Mom Goes Green

That’s a question I had always wondered about.  When we think about climate change, or global warming, we often visualize an image like a polar bear precariously balanced on a small floating patch of ice but, in the bigger picture, can it affect our own health?

The answer is absolutely.

Unfortunately, there are many ways that are often overlooked and never even discussed when we consider climate change.  The change in global temperature can have long-term effects on human health because it affects the food we eat, the diseases we get, the disorders we develop, the air we breathe and the water we drink… all the things essential to a healthy body.

Here are just a few concerns to consider if anyone ever thinks this is only an environmental issue:

• Greenhouse gasses can cause respiratory issues and more severe problems for asthma suffers because plants will actually produce more allergens when temperatures increase.

• Extra heat creates more ground-level ozone, and increases pollution, which creates added stress for our heart and lungs.

• Rising temperatures can increase the range of infectious parasites and therefore increase the rate and severity of infectious diseases.

• Weather extremes will increase, resulting in intense heat waves or bouts of bitter cold, resulting in cardiovascular and respiratory disorders.

• Crops can become compromised, decreasing the yield and reducing their nutritional quality.

• Water supplies are reduced along with the quality of water, coupled with an increase of water-borne illnesses.

Research has shown that bugs, plants, animals are all literally moving closer to the poles to escape the increases in heat.  Tropical fish have even been found off the coast of Long Island, New York, because of the rise in water temperature.

The next time someone rejects the idea of climate change affecting their lives, remind them that our environment can’t change without changing us too!

Tick, tick, tick… yes, the countdown clock to Christmas seems to be moving at warp speed!

I’ve given my list of favorite green gifts for when you want to give something tangible.  But there is certainly another way to go…  for gifts that don’t clutter up a home or sit unused in a drawer or closet.  These are the gifts that give to a worthwhile cause:  wildlife, nature or the environment.  They certainly need the “gifts” more than we do!

So, here are some ideas for when you want to give a meaningful gift that really counts:

• Adopt an Acre of Rainforest and other of earth’s wonders (The Nature Conservancy) – for preservation and restoration of some of the world’s most amazing places
• Adopt an Endangered Species (WWF) – to protect endangered animals and their habitats
• Adopt an Animal (National Wildlife Federation) – to protect additional animals and their habitats
• Rescue the Reef (The Nature Conservancy) – for preserving an undeniably crucial part of our world’s oceans
• Plant a Billion Trees Campaign (The Nature Conservancy) – for protecting and preserving Earth’s largest and most endangered tropical rainforests in Brazil
• Give-a-Tree (Arbor Day Foundation)– plants a tree in one of America’s National Forests in honor of a recipient
• Change the Present - you can contribute and honor someone by helping to restore a fragile ecosystem in Kenya, purchase carbon offsets, plant trees, preserve wildlands, adopt wildlife or any one of about 1600 causes of your choice!

If you want to give a gift that supports a worthwhile cause but still gives to the recipient too, consider:

• A zoo or aquarium membership – there are 218 AZA accredited zoos and aquariums in the US and all are dedicated to excellence in animal care and welfare, conservation, education, and research that collectively inspire respect for animals and nature (but please, no circus tickets!).
• A botanical garden, arboretum or nature center membership – again, they dedicate themselves to the conservation and preservation of nature and the environment, and help us understand the delicate and important connection between people and nature.

And finally, one of our favorite gifts last year:

• Kiva – Through their gift certificate program you can “loan” your gifted money to a “working poor” recipient of your choosing.  (We selected a man in Tajikistan who desperately needed money to buy seeds for farming and help support his family.)  Once they are able to repay the loan, you are given back your donated money to grant to another needy recipient… and this wonderful cycle starts all over again!

These should be the choices for the person on your list who has everything… on second thought, these choices should work for anyone and everyone… it is truly better to give than to receive!

So, here we go… again.  If you’re a regular reader, you know that I don’t cut down trees, don’t like trees being cut down and detest when anyone needlessly DOES cut them down.  Unfortunately, we are squarely located between two families that looove to cut down trees.  And unfortunately, the other day was ANOTHER one of THOSE days.

Scenario: Me. My son.  Getting ready to take him to preschool.  Doorbell rings.  At my door, a man from a tree service.

