Some Climate Change end of summer 2008 updates

The Artic ice at its lowest:

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/for-the-first-time-in-human-history-the-north-pole-can-be-circumnavigated-913924.html

US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/index.html

Polar bear are having some difficulties due to melting ice
http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/climate_change/index.cfm?uNewsID=143941

USA citizens are having some difficulties too with Hurricane Gustav
http://www.fema.gov/media/multimedia/2008/gustav/index.html

The Granny's Garden School: a place where healthy and sustainable diet education begins.

The summer is almost over, the schools reopened and we are all adjusting to the school day routine. Hope you all add a great time.
The feedback to our last activity before the summer was great.
As you may recall we spent a morning visiting the Granny's Garden School in Loveland.
We had 100% fun, 50% educational and 50% interesting.

Here are some more information about Granny's Garden School collected for us by Brigitte Cordier, one of our fantastic members and owner of Anyone Can Cook, LLC.

“Granny's Garden School uses the school grounds to create sustainable school gardens and habitats that help children discover the nature in their own back yards, experience the satisfaction of growing and preparing their own food and the simple pleasure of picking a flower.
Granny's Garden started in 2002 when grandmothers of two (Roberta Paolo) found out that child are losing touch with the natural world. Naturally, she started at her grandchildren school in Loveland, where she lives. There was 1 garden bed in front of one classroom 6 years ago: there are now more than 100 beds! 50 teachers and 1700 kids are now involved in the program. It is the largest program of that kind in the Midwest.
Granny's Garden School (GGS) collaborate with the school and the community to offer fun and imaginative, hands on learning opportunities that compliment and enhance the school curriculum and assist other educators in their efforts to develop a program for their school.

Although located on school grounds, GGS is an independent, non-profit organization that is financially independent of the local school system. To operate, GGS relies on grants, corporate and private financial and material donations, and fundraisers.

GGS is the outdoor lab that offers a creative and environmentally interactive approach to teach curriculum standards. The students learn by questioning, doing, and observing.

They garden organically, and use normally unwanted garden pests as opportunities to discuss the interdependence of plants and animals, including the students. They teach students to respect the living and non-living resources in their environment with examples of recycling fall leaves for compost, newspaper for weed reduction, and plastic blinds for plant markers, to name a few.

GGS consists of a small group of paid staff to plan, develop, and organize program resources, including volunteers, lessons, and supplies.

Since the beginning in the spring of 2002 and has been steadily increasing the programs offered to students based on increased participation and interest of teachers and school administrators. They also have the opportunity not only to share information and resources, but also to develop student projects with school garden programs in other countries to collect and compare data using the environment and gardens.
The Business Courier published this article last June about Granny's Garden School
Learning tastes better with touch of nature at Granny's Garden School in Loveland
Published: June 23, 2008
Roberta Paolo is on a mission to get Southern Ohio children off their couches and outside to plant potatoes, flowers or peas. To continue reading, go to: http://cincinnati.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/stories/2008/06/23/story22.html?b=1214193600^1653151&surround=etf

Wow ! I'm saving money !

Today I decided I want to check how much of a difference all my effort to save energy in the house are really making on my electric and gas bills.
When I started to save energy, the first thing I did was to set up a Duke Energy on line account and keep truck of all my improvements.
I compared my previous bills to the ones of last year. So far, starting from January 2007 I saved 2498 Kwh and 189.58$ in electricity, and I saved 71 ccf in gas, but paid 22$ more because of the rise in price of gas. For example in August 2008 I used 50% less in gas compared to August 2007 and paid the same amount of money.
So in 8 months I saved 189.58$, without considering the gas.

Hope the gas price will not keep rising!

If you want to know what I did to save energy, keep reading the blog. There is more to come.

The best e-mail I received this month

Today I can say I received the best e-mail of the month. My dearest italian friend in Cincinnati, Eleonora Fusco, sent the following e-mail to all her friends, and luckly I was among them. I was so delighted I asked her if I could publish the e-mail on my blog. Please send this e-mail to a friend or a realtive or a neighbor or a coworker who lives in the Hamilton County area.

From: "Eleonora Fusco"
To: vanessa@keithandvanessa.com
Subject: For Hamilton County Residents: Free recycling programs for household hazardous waste, eletronics, yardwaste, metals...
Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2008
Dear All,
I have found and used this site for recycling information. I have used the facilities and remained favorably impressed by the service. Please circulate among the Hamilton County residents to raise awareness. Remember this is a service for Hamilton county residents only. You need to bring with you a proof of residence – i.e. utility bill.
These services in the most part do not extend to businesses, non-profits or churches.

