Green Options

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‘Tis the weekend to find a meaningful, last-minute gift! The best gift you can give a child is a gift that will help forge a connection with nature. I believe birds and plants are the two great ambassadors of the environment. If your child has been nagging for a pet, why not help them develop a sense of responsibility and foster their connection to nature with a birdfeeder?

Contrary to what you may have heard, birdfeeding will not spread disease or make the birds forget where their natural food sources are. All seed is not created equal. The cheap seed you find in mega-marts generally comes from the bottom of the silo of seed for human consumption. It is long bereft of the healthy oils that the birds are seeking. If you see the birds, “sorting” through your seed, you need to look for a better quality source.

I purchased a “pole system” from my local Wild Birds Unlimited a few years ago and am watching a pair of cardinals, a nuthatch, purple finches, mourning doves, and blue jays converging on the feeder as I type. Yes, occassionally a sharp-shinned hawk swoops in to grab a meal; but learning about predator/prey and the cycle of life is part of appreciating nature!

Oh yeah, you read the subject of this post correctly … shopping, eek. The holiday gift season usually begins the day after Thanksgiving, a day which I intentionally avoid doing any buying. This year, shops and merchants are breaking out the good stuff (and the good deals) right after Halloween to try and help jump-start the economy again.

If having a gift-free holiday is not something your family would go for, why

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This past week, I have been immersed in the pleasing insanity that is Portland Fashion Week. Though there were not any children’s lines being shown at the event, I learned about Little Marmara while I was in town, thanks to an e-mail from founder Gabrielle Ackerman.

At Little Marmara, we believe in simple things. That we should treat the environment as we would treat ourselves. That nothing should go next

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Jeremy Hernandez is the man. He was trapped on a tilting school bus in the recent Minnesota bridge collapse with a bunch of kids and rose to the challenge of the chaos by kicking out the back door and leading them all to safety.

The media loves a good hero story and Jeremy has been getting buffeted by accolades, interview requests, and gifts. He’s been offered free tuition at a car repair tech school (he had [...]

Fischer Price just announced a massive recall on a ton of toys because of Lead Paint. What year are we in? How in the fracking world do Fischer Price toys have lead paint?

I have two little girls who like Dora the Explorer. I think Swiper the Fox is cute and it’s a good little educational show and we have a bunch of Dora toys. I’m beyond mad at all the douchebags in the chain of corporate events that lead to my children playing with toys coated with lead. What kind of society do we live in that builds poison toys?

Wake up and smell the Cradle to Cradle.

The complete list of toys being recalled is after the jump, you can go here to see pictures of the affected toys (the site was down when I tried to check, probably because there are millions of worried parents flooding there for help).

Every time you read something good and green about Walmart, remember that they still pull shit like putting a bunch of poor Mexican kids to work for nothing.

Wal-Mart is Mexico’s largest private-sector employer in the nation today, with nearly 150,000 local residents on its payroll. An additional 19,000 youngsters between the ages of 14 and 16 work after school in hundreds of Wal-Mart stores, mostly as grocery baggers, throughout Mexico—and none of them receives a red cent in wages or fringe benefits. The company doesn’t try to conceal this practice: its 62 Superama supermarkets display blue signs with white letters that tell shoppers: OUR VOLUNTEER PACKERS COLLECT NO SALARY, ONLY THE GRATUITY THAT YOU GIVE THEM. SUPERAMA THANKS YOU FOR YOUR UNDERSTANDING. The use of unsalaried youths is legal in Mexico because the kids are said to be “volunteering” their services to Wal-Mart and are therefore not subject to the requirements and regulations that would otherwise apply under the country’s labor laws. But some officials south of the U.S. border nonetheless view the practice as regrettable, if not downright exploitative. “These kids should receive a salary,” says Labor Undersecretary Patricia Espinosa Torres. “If you ask me, I don’t think these kids should be working, but there are cultural and social circumstances [in Mexico] rooted in poverty and scarcity.”

