Save Indonesia

Indonesia is made up of many small islands including Borneo and Malaysia, and account for 10% of the world's rainforest covering 260 million acres. In the past 32 years alone, 99 million acres have been destroyed. Annually an average of 6.2 million acres are being destroyed, but the number is increasing.

[www.greenthefilm.com]

Companies that support Indonesian rainforest destruction: Cargill, Lowe's, Georgia Pacific, The Home Depot, Kimberly-Clark, Procter & Gamble, Cargill, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Kraft, ConAgra, Johnson & Johnson, WalMart, Hershey, Kroger, Albertson's, Safeway, Costco, Pepsi, Pizza Hut, Burger King, McDonald's, Estee Lauder, Sara Lee, Kellogg's, Starbucks, and MANY MORE. 

Be a conscious consumer. 

Questions to answer before you buy -
Where was it made?
How was it made?
What is it made of?
How were the workers treated?
How was the land treated?

16 Workers Die Per Day

[www.16deathsperday.com]

In America, 16 people are killed on the job every day and 160 people died today and every day from occupational illnesses. The safety and health regulations for the workplace are extremely lacking. Out of the 30 million employers that exist in the U.S.A., only 5 million of them even report to OSHA - Occupational Safety and Health Administration. This is the federal agency that oversees enforcement of health and safety legislation [www.osha.gov]. On average, an employer's median fine for a worker death is $3,700, but workers rarely get taken to court at all.

As a citizen of this country, each of us has the power to do something about this. To many of us, these days it seems like the government no longer works for the people... but if we lose hope, change will never happen. Our senators and congressmen work for us, they are the voice of the mass population because we live in a democracy. There is an act that was introduced by Senator Ted Kennedy in April 2004 and it is well overdue. Contact your congressman and tell them it's time to protect America's workers.



A lot of these deaths are due to chemicals in the environment they work in. Take the salon industry for example - nail salons and hair salons use all kinds of chemicals all the time, from nail polish to hairspray to the disinfectants they use. Some of the chemicals include:

Dibutyl Phtalate
[http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/ingredient.php?ingred06=701929]
nail polish \  nail treatment \ cuticle treatment
causes negative reproductive outcomes (organ system toxicity), allergies, cancer, endocrine disruption, is neurotoxic, and will accumulate over time in the body

Formaldehyde
[http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/ingredient/706587/TOSYLAMIDE%3B%3B_FORMALDEHYDE_RESIN/]
disinfectant \ nail polish \ styling gel
causes cancer, asthma, and reproductive toxicity

Toluene aka Benzyl Alcohol
[http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/ingredient/700697/BENZYL_ALCOHOL/]
nail polish \ hair color \ facial moisturizer \ body wash \ mascara
causes cancer, asthma, reproductive toxicity, neurotoxicity, instant irritation of eyes, lungs, and skin

These three chemicals are knows as the "toxic 3" and little research has been done to find out if there are any synergistic effects of these ingredients in our bodies.

In this country, the FDA loosely regulates the food we eat and we're finding out more and more that there are many problems with our food system even with those regulations. The chemicals that are used in cosmetics, household cleaners, and body products, however, are not regulated at all. Many of the products we use every day in the shower, to do our laundry, brush our teeth, or wash our face have chemicals that can build up in our systems over time and cause an array of health problems. These chemicals can build up in our environments as well and cause an imbalance in soil, water, and air which can harm people and animals as well.

You have the power to make educated decisions about the products you use and be a healthy, informed consumer. Reading the label and finding out what all of those strange sounding ingredients are is the most important thing you can do. To be safe, if you don't know what it is - don't buy it. Your decision effects your personal health as well as the health of Mother Earth.

Impeach Obama?

All of these people are saying that we should get rid of Obama because he's getting nothing done. This is my response to that way of thinking:

If Obama got impeached, who do you think would be the next president? America doesn't vote for environmentalists. America votes for big oil. I agree that Obama hasn't lived up to anything he's said at all, he's sold out to every company with dollar sign eyes. As Americans, we cannot rely on the government and we cannot rely on companies, we can only rely on ourselves. There are tons of things each individual here and at every corner of the world can do to fight big oil. It starts with out wallets.