Conversation:
Tree Killer: Hi, ma’am.  We need to cut down a large tree in your neighbor’s back yard and we wanted to ask if we can anchor to one of your trees for the removal.
Me: No.
Tree Killer: No?
Me: No. I don’t want you to cut down the tree.
Tree Killer: Okay, well, the tree is coming down anyhow and your cooperation will really help us assure that it safely lands in the right place.
Me: No stopping it, huh?
Tree Killer: Umm, no.
Me: (few deep breaths, few moments of thought) Well, if you have to.  If it’s a safety issue, then I suppose.  But I swear, if you hurt my tree, my tree and I will sue you.
Tree Killer: (baffled look) I assure you, ma’am. Your trees will be fine.
Me: They better be.

Did that make me sound insane? Maybe. Did I care? No.  But really… can you imagine that court document:  Mom Goes Green & Mrs. Maple vs. Tree Killer.  Kind of funny to imagine? Well… yea!

But sincerely, I am that passionate about trees.  They serve so, so many purposes.  And I know some people may think I’m crazy, but too bad.  (Do you happen to know that trees can actually improve your life too?) Someone once sent me a comment (in response to an earlier “tree post”) that said maybe I should “worry about something important for a change”.  Well, buddy, trees are important.  Cut them all down and let’s just see what happens.  On second thought, that’s an experiment I don’t want to endorse.  It has disaster written all over it.

I know this for a fact, because this weekend, our kids reminded us!

Saturday morning was spent sleeping-in (far too late), but after we got moving, we really GOT MOVING!  After long discussions about how we should spend the day, we decided to make the best of an unseasonable warm Ohio day (68 degrees!) and simply get outdoors.

We went to our daughter’s school and ran around looking at all of the amazing wonders in her school’s Land Lab. This area in front of her school has a pond, decks, walking paths and large planter boxes that the families can adopt.  We cultivated our box and planted some bulbs (and will eagerly await their Spring arrival) and added a little metal sign that said “GROW”! (…somewhat of a double entendre for growing some of nature’s gifts as well as growing little minds!)

We came home and planted more bulbs in our own yard, raked leaves, the kids ran around playing every sport imaginable and jumped in (and sometimes destroyed) our perfectly raked piles.  Fortunately, living on a ravine, our leaves are simply raked down the hill so they can decompose and be recycled by nature.

The kids spent a half hour cracking open acorns to “make hors d’oeuvres” for the squirrels!  We even made ourselves S’mores over an outdoor fire and continued to run around and play, and enjoy the day long after darkness fell.  Everyone was in a fabulous mood.  And I don’t doubt for a second that it had everything to do with simply being outside and enjoying breathing the fresh air.

I sometimes forget that a great day with my family doesn’t need to include museums or amusement parks, trips or expensive events or vacations.  Everything we need is outside our own backdoor or a short, local drive away… all found in nature, most often for free.

Kids today spend twice as much time indoors as we did (a very sad fact), so if you need ideas, reasons or simply more encouragement, check out NWFs “Be Out There” program and you’re sure to find something that clicks!

At the end of the night our daughter could hardly relax as she settled into bed.  She talked about how excited she was to see our flowers grow and proclaimed the day as “the best day ever”!

Thanks for the reminder, my little sweet pea!

Having been extremely exhausted, overwhelmed, overcommitted (and at times, stressed out!) I felt like I should simply start the week with some inspiration… maybe even more for myself than anyone else.

Life, in general, can be overwhelming without “adding to our already overloaded plates”,  but we all sometimes need reminders about the importance of decisions we make and the difference we can make, even if we sometimes feel like an “army of one”.

I have felt this way lately for so many reasons.  Sure, there is strength in numbers but there is also strength in one committed effort that creates a trickledown effect that can sometimes, unknowingly, make an even bigger difference… even if we don’t often see the result.

I ran across two quotes this weekend that really spoke to me and I wanted to share…

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” – Anthropologist Margaret Mead

“How wonderful is it that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” – Anne Frank

These quotes speak volumes… and I, myself, think I needed to be reminded.  When I have questioned continuing this blog (and readers have been so kind as to say “No! You have to keep writing!”) or when my efforts with my one, little, individual family seem a bit in vain, I need to look back at this post… and remind myself:  Yes.  There IS strength in numbers but every huge success begins with only one.

Every day, we need to, AND CAN, continue to improve and change the world.  If you haven’t already started, make today the day!

I’ve never wavered on my opinion about drinking tap water over bottled water for reasons that include BPA, an abundance of trash and the simple waste-factor. While I still believe in filtered tap water, new studies are becoming rather alarming.

Recently, in my home state of Ohio, the EPA reportedly found pollutants in all 30 of the landfill facilities they investigated.  Each landfill has waste-collection systems, ponds or pumps that make it possible to draw water (the other 25 do not).  But the concern is clear – all were found to contain arsenic, benzene and vinyl chloride (all suspected carcinogens) as well as lead (which can cause brain and nervous system damage).