Half of the population of Mexico lives on less than $4/day, so any job- even one for nothing an hour with the possibility of tips, is an attractive one. Wal-Mart is exploiting kids who already live on the bottom of life’s heap. They live in crappy houses in crappy neighborhoods and have to live their crappy lives every day on what I spend on buying a smoothee.

My kids go to an awesome little co-op preschool where my wife Heather runs recruitment. She helped organize a fundraiser last fall where I ended up winning the door prize- a gift certificate for a Lobster dinner for two. It was with one of those dealies that actually ship you the lobsters overnight. I’m really not a big fan of lobster and always had a problem with that first minute after my dad would chuck them into the boiling water when I was a kid so I put the gift certificate on my dresser and pretty much forgot about it.

In the process of packing up the house to get ready for our move (we’re moving down the road to Yarmouth, more to follow on that), Heather found the gift certificate and decided to call it in. She grew up a vegetarian, has never even had lobster, and was admittedly lob-curious.

The next day our friendly overnight delivery man rings the doorbell and leaves the box on the porch.

We. Must. Get. Out. Of. Iraq.

There are too many reasons now why Bush’s stupid war needs to be ended yesterday. Add this one to the pile…

As would be expected, Iraqi children living in Jordanian camps report witnessing gruesome events related to the war. These sorts of trauma leave indelible marks on children’s social and emotional development. According to a World Vision report Trapped! The Disappearing Hopes of Iraqi Refugee Children, “43 per cent of children surveyed in Amman, Jordan witnessed violence in Iraq, and 39 per cent said they lost someone close through violence.”

I can’t imagine how it would be to grow up in a war zone or have to flee your home for a refugee camp. Even as refugees, the children do not feel safe. Electronic Iraq reports, “‘These children have been kidnapped and held for ransom, witnessed brutal home invasions, suicide bombings and murders. Now refugee life offers them little option but to go to work as child laborers, exposing them to the threat of deportation,’ said Ashley Clements, author of the report. Understandably, 25 per cent of the Iraqi refugee children World Vision surveyed did not feel safe in their Jordanian homes. This is a combination of past experiences, lack of refugee status, which leaves the entire family unsure, and the absence of healthy routines like going to school, the report says.”

Sunshine isn’t the only great thing about summer - don’t forget the sales! With a continued concern about the cost of green living, you now have the chance to be green and save green at the same time (ironic, no?). Greenloop, the Portland-based online store, is having its annual summer sale with all clothing, accessories, and bodycare for men, women and children being marked down from 20-60% off.

Greenloop is one woman’s

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This makes me sad. These kids need some solar panels and/or someone like William Kamkwamba (the kid in Malawi who built his own windmill using bike parts and home-taught engineering skills).

CONAKRY, Guinea - The sun has set in one of the world’s poorest nations and as the floodlights come on at G’bessi International Airport, the parking lot begins filling with children.

The long stretch of pavement has the feel of a hushed library, each student sitting quietly, some moving their lips as their eyes traverse their French-language notes.

It’s exam season in Guinea, ranked 160th out of 177 countries on the United Nations’ development index, and schoolchildren flock to the airport every night because it’s among the only places where they’ll always find the lights on.

Groups of elementary and high school students begin heading to the airport at dusk, hoping to reserve a coveted spot under the oval light cast by one of a dozen lampposts in the parking lot. Some come from over an hour’s walk away.

The lot is teeming with girls and boys by the time Air France Flight 767 rounds the Gulf of Guinea at an hour-and-a-half before midnight. They hardly look up from their notes as the Boeing jet begins its spiraling descent over the dark city, or as the newly arrived passengers come out, shoving luggage carts over the cracked pavement.

Image courtesy of Little Green StarTeaching our kids the beauty of the natural world starts from day one, and we often use positive reinforcement and encouragement to help instill important values: "When you do well in school, you get a gold star. When you do well for the environment, you get a green one!" That's the founding principle behind San Francisco's Little Green Star line [...]