Buy Tap Water This Week: The Tap Project

Water.  Clean, potable, drinking water.  You know - the stuff we flush our toilets with and sprinkle gallon-after-gallon of on our pristine manicured lawns.  That stuff we actually pay for in plastic bottles that most don’t recycle or even heavy glass bottles shipped half-way around the world. The stuff we pay for when we can get clean, potable water out of the tap any time of day or night. 

Water is something we all take for granted, yet over an estimated 1 billion people worldwide have no access to safe drinking water.  Nearly 6,000 children die each day from water-related illnesses.  This is where the UNICEF Tap Project comes in.  For the next week, March 16-22, restaurants will invite their customers to donate a minimum of $1 for the tap water they would normally get for free. For every dollar raised, a child will have clean drinking water for 40 days.  March 22 also just happens to be World Water Day.

If you want to support this initiative, visit TapProject.org and find a participating restaurant near you.  If there aren’t any in your area, you can always donate online.

People can survive without oil.  We can’t without water.  Blood will be shed a thousand times over due to water issues in the coming years.  That is pretty much a given.  Here in America, there are major water shortages underway in the arid west and also recently in the Georgia region.  For those of us who don’t even think twice about wasting water, we need to think beyond our borders and help change lives as much as possible.  Okay - I’m getting off my soap box now. 

Source: UNICEF Tap Project

Google Earth Teams To Fight MTR

According to Plenty Magazine (which is a great magazine, btw), Google Earth is teaming up with ILoveMountains.org to fight mountaintop removal mining (MTR).  If you’re interested in learning more about MTR, I posted about this atrocity back in November.  

Google Earth agreed to partner with I Love Mountains and included the site’s National Memorial for the Mountains, the project’s first phase, as part of the Google Earth map software. The Memorial appears on a map of the eastern states as a field of 450 American flags spanning the Appalachian Mountains, each commemorating a ‘decapitated’ mountain. Zoom in close to a single mountain and there’s a step-by-step explanation of how machinery literally scrapes away peaks, and aerial photos of a site the size of Manhattan. via PlentyMag.com

If you want to see if your power company gets any of its electricity from the coal obtained in MTR, then just go to ILoveMountains.org and put in your zip code.  Here’s what I found out: Your electricity provider, ComEd - Commonwealth Edison Co, buys coal from companies engaged in mountaintop removal. I see my power plants on the map and also see the mine where they get some of the coal.  When I click on the mine, I find out information about it.  When I dig even further, I see that much of the coal comes from Rawl, West Virginia.  Then I get a story about the town and how MTR has affected it.   If you’d like to see some video stories, checkout their YouTube group.

I just also found out that there is a documentary called Black Diamonds which discusses MTR.  It’s an absolutely disgusting practice which until last year I didn’t realize was happening.

Black Diamonds

Source: Plenty Magazine

Could I Live The Freegan Life?

Oprah had an episode on Wednesday on freegans.  As I watched correspondent Lisa Ling - formerly of The View and also Laura Ling of Current TVs sister - take a trash tour in NYC, I kept thinking how I could totally give that a whirl.  A freegan is someone who takes useful items that are headed to a landfill and puts them to good use.  This includes groceries. 

I guess I could say that I’ve dabbled in this world before.  I admit it.  I’ve always called it “curb shopping.”  I live in a regular middle-class suburb of Chicago.  If you drive the neighborhoods on garbage night (especially in the spring and warmer months), you’ll find all kinds of useful items.  Have a kid?  You’ll never need to buy a giant plastic toy again.  Many of my finds aren’t even for myself.  I’ll put them on Freecycle [insert link] or just donate them to Goodwill.  We had a great unscathed coffee table in our basement for years that someone threw out.  Maybe they were hoping someone would stop and pick it up.  Sometimes I put items out by the curb and try to place them so someone will stop and take them.  If they are still there when I leave for work, I drag them back in the house. 

I’ve never really thought about obtaining food this way, though.  It does seem logical.  After watching the video, I can see how much waste is thrown out from a grocery store.  Perfectly packaged dry goods and canned items that could go to a food pantry are just being put in a dumpster.  People even get dairy.  They show how a dozen eggs are thrown out just because one in the pack is broken.  Tons of produce is discarded because one little blemish.  Sure - exercise caution and common sense if you’re going to try this. 

