by Beth Gray

Babies are cute and snuggly and just the sight of a baby can bring a smile to most peoples’ faces.  Babies are also expensive and create tremendous volumes of waste as any parent will tell you.  By one estimate, “over his/her lifetime, each American born in the 1990s will produce an average of 3.1 million pounds of CO2,” the equivalent of 413 plane trips from New York to Tokyo.  American children in particular tend to have a greater impact on the environment than other children around the world.  For example, “one American child generates as much CO2 as 106 Haitian kids.”  There are several ways to reduce the impact your bundle of joy will have on the planet, however.

New parents quickly get the hang of diapering their baby perhaps because they do it so often.  Ninety-six percent of American babies wear disposable diapers while only six percent of Chinese and only two percent of Indian babies wear them.  It takes a disposable diaper 550 years to decompose, a staggering length of time especially when one considers the number of diapers that the average child goes through in a lifetime.  Aside from the dramatic impact on the environment that disposable diapers cause, they are expensive.  For a relatively simple and effective step toward greening your baby, try switching to cloth, reusable diapers.  While they are obviously not as “user friendly” as disposable diapers and take considerably more effort and clean up on the part of mom and dad, you can save a small fortune while helping alleviate some of the strain disposable diapers put on the environment. 

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by Beth Gray

Photo taken from Discovery Magazine article: http://discovermagazine.com/2009/jan/055

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) explains that “the Arctic is global warming’s canary in the coal mine.”    This environmentally sensitive area of the globe has been in danger for decades but recent images provide visual proof of just how dire the situation is.  The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado provides a daily update on the declining volume and size of Arctic sea ice.  The daily images show where the sea ice boundary currently is with an orange line showing where it was in 1979.  The NSIDC reports that as of August 16, “Arctic ice extent was 5.95 million square kilometers.”  This may seem like a massive amount of ice but as NSIDC notes, this represents a decrease of some 1.68 million square kilometers below the 1979 to 2000 average for the season. 

Though Arctic sea ice does melt during the Arctic summer (a time when the region experiences 24 hours of sunshine), this season’s melt has been dramatic.  A recent Washington Post article explains that “After going into the melt season with more ice over a larger area than recent years, sea ice extent plummeted by a daily rate of 26,000 square miles per day during May, which was the highest rate of loss ever observed for the month since satellite records of sea ice began in 1979.”  On his blog, Nick Sundt, Director of Communications, Climate Change Program at the World Wildlife Fund, put this figure into perspective writing, “That is an area roughly half the size of the entire United States (including Alaska)…”  As if the analyses from satellite images was not startling enough, however, researchers studying the region are finding that the situation is worse than even the satellite images are showing.  In a Time Magazine article earlier this year, David Barber, an Arctic climatologist at the University of Manitoba, describes his experience in visiting the area:  “Some of what satellites identified as thick, melt-resistant multiyear ice turned out to be…’full of holes, like Swiss cheese.  We haven’t seen this sort of thing before.’”

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By Shawn Skinner

Electronic gadgets and appliances such as cell phones, MP3 players, computers, and microwaves are commonplace in today’s global society.  Additionally, the air is filled with radio and wireless internet waves.  Although designed to make life easier, some researchers suggest electronic devices contribute to something far more ominous: electrosmog.

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by Beth Gray

Even if you are not a golfer, it is likely that you know at least several people who enjoy the game.  In the United States, golf has a tremendous economic impact.    According to the 2007 Golf 20/20 economic impact report, golf was a $76 billion industry.  Golf courses have come under close scrutiny within the environmental preservation community.  The volume of water needed to keep courses looking green and lush is tremendous and many courses use various pesticides and other chemicals which can harm the environment.  The typically large amounts of pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers used on most golf courses create substantial concerns regarding run off into local rivers and lakes. 

Several golf courses, however, are beginning to acknowledge these issues and many are changing their ways to be more diligent stewards of our delicate environment.  San Francisco’s Harding Park, a Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA) golf course, is one example.  Administrators at Harding Park employed a team of entomologists and other scientists to help determine ways in which they could reduce water and pesticide usage while still maintaining a golf course that people would like to visit.  An article in Science Daily details how Harding Park is greening their operations and one of America’s favorite pastimes.

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“When we tug at a single thing in nature, we find it attached to the rest of the world.” – John Muir

John Muir (1838-1914) was one of America’s earliest environmental advocates. Born in Scotland, Muir migrated to the United States with his family in 1849. As an adult, he pursued his lifelong interest in the natural world and quickly became one of the nation’s most staunch advocates for environmental preservation. He spent many years living in Yosemite where he enjoyed the serene beauty of the area. He was an early advocate for making Yosemite into a national park and lobbied Congress to give Yosemite the same designation as Yellowstone National Park. In 1892, Muir founded the Sierra Club over which he presided until his death. Muir’s advocacy for a system of national parks was carried on by the Club after his death and generations since his death have continued to benefit from his efforts. The above quote is representative of Muir’s vision of and affinity for nature and is a great reminder to all of us that all things in nature are connected – we cannot touch one piece without touching the entirety.

by Jennifer Lefebvre

For some of us, summer time means camping trips and camping is a wonderful way to get out and enjoy the great outdoors.  The idea alone makes you think of the beauty of the environment, campfires, marshmallows, hot dogs on sticks…  Since camping involves being part of your outdoor environment, it’s best to attempt to arrive, maintain, and leave the area as you found it.  The “Leave-No-Trace Camping” method is growing in popularity as we all become more aware of the importance of preserving our wilderness.  Why not try some of the easy ideas below.

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By Jennifer Lefebvre

According to the UN-World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), tourism is one of the largest industries in the world, increasing exponentially over the past twenty years.  While many of us see it as a vacation, it is also a benefit to the economy of the community in which we are visiting.  Tourism has helped to promote economic growth, the opportunity to diversify those economies, and promote entrepreneurs, many of these business owners are women.  Tourism also helps to promote a connection with other countries and can improve local government.  An important factor to remember is that many of these countries have some of the most environmentally diverse places in the world and should remain so.

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by Allison G. S. Knox

 Many of us have become accustomed to using paper napkins.  We enjoy the idea that we do not have to clean as much when something we use is disposable.  In recent years though, we have also become aware of the climate crisis at hand.  Paper napkins are an easy fix many of us, but are the source of a much larger problem at hand: garbage needlessly sent to landfills. While paper napkins are easier to use, a far less wasteful practice is using napkins made of cloth.

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by Jennifer Lefebvre

One of the first things that might come to mind when you think about going green at the grocery store is reusable grocery bags.  These are great and certainly reduce the amount of plastic bags that can end up in our landfills.  However, there are also many other green options in your grocery store.  Using just a few of these ideas will help and the best part is that they are easy.

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by Beth Gray

 I recently watched a documentary entitled Coal Country that provides a telling look into the modern coal mining industry.  Produced in 2009 and focusing on mountain top removal mining, the film explores the process itself, the benefits in the process for the mining industry, and the cost of using such methods for those who live near such mining sites.  The film’s producers juxtapose serene images of Appalachian mountaintops brimming with diverse flora and fauna against the aftermath of such mining operations.  Few would watch the film and argue that it provides a thoroughly balanced view.  Read the rest of this entry »