A great website: Explore.org

We wanted to tell our readers about a great site that has launched recently called Explore.org.

This website is the online portal for Explore, which is a multimedia organization that documents those around the world who are devoting their lives to making the world a better place. By showing the selfless acts of others, Explore has helped showcase what helping others and the environment is all about.

On Explore has a library of 250 original films and 30,000 photographs that have been taken around the world and showcased at film festivals, as well as on television and the internet. As well, those featured in explore films receive explore funding from the Annenberg Foundation, and to date $15 million has been awarded to 100+ non-profits around the world.

Check out this video of their great work: http://explore.org/videos/player/cr-tortuguero

It's Time For A Green Book Review: Last Chance By Larry J. Schweiger

First, Layla and I would both like to say that we were honored to be asked to take part in the "One Day, 100 Bloggers, 100 Green Books, 100 Reviews" campaign. Created by Eco-Libris, it is a day to help promote books that are printed using recycled and FSC certified paper. As described by Eco-Libris,"The idea is to have 100 bloggers simultaneously publish on Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2009, their book review of a green book of their choice. We want to use the power of the internet and social media to promote green books and increase the awareness of both publishers and readers to the way books can be printed responsibly and sustainably. We hope that the magnitude of this initiative will help grab readers, publishers and others' attention and get them to think about and discuss the future of books and how the green factor should be part of it."

The book we chose to read is Last Chance by Larry J. Schweiger.

In Last Chance, Mr. Schweiger paints a vivid picture of not only the dangers that humanity is facing as we move into the 21st century, but also the dire need to preserve life as we know it on Earth.

The book begins by taking us to the year 2020, just over 10 years from now, and paints a picture of a world that is already different from the world we inhabit today. Mr. Schweiger makes it clear that the business as usual attitude of humanity will not cut it as we move into the future.

Mr. Schweiger pulls absolutely no punches with this book. From the beginning he shows that we are much closer to global warming catastrophe than people like to admit. It is easy to see 2100 as a long ways off, but with this book any reader will see that in just ten to twenty years, our world will be very different. Mr. Schweiger shows that the signs have been there for decades, and even the mother of the environmentalist movement, Rachel Carson (author of Silent Spring) saw that things were changing back in the middle part of the 20th century.

Throughout this book, Mr. Schweiger displays to the reader that dangers are all around us relating to the environment. Mercury from coal pollution, melting ice in the arctic releasing methane to the plight of sea turtles.

The first part of the book puts science where Mr. Schweiger's mouth is, while the second part brings into focus those who know there is a problem and do nothing, either through apathy or a need for money and a love of greed.

It is the third part of the book where the real message lies though. It is here that Mr. Schweiger tells us that the future is in our hands, and that we can change the future. From pushing the politicians, to getting down and working in the soil to grow crops for ourselves, he gives us the road map to change. He ends with a call for a last chance to do something.

As he says, America, and the world, is at a crossroads and the road we take will greatly influence the future outcome of life on Earth.

One wonderful feature of this book is that at the end of chapters, there are objectives that people can achieve to help make the future a better place, and to pressure those in power to make the change they should have made decades ago.

Last Chance is a phenomenal book that is a must-read for anyone who is concerned about the environment. The president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation has written a book that will open the eyes of even the most ardent global warming denier. For both Layla and I, it was a great read and one that is not easy to put down. When you do put it down, it is hard not to think about the changes that are going on around our planet right now, nor the incredible need and requirement we all have as humans to preserve life on Earth.

A great new blog

Recently, Layla and I came across another blog that is blogging about their own green journey, so we thought we would give them a shout out from our own blog.

Shelagh Dunn has committed to doing one small green thing every day to help combat global warming. So far she has atteneded a green event, bought local, offset her carbon and unplug everything in her house.

