request and focus on a comprehensive plan that protects public health while ensuring biofuels contribute to fueling our clean energy future.

Click here for more information on the subject. Click here to go the UCS action page.

Take action now

Here are several actions to take with just the click of your mouse:

Push for a strong climate change bill here.

Help prevent a dramatic increase in homeless families and children here.

Get federal stimulus money to people who really need it here.

Urge passage of an Energy Resource Efficiency Standard here.

Send Congress a message that healthcare reform can't wait here.

Support Paid Parental leave here.

Low Carbon

From TerraPass:

The Forum for the Future is asking you to vote for the top low-carbon innovation. The winner will receive $75,000 to help bring their product to market. Choose from among five contenders:

Kyoto Box – a $7, solar-powered cardboard stove for use in rural Africa. It can halve firewood use and reduce exposure to dangerous air pollutants. (Kyoto Energy Ltd, Kenya)
Carbonscape – a giant industrial microwave which ‘fixes’ the carbon sucked out of the atmosphere by trees by turning wood into charcoal, which can be buried, used as fertilizer or as a highly-efficient fuel. (Carbonscape, New Zealand/UK)
Deflecktor – an inexpensive, lightweight aerodynamic cover for truck wheels that reduces drag. It can cut fuel consumption by 2%. (ADEF Ltd, USA)
Mootral – a feed additive derived from garlic that cuts the methane produced by cows, sheep and other ruminants by at least 5%, and up to 25% with optimum dosage. (Neem Biotech, UK)
Evaporating Tiles – an indoor cooling system that uses exhaust air to evaporate water within hollow tiles built into a false ceiling. It halves the energy use of air-conditioning systems. (Loughborough University, UK)
You can vote here.

Also, don't forget Earth Hour next Saturday, March 28th: Unplug, lights out, go dark for one hour at 8:30pm local time. This is a global effort that started in Sydney but has spread around the world.

Again, from TerraPass:

So this Earth Hour, turn off the lights and enjoy the companionship of a billion people around the world who, by participating in this simple gesture, are saying, with you, “Hey, I care about this too.” After all, it’s only by getting the great mass of humanity on board that we’re going to dock the climate change ship safely.

Quickie: Who knew? UPDATED

From TerraPass:

If you like to cook, you may already be familiar with Harold McGee, tireless kitchen tinkerer, experimenter, and debunker of myths. Recently McGee set out to find whether it’s really necessary to cook a pound of pasta in six quarts of water.

This may seem like a minor matter (and it is!), but Americans do boil a billion pounds or so of pasta every year. By McGee’s own math, cutting the heating time for those big pots of water could save the equivalent of half a million barrels of oil per year.

McGee found that not only can you boil pasta in significantly smaller amounts of water, you can actually start the noodles in the pot while the water is cold:

"It’s possible to butta la pasta in 1 1/2 or 2 quarts of boiling water without having the noodles stick. Short shapes just require occasional stirring. Long strands and ribbons need a quick wetting with cold water just before they go into the pot, then frequent stirring for a minute or two."

Honestly, who knew? I'm going to try this tonight.

UPDATE: So, I tried it last night and a pound of fettuccine cooked just fine in about 2 quarts of water. It was fine even though I forgot to wet them with cold water first. I forgot to put them in the pot while the water was cold...next time I'm trying that trick.

Green Valentine's Day Guide

From TerraPass: don't give cut flowers unless they are from your own garden and/or you find locally grown flowers...which means, sorry, no roses. Why, you ask?

The United States imports between 60 and 80 percent of its cut flowers, and most of them come from greenhouses in Latin America, or even as far away as Africa or Europe. Up to 90 percent of the roses sold for Valentine's Day are from Colombia and Ecuador; in 2006, the wholesale value of imported roses was over $300 million.

The additional air freight for bringing these flowers in is certainly not insignificant. If your order (plus packaging) weighs two pounds, you are contributing more than six pounds of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. In addition, growers of flowers do not have to adhere to the food safety standards that produce suppliers do, and so flowers may be doused in chemicals to ward off pests to maintain their unblemished appearance.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service checks for pests and invasive weeds on around 500 million plants (live and cut) each year, but they do not test for biocide residue. Even though you hopefully won't be eating your bouquet, the mere thought of skin contact or inhalation of chemicals may leave you in a less-than-romantic mood. This is also bad news for the people that pick the flowers and for the creeks that receive the runoff. In Colombia, flower-plantation workers are exposed to 127 types of pesticides, the Sierra Club tells us, and flower farms have polluted and depleted Bogota's streams and groundwater. (source)

What to do? Only buy flowers from Veriflora-certified florists such as Organic Bouquet or read this article to learn about the top green flower choices. You can also click here for treehugger's green gift guide.

Footprints and trees

Carbonify offers a carbon dioxide emissions calculator to help you figure out your annual carbon output. Not only does it tell you how much Co2 you're putting out into the world, but how many trees you must then offset per month or year to balance your footprint. Very cool. You can purchase tree offsets from Carbonify here or from Erase Carbon Footprint.com here.

