A hat-tip to Geri at Good News Network for pointing to this video. Here’s a Wednesday Warm-Fuzzy. Lakewood, WA, police officer Dustin Carrell stopped traffic on a recent morning — on a four-lane interstate — to help a mother duck and her ducklings cross the highway. KOMO-TV has the video here (a short commercial, then silent footage).
I was the recipient of a good deed on Monday! From the landlord, no less. My apartment building’s management had slipped noted under the door that our maintenance guys would be coming by with aerators for our kitchen and bathroom faucets. I’m all for saving water, especially after my appalling results on a water consumption quiz posted on reader Finn’s blog. The aerators also make good sense for our very large building since it will reduce the owner’s bill water bill.
It’s hot and sticky (and possibly tornadic) in the Upper Midwest today. But in hotter and stickier parts of the world, malaria is a serious problem. Freedom from Hunger notes that April 25th is World Malaria Day. They invite you to support their initiatives, either with a monetary contribution or by signing a petition, to support their targeted education campaigns (including story theater-based education programs on proper use of anti-malarial drugs for children, for moms in countries with high illiteracy rates) and distribution of insecticide-treated malarial nets.
This isn’t a personal good deed as much as a “Hey, this looks promising!” moment. The Think City Car — all electric and somewhat affordable ($25K range) — is on sale in Europe and allegedly coming to the U.S. next year. AutoCar UK test drove it and gave a thumbs-up. It’s an itty bitty car, which always makes me pause about highway driving. (With a max speed of 65 mph and a range of just over 100 miles, highway driving may be out in any case.) But an electric car for not too much more than a Prius — maybe 2009 will be the year I buy a car. Hmmm, it’s an idea. Gas 2.0 has mileage info and lots of pix. Check it out!
The American writer William James wrote: “To change ones life: Start immediately. Do it flamboyantly.”
Is this cool or what? I’ve been trying to decide what to post today. What is the best way to mark the culmination of Earth Week? Instead of re-inventing the wheel with “365 Ways to Observe Earth Day,” I decided instead to recycle with a nod to activities I’ve enjoyed blogging about over the past few months. Enjoy!
I thought of titling the post “Green Those Pearly Whites,” but even I have my limits! I was GoodSearching for toothbrushes with replaceable heads (re-use the handle, so only the head gets thrown away) when I stumbled upon an About.com post that opened up a whole new world of eco-friendly toothbrushes. (I’m a geek — I love this stuff.) Did you know you can buy a toothbrush made from recycled Stonyfield yogurt cups? Who knew? (I don’t typically like to plug specific brands, but this was too neat to keep to myself.)
I was taking a break from grading a massive pile of papers and checking out the blog stats — I like to see how folks get here — when I noticed a visitor all the way from Brazil had arrived via a link to Daily Mitzvah on Spotlight Radio. Being a radio fan myself (and also childishly delighted when someone links to the blog) I skedaddled right over. It turns out Spotlight Radio has a Special English program (the BBC used to do this, too) with clearly enunciated and not-fast programs for listeners around the world. (I wish I could find a program like this in Special French so I could practice, but that’s another story.)
I’ve been blogging about Earth Day all week, without a peep about the ocean! Well that needs to change. Oceana is a fairly new nonprofit that combines public policy advocacy, science and economics, legal action, grassroots mobilization, and public education. They do good work, and you can help with a free click-to-give over on Care2’s Ocean site. How simple is that?
We’ve signed up for green power, switched our lightbulbs, given up plastic bags, and I convinced my students not to use cover sheets for the rest of their assignments this semester (big classes; it adds up). And now that the weather is finally nicer, I'm shifting some public transit trips to foot power, quite happily. But I’ve been looking the other way when it comes to 90% of our recycling each week: soda cans and bottles, and those little plastic yogurt cups. I know, I know: I should kick the diet soda habit altogether. I did, though, think I had found a more earth friendly solution, in a home-based make your own soda gadget. But the gizmo uses polycarbonate bottles, which have been receiving so much press this week as Canada moves to ban the chemical P.B.A. in products that come into contact with food or beverages. (Popular bottle maker Nalgene today also announced plans to stop manufacturing polycarbonate bottles.) So for now, I guess I’m sticking with the recyclable bottle status quo.
yogurt maker, so I knew such things existed at least in the past. It turns out they survived the 70s, enjoyed a revival of sorts in the excitement about thin French women, and if one hunts it’s possible to find devices that use glass cups, which avoids the whole PBA problem. As reluctant as I am to add even a small appliance in the kitchen . . . we really do go through a lot of yogurt. Even though the recycling that services my building does take the little cups, it’s an awful lot of waste. I think homemade yogurt will also be healthier, although as the diet soda paragraph suggests, health isn’t always a selling point at Chez Daily Mitzvah.