See link below for the detailed information
http://www.hamiltoncountyrecycles.org/

Drop off locations for the different materials
http://www.hcdoes.org/SWMD/Residents/Recycling/DropOff.html

Household Hazardous Waste Collection Program
http://www.hamiltoncountyrecycles.org/sw/HHW/HHW_dropoff_header.htm

Computer and Electronics Collection Program
http://www.hamiltoncountyrecycles.org/sw/computer_event/2008_Computer_Event/ComputerRecycling_web2.pdf

Frequently Asked Questions
http://www.hcdoes.org/sw/FAQ3R.htm#why

Each year, Hamilton County residents recycle over 33,500 tons of material. A typical household recycles 500 pounds of material every year – this is equal to the weight of one grizzly bear!

DO YOUR PART!

Recycling creates jobs – strengthening Ohio's economy. Incinerating 10,000 tons of waste creates one job; landfilling 10,000 tons of waste creates six jobs; recycling 10,000 tons of waste creates 36 jobs.

Recycling reduces pollution – making the air we breathe cleaner and the water we drink safer. Recycling 35 percent of our trash reduces global warming emissions equivalent to taking 36 million cars off the road.

Recycling saves resources – ensuring we will have them to use in the future. Throwing away a single aluminum can, versus recycling it, is like pouring out six ounces of gasoline. Last year, Americans recycled enough aluminum cans to conserve the energy equivalent of more than15 million barrels of oil.

Grazie Eleonora

How to dispose unwanted medicines.

At the end of the past winter some of the members of this group asked me how to recycle medicines.
In Italy we bring the leftover medicine or the expired medicine to the pharmacy, but I had no clue of what happens here in USA.
So I called the Ohio EPA. The answer was a little bit astonishing for me. They said that so far the domestic waste of medicine is not regulated. So usually people throw the medicine in the toilet or put them loose in the garbage. But he admitted that this could pose a risk for water contamination or for kids and animals, which may go root around the garbage and eat them.
So at the moment the best thing to do is to buy the quantity of medicine strictly necessary so they do not expire in our cabinets.
When you buy a medicine ask the pharmacy, both human and veterinarian, if they will collect and properly discharge any expired leftover. They will probably tell you they do not have this service, but if we keep asking they may decide to start one.
If you end up having medicine that you need to throw away, collect them as much as you can (I would add “then try one more time to bring them back to the pharmacy again”), and put them in a sealable plastic bag with some cat litter in each container (seal the cap tight) and in the bag (so no one will eat them!) and throw it in the garbage.

A few days after this question was raised, around the 10th of March 2008, an Associated Press investigation about the drinking water contaminated by medicine in USA was released (http://cbs3.com/national/medicine.found.water.2.673206.html).

Today the EPA announced that they are taking the matter very seriously and they continue work to understand potential impacts of pharmaceuticals in water (http://www.epa.gov/waterscience/ppcp/).

A month without plastic?

Chris Jeavans a BBC journalist will try to live the entire month of August without bringing any more plastic in her house.
You can read the article here
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7508321.stm
And follow her progress on her blog
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/monthwithoutplastic/2008/08/goodbye_plastic.html

Whitout reaching those extreme I would be happy to stop the use of plastic bags and recycle as much plastic as we can.

I'm recycling any plastic #1 or #2. Unfortunately our local recycling service do not recycle plastic #3 to #7 as it does not have buyers for those type of plastics yet. If you do not know which plastic is the container you want to put in the garbage, just look for a triangle with a number inside. They usually are at the bottom of the containers and the number inside goes from 1 to 7.

I'm also using reusable bags to bring around any purchuase I make. The bags I use are made in USA and they are made of recycled cotton and recycled plastic bottles. I have beed using them for more than a year now and they are just great. I became so diligent in using them that now I need to buy plastic bags for my garbage.
So I started looking for an eco-friendly garbage bag, as paper bags are not a good alternative either unless made from 100% recycled postconsumer paper.
I might have found one brand that do not use petroleum substances or food sources. I will give it a try and I'll let you know.

In any case the more I recycle the less regular garbage I produce, so since I started to recycle, the number of my garbage bags decreased.

And don't forget to buy products made from recycled material!

"What YOU can do!" program

People always say they want to do something to help with Climate Change, but they do not exactly know what to do. Also they feel that whatever they do will not count on such a big problem.