One of the best things on her site is the running tally on the side of the green impact she has made. As of today, it stood as:

• Buying Local Produce: 1 week
• Cold water washers: 2
• Meatless Lunches or Suppers: 1
• Time unplugged: 1.5 hours
• Minutes of water running saved: 24
• Bottle of water saved: 1
• Plastic bags saved: 19
• Trip by car saved: 2
• Carbon saved so far: 378 pounds

Both Layla and I wish Shelagh luck with her green journey. We really enjoyed our own green journey and continue to live the green life and are happy for it. We will also be keeping up on her blog and seeing where her green journey takes her in the future

You can visit the blog at http://everysmallthing.blogspot.com/

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Garden Update and Rotary

It has been awhile since we posted, mainly due to being busy and because we are focusing primarily on posting on our Atlas Bear site (which we have also been away from due to being busy, but will get back to daily/weekly postings right away).

However, it is time for a garden update. So far we have been picking corn and potatoes of the the garden. The cobs of corn are turning out quite good, and the potatoes vary in size from about the size of a small rock, to a bit bigger than my first.

As well, we finally have pumpkins appearing on the Giant Pumpkin plant we have, and the other pumpkin variety (my grandma gave us the plant as a gift). Carrots are turning out great, and we have a good row of lettuce. The spinach and peas have been picked and harvested and look pretty good.

Layla and I also did a talk today to the Rotary Club of Stony Plain and we wanted to thank them for having us come out and talk about going green.

A very green way to mow the lawn

Layla and I are lucky enough to have some horses at our ranch, and that makes keeping the lawn short much easier. Instead of bringing out a gas mower, or mowing the large amount of grass by hand, we can use the horses. That way we save on hay, and the horses get some nice green grass.

A Reader's Solar Cooker

One of our readers, Alice, recently built a solar cooker and was nice enough to send us photos of the solar cooker. As she describes it:

"This small solar cooker is made of cardboard and duct tape. I cut a piece of metal hanger to support the lid; bought a piece of glass for insulation, and painted an old pot for cooking. Very simple and small, just enough to bake a few small potatoes. I put the potatoes in the pot in the morning, by dinner time they are ready."

Great Job Alice :)

Product Review: Clean+Green

About a week ago, the nice folks at SeaYu were nice enough to send Layla and I a complimentary green cleaning product after hearing about our green cleaning efforts on the blog. While we are not clean freaks, we do keep a clean house so we were really interested in trying out the cleaners they had sent us.

SeaYu is a company that offers excellent green solutions for cleaning, with an emphasis on not only creating a healthy and clean environment free of chemicals for humans, but for their pets as well. Too often, companies will issue out products that have harmful chemicals in them without thinking of the animals who may come in contact with this. It was refreshing to see that SeaYu was forward thinking and cared about the welfare of our pets.

The two products they had sent us were for carpet and upholstery and the car. On the couch we have had for years, which has become quite dark because of dogs sleeping on it, we tried out the carpet and upholstery cleaner. We sprayed it on the couch and were able to clean it quickly and easily, without any chemical smells coming off the couch. In fact, the couch looked almost new thanks to the SeaYu carpet and upholestery cleaner. We found that the SeaYu auto cleaner, which eliminates odors, removes stains and operates as a general cleaner in the car, worked just as well as the carpet and upholstery cleaner. Both products were excellent, quick acting and we did not worry about what we were breathing in when we used the products, which is refreshing for sure.

The cleaners are:

• Non-Toxic
• Non-Flammable
• Non-Corrosive
• Non-Carconogenic

In the products, there are no:

• Oxidizers
• Hydrocarbon Solvents
• Volatile Organic Compounds

The SeaYu products are also all-natural, containing no harmful ingredients. The ingredients are:

• Cane sugar
• Botanical Extracts
• Hydrated Cellulose
• Purified Water
• Nitrogen

There are no fragrances with the SeaYu product, and the cleaning agents are completely biodegradable.

All in all, we found the products that SeaYu were nice enough to send us completely perfect for the heavy duty cleaning that baking soda didn't always take care of. We did not feel sick after using the products as sometimes happens with bleach and other cleaning products (before we started Our Green Year).

If you need a good cleaning product, and you have pets, this is the perfect product for you. Especially if you care about what goes into your air and what goes into the environment as well.

And...The Rest of the Garden is In

Quite a surprise today when we were watching Global National and saw ourselves on it talking about going green, from two interviews we did with Global Edmonton News.

