Green Options

Sean Daily, Green Living Ideas’ Editor-In-Chief, talks with David Kram, Energy Specialist for the Rising Sun Energy Center of the California Youth Energy Services about how California residents can get free home energy audits as well as energy-efficient lightbulb replacements and other energy-saving devices.

[Courtesy of [...]

Millions of Americans are declaring financial sustainability, even if they don’t exactly call it that. After all, we can’t borrow our way out of debt.

We’re paying down or paying off credit cards. We’re getting rid of our mortgage or putting an extra payment toward the principal balance (which has huge cost savings advantages). Or we’re practicing other frugality rules. According to data from the Federal Reserve, the amount Americans owe on consumer loans and credit cards plummeted $21.6 billion in July of 2009 – the largest monthly drop in consumer debt since the Federal Reserve started to track it in 1943. The “cash for clunkers” will, no doubt, alter the outcomes for August and September, but the trend continues to be less appetite for debt, not more.

People are working to get the bankers out of our lives, demanding that we become someone other than a “consumer.” So while the Federal government continues to re-affirm their “wise” decisions to bailout bankers and big finance, Americans are choosing to fire their credit card companies and break their “death pledge” (aka mortgage) by paying it off early. Of course, there are also many Americans who are in so far over their heads that unfortunately, personal bankruptcy and home foreclosure are the only remedy.

I am, however, focusing on those who thrive in abundance, simplicity and sustainability when it comes to community, lifestyle and, yes, financial intelligence. As my wife and I write about in ECOpreneuring, you cannot have ecological sustainability without a large degree of social and economic equity. The ECOnomy is not about “free trade” but fair trade; it’s about commerce that restores the planet, not destroys it or exploits people.

You can join these financial freedom-seekers too, by practicing financial sustainability. As most of us intuitively recognize, the best things in life are free (or close to it).

Recently, Gardasil researcher Dr. Diane Harper spoke out against the vaccine, warning parents to decide whether the risks are worth it. For many families, the adverse effects of this shot have changed their lives.

This is the start of a series sharing the stories of these brave families.

Here is the story of Brittney Fiste, as told by her mother Roxie.

“Everyone deserves to know the whole truth before blindly rushing out to take an unproven vaccine.”

In 2005, helpful big sister Brittney Maxson tried to enter an A&F dressing room at the Mall of America to assist her younger sibling, 14-year-old Molly, who is autistic.

She was confronted by store staff, who said that Abercrombie policy didn’t allow more than one person in a dressing room at a time in an attempt combat shoplifting. The girls had encountered the same policy at another store, but they allowed the sisters in the dressing room at that store after they understood the situation.

At Abercrombie & Fitch, Brittney explained her sister’s special needs, but was still refused. Their mom, Beth, tried to talk to management and the girls were still refused. Beth even called a customer service hotline while at the store and the request was still ignored.

Four years later, the clothing store has been ordered to pay $115,264 for discriminating against a disabled person.

The FDA is recommending Gardasil for boys, saying in a memo that it seems to be safe and effective in preventing genital warts in young men and boys. And guess what! None of the boys tested got cervical cancer! Kidding.

The vaccine’s maker, Merck, has been pushing for males to be offered the shot too, and gave the FDA evidence that, according to CBS,

Three studies of over 5,000 boys and men, Gardasil was 89% effective in preventing genital warts.

Check out the entire news story:

Imagine that: Walking through a network of trails from our Wissahickon Farms Country Inn, a rustic private cabin nestled in the woods, to grab dinner in town more than a mile away where the restaurant, Indian Creek Orchard Winery and Grille, features mostly local ingredients to prepare their Elk burgers and homemade sauces and soups. We started our hike on the 98-mile Gandy Dancer State Recreational Trail which passes through an edge of the 30-acre Country Inn property, a property certified by Travel Green Wisconsin.

Given the bears in the area, my son and I had quite the adventure: he made a “bear stick” to defend ourselves on the rare chance we might encounter one. After dinner, we wandered down to Overlook Park, featuring the River Spirit sculpture, before continuing along the riverfront on yet another trail to the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway Visitors Center – spotting a bald eagle soaring overhead along the way.  Ecopreneurial enterprises filled up many of the storefronts we peaked into downtown.

Getting around town without touching a car is completely possible in St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin, rightfully earning its moniker, “the city of trails.” While some places aspire to be something they’re clearly not, nor ever have been, St. Croix Falls is a place that features what they have in abundance: their network of walking, jogging, biking and hiking trails – and nature.

In St. Croix Falls’ historic downtown area, you can park the car and spend the rest of the time on foot or bike as you discover a segment of the 1,000-mile Ice Age National Scenic Trail or the more than 10 miles of hiking trails in the Interstate State Park. Thanks to the spectacular St. Croix River, stunning coulees and “dalles” (ancient rock outcroppings), the community has emerged from its extractive history as a logging town and fur trading post to one of the premier places in the Midwest for the enjoyment of the outdoors, on foot, bike or in a kayak on the river.

Hi, you might recognize that beautiful smiling face before you. That is my face, well it was my face over the last couple of years. I am not here to talk about my face or my smile, which some have called “winning.” I am not even here to talk about myself, although I could do that all day, and I will relate to you my personal experience because that is the only experience I have. The real reason I am writing you today is to point out my hair.

These pictures happen to be in chronological order, so as you may see, my hair has grown a tad longer in the last couple of years. I would like to say that my reasons were always altruistic, but the fact is I just happen to like my hair a little longer.

Breakfast time is usually a big deal at our house. I try to make sure the little guy gets a healthy nutritious meal to start the day.  I also try to stay away from cereals due to their high sugar content but occassionally a bowl of cereal makes it’s way onto the table.

Since having a child I’ve made breakfast important. I mostly make meals from scratch and make the best attempt to stay away from anything packaged. The chickens have been such a blessing. We’re able to cook eggs most days any which way you can think of and have them for breakfast or “breakie” (what we call it here).

Pancakes are the biggest hit for breakie…just ask my son, he’ll tell you he wants *pancakes*! Before I knew about this recipe I’m going to share; I’d always thought I was making pancakes from scratch.

Mattel. The name is no longer only synonymous with Barbie, Hot Wheels, and Polly Pocket. Now when you hear “Mattel”, it’s flashback time: to lead-laden, choketastic toys.

When the Consumer Products Safety Commission was charged with implementing the new CPSIA, designed to make toys safer, fans of handcrafted goods worried: would we still be able to get our beloved natural toys? After all, toy testing for lead and phthalates has a price tag attached that is harder on the small business owner than it is on corporate giants like Mattel.

Turns out, it’s especially easy for Mattel, as the toy manufacturer gets to use “independent” in-house testing instead of submitting its toys to third-party testing like everyone else, as the AP reports,

The Consumer Product Safety Commission recently, and quietly, granted Mattel’s request to use its own labs for testing.

Although I’d love to not be too cynical on this, guess what? Coincidentally, Mattel spent $1 million last year in lobbying costs.

In a Walmart in the suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, a man walked up to Sonya Mathews, whose 2-year-old daughter was crying in the store. He uttered those classic words:

If you don’t shut that baby up, I will shut her up for you.

A couple aisles over, he made “good” on his word and slapped Ms. Mathews’ daughter 4 or 5 times, following the abuse with a smug,

See, I told you I would shut her up.

As millions of Americans are finding themselves waking up with less disposable income, fewer job prospects, less income thanks for forced furloughs or lost value in their 401(k)s, some are rediscovering the joys of growing our own food, sharing picnics with others in our community, going for hikes in the woods, or spending more time with our family. Instead of working at a job they hate, they’re starting their own enterprise that makes the world a better place.

As it turns out, a new version of happiness is emerging based on relationships and connections to each other and nature, not all the goods found at the Mall. Many of us are choosing to live and work in a world where the economists (who presently dominate the national economy and national discourse) don’t matter.

The authoritative new book from Cecile Andrews and Wanda Urbanska, Less is More: Embracing simplicity for a healthy planet, a caring economy and lasting happiness (New Society, 2009), is just the right tonic for these topsy-turvy times. Side-step stress, don’t give into your fear, and thrive, instead, in a world of abundance where freedom and cooperation still reign.

My wife and I had a chance to peek at the advance galley of Less is More before it went to print and found Andrews and Urbanska masterful both in their prose and their ability to bring together an eclectic array of writers, thinkers and sustainability advocates who live in ways that echo what they write about.

Less is More is divided into three parts — simplicity defined, solutions, and policies — each containing short essays, analysis and inspiration from some of the leading sustainability, simplicity and community thinkers and doers. From Sarah Susanka discussing clutter and Robyn Griggs Lawrence’ tome on wabi-sabi time to Juliet Schor’s exploration of a carbon-friendly economy and David Korten’s treatise on caring and connecting, a diverse array of perspectives woven throughout Less is More illuminate why there’s greater freedom in having enough rather than always striving to have more and more. Writes essayist David Wann: “According to surveys taken by the US National Science Foundation for the past 30 years, even with the steady increases in income, our level of overall happiness has actually tapered off.” So what’s the economy for anyway, to support a bigger government or make a few really rich people richer?