What are you doing for Earth Day 2012?

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Happy Earth Day 2012!! Having problems thinking up something to do today? Here are 5 ideas that can help you have a happy, fun, and healthy Earth Day.

1: Watch the Lyrid meteor shower tonight. It may have peaked yesterday but there are still shooting stars to behold!

2: Just go outside- ride a bike, take a walk, go swing on the swings at the park or in the backyard.

 

3: Plan an Earth Hour event- you could always just turn your lights out for an hour and use candles.

4: Write a letter or an email to a senator or mayor, expressing your concerns about the environment.

5: Occupy yourself with Eco-friendly projects- teach your kids or your friends how to build a solar powered car, build a windmill, or just simply plant a flower.

 

Earth Day is a wonderful, peaceful, and bright,
Free like the wind blowing on a kite.
Even though it is just one day for freedom and play,
Every hour there is light,
Every time there is night,
Everyday, I say is Earth Day.

Wheat Everywhere

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Wheat: a tall golden grain covered in large kernels, mostly farmed in Kansas. You probably think of it right now as just a grain. But recently, wheat has discovered that it has a new power. The power to be a meat, a plastic, and a grain.

Hard red winter wheat
The average golden grain…this particular variety is Hard Red Winter.

     It is already a well established philosophy that not everything is as it seems. Things as simple as cereal and ice cream these days contain corn and other grains. But have you ever thought as your piece of bread as a plastic before?
Wheat is a very versatile plant. It can adapt to constant changing of temperature, and it has gone from as little as 10 kernels to nearly 200 per stalk.
It can survive flooding and drought, tornadoes and hail.
One of wheat’s greatest properties though would probably be it’s ability to turn into bread.
Modern bread was invented by the Egyptians,
who noticed that if you mixed yeast with flour paste, it causes the dough to rise, making it much lighter. This reaction was later found to be caused by yeast eating away at starches creating carbon bubbles that make it so fluffy. Those starches though are more vital than you think. They are key to the life of the plant, and the making of most wheat products.
Starch…you find it in most grains. It can make bread fluffy, make your food sweet, give energy to organisms, and most importantly, be made into replacements to petroleum products.
Starch, when combined with polylactic acid becomes a degradable biopolymer that can replace most plastics. It can be made into disposable forks, plastic bottles, and even computer casings. A bio-fuel developed with the starch can someday power your car. A new food replacement tastes exactly like beef or pork, but is made from wheat that can allow vegetarians to enjoy the taste of meat without eating it. This new meat replacement can trick kids my age into eating a more healthy alternative to red meat. This majestic golden grain will soon be found everywhere, leading us into a more green, healthy, and environmentally sustainable future. Wheat today; it’s everywhere.

Earth Hour 2012

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Everyone in the world wants to make an impact somehow. Whether or not it is for good, or for bad, they want to do something that effects change. The problem most people have is that they don’t know what to do. Earth hour is a rapidly growing movement that has reached over 135 countries, and more than 5,200 cities.The movement has helped people recognize that they can make a difference, even if it’s only for an hour.

The movement asks you to turn everything off for one hour to save power, resources, and the Earth. There is also Lasting Beyond the Hour, in which people commit to continue to help the Earth. But the general idea is, an hour without power can seriously reduce our carbon footprints and help people to realize that they have power. Many individuals are drawn to earth hour because they see that climate change needs to not only be recognized globally, but also on an individual scale.

Earth Hour started out in 2007 in Sydney, Australia. Over 2.2 million people participated in the event. In 2008, Toronto, Canada joined in, followed by a flood of other cities and countries. Last year 135 countries turned off their lights for an hour. This year will most likely be the greatest Hour yet.

I invite all of you whom read my blog to participate, by turning your lights off for one hour at 8:30pm tonight (March 31st). Change, no matter how small, makes a difference. Like a ripple in a pond, eventually the difference is noticeable throughout all the water.

Fresh Water

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    Have you ever wondered about the water you drink? There can’t be a way it’s not safe, right? Wrong. Most major brands that sell water actually drill for it in small communities. They find spots that may have large amounts of water and siphon it from the local source of it. Most of the time, the water is actually the tap water of whatever town they decide to take from, and they cause water shortages. But what is in that tap water? It varies from city to city. Tap water can be dangerous in some cities (like mine, where they just now removed the boil-water rules) and
it’s been found that some wells that the companies are taking water from contain cancer-producing compounds.

