Heal Earth Now

Composting has not been on the top of my list.  I have considered it and it seems simple, but I just want to get it right.  Before I would start and then just abandon the whole thing.    We usually put fallen leaves around the trees in our yard, but we don’t use the scraps of vegetable matter-those end up going in the garbage.  Last night the Super Bowl commercial with Audi and the green police made me think about composting again.   One guy was getting a ticket for throwing a banana peels into the garbage and I thought that is the same thing that I do with my peelings.  

Here are some YouTube videos on composting that I am using as a resource for composting.     It really answered a lot of my questions.  One thing I was doing was putting food scraps on top of the compost and that was attracting a lot of pest.  A video gave the common sense solution of covering the food scraps with dry material.  As I try to compost once more, I hope to get everything right this time around.

Some homes in Western Kansas will be soon be powered by the biofuel produced by cow manure. Many different areas in Europe, including the Netherlands, are already using cow manure to produce biofuel.

In a few months, the city of Ulysses will get a new machine called a gasifier. It will be used to turn cow manure into electricity. Each unit is small enough to fit on a semi-truck, but is capable of producing enough energy to power 1,500 homes.

“Each cow produces about 8 pounds of manure per day,” says Gene Pflughoft, Grant County Economic Development Director. “They can take that dry manure, gasify it, turn it into a gas, and then run that into a generator and generate electricity.”

Source:Kake.com

According to an article from the Associated Press, we are in the warmest decade (2000-2009).

The last few decades are the warmest period in at least 400 years and probably 1,000 years, based on evidence from tree rings, retreating glaciers and other scientific methods to track climate before record-keeping, according to a 2006 report by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

Although temperatures have fluctuated, the causes were natural. The difference now is that they are being driven up by human activity, that modern civilization has many more coastal cities and needs to feed far more people, and that scientists believe humans can head off such dangerous warming.

Many parts of the world are already feeling the effects of global warming. Melting polar ice caps are causing sea levels to rise in some places, as result people in many countries losing their homes and businesses close to the coastline. Since what one country does affects the whole world, developing countries are paying for the waste and huge carbon emissions that other countries have released into the air.

Although we are seeing the warmer decades, that does not mean that all is over. We can work to reduce our carbon emissions. Most people and cities are trying to go green and hopefully going green continues to be cool and be just what we need to slow down global warming.

We know that carbon emissions are affecting climate change. A change in our environment is bound to affect the plants, animals and humans. Researchers are putting a number of live saved if we can reduce the amount of carbon emissions.

The calculations of lives saved were based on computer models that looked at pollution-caused illnesses in certain cities. The figures are also based on the world making dramatic changes in daily life that may at first seem too hard and costly to do, researchers conceded.

Some possible benefits seemed highly speculative, the researchers conceded, based on people driving less and walking and cycling more. Other proposals studied were more concrete and achievable, such as eliminating cook stoves that burn dung, charcoal and other polluting fuels in the developing world.

And cutting carbon dioxide emissions also makes the air cleaner, reducing lung damage for millions of people, doctors said.

“Here are ways you can attack major health problems at the same time as dealing with climate change,” said lead author Dr. Paul Wilkinson, an environmental epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

The calculations are based on proposals that would cut global greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by 2050. To accomplish that, industrialized countries have to cut emissions by 83 percent. Obama’s proposal, also unveiled Wednesday with his Copenhagen announcement, is in sync with that.

Source: Associated Press

The Dalai Lama on Wednesday appealed to China to take action to stop Tibet’s glaciers melting, saying the environmental crisis was more urgent than a political solution over Tibet’s future.

Attending a U.N. summit on global hunger in Rome, the exiled Buddhist leader warned rivers from Tibet’s glaciers and snow-covered mountains may dry up in 15 to 20 years and asked China to study the problem together with Tibetan experts.

There have been several talk be between the Dalai Lama and Chinese officials about the melting glaciers. No word on what steps, if any, will be taken to remedy the problem.

Source: Rueters

The Kyoto Protocol is an international environmental treaty with the goal of combating global warming due to greenhouse gases. The protocol gets its name from Kyoto, Japan where the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) convened on December 11, 1997. The plan is to stabilize greenhouse gas levels by reducing emissions, particularly by developed countries, and to create new techniques to manage the current damage on the environment.

The Kyoto Protocol’s goal is to reduce collective greenhouse emissions to 5% below the levels from 1990. The time frame is five years, from 2008 to 2012. Each country that ratifies the accord is primarily responsible for adjusting its emissions nationally by their own measures. These greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and sulfur dioxide as well as hydrofluorocarbons and perfluorocarbons. In order to accomplish the national goal, a country has additional options through flexible mechanisms. These include a credit system which allows countries to buy emission reduction credits from other countries, who have lower greenhouse emissions, or through emission reducing projects.

