Blogging for a Cause and Cash

Hey Changemakers,

We're excited to announce that as of today we are starting to hire bloggers for Change.org's forthcoming social action blog network!

If you're interested in blogging on an issue you're passionate about for an audience of hundreds of thousands and becoming a leading voice for social action, we strongly encourage you to apply.

Each blogger will lead an online community focusing on a different social, political, or environmental issue, maintain a daily blog covering news and offering commentary, convene leading nonprofits and activists working on the issue, and help people translate their interests and passions into concrete action.

Positions are part-time and paid. For more information, go to www.change.org/bloggers. We hope to hear from you!

Here's the featured activity around Change.org this week:

1. Featured News: Oil Prices to Double by 2012
   The price of oil is likely to soar to $225 a barrel by 2012 as supply becomes increasingly tight, a Canadian bank reported last week. This is more than double the current all-time high of more than $100. The report noted accelerating depletion rates in many of the world's largest and most mature oil fields. "Whether we have already seen the peak in world oil production remains to be seen, but it is increasingly clear that the outlook for oil supply signals a period of unprecedented scarcity," said Analyst Jeff Rubin. "Despite the recent record jump in oil prices, oil prices will continue to rise steadily over the next five years, almost doubling from current levels."


2. Featured Changemaker: Amy Sample Ward
   Our Changemaker of the Week is Amy Sample Ward, a blogger, activist, and new media consultant dedicated to supporting and educating nonprofits about evolving web technologies. Amy is a community organizer and event coordinator for Portland Net2 and the Portland 501 Tech Club, through which she brings together social changemakers interested in social technology and trains nonprofit technology staff on new resources. Her personal blog is at www.amysampleward.org.


3. Featured Action: Tell Congress to End "Abstinence-Only" Sex Education
   The Center for Disease Control just released a national study revealing that one in four girls and young women in this country are infected with an STD. This is the result of spending 10 years and $1.5 billion on "abstinence-only" sex education rather than investing in comprehensive sex education. Experts in every relevant field have overwhelmingly declared these programs to be a total failure, and now the infection rates are proving it. Political and religious agendas have no place in the classroom. Tell congress to stop recklessly funding these discredited programs and to provide teens with comprehensive sex education.


4. Featured Nonprofit: Oceana
   Oceana is the largest international group focused solely on ocean conservation. Oceans cover 71 percent of the globe, but pollution, habitat degradation, overfishing and global warming are threatening this indispensable natural resource. At risk is not just a food supply, but also a wealth of magnificent species and the prime controller of our climate. Oceana's worldwide team of scientists, economists, lawyers and advocates work together with governments, corporations and fishermen around the world to create and enforce laws and policies that will help restore the health of our oceans. Join their efforts by making a donation today.


5. Featured Change: End Global Poverty
   Over 1 billion people worldwide live on less than $1 a day, and nearly half the world's population lives on less than $2 a day. This epidemic of poverty spans across the globe - from Haiti to Ethiopia to Bangladesh - and touches all the world's cultures, ethnicities and religions. Although overwhelming in scope, there are concrete steps we can take to reduce poverty and signs that current efforts are having an impact. These steps go far beyond simply dumping aid on a country, and instead focus on addressing the many interwoven elements that can together help curb chronic poverty - including children's education, women's rights, improved healthcare, access to clean water and sanitation, and job creation. Join this community today to help do your part to stop global poverty.

Have a great week!

- The Change.org Team

How to Erase your Carbon Footprint

By Kelly Magill, publisher, Positively Green

Once you’ve been on the green train for a while, you’ve got the basics; recycling, sustainable energy, canvas bags, fuel efficient vehicles, and all the little energy and water saving ideas that you can apply daily. Unfortunately, even with all of these eco-friendly practices, you still leave a carbon “footprint”. Admittedly, it is significantly smaller than if you didn’t make green choices, but you’re still creating carbon dioxide, which is intensifying the climate problem. How can you “erase” the remainder of your carbon footprint? Purchasing carbon offsets is one possible solution.

When you purchase carbon offsets, you’re essentially donating money to a group that will fund projects that actively decrease the amount of carbon dioxide that is released into the atmosphere. These projects mainly focus on sustainable energy programs, energy efficiency programs and reforestation programs.

Most of the carbon offset companies have a feature on their websites where you can input information about your energy and water use at home and your fuel consumption on the road. You can even include air travel if you fly consistently. It then calculates how many tons of greenhouse gasses you add to the atmosphere annually. It also suggests an amount that you can donate on line that will fund enough carbon reductions to negate your footprint and leave you carbon neutral.

Theoretically, carbon offsets are a great idea, but the actual results achieved by carbon offset companies varies, so it is important if you really want to make a difference, to donate to carbon offset companies that are effectively achieving their goals.

Look for companies that are non-profits like carbonfund.org.

In countries that have already signed the Kyoto Treaty, many carbon reduction and sequestration programs are already in the works and have government funding. Look for carbon offset companies that are donating to programs in countries that haven’t signed the Kyoto Treaty since they have less support for these greener measures.

A Greener Gift
Philanthropist Ruth Ann Harnisch helps spread the green message by purchasing carbon offsets from Carbon Fund (a not-for profit organization) and offering to offset the carbon footprints of events and conferences she attends.

Fast Facts
The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports that 11 of the past 12 years are among the dozen warmest since 1850.

The Arctic is more effected than other areas of the planet. According to the multinational Arctic Climate Impact Assessment report compiled between 2000 and 2004, average temperatures in Alaska, western Canada, and eastern Russia have risen at twice the global average.

The USA contributes 24.8 percent of the world’s emissions from fossil fuels. China is second at 10.9 percent and Russia is third at 6.5 percent.

It is estimated that 1,150 billion tons of carbon is stored in the Earth’s forests.

For more information or to subscribe at the introductory price of $10 a year, go to positivelygreen.com . Positively Green magazine launches in 2008. This quarterly women’s magazine will cover every aspect of green from eco-friendly vacations to green fashion to green health. With articles that don’t just explain the problems, they outline solutions for busy people who want to make the change but don’t have the time to research solutions.

Environmentally responsible tires

A greener tire from a special kind of tire manufacturer

Note from Michael: Tires are a vital component of any vehicle, we just have to have them. After reading a comment and email from Rich Gostenik of the Green Diamond Tire Company relating to my article Tires And The Environment; I invited him to write a piece about his company and products as I thought these tires were rather unique in an industry that contributes significantly to our environmental woes.

While it is certainly in vogue to proclaim a company’s product as being ‘green’, Green Diamond Tire is a company that has produced a more environmentally ‘green’ tire for nearly a decade and is only now beginning to… [sic] gain traction :-)

Truly, an environmentally responsible tire.

While major tire manufacturers have recently been jumping on the ‘green’ bandwagon, it is still a fact that the construction of the tire casing, bead bundles and belt assemblies require significant fossil fuel consumption and energy waste. While these same major firms presumably strive to reduce their carbon footprint for the benefit of our planet, there is simply no avoiding the environmental and economic impact of having to produce a quality tire from scratch.

What a shame and economic waste it is when end consumers of tires must discard a very serviceable tire casing when only the tread is worn away. Why not reconstruct and remold these casings? The Green Diamond Tire company is doing just that… here in the USA!

The Green Diamond Icelander Tire

A Green Diamond Tire (GDT) is a remolded passenger or light truck-class tire that employs a patented Icelandic traction tire technology that embeds 1,000s of silicon carbide (think: industrial diamond) granules throughout the tread depth. It can be accurately stated that each GDT manufactured represents one less tire casing clogging a landfill and… once remolded into a GDT, it actually out-performs the original tire from which it is built. A GDT may be driven year-round for a mileage expectancy of approximately 45,000 miles. More environmental benefits of the GDT:

• Each typical passenger-class GDT requires 3 – 5 gallons LESS of petroleum product to produce… a light truck-class GDT SAVES 6 – 9 gallons per tire. These savings are derived from not having to scratch-build casings… the structural foundation of every tire. The range variance is attributable to actual tire size.

• All manufacturing operation co-product and by-product is recycled into other post-consumer products such as highway bedding substrate, decking, fence, playground and athletic track material.

• A GDT is an all-climate, year-round tire. Therefore, there is an additional economic and environmental savings of not needing a set of ‘summer’ tires and wheels and the associated carbon footprint negative overhead.

A GDT is NOT a retreaded or recapped tire.

To be fair, retreaded tires unduly get a bad rap and, truth be known, most of the tread material often found alongside the highways today are not remnants of a retreaded tire… rather these ‘road gators’, as truckers refer to them, are most often the product of end-consumer carelessness in maintaining those tires. Whether from improper inflation or overloading, a tire can and will self-destruct when so abused. However, this is a topic for another time and one that deserves careful attention and detail. I stated that a GDT is not a retread or recap and that requires some explaining.

• A retreaded or recapped tire uses proven technology to apply an already-cured and embossed ribbon of tire tread material to a prepared casing with an adhesive and is then cured in an autoclave type chamber to exacting standards… not a bad way to save a tire from a landfill while deriving the additional usage benefits of recycling a perfectly usable tire casing.

• The GDT differs significantly in that the process of remolding is more akin to actual new tire manufacturing. Once a tire casing has been vigorously inspected and accepted for remolding into a GDT, it is literally handled with sterile gloves throughout the preparation phases of buffing, tread spooling, sidewall veneering, and finally molding and curing using segmented molds and presses that rival the technological sophistication of new tire manufacturers.

• It is during the tread material spooling phase that the GDT gains its’ diamond namesake. As the tread material builds up the computer-controlled and specified depth, 1,000s of the silicon carbide granules are added to the 45,000 mile tread compound. It is these granules that give the GDT exceptional ice, snow, and wet pavement traction. In fact this feature of the tire carries numerous international patents and is what makes the GDT coveted as a year-round, all climate tire.

David vs. Goliath… sort of :-)

Today, Green Diamond Tire (obviously, the ‘David’) is a small, niche, environmentally-aware company. Current annual output is approximately 100,000 GDTs and production is 100% American-made. By contrast, any of the ‘Goliath’ tire manufacturers can literally produce that quantity in a week… and they do… and their newest mega-plants are NOT in the US of A.

When the Icelandic inventors ‘shopped’ the GDT technology to several of the US ‘Goliaths’, they were unceremoniously met with the ‘not invented here syndrome’ and an arrogance that the environment did not matter as much as new tire profit and earnings.

From that initial encounter with the US tire Goliaths, Green Diamond Tire – North America vowed to remain a special company… one that can ‘talk the talk’ because we proudly ‘walk the environmental walk’ because it is crucial for the planet… not because it is suddenly in vogue and marketable.

Learn more about Green Diamond Tires, or feel free to ask Rich a question below - I'm sure he'd be pleased to answer any queries you have as he's quite passionate about his company and tires :)

Source: GreenLiving Tips

Recycled Weapons Calls For Peace After Long War

After more than 30 years of civil war, ending in 1998, the Cambodian government has collected and destroyed more than 160,000 weapons across the country.

In the name of peace some of those weapons were donated to the PAPC. The PAPC (Peace Art Project Cambodia) is a project that was created in November of 2003 by British artist Sasha Constable and Neil Wilford, small weapons specialist with the European Union.

In the name of peace the weapons were recycled (sculpted, forged or welded) into amazing works of art such as: chairs, tables, bikes, animals and various other sculptures by student artists from the Royal University of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh.

Isn't there something twisted about sitting on furniture made of guns? Or making art out of AK-47's? What do you think?

Personally I'd like to add the rocking chair made of guns to my list of favorite recycled chairs . It speaks volumes to me. Its dark cold metal eco-frame calls out to me, "Sit and relax!"

Is it comfortable? Maybe not, but I don't plan on sitting in it forever. I just want to get the feel of sitting on a piece of furniture made of parts once composed of a negative past now recycled into hope for a safer more peaceful future.

