Why You Should Read THE WORLD PEACE DIET (and Buy It March 12)

The first, and most important reason to buy The World Peace Diet March 12 (or any time) is that it will very likely reshape your thinking about the foods you choose to consume. Unless you’re already bypassing meat and dairy products, your diet isn’t as healthy as it should be….

The second reason is that for purchases made on March 12 only, many sponsors have donated excellent bonus gifts and prizes to anyone who buys The World Peace Diet….

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Reduce, Reuse, Recycle — Be Happy!

We’ve all heard it: Carbon dioxide billows into the atmosphere, icebergs melt, oceans rise, the world gets hotter — our planet is headed toward calamity. And, although businesses, governments, and individuals throughout the world have been working together to enact change, “our civilization is still failing miserably to slow the rate at which these emissions are increasing — much less reduce them,” wrote Al Gore in a New York Times editorial last week.

Sheesh. It’s enough to prevent you from getting out of bed in the morning, much less enjoy your day. But, if enjoying yourself — being happy — seems a trivial concern in the face of such doom and gloom, think again. While the study of happiness is hardly new and noteworthy — recent books include Rhonda Bryne’s The Secret (Atria Books 2006), a hokey if ubiquitous book that instructs us to manifest our own destinies through visualization and vibrations — a new set of pragmatic authors examines personal happiness as both a source of, and obstacle to, our ability to enact change….

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Iowa State University Holds 2nd Annual Sustainability Symposium

Iowa State University’s 2010 Symposium on Enhancing Sustainability will be held Tuesday and Wednesday, February 23 and 24, in the Memorial Union on the ISU campus in Ames, Iowa. The event begins at 7 p.m. Tuesday with an opening poster session and speaker, followed by a day of panel discussions and presentations….

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Storms of My Grandchildren Provides Ample Evidence of Global Warming

Those of us who have been following developments on climate change and global warming are asked, “If the planet is getting warmer, why is it so cold in 2009?” James Hansen, one of the world’s leading climatologists, says that he often is asked the same question. So, he has published an essay titled, “If Its That Warm, How Come Its So Damned Cold?” and placed it on his website….

I have just read Hansen’s new book, Storms of My Grandchildren: the Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity. The book is a wonderful example of science written with clarity.

More importantly, Hansen tells policy makers what they need to do to reverse the steady climb in greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide. He argues for stopping the burning of all fossil fuels….

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The Aquaponics Guidebook (an e-Book)

The Aquaponics Guidebook by Bevan Suits is a solid, informational e-book with practical suggestions for starting your own small- or large-scale aquaponics operation. By the time you finish this book, you’ll have all the knowledge you need to get started creating your own aquaponics farm….

But just what is aquaponics? Here’s how Suits explains it:

Aquaponics is growing fish and plants in one system, with fish waste feeding the plants. It works in many variations of scale and form, though the basic concept does not change: Fish, bacteria and plants working together in a recirculating, soil-less system. It resembles a living organism, with a heart (the pump) and lungs (aeration). The bacteria remove waste like the kidneys and the liver. It will teach you a lot about food and this ecosystem we call home.

Perhaps, like me, you have walked past ponds and swamps without considering the symbiotic relationship between the plants and the fish living together in the same ecosystem. I’ve heard of growing tomatoes and other plants without soil, but I never gave a thought to growing vegetables together with tilapia, bass, or koi. Yet it makes sense. It happens in nature all the time….

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What’s It Like, Living Green? – Book Review

More than three decades ago, when I taught first grade, Woodsy Owl, with his admonition to “Give a hoot, don’t pollute,” was one of my few tools for encouraging environmentalism. A decade later, when I taught fifth grade, I had a few more tools at my command, including the famous video of a buttercup traveling down a clear mountain stream to sink in a polluted river.

But I didn’t have near the kind of resources available today. One resource I learned about recently is the book, What’s It Like Being Green? Kids Teaching Kids, by the Way they Live. Author Jill Ammon Vanderwood has compiled an award-winning collection of real-life accounts from children, parents, researchers, and activists, who are making the world greener every day. (NOTE: Vanderwood sent me a complimentary copy of her book upon my request.)

I am impressed with the content and the quality of the information. Equally important, it’s filled with motivational examples of real people (many of them kids) taking action to help each other and the planet. When kids read about others their own age making a difference, they often get inspired to do the same. (It works with adults, too.) …

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How to Master Organic Gardening (An eBook)

We’re not quite to New Year’s Eve, and already I’m dreaming of my summer garden. If you, too, are digging your fingers into virtual soil and planting a garden in your head, then you might want to read How to Master Organic Gardening, an e-book by Katie Elzer-Peters and Chris Molnar.

