Mean Green Halloween

I hope you all have a Mean Green Halloween

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Check this out for Halloween’s Environmental Footprint

 

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Have a Happy Hallowgreen!

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Change the World Wednesday – 30th Oct

My pineapple flower

Cloro’s dirt box is outside permanently now. She’s being a good girl.

The worst smell in the kitchen now is freshly brewed morning coffee.

My success story. I mentioned the other week that a pineapple top I had tried to grow looked dead, actually it was knocked over by Cloro. I yanked it out and threw it on the compost heap where it took root and has now the beginnings of a flower. I have grown many pineapples like this as decoration, but never had one flower before, so I am quite pleased. It may even fruit, what a bonus.

My chili peppers have had their third harvest and the jar is now full. I also picked the first of my cayenne peppers and got one full jar. All steeped in olive oil, they are ready for Christmas gifts.

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This weeks CTWW is a little different.

This week, perform a random act of green. Similar to a random act of kindness, the idea is to help the planet by looking for Eco-friendly opportunities which may present themselves as you go through your day. This could be picking up trash while you walk or helping an elderly neighbor bring their recycling bin to the curb for pickup. Maybe you turn off a light which was left on, offer to carpool to save gas, or share local produce with a friend. Perhaps buy a reusable bag or bottle for someone or invite a neighbor to share a vegan meal. The possibilities are endless!

Now that we have Coletiva Seletiva (recyclable rubbish collection) once a week, I am considering all the rubbish that I throw our and whether it is appropriate for the weekly collection. I started with my sparking mineral water bottles and glass, now I am adding cardboard and paper and other plastics. My trice-weekly ‘normal’ rubbish has been reduced a lot. I pick up the trash on the street in front of my house and the cans and other is added to mine rather than put it in the street bins around the park so that it also gets the benefit of recycled rubbish.

So while am limited by my lack of mobility, I do little bits and they all add up.

 

Simple Green Ideas

Apart from plastic bags, what’s the most common thing you have in your house/yard to throw away?

Bottles, be they wine or other.

There are many ideas of how to recycle them, how to repurpose them; here’s another.

Of course, this idea is not limited to bottle bottoms, think about the antique tools you find in your dad’s garage, if you are a knitter think about all those skeins of wool you have left over and the colourful table top they’d make. Your kids have grown up and left all those old toys around, family heirlooms.

There’s really no limit to the ideas for this one.

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Monday Moaning

This is my 100th Monday Moaning…

Nobody does Nuthin’!

There is so much crap out there and it appears as though nobody is doing anything because things are just getting worse.

It doesn’t matter whether it is the climate, global warming, CO2 emissions, pollution, GMOs, industrial and agricultural poisons, BPA, just to name a few.

We have become complacent.

Isn’t life worth fighting for? Have we all rolled over and are playing dead?

Daily, I read the news, the more I read, the more despondent I become. I am at the tail end of life, soon it won’t matter for me, but I am leaving children and grandchildren who are going to pay for our collective apathy.

The people who generally read this blog are not included in the apathetic, they try in big and small ways. But the people who should be in control are the apathetic ones, the politicians, the governments, the media, the organisations who are there to protect us, and they are not.

When are we the people going to take our power back?

Because if we don’t, there’s going to be a lot more suffering in the future, your children, your grandchildren.

</rant>.

Nature Ramble

In Paris the old railway has been defunct since the 1930s

But there are plans afoot.

Conservationists hope to turn a disused Paris railway line into a nature trail

City launches consultation process to decide the fate of orbital track that could offer residents their own ‘little belt’ of green

The disused railway La Petite Ceinture, in Paris. Photograph: Alamy

The visit starts on an icy January morning, overlooking Cours de Vincennes in the 12th arrondissement of Paris. The rails are coated in frost. We step gingerly out onto the iron bridge that spans the busy traffic, then enter an area that has run wild. The noise of the city is suddenly dulled. We are exploring the Petite Ceinture (which translates as “little belt”), a 32km circular rail link round Paris – part elevated, part in cuttings or underground – inside the Périphérique ring road.