To find out more about the PAPC visit Sasha Constable's website .

Via Haute Nature

Source: InventorSpot

Below is taken from: Care2 Lawn and Gardens Blog


Adapted from Organic Style magazine (Rodale Press, April 2004).

You can have an organic lawn that is lush and lovely, and there are so many reasons to go natural. Pesticides and herbicides are linked to neurotoxicity, birth defects, cancers, organ damage and more.

Find out five easy steps to maintaining a gorgeous, healthy lawn without resorting to harmful chemicals:

1. Kick the fertilizer habit. Turf needs less nitrogen than people think. Try an organic lawn food blend such as Concern or Espoma, cottonseed meal, or dried poultry waste. Most of the nitrogen in these is water-insoluble; it stays put and is released over a month or more, providing nutrition to the plants in small doses.

2. Add clover and other grasses. If you are lucky, you already have some clover in your lawn. If not, it is easy to add it by overseeding, or planting on top of what is already there. Rough up the surface with a metal garden rake. Mix the clover seed with sand or finely screened compost. Sow 2 ounces clover seed per 1,000 square feet for moderate clover cover, or up to 8 ounces if you want clover to dominate the turf. After sowing, water your lawn deeply and keep the soil moist until clover germinates.

3. Water, but not too much. Watering, like fertilizing, calls for restraint. Deep watering every 2 weeks or so is preferable to shallow daily watering. If you grow the proper turf-grass for your area, you can probably get by without any watering.

4. Banish weeds and insects naturally. Mowing, feeding, and watering practices will reduce the weed population, and there are effective organic weed-control strategies. One of the best is corn gluten meal, which prevents crabgrass and other weeds from germinating, Apply it early in the season, before the soil reaches 55 degrees, at a rate of 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. Do it again in late summer.

To eradicate grubs, try Milky Spore, a bacteria that is poisonous to grubs and only grubs, a favorite of organic gardeners for over 50 years. Apply only 4 ounces to 1,000 square feet in spring or summer.

5. Enhance your soil. Use a spreader to apply a quarter-inch deep (or less) of finely screened compost to the turf. Compost invigorates the soil and stirs up a slew of microorganisms as it sifts below the surface, improving drainage and reducing compaction along the way.

Our Environment

This blog is for those activists that are wanting to help save forests, our waters, plants, wildlife, our air and more - I always have petitions that need to be signed. Below is a new list of petitions that are in need of being signed.... You might not agree with all the issues/petitions - but please sign the ones that you do agree with.

Tell Congress to Help Protect Mountain Top Removal and Mining of the Appalachian Mountains

Tell Your Senators to Strengthen the Global Warming Bill

Help Cape Wind Move Forward

Improve Nuclear Power Safety

Take The Pledge: Don't Transport Firewood

Clean Water Act at the Crossroads

New Farm Bill Still in Doubt

Balance Management of Public Lands for Energy, Fish and Wildlife




Another Carbon Calculator a friend of mine introduced me too: Friends of the Forest: Carbon Caculator - I'm passing it along for those interested.

Chocolate

Chocolate! I love chocolate... that melt in your mouth creamy rich and smooth flavor of chocolate! An interesting story from the web today and a couple of petitions that came in my email inspired today's blog.

I have a problem, a big problem, with unfair trade practices. Unfair trade means low wages for farmers and big money for corporations. Unfair trade promotes child labor as well.

The world needs to wake up - and eat better chocolates!

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A cool story - but I do not know yet if the scientists tested on animals in order to develop the new chocolates for the military or if they paid slave wages for the coco to make the new chocolates: Here's the story:

Durable, healthy chocolate developed

Australian Army scientists have invented a vitamin-packed chocolate that will not melt in high temperatures and last for years.

Scientists at the Defense Science and Technology Organization (DSTO) at Scottsdale near Launceston are working on the super chocolate for army ration packs using in harsh environments in countries including Iraq and Afghanistan.

The chocolate will be distributed to soldiers within a few months.