Here are just a few of the many things found in bottled water:

Cyanide (Causes damage to the nerves)
Fluoride (Causes bone disease and bad teeth)
Mercury (Causes kidney damage)
Selenium (Causes your hair and nails to fall out and creates circulatory problems)

Here are a few things found in tap water:

Chlorite (Causes anemia and nervous system defects)
Antimony (Causes irregularities in blood sugar)
Cadmium (Causes kidney damage)

      Tap water is easy to remedy, because you can just buy a filter for your faucet. But if your on the run and you just get a water bottle, than your drinking dangerous chemicals, not including the ones that leech into the water from the plastic.

      No matter what we do, must of our water sources are polluted. We live on a planet that is 75% water yet we have less than one percent fresh, clean water. So, companies see this as an opportunity to make money, because it is a limited resource that is worth billions of dollars. They harvest tap that is worth $0.0015 to the gallon and sell it at $10 to the gallon. Same thing, different price.  Most of those big brands don’t have to test their water, and knowing that the only way to know if it’s safe is to trace it back to the city it was taken from and look at the reports from when they checked their water. Those big companies don’t even need to submit their findings when they test the water, and there is only one person at the FDA that is in charge of bottled water.

      I hope that this article has brought this to your attention. I strongly advice you to try to find where your water comes from!!

 

The Endless Oil Spill

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Living life, with an endless spill.When you imagine third world countries, most images aren’t that pretty. Starving children, bad living conditions, and many diseases. It may not always be the case, but the way most are going, yeah, that’s about it. With not much money, most countries are invaded by a sinister force that in itself has already conquered America: corporations. I’m not talking about the peace core kiddies, I’m talking about the people who 90% of the time will do anything for large amounts of money. Many oil producers have taken over the small amount of political power the people have.

America is always absorbed with it’s own problems. If an oil spill happens in a small 3rd world country, oh, no big deal. But if one happens in America,there will be riots and protests with newspaper after newspaper reporting on it. Let’s not forget that the whole Haiti disaster, which was promptly dropped from most news broadcasts and papers after the Gulf oil incident. The full Gulf incident lasted about 1 and 1/2 years, whereas, in the Niger Delta there has been an oil spill for 50 years! To them, the constant spills has morphed into one big one, that has already cost the Nigerian government 10 MILLION dollars a DAY.

The delicate balance that supports the ecosystem around the Niger Delta has been attacked, year after year, day after day. Primates, birds, and mangroves have been killed off, and violence and conflict has been growing. Shell, the company causing the spill, has been told to “clear out” by inhabitants, and people have died while others try to get there point across. Welcome to living life with the endless spill.

The Hazard in Food

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These days, with all the reports of salmonella and food poisoning, people are wondering what foods, if any, are safe to consume. Though it is known that organic foods are normally more expensive, you will get your money’s worth for it. Doing your research

What most major industrialized beef producers want you to think....

and looking up if any company has has issues with illness in the past will definitely help, too. Avoid any company that you can not find ACTUAL photos of their farms. This normally means they have something to hide.

There are also problems with organic food at times. You have a larger risk with parasites due to organic food, and less of a parasite chance with commercial. Organic foods cost a lot more at most stores, while since commercial is mass produced, it costs less.

Another thing is, is that most of the vegetables we eat are covered in pesticides. And people say that this is because the bugs will destroy the crop. Plants have been faced against the scourge of bugs every year for millions of years. They used to be strong, but now they are weak from years of genetic tampering and poor soil. Try buying organic to keep from eating food that is too weak to fight off bugs by itself. Less nutrients = less strength in plant. Less nutrients in food = less strength in humans.

What may be happening...

What you can do to avoid bad vegetables is to grow your own. A small plot of corn, peas, and squash can help keep you healthy. The vitamins in most foods can actually keep illness at bay, just like the saying about the apple a day.

So using this information, try to make more informed food choices.

Rice Hull Pots

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Rice hull potsToday I was planting chives, but not in a normal pot — in a pot made from rice hulls. Cool, huh?

They come in four different colors, and are completely biodegradable. This new substance is almost exactly like plastic and is good for the environment. It’s just as revolutionary as the cardboard and grass seed appliance container. I hope that at some point this “plastic” will replace today’s temporary containers.

The grass seed appliance box and the rice hull pot are good examples that today’s containers are changing. And who knows? Maybe 10 years from now, we all may be driving cars made of rice hulls.