We were able to get the garden in today in advance of the rain, despite a pretty bad sunburn on my part (stupid not wearing something to protect myself from the sun). We were able to plant tomatoes, peppers, two kinds of onions, spinach, lettuce, carrots and asparagus. That makes the entire garden in, as well as the herb garden closer to the house.

This pic is of three tires we found behind the garage here at the ranch, and decided to use for the onions, which are a type that keeps coming back each year without replanting.

Half the garden is in

*First, to explain why Layla is holding a hammer, we were hammering in the posts for our pea plant fences*

We spent today putting our garden in. It was a beautiful day that just made us want to go out and spend the day working in the garden. We planted one row of cucumbers, one row of radishes, a row of rosemary, four rows of corn, five rows of peas, six rows of potatoes (50 hills total), ten pumpkins, five watermelons, two rows of broccoli and a row of rosemary. In addition, our seed starters are going great and we have several wild flowers growing inside, oregano and thyme growing inside and will be transplanted outside when they are ready, one broccoli seed, lots of marigolds and two tomato plants.

Everything in the garden was planted in a manner that the vegetables and herbs around it were beneficial to each other, helping everything grow better. We are hoping that companion planting will increase the yield of our vegetables, eliminating any need for any chemicals to increase vegetable yield.

Day 356 of our Green Year: Banning Leather

A long time ago, way back in the summer, Layla and I banned beef in our lives because the livestock industry is a major contributor to greenhouse gases. Well, today we are banning leather in our lives because of its effect on the environment.

First of all, the practice of getting leather is not at all green or nice for the animals whose skin makes up that leather. We have heard about a video that shows a cow being skinned alive for its hide. That alone is reason enough for us not to buy leather. It should be noted that those companies that use those types of practices are the minority rather than the majority.

Second, the tanning industry in large scale terms uses a lot of energy, and as we all know, energy means CO2 production usually, and that means greenhouse gases being put into the atmosphere.

To understand the effect of the tanning industry on the environment, here is the process.

1. The hides are prepared by using salt.
2. The hides are soaked with perfectly good water to remove all that salt.
3. The hides are then treated with one or more of the following chemicals to get rid of the hair: sodium sulfide, sodium hydroxide, sodium hydrosulfite, arsenic sulfide, calcium hydrosulfide, dimethyl amine, sodium suphydrate
4. Once the hair is gone, the hides are put through another salt and suphuric acid treatment.
5. The hides are soaked in water again
6. The actual tanning is performed with chromium sulfate.

Instead, Layla and I will stick with our commitment to buy green clothes only when we need them, and from now on leather is out of the question for us.

Day 352 of our Green Year; Bulk Food Bags

Layla and I do a lot of cooking, and Layla enjoys making dog treats that are safe and organic. Some times this means going to the organic store or elsewhere and buying bulk items. However, when we get something in the bulk containers, we have to use a plastic bag and plastic bags are a no-no in our household. So, we need to find a new option.

The first option is to just reuse the plastic bags we already have in the house so that we are reusing items and getting more use out of them.

The second option is to use small cloth bags, but so far we have been unable to find these types of bags.

The third option is to use small containers that we can store the bulk items in. This will cost extra money because the weight of the container will go into the cost of the bulk items, but at least we can reuse these items over and over instead of plastic bags. These could include yogurt containers, small glass containers and more.

We are going to try the third option and hopefully the store does not have a problem with it.

Day 351 of our Green Year: No Highlighters

Well, only two weeks left to go! It is crazy to think we have done 351 blogs throughout this year, but now that we are close to finishing Our Green Year, we realize what a monumental effort this has been at times. Given all of that, we would do it all over again if we had to because it was simply great.

Now, getting to our post for today. In our work as professional writers, we have found that on occasion we need highlighters, especially when we are doing research for a book for a client. However, recently when I went to look at buying more highlighters I began to think about the effect these have on the environment. First of all, you have to look at their manufacturing where several chemicals are used to create the color that we see on the paper. While most highlighters these days are water-based and alcohol-based, they still contain some chemicals and those chemicals leach into the landfills when they are thrown away. Some contain xylene and volatile organic compounds that leach their way into our environment. As well, there is the plastic housing of the highlighters to consider.
Of course all this amounts to only a little bit in each highlighter, but multiply it by millions of highlighters each year and that is a big problem.

