Change the World

Happy Earth Day, today we change the world!

For those of you who are not aware – April 22nd is Earth Day so we’ve decided to highlight a few things people have done (and are doing) around the globe to change the earth. 

Calling world change: dial 0 for Climate Control

The Call for Climate campaign has drawn over 100,000 eco-activists from across the world to call upon governments and legislators to stop using coal, invest in the development of renewable energy resources, develop more efficient and sustainable environmental practices, and protect the poor from being effected by the costs incurred from the global warming crisis. Hopefully the voices of 100,000 activists speak loud enough to change the world!

Changing the classroom to change the world

Last year, a primary school in Bulgaria created an eco-friendly classroom outdoors as an educational tool and to encourage communities to incorporate environmental practices into their “habitat”. A class of fourth graders planted trees and a fence made of shrubs bordering the new eco-classroom. The school has inspired many to find greener ways to live and function.

Committing to world change: Nigeria launches awareness

The Waste Management Society of Nigeria launched a campaign to educate people worldwide about the importance of committing to world change. The effort gathered hundreds of people to encourage communities to stop littering, start recycling, and exercise eco-friendly practices in day to day living. The campaign has equipped disadvantaged communities across the world with the education and resources to change their behavior to better impact the world. 

Greening the Earth Walk

Hundreds gather in China for the Greening the Earth Walk campaign. Starting in the Northern Fujian Province, volunteers and eco-activists march through China planting trees along the way to landmark their eco-footprint. 

But you don’t have to go to China to change the world. You can change the world simply by making changes in your everyday practices. It’s the little eco-conscience decisions that we all make as a whole that effectually make a tremendous impact on the world. Whether it’s riding your bike whenever possible, refusing to use plastic bags, or educating others. It’s time to rekindle our commitment to change the earth. 

Are you celebrating Earth Day?

Tonight, the MicroGiving Team will be turning off our electricity from 8:30 to 9:30 to save energy along with millions of other Earth Day celebrators. Join us as we light some candles to celebrate…

Earth Day

What is Earth Day?  

What’s all this jab and who-ha about saving the environment? And are we experiencing a global environmental crisis? 

Earth Day is a global environmental call to action!

Earth Day is celebrated every year on the 22nd of April and aims to raise awareness about the earth and the importance of taking action to save our environment. Thousands of events and environmental campaigns are held world wide throughout Earth Week to develop sustainable climate change solutions, promote environmental education, and encourage civic participation.

This year, Earth Day 2009 will kick start the Green Generation Campaign which aims to encourage civic action and participation in global green efforts. Green Generation hopes to achieve carbon free solutions that will change our impact on the environment by targeting renewable energy resources and ending our reliance on fossil fuel and coal consumption.

Why is Earth Day important?

The importance of Earth Day (learn more here) is to counteract the threatening effects of global warming. 

What is global warming? 

Global warming is bad. Global warming occurs when excessive CO2 gasses (produced from vehicle emissions, deforestation, and the burning of coal, oil, and gas) get trapped in the earth’s atmosphere and cause a greenhouse effect which heats up the earth to not so cozy temps. 

The National Resource Defense Council reports that the earth’s temperatures have drastically risen at a record breaking rate ever to be marked in history. They estimate that every year 2.5 billion tons of C02 are produced and released into the earth’s atmosphere by coal burning power plants and over 1.5 billion tons annually in automobile pollutants. Yikes. 

The NRDC warns that if we don’t stop global warming and change our negative consumer impact on the earth, we should expect the effects of global warming to be devastating in as early as over the next century:

Sea levels will rise, flooding coastal areas. Heat waves will be more frequent and more intense. Droughts and wildfires will occur more often. Disease-carrying mosquitoes will expand their range. And species will be pushed to extinction. -NRDC

Now that we’ve probably scared your pants off it’s time to celebrate the earth on April 22nd and get out there and do something on Earth Day to save the environment. Together we can stop global warming and better the environment, but doing so requires colloborative action and initiative! We encourage you to get involved during Earth Week, as we’ve only got one Earth and she deserves to be treated with a little TLC. 

Tell us what you think about Earth Day?

• Have you ever participated in any previous Earth Day events or activities? If so, tell us what you did…
• Do you feel that global warming is as serious as environmentalists hype it up to be?
• What are some ways that you leave your carbon footprint on the earth?

Save the Environment

10 Ways to Save the Environment

There are many simple things you can do around the house to save the environment, cut down on waste,  and save money at the end of the month. This post provides a few things you can do to be more environmentally conscience:

Save the environment when doing laundry

An eco-conscious household can save up to 3,400 gallons a year by doing full loads of laundry.