Perhaps you’re an experienced gardener who is just now getting into organic methods. You’ll learn a lot from this book. Or maybe you’re a total beginner, essentially clueless about the meaning of such terms as compost, soil compaction, and brown rot. This book is also for you. If you’re already an expert organic gardener, you don’t need this book. But think about the people you know who could use a primer; this book is for them….

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The Revenge of Gaia: Earth’s Climate Crisis and the Fate of Humanity

We’ve been living in the 21st century for several years now. Yet, due to a few political mishaps and society’s own inertia, the 21st century so far has looked an awful lot like the 20th. And nothing is so reflective of this as our treatment of the natural world. Impervious to science, logic or good taste, humanity has continued on with its destructive, shameful exploitation of the environment, our standard practices not so much resembling “development” as they do organized pillage. Such outrages though, have been carefully enumerated in other places, and I will not revisit them here. My concern is not with the past — full of injustices and blunders, to be sure — but with the future, with what will come next….

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Naturally Clean – The Seventh Generation Guide to Safe & Healthy, Non-Toxic Cleaning

When my kids were small, I wanted to give them a clean, healthy home to live in. Our home was clean, no doubt about it, but was it healthy?

Naturally Clean by Jeffrey Hollender and Geoff Davis (with Meika Hollender and Reed Doyle) debunks the myth that a clean home is automatically a healthy home. Cleanliness in itself isn’t bad (though it can be taken to extremes, according to Chapter 20), but the chemicals used in those cleaners can be deadly. “The decision to stop using synthetic chemical cleaners is one of the most important ones you’ll ever make for the health of your family and the safety of your home,” say the authors….

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The Green Lounge – Where Eco Meets Luxury

This past Sunday night at the posh Lowes Hotel in Santa Monica, television’s Nicole Sherwin (Celebrity Soul) and Wellness2Day.com hosted the first-ever Green Lounge. Set in the back of the ocean-side hotel, the lounge was lit in Oz-like emerald green and centered around an indoor fire pit filled with sparkling crystals. In a word, it was magic. Indeed, it did feel like entering the Emerald City. And, in a way, that was what the lounge was offering to guests — a new, better, green way to live….

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Book Review: The Green Year by Jodi Helmer

There’s a “green” way to do just about everything these days. With simple steps, you can save energy, time, money — and reduce your carbon footprint. There’s so much information available these days that sometimes it’s just overwhelming, especially for those just starting off on their eco-journey.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have bite-sized, practical tips that you could make use of right away, every day of the year?

The Green Year by Jodi Helmer is a great place to start. Helmer has sifted through mountains of data to create a reader-friendly guide with 365 tips that make green living (or greener living) easy to accomplish and fun to do….

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The Great Energy Debate Pop Quiz

The energy issue is very confusing, and frankly, most of us will never catch up with the experts on all the details. Still, there are some basic facts that are good to know. Do you know them?

True or false? When it comes to global warming and air pollution, nuclear power is one of the most dangerous forms of energy.

Not true. The accidents at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island left lots of people worried about nuclear plant safety, but if you’re worried about climate change, nuclear power is one of the least dangerous forms of energy we have. Generating electricity from nuclear power releases virtually no carbon dioxide (the major green house gas) into the atmosphere, and it doesn’t cause air pollution either. …

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Book Review – Who Turned Out the Lights? Your Guide to the Energy Crisis

Being an environmentalist means I have to choose from a million aspects of concern, direction, and interest. Planet Earth is facing a flood of problems, too many for one writer to assimilate, even for one magazine. For me, there is too little time to read about all the daily assaults on our planet, let alone verify the data in print; seek out authorities on the subject; interview them; type, edit, and post their points of view.

Being a journalist, as well, compounds the problem. Now, it is just as important to seek the opposing opinions and compare conflicting scientific data. Every topic has many angles, often many points of view, and frequently, two polar-opposite conclusions.

The fact that I try to keep an open mind on these issues is exactly why I like this book. The writers, Scott Bittle and Jean Johnson, have tried to present both sides of every energy issue, or at least, remain neutral in their presentation. The book gives “just the facts,” not opinions, and provides extensive end notes for the reader to verify all sources. …

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John J. Audubon, Iconic Painter of Birds

Sometimes, the most extraordinary and singular lives prove to be the most typical. Through a sheer depth and diversity of experience, a person who appears well outside the norm can serve to embody it. If this were ever true of anyone, it was true of John James Audubon.