So, from now on Layla and I will be 'highlighting' by underlining things in the paper using our biodegradable pens.

Day 258 of our Green Year: Composting......Hair?

Today it is a bit of a weird thing we are doing, but it is a green thing to do. In our home, Layla and I cut out own hair. Mine is quite easy to cut because it just involves buzzing it off, and Layla usually just chops off a portion of her hair when it gets too long.

Well, we learned recently that rather than just throw that hair out, you can compost it. Apparently, hair is a great source of nitrogen for the compost. Animal hair is as well and with all the cats and dogs we have, it seems like a waste to just throw all that hair in the garbage. Instead, we will now compost it. Hair is composed of 45 percent carbon, 28 percent oxygen, 15 percent nitrogen, seven percent hydrogen and five percent sulfur. All of this helps your compost and makes it work better for you.

In the spring and summer, we will be using our old cut hair outside, by providing it as something that birds can make their nests out of. Just another cool use for hair.

Used hair is used in many amazing ways. Old hair is actually used in the making of oil spill mats for car mechanics. Ottimatt is a company that does this.

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The homemade seed bell worked great and the birds were swarming around it this morning. Wonderful sight to see.
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Do you have a tip for us?
Do you have a picture of yourself going green?
Tell us your story about going green!
E-mail us at craigbaird@wildmail.com

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We need your help! Our blog has been nominated for two different awards and we need you (if you want to of course) to vote for us to help raise our profile and spread the message of going green.

Day 221 of our Green Year: Buy Nothing Day

Today's blog is a pretty easy one, and it is one that everyone should do, especially considering yesterday was Black Friday. For those who do not know, Black Friday is the biggest shopping day of the year in the United States, and it has reached insane proportions. Just yesterday, one man had a heart attack as people trampled over him. He died, but people kept shopping.

Today, is Buy Nothing Day. It is a day when people around the world are urged to buy nothing in response to yesterday, which could be called "Buy Everything Day". For our 221st day of Our Green Year, we are going along with Buy Nothing Day and helping to raise awareness about it.

Buy Nothing Day is actually pretty easy to do because roughly six out of the seven days of our week are Buy Nothing Days. The only time we really buy anything is Monday, when we do our weekly grocery shop. If you take out food since we need it, then nearly every day of Our Green Year is filled with Buy Nothing Days.

Buy Nothing Day is very important and it is an important message to show people that even if there are big deals and rock bottom prices available, there is no reason you have to go shop. I watched a news report last night where a woman said she had to go out today to buy presents for her kids. I understand where she is coming from, and that is her choice. However, I could not help but think that rather than push the belief that consumerism is acceptable even in tough economic times, it would have been better to buy the kids a small present each (plus something from Santa each) and explain to them why times are tough. The "Business as Usual" philosophy is one that has been tried, and it fails. Instead of making the day after Thanksgiving the day to buy things you may not need, but think you do, why not make it a day to be thankful for what you already have.

Day 219 of our Green Year: Organic Beer

A few weeks ago, Layla and I made the commitment to go green with our wine. As I said then, we do not drink very often. In fact, we drink on very rare occasions like anniversaries, birthdays, Christmas, New Years or Valentine's Day, and we committed to only buying organic wine for those special days.

Well, we do drink beer on occasion, again not too often, but we figure if we are going green with our wine, why not go green with our beer. Hence, from now on we will be buying organic beer, rather than typical name-brand beer.

Organic beer is exactly how it sounds. It is beer that is made with organic ingredients, which are grown in a sustainable manner. We are going to be looking for some organic beer brands in our area when we do want beer.

We are also considering being like one of our readers, Jim, who actually makes his own beer. We do not have all the equipment for it, but if we are able to find what we need, then we may start brewing our own beer here at the ranch.

From what we have read, organic beer now makes up dozens of brands, all of which carry a organic certification to show they have adhered to the strict and legally binding regulations. This means no pesticides, artificial fertilizers, chemicals or any other type of harmful elements are used in growing the barley and hops.

We also found some interesting statistics regarding the environment and beer.