Help the environment by using the garbage disposal

Dispose of organic waste down the disposal and avoid using plastic garbage bags that pollute our landfills.

Be green and recycle paper

For every ton of paper you recycle such as newspapers, magazines, and old computer paper –  you save the environment and save 17 trees, preserve 7,000 gallons of water a year, power an average home for 6 months, and keep 60 pounds of pollutants out of the air.

Be eco-friendly when washing your hands

Use bar soap so as to eliminate using plastic bottles.

Save energy when powering electronics

Use an electrical power strip to power your computer, fax, scanner, speakers, etc. These items can consume enough energy as a 75 watt light bulb left on 24 hours. An electrical strip harnesses energy more efficiently and can be turned off when not in use.

Be environmentally conscious about leaky appliances

Did you know that 2 out of 10 toilets in American households leak? Leaky appliances can waste up to 73,000 gallons of water a year – the equivalent to washing clothes for a family of four up to 4 years.

Save the environment by using the microwave

Whenever possible avoid using the stovetop to heat your food. You’ll save the environment up to 80 percent.

But if you insist on using the stove…!

Match the pan to the appropriate size burner, which can save the environment by preserving energy up to 40 percent and spare your electric bill by $36 a year.

Be eco-conscience and recycle soda cans

Don’t forget the little things around the house like pop bottles! Find local recycle centers as one recycled aluminum can will save enough energy to run your television for 3 hours.

Save the environment by stopping your computer screen saver

Screen savers might save your screen, but they do nothing to save the environment. It takes more energy to run a screen saver then it does to put your computer into a low-power mode saving you between $50 to $100 a year on your electricity bill.

These are just a few things you can do around the house to save the environment, but there are plenty more!

We’d love to hear from you!
What are some ways that you cut costs and exercise eco-activism around the house?

Volunteer Opportunities

This post provides some great ideas for fun volunteer opportunities you can do with your children and family! In fact, why not turn community service into a “volunteer vacation”?

There are many opportunities  to better the community that you can turn into a family get-away. You’ll find the experience of helping others, your community, and the environment far more rewarding than any trip to Wacky Tacky Land. 

Volunteer to help the poor & homeless communities

Many disaster relief victims across the country, such as those affected by Hurricane Katrina and the Midwest floods are in need of a new home.  Habitat for Humanity provides excellent volunteer opportunities to help rebuild homes for poor and homeless people across the country. Take a trip with your family to a new state you’ve always wanted to visit and build community relationships with other volunteers as you rebuild new homes for the poor and homeless.  Anyone can help and skills aren’t necessary – just an open mind and an open hand that is willing to better the community.

Volunteer your community service to help children with disabilities

There are plenty of state camps that need volunteers to help children with special needs. This is a great opportunity to volunteer with your family and enjoy a great vacation trip. Visit a local state park to enrich the lives of special needs children through fun activities such as aquatics, canoeing, nature studies, and rock climbing.

Volunteer to help animals

Great family volunteer opportunities can be found at animal sanctuaries.  Your children will love to participate in building habitats, saving wildlife, feeding baby animals, supervising little critters during recovery and rehabilitation, fundraising, and engaging in educational activities. There are over 300 animal sanctuaries in the United States. Get out the house and plan a trip to help animals in need.

Better the community by saving the environment

There are many national wildlife services that need volunteers to participate in environmental refuge activities. Visiting a natural refuge makes for a fantastic vacation and volunteer opportunity for your family. Enjoy fun environment activities with your children like restoring endangered plants on riverbanks, aiding special wildlife projects, and photographing natural resources for laboratory research. Environment and wildlife volunteer opportunities can be located across the country.

A little creative brainstorming with the family can unleash an entire world of fun volunteer opportunities. We’ve listed just a few ways that your family can better the community…

We’d love to hear from you! 

• What are some community service activities that you personally enjoy? 
• What are some other fun volunteer projects you can do with your family? 

The One Laptop Per Child Campaign

Remember these cumbersome creatures?!

Ah, the old-school days of DOS operating systems and lets not forget– Oregon Trail! Times have changed just a wee bit. 

Have you seen the fancy-do-da computers kids are using these days? Check out this puppy:

. . .SHIZAAM!

Gee whiz! Who’da think that a mere few years later, and we’d be operating computer systems that look like. . .lunar space crafts?? 

But get this—

Thanks to the ‘One Laptop Per Child’ project these neato gadgets are in the hands of children in third world and developing countries!

The objective: to equip disadvantaged children with a low cost, efficient, and ecological tool to access information and educational content.

It’s a brilliant idea!

Knowledge is a catalyst by which we progress and develop—right? And it is only through learning that this can be achieved– right? 

So by providing children with the means to access knowledge—we facilitate an indispensable resource for developing countries: children that are educated and empowered!

Amen.

But you don’t have to join a campaign to encourage and promote learning for poor or disadvantaged children. Consider donating old items from around your house to your local foster care, day-care, or after-school fascilities. They’d love you!

Items that I found in and around my convoluted labyrinth of a closet:

-Educational books/cds/dvds
-Old National Geographics (I had to rip out and censor a few pages)
-Old dictionaries 
-Interactive Learning CD-ROMs 
-A World Map puzzle
-Learn Japanese (I never got too far)

What do you have around your house? We’d love to hear some of your ideas. . !

How Are You Green?

Green Hope

I fell in love with you at first sight.

Your beauty is infinite and sublime

I love your smell and fresh aroma

You have everything

That makes me happy

Sometimes I feel like 

I would have live many lives

Next to you to really

Know you completely.

Forgive me if I have hurt you,

If I have ever made you cry,

I know time will heal your wounds

Today, like your guardian angel

I promise to protect you

Until death do us part

Because my love for you

Is eternal Mother Earth.

- Augusto Sanchez

Check out his work!

www.astreaazul.com

Tell the Kids that Jack & His Beanstalk are Moving In!

Eat your beans.

It’s about time we got a dose of self-sufficiency! And unlike grandma’s red cough syrup, this dose is delicious! We stumbled across a really nifty team of people doing something really quite nifty . . .

Okay, have you ever wished that Farmer Joe would just show up at your doorstep every week and pluck scrumpdiddlyumptious veggies from your own backyard? Well spare yourself the hankering. Joe is expanding his business prospects and raking up a buzz all across the San Francisco area and that buzz is about MyFarmsf.com!

That’s right, Farmer Joe has partnered with a spectacular green-team and they’re planting vegetable gardens in private backyards all over town. Gee whiz—who’da think the day would come when you could have your entire recommended daily dose of veggies in a most splendid 8’ by 8’ geometrical square!

So you’re thinking: ‘Ok, we all like Martha Stewart and veggie gardens—but why the sudden notion to plant them in everyone’s backyard?’ Because, believe it or not, it saves oodles of energy!

Here’s a little Bill Nye f.y.i.—apparently, “Twenty percent of energy is lost in transmission between the power plants from where it is produced to the consumer where it is used.” That means you save energy when you chow down on food at the site where it is produced.

And it gets better when you think about it…

You spare the environment from the unnecessary wastes of food packaging, the grocery bags, and the gasoline it takes to drive to and from the market; plus you save yourself the extra trip to fetch the head of lettuce you forgot to purchase for your BLT sandwich.

I’m for it!

Read more about “Something Green” here.

Something Green – Beat that—Poseidon!

Ocean Energy Council boots that scallywag merman in his royal derriere.

You’re at the beach with the whole fam. Lathered in spf 284, you scuttle across the scalding hot sand to the seashore and plunge your body into the largest, untapped resource of renewable energy. Ah, splendid revitalization! Whilst you bob and bloat about, you have not the slightest inkling of a notion that somewhere amidst the vast and deep murky abyss are series of turbulent underwater windmills generating energy fluxes of 280 trillion watts per hour! Sweet. So who’s responsible for all this shenanigans? Well it ain’t the little mermaid! Readers, its time to meet a super duper cool, eco-fab-tastic organization. . . drum roles please, hello– Ocean Energy Council!  So what’s all this turbulent commotion about? Well, generating energy of course. As the term ‘oil’ these days has become synonymous with curses, a limited and depleting resource, harder and harder to come by, and costing us oodles of money we don’t have—we should probably consider other potential options. The Ocean Energy Council is doing this for us. How? They have innovatively tapped into an alternate energy resource, and it happens to be the largest powerhouse in the world! That’s right kids, water, good old aqua! With ocean water constituting 70% of the earth. . . we have in our hands the potential resource to harness tremendous energy. Say bye-bye oil! Well—sort of.

Ocean Energy Council | Green Wave Energy Sources – The Ocean Energy Council is a non-profit organization advocating the development and implimentation of ocean energy. Read more about them on their website - www.oceanenergycouncil.com