Nah, it’s not me, I just like the photo! I click on a free “save the rainforest” link every day, but forests in the U.S. are being felled as well, and for an easily avoidable reason: packaging for the country’s insatiable appetite for fast food. The Petition Site is hosting “Stop the 11 Fast Food Junkies,” in conjunction with the Asheville, NC based Dogwood Alliance. According to the latter, in 2007:
The Lost Albatross posted a link to a terrific event, the Great Lakes Earth Day 2008 Challenge. The goal: to collect 1 million lbs. of electronic waste and 1 million unwanted pills.
After I added the most recent post — really just minutes later — I read a New York Times article “Fuel Choices, Food Crises, and Finger Pointing.” Soaring world food prices, a grain shortage, and poor people pushed toward starvation — according to the article, plant-based biofuels may be the culprit. As countries rush to embrace biofuels in response to price-, environment-, and supply-based oil crises, the world’s poor may be paying the real price.
special cardboard packaging imbued with wildflower seeds. Instead of just throwing away the package, it can be moistened and planted, with wldflowers to follow. The lipstick tubes are also unusual: made with corn-based plastic they’re supposed to biodegrade completely within 80 days when exposed to sufficient heat and sun. (FYI, this won’t happen in a landfill — a reality check for all the biodegradable products, since landfills are airtight and stuff hangs around forever.) To complete the trifecta, Cargo donates $2 from every PlantLove lipstick purchase to St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital. The lipstick is available at several Nonprofit Shopping Mall vendors, including Amazon and Sephora, both of which will donate approx. 2% of your purchase price to a nonprofit of your choice when you use this link.
On a recent trip to the co-op I stumbled upon a resuable personal water bottle that also uses this corn-based technology. EnviroProduct’s Corn Resin Bottle is a resuable water bottle with a small screw-in carbon filter, so one can use regular tap water for DIY bottled water. The bottle is recomended for up to 90 uses, after which it is also guaranteed to decompose in 80 days in “commercial compost,” which would mean not in the regular landfill-bound trash.
Since any reason to plug The Lost Albatross is a good thing, blogger Emily posted a comment during the Carbon Fast for Lent mentioning BioBags, which are cool corn-based trashbags, as an alternative to the usual plastic trashcan liners. (BioBag also offers corn-based bags for cat litter liners and for cleaning up doggie waste.)
I also have microloans out with Vaiauau I., a seamstress in Samoa; the Condori family in La Paz, Bolivia, who are finishing a house; and Mabel O., who sells soft drinks and pepper soup out of of a small roadside stand in Benin City, Nigeria. You can check out all these on my Kiva lender page.
Today’s mitzvah: Do you have an extra $25? Check out Kiva and see if microloans are right for you.
I have been a Bad Blogger, with infrequent posts. Now that the endless winter is finally abating, it’s hard to stay inside and focus on the computer!
Our favorite person in North Carolina found a new mail opt-out service that looks just right for those of us who like to receive some catalogs, just not all of them. Catalog Choice is in beta, but already includes many popular catalogs. Unlike blanket “opt out of everything” services, Catalog Choice lets one pick and choose the catalogs one would prefer not to receive.
Pshew, who would think that such a simple idea would stump me? I posted over the weekend about Tangible Karma Day: taking an hour to contemplate the needs in one’s immediate world and then taking a tangible step to help. This should be the easiest thing in the world, right? But I was out of ideas for this one. I don’t really have time to volunteer. Everyone needs money, but as a grad student it’s tight and I’m not sure the point of tangible karma was just to write a check.
April 5 is Tangible Karma Day. (Hey, it must be true: I read it on the web!) How to observe the day? “Set aside 1 hour of this day to purposefully become aware of the needs of those they are in contact with and actively do something to help fulfill those needs.” Since I didn’t learn about this until the day, I’m making an executive decision to extend it through the weekend.
One of my earliest historical memories: turning on my little transistor radio in April 1968 — my 6-year-old self loved to dance to rock-and-roll radio before school — and hearing news reports of Dr. King’s death. I could tell it was important, since grave words pre-emptied the music (this was likely the day after, since it was early morning). But when I got to school and asked my kindergarten teacher what had happened, she told me it wasn’t something little girls should worry about. When my classmates also asked her if an important man had died, she grew cross and told us we were misbehaving. I’m not sure how she might have framed a better response to a room full of kindergartners — but 40 years on I hope to find a more suitable way to honor the man and the day. In that spirit, I wanted to share the 1963 March on Washington “I Have A Dream” speech:
