Green Options

Off they go into the wild green yonder: the 97th Air Mobility Wing at Altus Air Force Base in Oklahoma has just earned the top “Green” rating from the Air Force’s Environmental, Safety and Occupational Health compliance program.

The 97th spent months prepping for its evaluation and earned a “you knocked our socks off” comment from the ESOHCAMP program manager, but that’s not the only sustainability feather in Altus’s cap.  The base is also home to one of the Air Force’s premier green remediation sites.

Recently I have been reading very disturbing research about how Diet Coke can possibly cause cancer and kill you. The artificial sweetener that is used in most diet beverages, aspartame, once ingested, becomes a lethal poison called methyl alcohol. Small quantities of this noxious substance can lead to blindness and death; even the most miniscule amounts of this aspartame toxin are strongly linked to cancer.

This is an image of the cancerous tumor that was recently removed from my body.

A major new survey has revealed that nearly 50% of all US consumers would consider buying a ‘green’ cell phone, but only if key factors such as the price, features, and performance were equivalent to other phones.

According to the poll of 1,000 American adults carried out by ABI Research, just 7% would be willing to pay a premium to go green, a figure that may cause cell phone companies to think deeply before investing heavily in environmentally friendlier models.

Speaking about the findings, industry analyst Michael Morgan said, “These survey results mean that almost half of those surveyed were at least committed in principle to use of a green handset. However the public is largely uninformed about their availability: only 4% said they were ‘very familiar’ with green handsets.”

Fancy a new online store for eco-friendly children’s products?  Green product website Ambitious Green calls itself a “fun place to buy great products at the center of today’s environmental issues, concerns, and debates.”

Says Ambitious Green: “We think the environment and education are challenging debates worth having. Every time you make a buying decision you are telling manufacturers and the market what’s important to you.   We share the same frustrations you do - finding products that are natural, functional, friendly and fun. We believe that what’s good  for you can be good for the planet.”

Here are a few of the latest toys at Ambitious Green:

Dancing Alligator, $19.99 (shown above) “This award-winning, wooden alligator pull toy struts his stuff as he wiggles, bobs and click-clacks along.”  These toys are made in Thailand by Plan Toys, a green company that emphasizes socially responsible manufacturing.   It’s green because it’s made of organic rubberwood, non-formaldehyde E-Zero Glue, water-based dye, recycled and recyclable material and soy ink and water-based ink.

Have you ever wondered about Mother Nature’s counterpart, Father Nature?

Look no further than ecologist and artist of nature, Steven Apfelbaum. You could even call him Father Nature. His book, Nature’s Second Chance: Restoring the Ecology of Stone Prairie Farm (Beacon, 2009), offers an engaging and refreshingly personal narrative of how, as humans, we can reconnect with the land, our community, and our true selves through restoration work on the land. (The book is also available as an eBook.)

“Dirty hands and sweat welded my relationship with Stone Prairie Farm … where I have worked to give nature a second chance,” writes Apfelbaum in the book’s Introduction. “My years of planting, of nurturing the resurgence of prairie, wetland, and forest cover where eroded fields once lay exposed, have created a deep, direct connection to nature.” The land became his home, love, passion, and peace — even the humble beginnings for his livelihood after launching the ecological consulting firm, Applied Ecological Services, Inc., and Taylor Creek Restoration Nurseries — both exemplary triple bottom businesses.

Apfelbaum’s inspiration, like many in his field, was renowned conservationist Aldo Leopold who so clearly enunciated a vision for a land ethic to guide our human relationship with all of nature: “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it does otherwise.”

There’s been a seven- to eight-fold increase of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) cases in California since 1990.

I’ve suspected that the rise in diagnoses of ASD is linked to many factors, one of them better detection. You, too? Not so, says a new study.

“It’s time to start looking for the environmental culprits responsible for the remarkable increase in the rate of autism in California…We’re looking at the possible effects of metals, pesticides and infectious agents on neurodevelopment,” said researcher Irva Hertz-Piccoto.

A startling new WWF study has revealed that people living in Hong Kong currently use twice as many resources as residents in China, more than double the sustainable level.

To feed the vibrant city’s massive demand for natural resources, and absorb the CO2 emitted, residents need an area of land and sea larger than 250 Hong Kong’s, an incredible seven-fold increase since 1965.

According to Mathis Wackernagel, Executive Director of the Global Footprint Network, “Although small geographically, Hong Kong not only has significant resource demands, but it also has an over-proportional influence on the world.

In the race to come up with newer eco-friendly laptop solutions HP has not only led the way, but helped achieve a few firsts in the process, according to a recent Boston-Power press release.

In the past, when you’ve thought about helping the environment, things like recycling, using rechargeable batteries, cutting back on your power and water usage, and carpooling or bicycling to reduce pollution probably leapt to mind. 

I doubt that carrying a chic, designer bag topped your list. 

But with all of the eco-minded designers popping up, using alternative materials to craft high-end, contemporary creations worthy of a runway romp, you can do your part to save the planet, and look stylish doing it.

Here is a list of the must-have sleek and sustainable haute couture handbags available for the eco-savvy shopper:

This article is part of EcoWorldly’s week-long spotlight on Politicians You Can Believe In. To read more, subscribe to our RSS feed, or view our posts about politics.

(Kittens make everything cuter.)

Stephen Harper, Conservative Party leader and newly re-elected Prime Minister of Canada, isn’t many people’s ideal of an environmental hero. He once famously called the Kyoto accord “job-killing, economy-destroying,” and a “socialist scheme.” Understandably, many Canadians look disapprovingly on his environmental record.

However, for a society to achieve sustainability it must have the support conservative leaders as well as liberal leaders, especially when a conservative leader like Harper begins to take interest in the environment. Over the last several years, the Harper government has been making efforts to turn over a new, greener leaf. Despite his continued foot-dragging on Kyoto emissions targets, Harper has been at the head of some important achievements.

Living in Australia brings with it a wonderful set of environmental circumstances to live with. Not only do we have two weather patterns – El Nino/La Nina and the Indian Ocean Dipole – that are combining to lengthen our drought, but we’re one of the countries that suffer from the ever fluctuating ozone hole in the Southern Hemisphere.

This year, the ozone hole extended to approximately 27 million square kilometers. This compared to 2007’s 25 million square kilometers and 2006’s 29 million square kilometers.

Want a size comparison? That’s about the size of the North American continent!