In the life and work of this failed businessman — turned bird painter — turned environmental icon, one can discern a piece of the fundamental American character. The energy, resourcefulness and enterprising nature of early Americans are bound up in Audubon.

As his biographer, Richard Rhodes, wrote, “No life was at once more unique and more representative of that expansive era when a national character emerged than Audubon’s. Celebrate him for his wonderful birds; but recognize him as well as a characteristic American of the first generation.” And as America made Audubon, so too did Audubon make himself….

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The Moviegoer’s Guide to the Energy Crisis

In the hit TV series, NCIS, Navy investigator Tony DiNozzo, has a habit of finding a movie analogy for nearly every case his team handles. Sometimes it falls flat, since not everybody’s seen the movie in question. Thinking about things that are new and unfamiliar by comparing them to things most people already know is a time-honored way of coping with a complicated world. In some respects, it’s one of pop culture’s greatest benefits: providing a shorthand frame of reference. When President Obama compared being chief executive to being a contestant on American Idol “except that everyone is Simon Cowell,” we all knew what he meant.

But we like Tony’s take on the world, and our concern is America’s energy problem. So here’s how some famous films shed light on the country’s energy problems. As far as we’re concerned, four movies tell the story….

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Ecoholic: Your Guide to the Most Environmentally Friendly Information, Products, and Services – by Adria Vasil

You’ve heard of alcoholics, chocoholics, workaholics, and shopaholics, but you’ve probably never heard of an ecoholic unless you’ve had the good fortune to read Adria Vasil’s book or column by the same name. Vasil defines the word ecoholic right on the cover: (when you’re addicted to the planet). Officially titled Ecoholic: Your Guide to the Most Environmentally Friendly Information, Products, and Services, the book is a vast compendium of knowledge Vasil acquired while writing her “Ecoholic” column for Canada’s NOW Magazine during the past five years.

I’m far from finished reading — it’s the kind of guide you “drop into” as need arises, but find yourself lingering over long after you’ve found your answer. But I can tell you truthfully that I love this book…

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Face to Face: Children of the AIDS Crisis in Africa by Ande and Richter

Open to any page of Face to Face: Children of the AIDS Crisis in Africa, and you’ll find haunting photos and text that will either make you weep for, laugh with, or give applause to the children who are profiled here.

The story of one tiny girl, whose image flees across the page, gives a new perspective on the word “hardship,” as we experience it in the West. Author Ruthann Richter writes, “Two-year-old Mary Maishon was near death when she was found with two other children living under a piece of cardboard and plastic. Her limbs were skeletal, bent from lack of nutrition, and she was barely able to sit up. She didn’t speak at all.”

In a later photo, taken after she was restored to health through loving kindness and the generosity of strangers, tiny Mary beams at the camera, full of life and joy. Over a period of many months, photographer Karen Ande has captured the child’s journey from the brink of death to the beginning of a hopeful future…

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My 5: David Blume, Executive Director, International Institute for Ecological Agriculture

Blue Planet Green Living (BPGL) asked David Blume, Founder and Executive Director of the International Institute for Ecological Agriculture, author of Alcohol Can Be A Gas, and a frequent speaker at ecological, sustainability and agricultural conferences throughout the Americas, “What are the five most important things we can do to save the planet?” Here are his responses.

BLUME:
* Stop buying oil. Replace oil with ethanol. Ethanol is a clean burning, high octane fuel that sells for around $1.80 a gallon. You don’t even have to pay more to do the right thing.

* Only buy organic products. Vote with your dollars to send the message that you’re not going to continue doing business as usual…

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Clean Body – The Humble Art of Zen-Cleansing Yourself

If you enjoy tongue-in-cheek humor and are looking for practical cleaning tips using old-fashioned ingredients, Clean Body will provide you with a full ration of both. Author Michael DeJong, a self-described “clean freak,” takes readers back to the absolute basics of cleanliness (he actually describes how to wash your hands) with five simple ingredients….

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Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide

Women hold up half the sky – Chinese Proverb

Mercy Corps is inviting book clubs and reading groups throughout the nation to read Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. Their book tells the inspiring stories of brave women who have overcome the most terrible circumstances to set their lives on a bright new path.

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