Earth Threat dot org

Rethos.com is not even up and running yet (as a community), not for another 25 days, but it is definitely something worth checking out. If you join now you assure yourself a profile on the very first day the community exists, so that’s pretty swell. I do not know much, but they claim it is a community looking for change. Reasons such as climate change, poverty, and war, are the reasons this community has come along, and I cannot wait to build my profile and hook up with other earth loving humans. Check it out.

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If you care about this planet, you do not litter. Tossing your trash aside instead of holding on to it until you find a garbage can is simply laziness.

Littering is obviously the most commonly broken law, but it is probably also the offense that most often goes unpunished. You see the signs, ‘Do Not Litter, Minimum fine $300′. These signs obviously don’t change a thing, but I guess it is some sign of effort from the authorities.

The police don’t do much about the problem, so I guess it’s about time you became an Earth Friendly Vigilante! If a person is walking the sidewalk in front of you and you see them toss an empty bottle to the side, return it to them.

Bring them back their trash, and say something like, “Excuse me, I think you dropped this”. A outed litter bug will most commonly feel embarrassed, take their trash back, and run.

If they act like an ass and say they dropped it on purpose, put them down with a verbal low blow. “Get the f%$# off my planet litter bug!!”, should work just fine.

This earth is truly here for the people that care for and protect it. Fight for your right to live in cleanliness.

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Bring reusable bags when you go grocery shopping, or just shopping in general. Plastic bags pile up and persist on our planet for as many as one thousand years.

According to The Wall Street Journal the United States goes through 100 billion plastic bags per year, and those 100 billion bags require approximately 12 million barrels of oil to produce. Eight out of ten grocery bags in the US are plastic.

Plastic bags cause over 100,000 marine animal deaths per year when animals such as sea turtles mistake them for food. They tend to mistake a bag floating in the current with a jellyfish or some other delicious snack.

Every reusable bag you implement will on average eliminates the need for 1000 plastic bags. Get yourself four of these reusable bags, and you will of course eliminate four times that amount. These things add up.

These bags can often be purchased at your grocery store, but you can also use anything bag-like that you already have. I tend to bring a backpack and two reusable bags to get groceries. The bags I use are pretty swell. They are solid black with one big bold word on both sides… AWARE.

Be aware, do not live wastefully. This simple switch is a step in the right direction.

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I have just stumbled upon a website that I found very interesting and I feel the need to share. Now that I think about it, I am definitely going to add them to my list of permanent links. This website not only shows you up to date populations for our entire planet, but it also has a ticker that counts (from the moment the site loads) the number of people who have been born, who have died, and the amount of C02 emitted since your visit began. I’ve been on the site for about 10 minutes and already 589, 000 tonnes of c02 has been emitted. Check it out for yourself at BreathingEarth.net.

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Hopefully you’ve been told about the 3 R’s since preschool. I know I was. We’ve all heard it, and we all understand it. Let’s follow the code of the 3 R’s for a better Earth.

Reduce

Think, before you purchase products. Do you really need it? We need to drastically reduce demand, so that we can drastically reduce supply. It makes plenty of sense. Do not be wasteful. A couple of examples; do not replace your cell phone every time a new one comes out, and do not buy a new TV because it is three inches bigger than the one you have presently. When it comes down to it, if it ain’t broke, don’t replace it, unless we are talking about energy draining appliances and other products being replaced with energy saving ones.

Reuse

I suppose a great way to assure what you no longer need is reused, would be to hold a yard sale. Even better, a FREE yard sale. You do not need it, and you do not want these products wasted, everyone loves free. Yard sales and flea markets are a great way of keeping waste out of our landfills. That horrible piece of art work that you despise but have not thrown out will do much better on the wall of someone who enjoys it, than it would rotting in a dump. Almost everything is reusable. Everything should be used, until it becomes unusable. Reusing is really just another way of reducing. Compost is another powerful form of reusing. Whether you are composting it in your own outdoor bin, or you contribute to your communities compost pile, this is reusing.

