Our #FakePresident has removed the United States for the Paris climate accords, leading some Americans to experience ecoanxiety. That’s a relatively new term that American Psychological Association used to describe the feelings of dread and helplessness the follow from “watching the slow and seemingly irrevocable impacts of climate change unfold, and worrying about the future
Our modern lifestyle is packed full of behaviors and habits and products that have high carbon emissions attached to them, so there are plenty of areas in our lives that we can address and reduce our own personal carbon footprint. We can reduce phantom (vampire) power draws in our homes, we can upgrade to a
As part of their series on the best sandwiches, Restaurant Hospitality magazine named their best vegetarian sandwich of 2013, the creation of Chef Matthew Topeano from Pain D’Avignon in Hyannis, Massachusetts. The winning ‘wich is composed of crispy sauteed eggplant, roasted garlic white bean hummus, roasted red pepper and creamy burrata (mozarella and cream). All
No matter what niche your profession sees you in, and what other roles you fill as a human living on Earth, our only home in this vast universe, the “green” trend is one that is well-worth paying close attention to. Helping to shape our business practices, and leading to a more Earth-friendly approach to the
I got a great present this year for my birthday that I would like to share with those who are interested in organic foods that are grown with no presence of chemical fertilizers, synthetic pesticides, herbicides, or genetically modified ingredients (GMOs). This has been the mission of Cascadian Farm for over 40 years. The company
After making his fortune on computer software, Bill Gates has shifted his focus to social and environmental problems (of course, environmental problems are also social problems). While I don’t agree with everything he promotes or thinks, he definitely seems genuine and is putting a lot into these matter. One of his recent topics of focus
Vegetarian has long been something Americans were familiar with, even if it wasn’t nearly as widespread as it is today. Heck, even famous historical figures like Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and Leonardo Da Vinci were vegetarian (of course, the diet became much more mainstream in the 60s and 70s). However, veganism developed
Sister site Eat Drink Better recently shared some tremendous TED* talks by Dr. Neal Barnard and Dr. John McDougall. There are plenty of interesting facts presented, but they are so well presented by the two doctors that I’m just going to send you straight there. Here’s the Dr. Neal Barnard talk (which, beyond focusing on diabetes, tackles the
Thinking about going vegan but not sure about what you’d cook? How about an online vegan cooking class? Here’s a bit on some online vegan cooking classes offered by a contributor to sister site Eat Drink Better: “If you’ve ever wanted to improve your cooking skills or learn more about vegan cooking but didn’t
OK, last weekly roundup of the day, here are 10 big green living stories, other than OUR green living stories, I recommend checking out (if you are into green and healthy living): 1. Nature in children’s books declining! (So sad.) “A new study finds a significant decline in the depiction of the natural world and animals
At first, looking at the graphic above, the drop in egg consumption looks pretty dramatic. Actually, it’s just about a dozen eggs per person per year. But hey, it’s something. The news: From Voices of Compassion: “per capita egg consumption in the US has been steadily declining for the past six years!” “That’s according to
As I wrote last week, at least 51% of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions come from livestock production. Therefore, one of the best things… I mean, probably the best thing you can do for the environment if you’re ready to take on this ‘challenge’ is go vegan. To help you along, a new writer over
Yeah, the really good news is that U.S. residents are eating less meat! (Note: that’s the #1 priority for tackling climate change.) But the bad news, which trumps this good news, is that meat consumption worldwide is increasing. Here’s more from sister site Eat Drink Better: In the past 3 years, there has been
Meatout activists are looking to help more people dump the cause of at least 51% of our global warming pollution emissions this March. These activists are organizing events around the country and around the world for March 20. All 50 U.S. states and at least two dozen other countries will be participating. More info
Into helping to protect animals from horrid factory farming and massacre? Want to do more than just go vegetarian or vegan yourself? Vegan Outreach does great work meeting with people one-on-one and distributing useful, important informational materials. But it relies a lot on donations to get the word out. Note the correlation between annual
We’ve several cute and awe-inspiring animal videos for you this week, as always, but we’ve also got a handful of interesting and disturbing videos about animal cruelty and endangered species that I think everyone should watch. Check these videos out and the stories underneath them all.
This came into my email recently — Jason Schwartzman, who I love, teaming up with Farm Sanctuary, who I love, to make a fun, interesting video about animals and vegetarianism, which I love — and I was planning to cover it myself but then Becky Striepe (editor of our sister site Eat Drink Better) beat me to it and did a good job of it, so I’ll quote a bit from her….