• In the United States, there are four solar powered breweries
• Organic beer sales in the United States reached $25,000,000
• A total of 95 percent of the ingredients must be certified organic to get organic certification.
• Even the company that makes Budweiser has two organic beer brands that have been released to the public.
  

Day 216 of our Green Year: Banning Ivory

There was a time, only a century or so ago, when ivory was prized for everything from piano keys to teeth. While many loved the quality of these items that used ivory, it led to the complete slaughter of elephants throughout Africa and India.

These days, it is generally considered to be horrible taste to have anything made of ivory, but that has not stopped many people from buying ivory that has usually been poached from animals. What is worse, those poachers kill the elephants for their ivory, making it a complete and useless slaughter. Although, even if they were alive and missing their tusks, it would make it no better.

As a result, Layla and I are supporting IFAW and their fight against the sale of ivory by donating to their campaign.

You can help in four ways through donations to keep elephants from being killed by poachers for their ivory. To start, we are paying $15 to provide milk for an orphaned baby elephant for a week.

These are how your donations work:

$15 could pay for milk for an orphaned baby elephant for a week
$25 could pay the running cost of a patrol vehicle for a week
$50 could pay the wages of a ranger for a month
$100 could help train a ranger to protect elephants from poachers

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Last month we found an abandoned kitty in our barn. We adopted him and named him Tubby-Conrad because he has chubby cheeks and is pretty cute. Well, today we made sure that we took him in (he is past six months age) to get neutered. That is what being a responsible pet owner does :)

Day 208 of our Green Year: Supporting The Big Wild

Today, for our 208th day of the Green Year, we are supporting another cause (yes another one, there are just so many!). This cause is a Canadian one and it is devoted to helping the land of our great nation, by keeping it preserved for future generations.

This cause is The Big Wild. They describe their vision as the following:

"Our vision is to keep at least half of Canada's public land and water wild forever. We are realizing this vision by supporting wilderness conservation campaigns across Canada. The Big Wild helps these campaigns by,

• educating people about the urgent need to protect one of the world’s last remaining wilderness areas – which amounts to 20% of all that’s left on the planet
• raising funds for wilderness protection
• enabling people to show decision-makers they support wilderness protection"

This is a great cause because Canada is a land of amazing landscapes, unbelievable species of life and some of the most beautiful scenery on the planet. It is important that we do everything we can to protect it from harm so that our children and our children's children can enjoy what we have. Too often we take for granted this wide open space and abundance of life.

I urge you all to check out Big Wild and become supporters of it yourself.

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We got some cool gifts from my parent's, who were vacationing in Hawaii the past week. Apparently, one of the towns there requires reusable bags, which is great to see. They also said that nearly everything is organic and everyone supports environmental causes (sounds a lot like Rossland, BC).

They bought me a hemp shirt that echoes my view of the Bush Administration, as well as several reusable bags from Maui.

Me with my shirt and two of the Maui reusable bags.

The front of the T-shirt, which helps everyone determine the difference between good and bad Bush.

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Layla and I were quite surprised to find out we were in the local paper last week. The Stony Plain Reporter was nice enough to do an article on us. Thanks!

Day 207 of our Green Year: No Aerosol Cans

One of the biggest success stories for the environment has been banning of CFCs. During the Montreal Protocol in 1987, the decision was made to ban CFCs in an effort to help repair the ozone layer. Originally signed by 25 countries, 168 are now part of the accord. This caused the gradual phase out of CFCs.

While this is a big success story, it is by no means a perfect story. Two big culprits in ozone depletion with CFC is methyl bromide and hydrochloroflourocarbons. While Methyl Bromide was supposed to be phased out by 2005, many companies have won exceptions to the ban. Hydrochlorofluorocarbons are not going to be phased out until 2020.

That being said, many companies have made great headway to eliminate CFCs in aerosol cans, but the problem with aerosol does not stop there. The following reasons are why Layla and I will be banning CFCs in our home, courtesy of Montgomery County.