Mary at In Women We Trust and I were discussing Oprah the morning after the show.  She was talking about how wasteful of a society we live in and I wholeheartedly agree.  Until we stop looking at this planet as a disposable entity nothing is going to change.  Over consumption and unnecessary opulence for vanity and comfort is disgusting compared to most cultures in this world.  Mary has a challenge out to Oprah: I have a big favor to ask you Oprah, since you are culture and culture is you, could you do us all a favor and have a show dedicated to Sustainable Standards? Maybe if Oprah can continue to push for change - and believe me she has the power to influence this country - things will start to shift.  Get the women who watch her show to start voting with their dollars.  The one problem is that Oprah’s empire is built on commercialism and she needs to make changes in her life and her empire.  The old adage, “Do as I say and not as I do” doesn’t hold much weight with the average adult.

Reference: Freegan.info

(Not) My The 11th Hour Review

Last night, my wife and I saw one of the only Chicago-area viewings of The 11th Hour.  I’m not going to give you a full review here.  You can watch it for yourself either at a viewing or when it comes out on DVD on April 15th.  By the way, I pre-ordered the DVD - it’s only $5.  Buy it and donate it to your library after passing it along to all of your friends (I bought it for under $5 and that includes free shipping from DeepDiscountDVD).  I wish that this film had hit a larger market, but the fact of the matter is that another film is titled The 11th Hour and DiCaprio’s group is in litigation over the title.

I will tell you that this is not An Inconvenient Truth.  It’s not Leonardo DiCaprio talking for an hour and a half.  It’s not a sensationalized film.  It is a series of interviews on various topics with the top environmentalist and scientists talking about climate change and the things we do in this world that are detrimental to the planet.  They also talk about what you can do as an individual to make a difference.  If you want to see some of the indivuals involved, go to the 11th Hour YouTube group.  There you’ll find time capsules from many of them.

What I can tell you is that you hear all the time is vote with your dollars.  Everyone needs to stop looking at the world as a disposable entity.  If they do that, then perhaps they might think twice about disposable consumption.  This kinda goes back to Bill McDonough’s Cradle-to-Cradle initiative, too (yes, he’s in the film).  C2C is a design certification where the product will be go back to its basic elements at the end of its useful life versus the alternative, which is Cradle to Grave (landfill).

The 11th Hour Trailer

Vandalism: Paint The Glacier

Mr Doyle sent me a link yesterday that I found rather…well…stupid.  A German tourist, Jan Philip Scharbert, was photographed spray painting a glacier in New Zealand.  He was nabbed by police as he was trying to get on a bus to get away. 

It took Scharbert 1.5 days to clean up the damage under supervision…and tourists glaring at him.  What an idiot.

I know that on the ice part of the glacier, axes were used to chisel away the paint.  What product was used to clean the paint off the rocks that isn’t harmful to the ecosystem?   

Source: Boing Boing

Goods 4 Girls

Crunchy Chicken is at it again.  This time she started a new website called “Goods 4 Girls.”  The goal is to collect donations of reusable sanitary napkins to send to Africa.  Other organizations are doing similar collections and sending disposable sanitary napkins to these regions in South Africa, but Crunchy Chicken points out the concern that the main means of trash disposal there is incineration. 

In many areas of the world, access to adequate menstrual supplies is difficult to come by. Many women and girls rely on rags, newspaper, camel skin or nothing at all for their menstrual needs. A lack of sanitary pads can be a big barrier to a girl’s education. [Goods 4 Girls website]

Please donate a pad or two (or three or four).  If you don’t want to purchase a pad and have it sent to Goods 4 Girls, you can sew your own.  There are patterns available on the website for you to follow.  It’s not often that you can donate to a good cause and you know exactly where it’s going. 

P.S. I bought mine from MamaCloth over on Etsy.  For every four pads purchased and send to G4G, she throws in an extra…plus I like to support Etsy.

Win For FEMA Trailer Residents

Last month we wrote about the Current TV pod called 2 Years in a FEMA Trailer.  Yes, it’s been over two years since Hurricane Katrina (and Rita) and there are 35,000 FEMA trailers still in use.  Families of six people even in a tiny trailer.  As the video shows, many of the trailers are built so poorly and have a very high concentration of formaldehyde.  Many trailers are 5 times the levels of a normal home, but there are some that tested as much as 50 times the normal amount.  Your eyes will start burning, get headaches, shortness of breath and you can get nose bleeds just from being in the enclosed trailer.

FEMA is trying to get everyone out of the trailers by this summer before the temperatures get too hot.  The heat can accelerate the amount of formaldehyde present in the air.

Last week, congressional Democrats accused FEMA of manipulating scientific research in order to play down the danger posed by formaldehyde in the trailers.