Or, learn which trees offset best and plant you own. Or, for the truly lazy, you can just read a book or two.

Carbonify also provides an offset directory to help you buy green tags so as to assuage your guilt - and all for as little as $2.95! I have a TerraPass myself.

h/t my cyber friend Hilary

Preserve

How cool is this?

Preserve started the Gimme 5 program to help more people recycle their #5 plastic. Products packaged in #5 plastic are sold widely, but #5 is not recycled in most communities. By recycling your #5 plastic through the Gimme 5 program, you are saving plastic from being sent to landfills, keeping the plastic local by recycling it here in the USA, and you are helping to turn it into new Preserve products.
You have two ways to Gimme 5:

Send it to us (see below).
Drop your #5s at a Preserve Gimme 5 bin (available in select Whole Foods Market stores).
Click here for a list of locations.

•Mail or drop off any CLEAN plastic item with a #5 stamp on the bottom.
•Common #5s include yogurt cups, sour cream containers, hummus tubs, and medicine bottles.
•Through our partnership with Brita, we accept Brita filters for recycling. Click here to learn how to recycle your Brita filter.

To Gimme 5 by mail:
•To help make this program a win for the environment, it is important that you send your plastics back to us via ground shipping (as opposed to air). Reuse a box if you can!
• Make sure to include your return address on the box and add your name and email address inside the box so we can thank you for your good work.
• Unfortunately, we are unable to pay for you to mail your #5s to us. However, our retail-based Gimme 5 program (starting in January) will allow you to drop off your used #5s at no cost.

Send Gimme 5 shipments to:
Preserve Gimme 5
823 NYS Rte 13
Cortland, NY 13045

If you have any questions about the Gimme 5 program or need to get a shipment approved,
call us at 888-354-7296.

I blogged about their Brita filter program, but had no idea about all the other cool recycling stuff they do. Read on:

Recycline makes Preserve®– a line of stylish, high performance, eco-friendly products for your home. As a company, we strive to combine socially and environmentally responsible business practices with groundbreaking design to create products that people feel good about having in their homes. We believe that choosing eco-friendly products doesn’t mean having to sacrifice quality, price, or performance. We believe they should make you feel good.

When you are done using products you purchase from them,

Preserve toothbrushes, razor handles and tongue cleaners can have a second life as plastic lumber for park benches, decks and more! 

Very cool.

Resolutions

Need help making some meaningful resolutions? Click here to "resolve to make a difference" and  here for green resolutions. 

Shop on-line for the environment

TerraPass has an interesting article on Amazon.com and on-line shopping as it relates to the environment. The highlights:

Amazon is working with manufacturers to eliminate those irritating acrylic plastic cases and instead package products in boxes that can take a mailing label directly. The result for Amazon will be lower handling and packaging costs. The result for customers will be a more pleasing product experience. And the result for the environment will be less packaging waste.

and,

I was reminded of another advantage of scale: less inventory waste. Something like 35% of the books in a traditional bookstore end up remaindered — returned to the manufacturer, or recycled, or just thrown away. Large, centralized retailers can significantly reduce this waste through better inventory management.

Interesting - and intriguing. Can you imagine a Christmas or Hanukkah without those damned plastic boxes and twist ties that take an hour to unwrap? I can, and it's all good.

Oh, also from TerraPass, this quote attributed to Obama:

The debates unnerved both candidates. When he was preparing for them during the Democratic primaries, Obama was recorded saying, "I don't consider this to be a good format for me, which makes me more cautious. I often find myself trapped by the questions and thinking to myself, 'You know, this is a stupid question, but let me … answer it.' So when Brian Williams is asking me about what's a personal thing that you've done [that's green], and I say, you know, 'Well, I planted a bunch of trees.' And he says, 'I'm talking about personal.' What I'm thinking in my head is, 'Well, the truth is, Brian, we can't solve global warming because I f---ing changed light bulbs in my house. It's because of something collective'."

As some of my on-line Obama-Mama friends would say, "Swoon!"

Recycling Tips

Here's a good article on stores that recycle your stuff: everything from batteries, shampoo bottles, CFLs, and cell phones to motor oil, packing peanuts and wine corks.

Here's an article on things that should not be recycled. Hint: pizza boxes, although cardboard, do not go in the recycle bin! The author also helps shed light on which plastics to recycle and where to put them.

Green Halloween

From Terra Pass:

Americans spend a spine-tingling $5 billion dollars annually on Halloween decorations and supplies. Cheap Halloween costumes are often worn only once and end up in a landfill sooner or later. Recycling your own clothes and materials is a great way to save money and prevent waste.

What to do? Make your own costumes from recycled stuff (like we did when I was a kid way before green was the new black), compost your pumpkins, and, next year, grow your own. If you're really into it, you can even make an "eco-house of horrors" with some soy wax candles and cereal box gravestones. Spooky!