DSTO food technologist Lan Bui said the new product is more granular and firmer but the flavour is still appealing: "DSTO is looking at product reformulation, including new fat compounds, to improve texture and flavour, without affecting the melting point."

Normal chocolate melts at 25^oC to 30^oC. The new version is expected to survive meltdown in temperatures up to 49^oC.

The secret to the chocolate is using fats that have a higher melting point. It is fortified with vitamins C, A and B1 (thiamine) and has added flavours to preserve taste for up to two years.

The breakthrough has a number of applications. Scientists are working with food experts on coating vitamins to keep out humidity, moisture and oxygen while allowing them to be slowly released into the body.

The DSTO is developing a milk chocolate version. Production of the prototype dark chocolate will begin within a year.

Source: Science Alert

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Recommended Chocolates that are Fair Trade, Organic and Do NOT Test on Animals:

Endangered Species Chocolates

TaraLuna Chocolates

Dagoba Organic Chocolates

Divine Chocolates

Dean's Beans Coco and Coffee

Equal Exchange Coffee, Tea and Chocolate

La Siembra Coco

Sweet Earth Organic Chocolates

Sjaak's Organic Chocolates

Theo Chocolates

Yachana Gourmet Chocolates

Itchaca Fine Chocolates






Help the Chocolate Industry: Petitions Below

Help Raise the Bar on Chocolate Fundraising

Stop Mars from Testing on Animals

Mars Candy Kills




Contact the "Powers of Chocolate" - By writing or calling: you can tell them of your concerns about animal testing and you would like fair trade chocolates:


World Cocoa Foundation: bill.guyton@worldcocoa.org

Chocolate Manufactures Association: carly.zoerb@chocolateusa.org

Mars/M&M's: contact@policies.mars.com


Companies that you have to call or contact online

Nestlé: Contact Us Webpage

Hershey's: Contact Us Webpage

Passport

Please sign up with WWF's Passport to help with some great causes listed below - It's fast, easy and Free:

Thank Some Cool Companies

Support Scotland in leading the fight against climate change

Thank Vietnamese Leaders for Protecting the Rare Saola

Help save Australia's ‘Serengeti of the Sea’

Say Yes to sustainable seafood: Buy MSC

Choose good wood and save our forests

Travel Smart



Learn more about WWF's Passport HERE

Land, Air and Water

It's important that responsible citizens take action, get involved and help our world. I can blog about it all day, but that does nothing to help stop what needs to end. What is most important is taking action! Signing petitions is a great way to start - getting involved! A lot of people blog about what is going on, that's easy....... but how may of them actually try to get you involved? One of my main goals is getting others involved where it really counts, not just blogging about it.

If you care about Water, Air and Land then please sign the following petitions:


Protect the Giant Sequoia

Protect Idaho's Backcountry Forests

Keep Idaho's Forests Wild

RiverAlert: Tell your Senators to Protect Communities from Hazardous Dams

RiverAlert: Act for your Right to Know: Sewage-Laden Waters

Stop Bush's Forest Giveaway

The Time is Now to Support Clean Water

Fight Mountain Top Removal Mining

It's Time to Double the Standard

Protect Chile's National Forests

Support A Do Not Mail Registry: Stop Junk Mail

Lets Make Cape Wind Happen

Forest Crimes Shouldn't Pay

Cut Out the Illegal Logging

It Takes 2: Be Apart of the 2% Solution




Videos:

Illegal Logging





Every Child Has the Right to Clean Water




Cape Wind

ECards to Donate

Send a free ecard through any of the below listed and you will help to save the environment, animals, rainforests, plants a tree, feed the hungry, help breast cancer research and more:

Animal Rescue Site

Rainforest Site

Literacy Site

Child Health Site

Breast Cancer Site

Hunger Site

Care2 ECards

Red Jellyfish ECards

WWF ECards

Nature Conservancy ECards

Planet Slayer



Membership ECards to save the planet:


Three Leaf Cards *$20.95 yearly membership.

Tree Greetings *not free but well worth it [prices start at $8.95]