Sen. Barack Obama, who has criticized FEMA’s response in the past, called for President Bush on Thursday to “immediately find safe shelter for these families, who have suffered so much.”

Source: CNN Health, Green Daily

Sierra Club Chronicles

SCREAM (or my family) loves The Green on The Sundance Channel.  We were sad when the first season of It’s Not Easy Being Green ended.  Then we were sad when Big Ideas for a Small Planet ended.  Then we were sad again once they re-aired It’s Not Easy Being Green (they did pickup season 2 from the BBC - so hopefully that’ll be on soon).  Now, they’ve added a new show.  It’s called the Sierra Club Chronicles. 

Episode one is titled: 9/11 Forgotten Heroes.  It’s definitely something that most of us don’t think of.  We only think of those who lost their lives when the towers came down.  We forget about the living.  The men and women who worked tirelessly to search and rescue and rebuild at Ground Zero.   It’s amazing how many physically fit people went into Ground Zero to work and came out with asthma when they had no respiratory problems prior.  Our government has basically told them that its too bad they’re injured and suffer.  Thanks for your hard work, but your health problems is not our problem.  It’s mind boggling and ridiculous.  The EPA even told everyone that the air was safe just three days after 9/11.

Watch the march of three injured heroes who fight for the rights of all the 9/11 workers.  John Feal, Marvin Bethea, Jonathan Sferazo and Mike McCormack tell their stories and their battle for justice.  

In December 2005, $125 million was restored through a defense Appropriation bill. While it will help cover medical screening and treatment, the money will only meet a fraction of the first responders’ needs. Meanwhile, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Congressman Jerrold Nadler have called for an investigation of the EPA’s failure to carry out proper testing and cleanup of 9/11 pollution.

If you don’t get the Sundance Channel, you can watch the entire episode online below.  You can also buy the complete season 1 on DVD for only $10 from the Sierra Club.

Sierra Club Chronicles: 9/11 Forgotten Heroes

Chicago Following New York In Plastic Bag Recycling

If you’re a loyal reader of SCREAM or various other green blogs, you may know that New York City recently passed a restriction that requires certain stores to take back their plastic bags.  Chicago is looking to jump on that wagon, too.  An ordinance was introduced yesterday that would require stores to take back and recycle the plastic bags they dispense.

The measure is almost exactly the same as New York.  Stores greater than 5,000 sq ft or with five or more locations would be required to have recycling bins for the bags.  They will be required to take back not only their bags, but newspaper sleeves, dry cleaning bags, bags from other stores, and even shrink wrap.  I was surprised about the shrink wrap ’cause I thought that was a #3 plastic which is PVC.    Anyway…  On top of all this, the merchants will need to offer for sale reusable bags to their customers.

I’m glad that this is happening here, locally.  I still wish they’d go the route of San Francisco and do a full-on ban of petrol-based plastic bags, though.

From the Trib:
Some 100 billion bags a year are consumed in the United States, representing 12 million barrels of oil used to manufacture them, said Brian Granahan, an attorney for Environment Illinois. And only about 2 percent of the plastic bags are recycled in the U.S., he added.

Source: Chicago Tribune

Greening The Super Bowl

For the second year, the 2008 Super Bowl is running on renewable energy - well…renewable energy credits, rather. Did you know that the NFL has a Director of Environment? Did you know that the NFL has had an environmental program for the last 14 years? I sure didn’t.

The NFL is working with the Salt River Project (SRP) to deliver renewable energy credits from wind and solar sources. In addition to this, the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality, SRP, the US Forest Service and the White Mountain Apache tribe will replant 42-acres of trees which were recently wiped out in a large forest fire.

I’m not sure I’d exactly call an event like the Super Bowl where a reported 400+ private jets landed carbon-neutral. Sure - that has no affiliation with the NFL itself, but it is still contributing to the problem. At least the NFL is trying their best to make the world a better place where they can. They work with local waste management to control the recycling of the solid waste from the game and events surrounding it. The NFL also partnered with Expedia and TerraPass to offset the travel of the two teams and their staff.

Jim Holway, associate director of the Global Institute for Sustainability at Arizona State University, said what Super Bowl officials are trying to do is meaningful.

“It’s encouraging to see it’s getting this kind of attention,” he said. “Awareness is what it’s all about at this point … a year or two ago the mainstream wouldn’t have even thought about carbon impact.”

If you’d like to hear more, check out this interview on NPR’s All Things Considered with Jack Grohl, Evironmental Director for the NFL.

Source: AZSuperBowl.com, CNN.com

PS - Congrats to the Super Bowl champions, the New York Giants.