Buildings rise on either side of the old railway, but sufficiently far away to give a real sense of space. The track runs through an abandoned station, covered in colourful graffiti. Beyond the vegetation we glimpse blocks of flats with spacious balconies, conjuring up an odd impression of having slipped behind the scenery.

So what should Paris do with this secret hideaway? Leave it to run wild, or turn it into a park? The city council has launched a consultation process involving residents and neighbourhood groups, the aim being to take a decision at the end of the year. The topic has stirred a lively response: train enthusiasts are keen to reinstate the service; nature enthusiasts want to turn the track into a wildlife reserve; and sport lovers sees the route as a gift for exercising.

The orbital railway was originally built between 1852-69 to transport goods and passengers, connecting up the mainline stations. A victim of the Métro’s success, passenger services were withdrawn in 1934, with a trickle of goods traffic persisting until the 1990s. Only a section round the west of the capital is now used by the RER C express service. Vegetation has taken over, soon followed by wildlife (bats and birds, hedgehogs and foxes), turning the old line into a biodiversity reserve. Other, more or less illegal practices have also taken root here: it is a paradise for graffiti artists and a refuge for the homeless. Various work-integration schemes carry out a minimum amount of upkeep.

The council would like to turn part of the track into a green swathe, but it is not the only one to have a say. The land belongs to Réseau Ferré de France (RFF, which operates the whole French rail infrastructure). In 2006 the two organisations signed an agreement enabling sections of track to be opened to the public.

A nature trail was established in the 16th arrondissement, and a park is being laid out across the Seine in the 15th district. But the agreement expires this year. RFF is considering shutting down the stretches of track where there is no further prospect of rail traffic, in particular in the east and south, between Gare des Gobelins, near Place d’Italie, and the Parc André Citroën, west of the Eiffel tower.

Anne Hidalgo, the deputy-mayor tasked with planning (slated to run for mayor in the municipal election next year), advocates a long east-west swathe connecting the wooded areas – Vincennes and Boulogne – at either end of the city. “My idea is to make this an area for leisure, walking and getting some fresh air, keeping as much continuity as possible,” she says. Hidalgo is conscious of the fact that her potential Green allies are keen to protect biodiversity and consequently opposed to chopping the trail into little bits. But allowance must also be made for other factors: two-thirds of the line is in the open air, the rest consisting of either tunnels or deep cuttings, posing a risk for ramblers.

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Opinion:

Cities around the world have such sites, they should not be turned over for corporate use, they should be preserved to create badly needed green belts in our cities to save us from pollution and help get the kids outdoors. We need to do this for future generations, it is their legacy.

Satireday on Eco-Crap

Make you Fink on Friday

This video relates Chernobyl, but it reflects on Fukushima.

Remember that Fukushima is 18x Chernobyl….

Take time to view, it’s 50 minutes, the levels of government, military interference and denial are still hampering Chernobyl, as they will for Fukushima for years to come. Talk, talk, talk…

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Bear in mind, America is downwind from Fukushima, are we looking at the future for American children on the west coast, and maybe further?

Source: The Internet Post

Deeply Disturbed by this

Free vitamins for all under-fives advised by chief medical officer

Dame Sally Davies says rise in rickets points to need for vitamin handouts to curb illnesses linked to vitamin D deficiency

Vitamin pills. Up to 40% of children in Britain are reported to be lacking sufficient vitamin D, obtained naturally from the sun and oily fish. Photograph: Tony Stone

All under-fives may be offered free vitamins on the NHS in an effort to curb the rising tide of illness, such as rickets, linked to them getting too little vitamin D.

Dame Sally Davies, the government’s chief medical officer, wants ministers to consider extending the offer from low-income families to all children under the age of five.

She has asked the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) to investigate whether giving all children in that age group vitamins A, C and D, in the form of drops or tablets, would be cost effective.

Davies said the return of rickets, and the implication of vitamin D in other ill-health, meant that offering every family with under-fives free vitamins was necessary.

Read more

Opinion:

I am deeply disturbed by this attitude to fix all with pills.

How about forcing parents to feed their children correctly, forcing parents to get their kids outside in the sun?