• Ounce for ounce, spray on product sold in aerosol cans is about twice the cost of bulk product. You pay for propellants in every aerosol can (10 to 15 percent by weight).
• Carbon dioxide, propane and butane are commonly used aerosol propellants that are also "greenhouse gases" that contribute to global warming and smog formation.
• Aerosol cans of solvent-based brake cleaners contain volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that contribute to ozone and smog formation and harm worker's health.
• Used aerosol cans that are not empty may be considered hazardous waste. Under the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), aerosol cans may only be recycled or disposed of as non-hazardous wastes if they have been emptied through normal use or punctured and drained to remove significant liquids. (Shops are responsible for properly managing any captured wastes recovered from puncturing and draining.)

We don't buy hairspray, mouse, deodorant (in aerosol form, we usually use a baking soda deodorant), and we will not be buying any other products that use aerosols

Day 206 of our Green Year: The Slowcooker

I enjoy cooking and am always experimenting with recipes, especially considering we now eat primarily vegetarian dinners, and cold dinners on occasion. When we got to the ranch, we found out that there was a slow cooker available to use. However, I had been under the impression that the slow cooker was not as good for the environment as the stove and oven, so I never used it. That was until I read some articles and found out that the slow cooker is actually a very good thing for the environment when you are cooking something that needs to be cooked within a oven and stove. As a result, here at the ranch we will use the slow cooker when we used to use the oven and stove.

Slow cookers do not use very much energy at all when compared to a stove. A stove can account for 10 percent of all the energy consumption of a home, and the heating ring on stoves can lose large amounts of energy, especially when a pot or pan is not fit right for the element (large to small, small to large). We already make sure we cook on the stove efficiently, but it looks like the slow cooker is more efficient.

While the stove cooks at 350 F to 400 F usually, the slow cooker cooks at 200 F. Also, it does not lose energy into the air because the energy is distributed efficiently throughout it due to the ceramic and metal the pot is made out of. Even after using a slow cooker for seven hours, it will only consume .7 kilowatts of power. Much less than a stove.

When we get a new energy efficient and Energy Star stove, it may be a different story, but until then, we will use the slow cooker as much as possible for recipes that call for that type of cooking.

Day 206 of our Green Year: Making Juice

For the past few days, Layla has been making a lot of pop using the supplies we have bought at the organic store. The pop is turning out really good, and Layla has even started trying out making some fruit pop using some organic apples.

Since we like both pop and fruit, but because organic fruit juice costs quite a bit, we thought of just making our own fruit juice. Hence, we have decided to make our own apple juice today to see how it turns out. It turns out, it is very easy to make apple juice.

To make the apple juice, I just used a two-liter bottle that was at the ranch. After cleaning it out, I juiced five apples and put that juice into the two-liter bottle. Then, i filled the rest of the bottle with water and put in 1.5 tablespoons of organic sugar. After shaking it to mix, I put it in the fridge. Later on, I tried it and it turned out awesome.
The price of the apples and a bit of the sugar is about half the price of the organic juice of the same size where we live.

While organic juice is great, making your own juice is the option we will do ourselves. While the apples need to be transported to us from usually the Okanagan, the carbon footprint is lower than if we buy the organic juice that usually comes from the United States. As well, we are reusing bottles rather than buying new ones like we would at the store. We also only use a small bit of electricity versus the electricity used by the processing facilities that make the organic juice. However, we are going to see if we can find organic apples and fruits from a local supplier so the carbon footprint is lower in terms of travel.

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Kudos for Ontario for taking a step back in helping the environment. This is because of Pickup Pal and Ontario's decision to severely limit what the company can do. Pickup Pal operates in 104 countries, helping hundreds of thousands to reduce carbon emissions by helping share rides. However, in Ontario, Trentway Wagar (a bus company) sued Pickup Pal because they said it was an unlicensed transport business that cross municipal boundaries. The bus company won, and Pickup Pal got fined $11,336.07. Now, Pickup Pal is restricted by these options according to Treehugger.com:

• You must travel from home to work only – (Not Home to School, or Home to the Hospital or the Airport)
• You cannot cross municipal boundaries – (Live outside the city and drive in – sorry you cannot share the ride with your neighbour)
• You must ride with the same driver each day – (Want to mix it up go with one person one day and another person another day – no sorry cannot do that – must be same person each day)
• You must pay the driver no more frequently than weekly – (Neighbour drives you to work better not pay her right away just in case she drives you later on in the week)