On Saturday, July 19, I’ll be talking about how to maximize your cool while minimizing your AC use on my weekly CFRB Green Tip on Mark Cullen’s Garden Show (AM1010).
For those do-it-yourselfers who want to keep your AC in tip-top shape and thereby ensure its efficiency, here’s a great site, complete with diagrams and step-by-step instructions to walk you through maintenance.
http://www.howstuffworks.com/how-to-maintain-an-air-conditioner.htm

It’s the latest buzz word in the green world. With gas prices soaring along with our stress levels regarding climate change, more of us are assessing our impact — with vacations high up on the list.
While I’m a firm believer in the need to take time away from work and just play — and a stay-at-home holiday can sometimes mean more work than your paying job — becoming a tourist in your hometown (or a nearby community) can be the best of both worlds. You remove yourself from evidence of all the nagging jobs that need doing at home…and you extricate yourself from your desk.
Unplug the cell phone, disable the work e-mail and truly relax. Take in a local museum or art gallery, bike to a farmer’s market and pick up the ingredients for a picnic. Take the kids to an organic farm in the country or a pick-your-own strawberry patch.
Whatever you do, tread lightly…and leave the gas guzzler at home.

If you’ve ever wondered where your trash winds up (and even if you haven’t), give this a look. You’ll never toss with abandon again…at least I hope not.
http://www.vbs.tv/video.php?id=1485308505

Another great idea out of the San Francisco Bay area! This time a 27-year-old game developer decided to offer incentives to stores in his area to boost their eco-friendliness. He promised the stores a “mob” of consumers to support their business. In exchange, the store had to promise a percentage of the mob’s spending would be used to “green” the store’s lighting, power supply, etc. The experiment proved to be more successful than anyone anticipated and the Carrotmob promises to strike again. Just goes to show yet again, the power we consumers can wield. Our wallets are our weapons!
Find out more by visiting http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/carrotmob-44052208?src=nl&mag=tdg&list=dgr&kw=ist

Okay, so I packed on a few pounds over the winter! Now comes the annual springtime ritual of ridding myself of it. My brilliant scheme to only eat half of every meal and toss the rest is defeated when I learn that close to one-fifth of landfill is wasted food. And even though I compost most of our food waste, the stat nonetheless sobers me up enough to recognize that wasting food is not the answer. So…I think I’ll simply start eating off my kids’ dishes. Instead of heaping helpings of my own hospitality, I’ll have a respectable morsel or two. It’s a fine line I walk between satisfying my hunger and indulging my love of food.
To find out more about our food waste, visit http://www.wastedfood.com/

Just what you asked for – the bottom line on which companies walk the green talk…and which ones aren’t worthy of your green (as in money). Climate Counts has just released its latest scorecard, a pocket-sized list that you can print off and tuck into your wallet. Then…when faced with a purchase (do I buy the Adidas or the Nikes? the Big Mac or the Whopper?_, pull out your cheat-sheet and breathe easy.
Answers?? To the first: Nikes…according to Climate Counts. To the second: neither…according to me.

http://www.climatecounts.org/scorecard_overview.php

“It’s much more important to change your leaders than your light bulb.”
-Tom Friedman, author of “Hot, Flat and Crowded”

The impetus behind my book, The Virtuous Consumer, was to learn how to avoid sweatshops and child labor. At that time — as a new mom — I was less aware of environmental issues, but well-versed in social justice concerns. I wanted to ensure that I was not clothing and equipping my kids on the backs of other moms, dads or children. The info was hard to find…and still is.
Fortunately, as the green movement continues to gain steam, there’s an increasing concensus that environmental issues ARE civil rights issues. That lack of concern about harming the planet goes hand in hand with a cavalier attitude about the people we with whom we share it.
Whether those people live next door or on the other side of the globe doesn’t matter. Their problems are our problems; their struggles mirror our own.
Which is why I still agonize over how to avoid sweatshops and child labor. It’s a grey area, for sure. The argument that putting a kid out of work doesn’t mean he’s going to show up tomorrow, face scrubbed and eager, ready for school. Rather, it frequently means less income for his family and a more dangerous, lower-paying job for him. But we have to press onward and hold firm to our principles. A child without an education is sentenced to a life of poverty and exploitation. We all have a right to live with dignity and purpose.
A recent article is eye-opening. To read it, click here:
http://www.alternet.org/workplace/83767/?page=entire

Opponents to genetically modified food — food which has had its DNA altered — have long dismissed arguments that the planet needs GM crops to help solve the problem of international hunger. In spite of the UN itself noting that world hunger is a problem of food distribution, not food production, companies that produce GM seed (such as Monsanto) keep trotting out this hunger argument in order to position themselves as the corporate version of Mother Teresa. However, a study out of University of Kansas takes this argument down yet another step (or two) by revealing that GM crops yield less per acre than conventional and seem to be unable to take up certain nutrients from the soil.
Sadly, most of the soy and corn grown is already genetically modified, unbeknownst to most consumers. And a quick read of most food labels reveals that soy and corn is in almost EVERYTHING. Indeed, food writer Michael Pollan (”The Omnivore’s Dilemma”) calls us “processed corn walking.” Funny but true. Because companies aren’t required to let consumers know, most of us eat it without understanding the implications or being able to make an informed choice. You’ll see it on labels as soy protein, soy flour, soy protein isolate, lecithin, isoflavones, corn-flour, syrup, starch, masa and gluten, among other ingredients such as aspartame, dextrose, fructose, monosodium glutamate, and xantham gum.
To find out more about genetically modified food, visit www.organicconsumers.org/gelink.cfm
And to read the full article on the recent University of Kansas study, visit http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/13/8405/

No less an authority than Faith Popcorn, the pop-culture seer, has pegged “underconsumption” as the next big thing. She notes a shift toward more budget-conscious, environmentally-sensitive spending and declares an end to “the era of conspicuous consumption.” She calls this new wave Karma Capitalism and suggests that consumers are becoming aware of the impact of their purchasing choices.
She sounds suspiciously like me…except for that cool new phrase, Karma Capitalism. Wish I’d thought of that one!