Society should be weaning itself off medication, not making sure that more is taken.

To me this suggested programme has all the hallmarks of ‘more pills – more profit for the drug companies’.

It’s disgusting that we are turning our kids into ‘vitamin junkies’ for the sake of bigger companies getting bigger. This is criminal!

 

Change the World Wednesday – 23 Oct

Basic human right, we have the right to know what we are eating and putting on our bodies

Last week’s post was about human rights and the right to know what we are eating through labelling.

I am going to extend that thought with today’s post.

First my weekly update:

Cloro is learning that the kitty litter (sand) box is outside more than inside, she’s getting the meassage.

The second lot of chili peppers have been bottled and the third lot would have been picked today, if exhaustion hadn’t over taken me. Which is the reason I am running late with this post.

This is my beefless week. For those of you who have been following my posts will know that several months ago I decided that the first and third full weeks of any month are ‘beefless’. I have continued with this theme since then. This week so far: Monday, poached sole (halibut) fillets with potatoes in milk and a delicious parsley white sauce. Tuesday, leftovers. Today, chicken breast with the last of the parsley sauce. Tomorrow, curried pork sausages; this will continue until Sunday.

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On with this week’s CTWW challenge:

The subject is BPA.

This week ban BPA from your life. Need some ideas? Avoid canned foods, including prepared soups, vegetables, sauces, soda and beer. Don’t microwave polycarbonate plastic food containers. Say no to printed receipts; they contain BPA.

 

OR … If you live in a country which bans BPA (Canada and Europe both ban this toxin), then please consider other ways to ensure food safety in your home. For example, defrost food in the refrigerator rather than at room temperature (which encourages the growth of harmful bacteria). Take a look at your pots and pans and make plans to replace any, which may leach chemicals into your food, with safe cookware like cast iron or stainless steel (here’s a hint … any coated pans or “non stick” varieties are unsafe). Avoid packaged, pre-cut produce which may be washed in a solution containing chlorine.

Brazilian canned beer. I don’t even buy the first one in bottles, hate it.

Principally, I do this already. I don’t buy canned beer.

I don’t buy soda, period!

I don’t buy prepared veges in a can, and I don’t microwave anything. Remember my thoughts on microwaves is that they should all be consigned to the dump. Search ‘microwave’ on this blog and you will find my thoughts there.

I do, however get printed receipts. I was totally thrown by the fact that they have BPA. I’ll have to look into that. But receipts here in Brazil are required when returning/exchanging purchases.

Generally, I buy in glass, doesn’t matter if it is beer or asparagus (can’t get fresh asparagus here). This is acceptable, but they also have insipid white shit, that I have never tried, nor want to.

The only thing that I buy in a can are sardines in olive oil. I’ve never seen them any other way. But I don’t buy tuna nor salmon in a can.

I also shun products in plastic whenever possible. Cheese spread for example, if I can’t find it in glass, I go without. This attitude has been part of my life for years, even before I learned about BPA.

I’ll add a warning here. Many companies have done away with BPA, and say so on their products; they have replaced it with BPS, which is several degrees worse, but the furore hasn’t reached the public yet through companies being super-secretive about the change.

Aluminium saucepans

In the second part of the challenge, cooking ware is mentioned. One of the most contaminating materials in your kitchen is aluminium (aluminum for our American cousins). Aluminium pots and pans leach the metal into your food and this contamination has been linked to things like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

I have two aluminium pots in my kitchen, they bget used as little as possible, but then at my time of life I am silly enough anyway, a little bit sillier probably isn’t that important. But, for young families with kids, they should be consigned to the scrapyard.

In the main, I use steel or cast iron, although I do have a coated non-tick frying pan which produces the most heavenly fried eggs, which would be even more heavenly if I had a source of farm fresh eggs.

Products packaged with BPA or BPS should be labelled as such.

So, yes, I do participate in this week’s challenge, and in some aspects have done so for years.

Simple Green Ideas

Not quite so simple this week.

Not everyone has one of these in the yard, unless you’re a car nut enthusiast.

But many people have different interests, why not use them creatively?

In this case an old engine block has been cleaned up and repurposed.

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