Green Options

Australian protestors are complaining about the failure of the Australian government to take tough enough action on climate change, and in support of Pacific Island groups who have asked for substantial emission cuts from Australia and New Zealand to help protect their land from rising sea levels.

Sarah Smarsh and Simran Sethi are writing a series on the impacts of everyday things. They will be posting previews on Green Options before launching the posts on Huffington Post.

Who doesn’t feel better after a yoga class? Yoga is the union of the body, mind and spirit.It stabilizes the nervous system, decreases blood pressure, increases flexibility and endurance, and opens you up in ways that you may not have imagined.

Simran used to be a yoga teacher. She loves the practice even though she hasn’t spent much time on her mat lately. (“Yoga on the inside, baby!”) Sarah gets her yoga on every week and knows it does her body good.

But, as any student knows, the real practice starts when you walk out the door. That’s also where the rubber hits the road and your practice takes its toll on the environment.

Oh brother, that again? Yes, my dear yogin, that.

The recent recalls of toys for lead contamination has become a major concern for parents. Additional research shows that it is not just lead we parents should be concerned about.

Healthy Legacy, an environmental group of Minnesota, worked in tangent with a few other organizations to test 1,200 children’s toys. The tests were used to detect not just lead, which was found in one third of the tested toys, but four other potential hazards as well; cadmium, arsenic, mercury and chlorine.