Recycle

I do not have any idea of the official numbers, but i am certain the majority of what ends up in the garbage is recyclable (even used diapers can be recycled). The two people within my home(the lady and I) only put out half of a small bag of garbage per week. Most of it is fully recyclable. It just needs to be separated and bagged. Much of the rest should be compost. There is no need for even a tiny amount of recyclable product to be thrown in the garbage. Plastic for example requires oil which had to be extracted from our planet and shipped to wherever. By recycling that very plastic, we take away the extraction process, the use of that oil, and the pollution caused by the shipping of that oil. We have at this point in time extracted enough of everything from our planet to sustain humanity. Now we just need to use what we extracted over, and over, and over.

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It is a simple change as usual. The majority of those harsh chemical cleaners we use are loaded with environment killing nastiness, and much of that nastiness ends up going down the drain. When chemicals like these go down the drain, they do not just go away. They do become diluted, but they do not disappear. Now multiply the amount of chemicals you send down the drain by something crazy like a billion. That is approximately the amount of this gunk we toss into our Ocean, rivers, lakes, and streams.

These oceans, rivers, lakes, and streams of course are slightly important to the animals within them, and the animals that depend on them, like us for example.

There is a natural environmentally version of almost every cleaning product these days. I have the entire set under my sink right now, and I am yet to find one that does not out perform it’s earth hating counterpart. These natural alternatives use ingredients such as vinegar and peroxide. You still do not want to try drinking these products, and if children are present I still recommend keeping them out of reach.

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Compost is nature’s version of recycling. When you compost, the organic waste decomposes and transforms your leftovers into a soil-like pile known as humus (pronounced hue-mous). Leftover food, leaves, paper, grass clippings, and wood are some examples of organic materials, which should be composted.

It is estimated that around 50% of the total waste stream could be composted. Composting reduces the amount of garbage sent to landfills, and it produces valuable soil, which is capable of improving the fertility and texture of regular soil.

The process uses micro-organisms like fungi and bacteria to break down the organic waste. You dump it in, and they do the rest.

You could use this rich soil yourself in your own garden. If you do not have one then you should just toss it in the green bin for someone else to eventually use. Just because you can’t use it yourself, that does not make it right to just toss your organics into the garbage.

I keep a bucket under my sink and I dump it every few days. There is very little effort required. There is no reason you cannot do the same. Be a star… make friends with fungi and micro-organisms.

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The Statistics

Cars and other motor vehicles represent 31% of total carbon dioxide, 81% of carbon monoxide, and 49% of nitrogen oxides released within North America. A four mile trip on a bike keeps 15 pounds of pollutants from entering the air that we breathe.

A nation wide personal transportation survey was held within the United States, and they released these findings:

• 25% of all trips made are within one mile from home.

• 40% of all trips made are within two miles from home.

• 50% of the working population commutes five miles or less to work.

• More than 82% of these 5 mile or less commutes are made by motor vehicle.

Did you know that on average 60% of auto emissions happen within the first few minutes of operation? Pollution control devices take a few minutes to kick in. “Cold starts” create much higher levels of emissions, and therefore longer trips are far less polluting on a per-mile basis.

Biking for your health, and your Earth

Riding your bike for those short commutes will dramatically reduce your carbon footprint. Riding your bike is a safe choice, and it is also of course, the more aerobic choice.

If you do not have a bike at this moment, i recommend that you get one. It is the summertime, and eventually it will be fall. These are two ideal seasons for recreational biking.

When purchasing a bike, you get what you pay for in most cases. I have had my bike for eight years now and it is still going strong, but I did spend much more than I thought I should have at the time. Dishing out a bit of extra cash may sound cruddy, but think about all of the money you will save on fuel in the long run.

With gas prices higher than ever, many are making the switch. Not only to save money, but to help save our struggling environment in a time of severe need.

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Here are only a few facts from the November 2006 UN Food and Agriculture Organization report called Livestock’s Long Shadow:

• Livestock production is one of the top two or three most significant contributors to every serious environmental problem in our world today.