So they think that Climate Change is only a problem of Governments, Scientists and Industries. I completely disagree with this way of thinking. Governments, Scientists and Industries are already starting to solve the problems and their big obstacle is to convince people to follow them.

We are the consumer, it's up to us to decide how much of resources we want to use and waste and how much CO2 we want to emit with our cars and household energy consumption. It is up to each one of us to start taking steps to save.

If one person can save 5 (energy, gasoline, materials, etc), 10.000 people will save 50.000. Now 5 is not a big number, but 50.000 it is.

The biggest effort for each one of us is not to start saving, but is to find the motivation and to start thinking outside of our life boundaries. It definitely feels more easy, safe and cozy to think only of our little world. So in my blog I will try to make your little world more sustainable too.

Forget about climate change, if it is too big of a challenge.

Let's focus on making our lives have less of an impact on our surroundings, in other words let's focus on “What YOU can do!”.


Following there is a list of actions that we all can do. Each action has a letter or a number. To navigate the Blog look for this numbers and letters in the "labels" of each post as a guide.

Actions aimed to directly lower your carbon footprint in order of importance:

1) Understand Climate Change and Carbon Footprint. Calculate your carbon footprint and commit to reduce it and to talk to your friends, family members and colleagues. Start a group in your community.
2) Save Energy in the house, remodel/build house with Energy Efficiency in mind and use green renewable energy.
3) Save Gasoline, use energy efficient vehicles with energy efficient clean fuel/power. Use green public transportation.
4) Start to Reuse-Reduce-Recycle and buy products made out of recycled materials or produced in a sustainable way.
5) Calculate your water footprint and Save Water. Promote sustainable agriculture.

Other general action to consider which are very important:

A) Lower as much as possible our dependence on fossil fuels
B) Protect environments that absorb CO2 (forest, ocean, soil, etc)
C) Invest in research
D) Protect food/water sources
E) Green your work place
F) Promote telecommuting, create green jobs and/or retrain workers
G) Teach the Kids
H) Protect and help the poor
I) Get ready for Emergency
J) Volunteer for a good cause

I'm ready!
Are you ready?

Celebrate Water in the month of August

Water is our most important natural resource and also our most vulnerable one. We cannot live without water.
And yet, because water bills are the cheapest one to arrive in our homes, we use it as if it will last forever no matter how much we consume and waste.

The fact is that as a consequence of climate change, the increase in population and water consumption, many states in the USA will start to deal with freshwater shortages. The scientists are telling us that with climate change also USA is and will experience extreme episodes of flooding or draught more frequently, but they cannot yet predict where and when they will occur exactly.

West coast and southeast regions are already experiencing severe draught.

Some areas, on the other end, are and will experience more flooding due to heavy downpours in a short time frame. The flooding may temporally affect the infrastructures, which supply freshwater.

Even if the region where you live will not be affected directly from draughts or floods, your federal taxes money will be used to help other states in need.

Last, it never comes to our mind that the process involved to bring safe and drinkable water to our homes, uses a lot of energy and that the energy cost at some point may start to affect our water bills.

Those are all good reason to start saving water and money.

Here is a page where you can see how USA uses freshwater
http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/summary95.html

Here is a page where you can have an idea of how much water we use in our homes.
http://www.drinktap.org/consumerdnn/Default.aspx?tabid=85


The first step is to calculate how much water you consume (water footprint), Below are some website who offer a water calculator and tips on how to save water.
http://www.nwf.org/water/watercalculator.cfm
http://www.waterfootprint.org/?page=files/WaterFootprintCalculator
http://www.h2oconserve.org/home.php?pd=index
http://www.h2ouse.org/ http://www.waterbudgets.com/ConserVision/CUWCC/DataInput.htm
http://www.wateruseitwisely.com/

In some states and towns where water supply is becoming an issue you can find local water calculators. Here are some examples:
http://www.tampagov.net/dept_water/information_resources/Saving_water/Water_use_calculator.asp
http://savewaternc.org/WaterCalculator.asp


EPA has an entire webpage dedicated to SAVE WATER http://www.epa.gov/owm/water-efficiency/

EPA has a collection of website that tells What You can do! http://www.epa.gov/water/citizen.html

Here are some educational website that explain the water cycle and water quality.
http://www.usgs.gov/science/science.php?term=1306
http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/mwater.html


August is National Water Quality Month and in March there is the World Water Day (http://www.unwater.org/flashindex.html).

Don’t worry; we will have more on water!