Many nations have signed and ratified the Kyoto protocol; for example, Russia ratified it in February of 2005. Each country has committed to its own specific emission reduction goal and must nominate a national authority. This official will oversee the regulation of greenhouse emissions, monitor the emissions with precise records, as well as keep track of trades and credits, and provide an annual report. The United States has not signed the Kyoto Accord, but individual cities in the USA have signed climate change agreements.

Using a rain barrel is not only good for the environment, it is even better for your pocketbook. A rain barrel is exactly what it says, a barrel that collects rain, or holds rain water. These were how farmers watered their crops a long time ago. We are slowly getting back to understanding how convenient and earth friendly it is to use rain barrels for watering our lawns and gardens.

Rain barrels are fairly easy to build and very inexpensive. You can buy a rain barrel that is ready to go, or purchase a plastic food grade barrel for around ten dollars. It is better to have a darker color. A clear barrel will allow in sunlight, which will promote algae growth. There are lots of fancy designs that are more attractive and can match your house if you would like.

The rain barrel collects rain water that falls off the roof of your home. You can use a screen to try and keep out the leaves and other large debris that may fall in. A screen is also useful if you have pets or small children that could potentially fall in the barrel. You can also help prevent any foundation damage that may happen from too much water soaking in. You can attach a pump to the barrel to pump out the water, or simply allow gravity to do its job.

At the bottom of the barrel, you will need to have some kind of fitting that a regular hose can attach to. This hose can be a soaker hose or a regular garden hose. If you would like to regulate the flow of the water, you can buy a restrictor to attach to your hose. A soaker hose is great for keeping flowers and trees watered. If you want to run a sprinkler you will need to purchase a pump to get the pressure needed to run the sprinkler.

Rain water is great for watering gardens. It is clean and free of any chemicals or toxins that may otherwise be in ground water or city water. Recycling the rainwater will help preserve our natural resources.

In hopes of helping our environment from poor disposable of electronic equipment, many people from industrialized nations have recycled their equipment at different facilities.  Proper disposal of electronic equipment is important because electronic equipment contain some toxic material, like high levels of lead and mercury. 

The problems lies in the fact that these hazardous materials are not being disposed of properly by many of these recycling facilities, but are being shipped to developing nations and causing a lot of pollution and environmental problems in those areas. 

60 minutes did story on the way that companies that we believe are helping to recycle and stop pollution are causing more problems.  They are shifting where pollution occurs from wealthy nations ,like the United States, to places like China. Pollution caused by e-waste in China and other nations is not a new thing and the environment that these people live in has gotten worse.

How can you stop e-waste?

One way is to reuse.  Instead of getting the latest gadget, try to keep them longer and use them as long as you can.  That will save money in your wallet and help your earth.  

Another way to prevent e-waste  is to reduce the amount of electronic equipment we purchase in the first place.   We don’t need to every new electronic product that comes on the market.  Sometime we purchase an item and it stays in the closet, in the cabinet or the shelf and collects dust. 

 
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In a previous post I mentioned how the United Nations were asking for a ban on disposable shopping bags. These bags are adding to the total waste and are found in many oceans and have a negative affect on the plants and animals that live in the water.

The best way to really get people to abandon the disposable plastic bags and use the reusable totes bags is to make them affordable.  To easiest way make something environmentally good  become mainstream is to have a positive impact on the pocket book. 

Walgreen’s are having something that will have a positive impact on the pocket book.  A coupon in the Walgreen’s’ sales paper allows customers to purchase 3 tote bags for $1.

The United Nations would like to see a ban on the use of plastic bags. 

the United Nations Environment Programme says that growing marine litter is harming oceans and beaches worldwide.  It launched a report that takes stock of the growing garbage in 12 major regional seas.  UNEP’s Executive Director, Achim Steiner, says that “marine litter could be dramatically reduced by improving waste reduction, waste management and recycling initiatives”.  He also calls for a worldwide ban on thin film plastic bags.  In addition to this report, UNEP introduced a new online system which has the most globally comprehensive list of marine and terrestrial protected areas.

It has become fashionable to have reusable cloth bags so instituting a ban on plastic bags will not be a huge shock .  Not everyone uses those bags during their shopping excursion, but with a ban it would become necessary.  Some stores sell the reusable clothe bags for 99 cents.  But if more demand for those reusable bags were occur, I would not be surprised to the prices of those bags fall even lower.

According to KansasCity.com

The ban is already being tested in China, where retailers giving out thin bags can be fined up to $1,464. According to one nationwide survey, 40 billion fewer plastic bags were given out in grocery stores after the law’s enactment. In addition, Ireland managed to cut single-use plastic bag consumption 90 percent by levying a fee on each bag that consumers use.

In the United States, only San Francisco has completely banned plastic bags; Los Angeles will do so in 2010. Also, the city council in Washington, D.C., is set to vote on a five-cent-a-bag tax later this month. On first reading, the bill passed unanimously. Similar proposals have failed in New York and Philadelphia.

We will have to see how many other cities throughout the United States will also ban plastic bags.

Sources:KansasCity.com UN.org