I think most of us green bloggers get quite frustrated with Earth Day. It can be a struggle for us to stay positive at this time. Why? Because we write about critical environmental issues and solutions to them all year long, and we are confronted with how little others are aware of or interested in such issues when Earth Day comes around. All of a sudden, a large number of people ‘care’ about the environment,… but don’t expect that to stay ’till tomorrow. We get numerous pitches from non-green companies who want us to feature them in our Earth Day posts (as well as pitches from truly green companies, of course). For one day, it is more “fashionable” to be green. But just for one day.
Several months ago, back in June of 2010, I wrote up a story on the environmental impact of eating meat based on a new-at-the-time United Nations (UN) report on the matter. I recently ran across another good story on this topic on a friend’s site, Global Warming is Real, titled “Eating Less Meat to Cut CO2 Emissions” that resulted in a follow-up.
A survey released two weeks ago in conjunction with National Butchers’ Week suggests that many British consumers think that pigs can fly.
Worldwide, high crude oil prices, increasing extreme weather events, population growth and economic development of poorer countries, crop-based biofuels, political conflict and unrest in the Middle East, and slowing crop yield growth are all factors contributing to rising food prices.
You all know the popular phrase, “It’s not easy being green,” and have seen it applied to living in and environmentally-friendly way at least once or twice. But, is it really so difficult to be green? Let’s just look at three topics, which would cover the huge majority of our environmental footprint — food, transportation,
We love to vilify others, don’t we? Especially Big Government, Big Business, Big Oil, and so on. But let’s take a quick look at how we actually compared to CEOs of Big Oil and Big Coal, some of the most infamous or widely disliked “Big Boys” in the world (& certainly in environmental circles). Scale
Have you ever wondered which is better for the environment and for fighting global warming/climate change, eating local food or eating vegetarian? A study published on this matter in the journal Environmental Science & Technology answers that question you. Have an idea? Check if you’re right by reading the full post over on our sister
OK, one more wrap-up this week. And perhaps our last weekly wrap-up, period. As I am thinking I will switch to daily wrap-ups instead. (Let me know if you have any objection.) As the title says, this wrap-up is of good or cool green living stories. Biking Biking is one of the greenest things you
This is a difficult list to come up with when you cover these topics every day. There are so many big stories, many of which never even hit the mainstream media. Well, I know these are popular (I’m drawn in to them, too) and it’s always useful to reflect a little… So, here’s my Top
It… should not be surprising that the U.S. Pentagon states that global warming is a larger threat than even terrorism. “Picture Japan, suffering from flooding along its coastal cities and contamination of its fresh water supply, eyeing Russia’s Sakhalin Island oil and gas reserves as an energy source”, suggests a Pentagon memo on global warming.
The first restaurant chain to show carbon footprints of its menu items, Otarian, just opened its first store in New York. [social_buttons] The first restaurant chain in the world to show the carbon footprint of its menu items, believe it or not, is not McDonald’s. It is vegetarian restaurant chain Otarian. Otarian debuted this innovative
Music legend Sir Paul McCartney is seeking to enlist the help of an unlikely candidate in the battle to solve climate change, ex-baywatch starlet Pamela Anderson. Apparently, his royal beatleness made the plea in a direct two page letter to Anderson, following her ongoing loyal support of animal rights group PETA. McCartney, a staunch advocate
Americans eat lots of meat. So much so that livestock is now one of the leading contributors to global warming, responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions as measured in a carbon dioxide equivalent. A recent United Nations report concluded that the meat industry causes almost 40% more greenhouse gas emissions than all the
PETA already has a website dedicated to pressuring Al Gore to drop the meat from his diet, but when they caught wind of his proposed new .ECO domain, they couldn’t resist the opportunity to take another stab at him. [social_buttons] Ingrid Newkirk, PETA’s president and founder, sent a letter to the CEO of the Internet
Greenpeace Brazil has released a report at the World Social Forum in Belém showing that up to 80 percent of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest is due to an increase in raising cattle for human consumption. Brazil has quickly become the largest exporter of beef in the world, but they are not satisfied with
PETA has teamed up with the Experience Project to request that people try being vegetarian for 30 days. In return, PETA will donate to The Fruit Tree Planting Foundation, an organization which plants fruit trees in poor villages all over the world.
PETA has released a downloadable videogame parody of the Cooking Mama series usually found on Nintendo game consoles. The game includes such family friendly activities as plucking feathers and removing the internal organs from a dead turkey.
According to one study released last week, your answer doesn’t matter much: even if you walk to the burger joint, your food will have its own set of wheels—and an exhaust pipe. While it’s now common knowledge that activities like driving conventional cars cause global warming, the environmental impact of what we eat continues to
