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A phenomenon called “crown shyness” can be found in Camphor trees, where the crowns of the Camphor trees do not touch each other and form channels in the canopy. The camphor tree is used to produce Vic’s Vapor Rub and Tigerbalm. Scientists still have not found a reason for the phenomena. Their most likely hypothesis is that the trees release a type of gas that warns other trees to stay away.
I am very sorry but I am very mad about the oil spill. It is killing nature. And it is killing the sea otters. It makes me very sad because my class is doing a report on sea otters. And sea otters are cute. Sea otters are an endangered species. Please clean up the oil spill.
Sincerely,
Kelli Middlestead. Mrs. Ashley - 2nd grade Franklin School”
Letter from Kelli Middlestead from the Franklin School, Burlingame, California to Walter Stieglitz the Regional Director of the Alaska Region of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 04/13/1989
Twenty-five years ago today the oil tanker Exxon Valdez struck a reef in Prince William Sound, Alaska, spilling over 250,000 barrels of crude oil and causing one of the worst oil spills and natural disasters in U.S. history.
This 2nd grade student’s letter to usfws is possibly our favorite record ever, but it’s especially bittersweet considering the magnitude of the disaster.
What are your memories of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill?
China’s growing appetite for meat has put tremendous pressure on the livestock sector, which now produces three times more waste than industrial sources
After literally years the Pig Trial will finally be coming to a close this Thursday March 9th 2017. Throughout the trial we have heard that Anita Krajnc, who has been criminally charged for giving water to a pig suffering from heat exhaustion and dehydration in the summer of 2015, acted out of concern for the animals, as well as the environment, and the health of her fellow humans. Experts upon experts have testified on topics ranging from the environmental devastation of a non-vegan diet to the incredible emotional and cognitive intelligence of farmed animals such as pigs. This trial, which stemmed from an attempt to silence Toronto Pig Save, has brought international attention to the fight for animal rights, and since the first court date years ago, hundreds of groups have been created in countries all over the world and have joined The Save Movement. It is for these reasons that we can confidently say, though we do not yet know the legal outcomes of this trial, that we have won, for any advancement in the world’s compassion for nonhuman animals is a victory in our eyes.
Please join us outside of the Burlington courthouse one last time to show the world that you know that giving water to a suffering being, to show them compassion, is not a crime!!
Schedule: 8:00 am: Vigil at Fearmans slaughterhouse at the corner of Harvester Road and Appleby Line (821 Appleby Line, Burlington)
9:00-10:00 am: Vigil at the Burlington courthouse at 2051 Plains Rd E, Burlington, Ontario, L7R 5A5
10:00 am: Concluding arguments
A simultaneous slaughterhouse vigil will take place at Fearmans pig slaughterhouse, 10 minute drive from the courthouse.
If you are unable to attend, you can still follow! There will be live feed from both the courthouse and from the vigil on the Toronto Pig Savepage.
Another 100 lovely people have followed me since my last introductory post, so I thought I’d do another one! Hi I’m Kayleigh • Whilst I’m obviously passionate about the environment, I’m also passionate about reducing inequalities of all kind- social inequality, gender inequality, wealth inequality and so on. I believe that a healthy society cannot exist whilst some people are treated lesser than others. Everyone child deserves to start on an equal footing to their neighbour, regardless of class, gender and race. And I use my voting power, advocacy and education to try and make this a reality. • Tell me, what else besides the environment are you passionate about? Let’s get to know each other! ❤ . . . . . #ethicalliving #liveconsciously #yayforearth #seekingsimplicity #bekindalways #inequality #fightinequality #minimalliving #sustainabilityinstyle #savetheearth https://www.instagram.com/p/Bttxg43nvPu/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1qa4ak4pn5sua
After literally years the Pig Trial will finally be coming to a close this Thursday March 9th 2017. Throughout the trial we have heard that Anita Krajnc, who has been criminally charged for giving water to a pig suffering from heat exhaustion and dehydration in the summer of 2015, acted out of concern for the animals, as well as the environment, and the health of her fellow humans. Experts upon experts have testified on topics ranging from the environmental devastation of a non-vegan diet to the incredible emotional and cognitive intelligence of farmed animals such as pigs. This trial, which stemmed from an attempt to silence Toronto Pig Save, has brought international attention to the fight for animal rights, and since the first court date years ago, hundreds of groups have been created in countries all over the world and have joined The Save Movement. It is for these reasons that we can confidently say, though we do not yet know the legal outcomes of this trial, that we have won, for any advancement in the world’s compassion for nonhuman animals is a victory in our eyes.
Please join us outside of the Burlington courthouse one last time to show the world that you know that giving water to a suffering being, to show them compassion, is not a crime!!
Schedule: 8:00 am: Vigil at Fearmans slaughterhouse at the corner of Harvester Road and Appleby Line (821 Appleby Line, Burlington)
9:00-10:00 am: Vigil at the Burlington courthouse at 2051 Plains Rd E, Burlington, Ontario, L7R 5A5
10:00 am: Concluding arguments
A simultaneous slaughterhouse vigil will take place at Fearmans pig slaughterhouse, 10 minute drive from the courthouse.
If you are unable to attend, you can still follow! There will be live feed from both the courthouse and from the vigil on the Toronto Pig Savepage.
Another wonderful video from Bite-Sized Vegan that looks at the pigtrial; how it all started and what it currently means for the millions of pigs still enslaved by the animal agriculture industry. To put it simply; criminally charging co-organizer of Toronto Pig Save, Anita Krajnc has really backfired on the slaughterhouse/pig flesh industry as a whole.
Bringing back this post to say that, having visited Vienna recently, there were people that actually turned off their cars when waiting for the light to turn green or even when waiting for a few seconds for a pedestrian to cross and then turning them back on to go about their day.
Would love to see this get adopted more widely.
It’s an attitude that makes sense if you want to save up on fuel and help the climate and the air quality.
I was searching for a spearmint tea after hearing a tip that spearmint is good for your skin. It was tough to track anything down in my local grocery stores, but this box of Celestial Seasonings tea was one of only a few teas I found with a blend that included spearmint leaves. (Couldn’t even find anything in bulk.)
In the spirit of looking for environmentally-friendly options, I wanted to see if the tea packaging for this brand would be recyclable, but I came across a quote on the back of the box that struck me as odd: “Sustainable Packaging. We use tea bags without strings, tags, or staples, keeping tons of material out of landfills every year.”
Upon first read, that sounds great, right? But it didn’t answer my question: can I recycle the packaging and compost the tea bags? The answer would determine my purchasing the object or not, yet the box made no clear note of it.
That leads me to my ultimate question: Why can’t companies make it more transparent whether or not their products are recyclable? Nowhere on this box could I find out whether or not the packaging or bags could be recycled or composted.
The more I dig into going zero waste, the more I find myself standing in the grocery store study packaging to look for recycling instructions. It’d be nice to see a standardized (and required) line or symbol indicating the recyclability of the packaging and its components — both for my convenience and the sake of the recycling center in town. In my mind, it makes just as much sense as putting the nutrition label on the box.
You’ll see on plastics the number indicating which type of recyclable plastic it is, but often almond milk cartons, produce containers, and box packaging, for example, don’t mention anything and I’m left to guess whether or not the packaging can in fact be recycled.
Shouldn’t companies have an obligation to fully inform their consumers not just what they’re consuming in terms of the food, but the packaging that comes with it?
For the record, I found out later from the company’s website that the box and the tea bags are able to be recycled and composted. But because I couldn’t find it on the box while I was staring at a wall of tea options, I made the in-store decision to go with the box of tea that was more expensive, but was up front about the recyclability of the packaging and tea bags.
Considering the tea I went with and the tea pictured had the same recycling/composting ability, this would’ve been an easy win for the less expensive Celestial Seasonings, if only they’d just included a single line with the information I needed. The same rule applies beyond tea boxes — and man, would it save me so much time in the grocery store.
Do any of you have thoughts on a standardized recyclability index for food packaging? Is there something I’ve missed? My ears (and asks) are open!
We have produced about 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic since its invention. Of that, about 79 percent of plastic waste is not recycled or burned — just left to sit in landfills or our oceans.
This is a massive health risk for humans and a deadly hazard for animals who think plastic waste is food, not to mention the broader environmental impacts. And yet, the solution may not be to ban plastic outright — it’s complicated.
Bamboo grows very fast, so it is the perfect material for an item that needs to be replaced every three month. Unlike plastic. A plastic toothbrush is used for a couple of weeks and then stays on this planet for several hundred years, since it will not biodegrade. That makes no sense. Switch to bamboo. Plus: You can just burry the old brushes in the backyard.
Before I reblog, I always do a little fact-checking and research first to make sure I’m not disseminating inaccurate information.
I found the above post to be a bit misleading. It says you can “just burry (sic) the old brushes in the backyard,” seemingly implying that the entire brush is biodegradable.
This isn’t the case. While it’s certainly a good step to buy a bamboo brush rather than a landfill-destined plastic brush, even a bamboo brush isn’t fully biodegradable.
I found that currently, no one has been able to create toothbrushes that are fully biodegradable because the bristles are typically made of some inorganic material like nylon — unless they use boar bristles. This doesn’t necessarily make boar bristle brushes the go-to option: some people who use these types of brushes complain of an odor, in addition to the fact that these brushes may not be considered vegan since they’re made with a hair harvested from an animal.
Within the realm of bamboo brushes, one of the seemingly best options is made by a company called Brush With Bamboo. According to their website, the bristles of their sustainably-made brushes are made with 62% castor bean oil and 38% nylon, rendering them “biobased, but still not biodegradable,” since nylon doesn’t decompose.
So if you bury your bamboo brush, sure, most of it will decompose. But the bristles won’t. In fact, most bamboo brush companies advise you to tweeze out the bristles before attempting to compost.
Sure, the bristles are small and seemingly insignificant, but you should know what you’re getting into before telling all your friends you’ve got a fully biodegradable toothbrush graveyard buried in your garden.
I’d be remiss not to include that there is one option, and it’s been around for centuries: the neem chew stick. It’s the only truly biodegradable option, since it’s made from a neem plant and is a literal stick. It’s exactly what it sounds like. To use it, you chew on the end of the stick until it frays into bristles, then you brush.
The downside? You have to chew your toothbrush down before you can use it. And when it comes to brushing your teeth, the more inconvenient it is, the less likely you are to do it. And one thing I really want to emphasize on my own blog is making more sustainable choices easier, not harder.
Until someone creates the perfect toothbrush — ergonomic, wallet-friendly, biodegradable, and not made from pig hair — it looks like the best option on the market is a bamboo brush. Just make sure to tweeze out those bristles before you toss them in the dirt.
Have you seen any other notable sustainably-made or biodegradable toothbrushes? My ears (and asks) are open.
Can’t help but think about how nice it would be if we all were raised up sustainably, valuing the objects we consume and use from the jump. Growing up then trying to unlearn wasteful habits is hard — and if you think about it, backward.
Before I get too far along in documenting my journey to live sustainably, I’d like to talk a little more about the concept of a “no waste” (or “zero waste”) lifestyle.
The first real exposure I had to the concept was when I heard about an NYU student who could fit all of her trash in a mason jar. I vaguely remember reading news articles about her, but at the time didn’t give her much thought other than thinking how hard it must be to live like that.
A few years later, I watched a TED talk by Lauren Singer — the same person I’d read about previously. I considered a no waste lifestyle with a little more interest this time around.
And now, finally, in 2018, the message is finally resonating with me. I rewatched her TED talk this year when I started thinking more about going no waste.
Essentially, the no waste lifestyle just means you aren’t contributing trash to a landfill. The way Lauren practices, and the way I aspire to practice, however, allows for recyclables and compost.
This is an important clause. After all, most of us don’t live directly off the land, so buying the food you need to live a healthy lifestyle will involve some packaged goods. But if you are conscientious about the packaged goods you buy and make sure they are recyclable, you’re still offsetting (albeit not eliminating) your impact on the environment.
Since that TED talk, Lauren’s Instagram shows that her mason jar has gotten a little more full, but all her trash over the past five years still fits in that 16 ounce container.
I’m still a ways away from carrying around a mason jar of my own trash, but I hope to transition to that possibility as quickly as my current lifestyle allows.
If you have a second, I’d highly recommend checking out Lauren’s website at http://trashisfortossers.com/. It’s got a ton of helpful resources, which I plan to consult frequently.
You can also check out the website of Bea Johnson, who Lauren references on her blog. Bea has been in the waste-free lifestyle game since 2008, so you know she’s got the low down on doing the damn thing: https://zerowastehome.com/
Know of any other helpful resources? My ears (and asks) are open.
Hi! I’ve been gone for awhile – I went on a cross-country road trip and got pretty sick after I got home, which led to a tonsillectomy (respect to my fellow adult tonsillectomy survivors out there, I mean YIKES).
But I’ve been thinking about this blog the whole time, and now it’s a Friday night and I have time to queue up some good stuff. It’s good to be back!