• Livestock production requires 70% of all agricultural land and 30% of the land surface of the earth.

• As a result, many people, particularly in the so-called third world countries, no longer find land to grow their own crops. The result is hunger and for many, starvation.

• Livestock production is one of the main causes for the extinction of species. In 15 out of 24 important ecosystems, livestock is named as the major culprit for their decline.

• The expansion of livestock production is a key factor in the deforestation of rainforests, particularly in Latin America: some 70% of previously forested land in the Amazon basin is used for pasture, and feed crops cover a large part of the remainder. Forests serve as the lungs of the Earth and are a major factor in eliminating the greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

• The production of greenhouse gases of human origin, that are generated by livestock production is higher than EMISSIONS CAUSED BY ALL WORLDWIDE MEANS OF TRANSPORTATION.

• The livestock sector is responsible for 18% of all greenhouse gas emissions

• Livestock production generates even larger shares of gas emission with greater potential to warm the atmosphere: 37% of methane and 65% of nitrous oxide

• Livestock production is a significant contributor to the growing lack of water, which researchers predict will be one of our main problems in the future. In many parts of the world, clean drinking water is no longer available:

• Livestock production is the largest source of water pollutants: animal wastes, antibiotics, hormones, chemicals, fertilizers and pesticides for feed crops.

• 8% of the worldwide consumption of water is used for the irrigation of feed crops.

• In the US alone, livestock and feed crop agriculture are responsible for the use of 37% of pesticides, 50% of antibiotics. They are also responsible for 33% of all nitrogen and phosphorus found in freshwater resources, and 66% of all ammonia, which is a significant contributor to acid rain and the acidification of ecosystems.

For everything you will ever need to know about vegetarianism, visit SoVeg.com

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I’ve recently switched to recycled paper products myself. I’ve always been earth concious and felt it was time to take the next big step. lol, this is not a big step at all. It’s easy, sacrifice a little softness for our boreal forests. Clear cutting is out of control, and we need to lower demand.Why?So they can slow the heck down. Toilet paper and other papers products that are not recycled exist because we buy them. Brands like Cashmere and Royal make the softest of the soft, and they use what the industry call ‘virgin fibres’. Virgin fibres are just as they sound, newly hacked down trees. I’m not sure everyone realizes how many trees actually get cut down each year.Believe it or not, about four billion trees are cut down each year for paper products. This represents 35% or so of all harvested trees. Seventh Generation, one of the largest recycled producers, estimates that:

• One million trees would be saved if every U.S. household replaced just one 250-count package of virgin fiber napkins with 100 percent recycled ones.
• 544,000 trees would be saved by replacing a 70-sheet roll of virgin fiber paper towels.
• 424,000 trees would be spared by replacing a 500-sheet roll of virgin fiber toilet paper
• 170,000 trees would be saved by replacing one 175-count box of virgin fiber facial tissue.

It is such a simple switch that makes such an impact. Very much like switching to energy saving light bulbs. Sacfrifice a little comfort for our earth and feel good about yourself.

Without trees on this planet of ours it is safe to say we would not exist as we do. A mature leafy tree produces as much oxygen in a season as ten people inhale in a year. On top of that, they also filter the air we are breathing. Trees are nothing but wonderful. Trees absorb dangerous chemicals and other pollutants that have entered the soil, and they control noise pollution. Trees provide sweet shady places, and they even fight soil erosion. Gosh, I love them. Don’t be part of the reason our forests are being flattened.

Have you ever had a forest you were connected to, knocked down? I have. When I was sixteen I watched and old man that was always the grouch of our community, sell all of the land behind his house, AKA, 90% of our trees. He became a millionaire, and died a year later. Karma? That is what I’ve always figured. I did not even know it was being clear cut, I just was going to get water from the spring one day, and it was three quarters eliminated. Needless to say, I was a very angry and I still ramble on about it to this day. It was one of the most horrible suprises of my life. I’m really not sure why it took so long to switch over. I believe it’s something you tend to not even think about. Toilet paper, paper towells, napkins, and paper. The use of those four products add up.

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