Buy local, especially local food. Shop at the farmers market where food is grown 30 miles away, or go to the actual farm itself. Large scale agriculture relies so heavily on oil in every sense of it from fertilization (ammonium nitrate) to pesticides to packaging (plastic=oil) to transportation. Farm to plate the average meal travels 1500 miles.

Stop using plastics. Start easy and don't use any plastic shopping bags or bottled beverages or styrofoam containers. Bring your own bag, your own bottle, your own reusable take home container. Then take a bigger step and vow to not by anything that comes in plastic. Stop using "regular" household cleaning products, haircare, lotion, etc. There are very basic ingredients that can be used to do everything around your house. Vinegar kills mold and disinfects so it pretty much cleans everything. Mix it with lots of lemon or lime juice to make it smell nice and the acidity helps remove grease, etc. too.

Most important, ride your bike walk and use public transit if it's available. Stop driving so much! If you're going 5 miles away, take your bike. Before going anywhere, ask yourself if you really need to drive. Put trips together into one big trip rather than going out 3 times a day.

Don't produce so much waste. I'm weening myself off of all city controlled waste pick up, eventually I plan on having no waste taken at all but currently I still have about a 1/2 crate of recyclables a week and one small bag of trash between the three of us in my household. Start a compost to efficiently repurpose food waste. Throw all your used paper in the compost, unless there's a lot of colored ink. If you cook from scratch, this vastly decreases packaging waste.

The possibilities are endless. It's up to us to fight against this ugly consumerism that depends so heavily on oil and coal. It isn't sustainable and we don't have to live like this.

BP Slick Covers Dolphins and Whales

A man flies over the Gulf and documents just how horrendous the situation is. All the burning is doing nothing but damage to the atmosphere and the animals. What the hell is wrong with the people in charge? Why hasn't the government intervened more. There ARE ways to fix all of the problems going on. Solar power, wind power, hemp as fuel, ridding ourselves of plastics and this DISPOSABLE SOCIETY most of us live in.

Raised NO-TILL Garden

[How-To]

raised garden : no till farming style

Growing an organic garden is one of the most rewarding things to spend your time doing. Food is the energy that keeps our bodies alive and moving, feeding your body right gives you an abundance of energy and creates a healthy living system. 

Food = Life

What you will need to make an 8ft x 8ft bed:

• Newspaper (without too much color, no glossy paper)
• 5 trash bags full or 1 bale of hay, alfalfa is perfect
• 6-8 cubic feet of compost
• 6-8 cubic feet of AGED manure (chicken, steer, goat... whatever you can find)
• Wood, stones, cinder blocks - anything that holds the raised bed in place

Raised bed designs:

Step 1:
Soak newspaper in a bucket of water (or spray with the hose as you go and lay down covering the entire raised bed, 3-5 sheets thick depending on the amount of weeds, and layer them covering about 1/3 of each sheet with the next sheet. This keeps the weeds down and will break down into the soil giving it carbon. Glossy paper doesn't break down very well and has chemicals that are no bueno, as does colored ink.

Step 2:
Put up the barrier of wood or stone, whatever you are using, so your raised bed doesn't shift around over time. There are tons of great ways to set up the bed and you definitely don't have to make your bed 8ft x 8ft. If you do make it that large, you will need to put some stones throughout before you build the bed so you have something to stand on. One factor in the no-till method is that you should never step on the bed, so you never disturb the natural factors at play beneath the surface of the soil.

Step 3:
Start your first layer of manure, which should be about 2" thick. You may be able to find free manure if you live near any dairy or egg farmers, but make sure the animals are eating grass and weeds, not grain fed. If you get it from a local farm, ask if they have any that is already aged, otherwise you'll have to let it age for at least 3 months but it depends on where it is and how it's maintained. Once the manure is ready, it will be a very soft soil texture and won't have a smell. Otherwise, you can buy steer manure from a local nursery, but not all nurseries have it available so call first. Water thoroughly.

Step 4:
Layer 2" of hay, alfalfa, straw, or even dead leaves and branches will work. Water thoroughly.

Step 5:
Layer 2" of compost high in green matter ie. vegetable waste, fruit peels, fresh leaves, etc. It should say on the compost bag what was used to make it. Green matter provides a high nitrogen content.

Step 6:
Keep layering until you have a nice, thick bed. The last layer should be compost, then top with some straw as mulch.

Step 7:
Plant stuff!