In addition, as many as 29 pollutants were found at levels that exceed drinking-water health limits and pollution standards for streams, and it poses a hazard when it’s released into groundwater or surface water.  Simply put, this is polluting our environment, our soil, our wildlife and our families.

This makes my stomach churn and I have an instant headache.  Suddenly my glass of water doesn’t look so tasty!

But all joking aside, it makes me wonder when, or if, we will ever be able to drink water and not feel that we are potentially drinking a glass full of toxins at the same time.  To me it means the EPA needs to “step up” and enact tougher standards to prevent this awful contamination, and violators needed to be assessed astronomical fines until they cut it out!  WHERE exactly are we supposed to get clean water otherwise?

To make matters worse, my husband also sent me an article from the New York Times regarding data compiled on more than 200,000 facilities that have permits to discharge pollutants.  Permits to discharge pollutants?!? “Permit” and “pollutants” should never even be in the same sentence.

The database comes from the Environmental Protection Agency and the California State Water Resources Control Board and includes businesses and industry in every state of the US.  Take a look, check your zip code and I hope you aren’t as shocked as I was.

To me, this says we sure have a long way to go.

A few months ago, I wrote a post about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch… the sickening, swirling area of approximately seven million tons of plastic debris and waste floating in the Pacific that is roughly twice the size of Texas (and some say, twice the size of the entire US).

It swirls through the ocean between the continental US and Japan, and contains everything from plastic bags to Legos to footballs.  One fifth is believed to come from trash dumped from ships and oil rigs, and the rest comes from land and all of the plastics we discard on a daily basis.

I certainly got my fair share of comments and emails.  Some readers were appalled (just like I am), while others were skeptical. One particularly fine gent emailed me and wanted to know why there weren’t pictures of this “plastic island” that everyone keeps raging about and why I’m making false statements.

Well, I first think he’s taking terms a bit too literal!  It’s not an actual island where you can dock your yacht, Mr. Crabby Pants!  This garbage patch is an AREA, where the vortex of ocean currents collects all of our discarded trash.   It’s that simple.  The ocean eventually breaks down the plastics into little bits and tiny pieces of plastic that marine life mistakes for plankton (their primary food source). It floats on both the surface to 100 feet below the surface… so NO!  No “island”, but we shouldn’t falsely believe that this is not an issue.

Now, a new expedition to study the Garbage Patch, led by a group of University of California scientists, states that they found much more debris than they expected and are concerned that the “patch” may be much larger than originally thought.

It’s hard to imagine what we can do to prevent this… even experts don’t have the answers.  The only hope is to decrease our dependency on so many plastics, improve our recycling practices and simply change our overall behavior… and clean the mess that already exists.  We must find ways to decrease the plastic trash that reaches the oceans and waterways… period.

The most disturbing part?  There is said to be another patch in the southern hemisphere… and it’s four times larger.

Yes, summer is dwindling… and as I spend small portions of days preparing to send our kids back to school I keep running across reminders of the vacation that was not so long ago, but seems so long ago.

The drive took us through breathtaking views of West Virginia mountains where we were awed by trees as far as the eye could see.  It was amazing to see so many undisturbed miles without areas cleared away for development.  My views on chopping down trees are no mystery.   Can you just imagine how invigorating the air in the middle of those mountains must be?

I think about our kids running wild over the Jockey’s Ridge sand dunes, the largest active dune system in the Eastern US.  What a difference to those treed mountains… conditions on the dunes are so harsh, vegetation can only grow on the outskirts.  But the sunset… ah, the sunset.   The silhouettes in this photo are actually our precious kids, standing where the top of the dunes (that are believed to have been formed millions of years ago) seem to meet the sky.

And what beach vacation doesn’t include lots of ocean time.  Just the sound relaxes me.  I could watch the waves for hours on end and I get wrapped up in how vast and amazing the ocean is.  The irony is that one of our favorite adventures was trying to find sea glass washed up on the shore.  This sea glass is actually glass that has found its way into the ocean and gets tumbled and smoothed by the water, sand and salt.  Every time we found one it was like finding a real gem and then I start to wonder what it came from, where it originated, who touched it before us and even how it wound up in the ocean.  Yes, ironic that Mom Goes Green and family found treasures in something that started as ocean litter!

The point of all of this is simply that experiencing the mountains, the sprawling dunes and the incredible ocean reminds me of another quote by Divamish Indian Chief Seattle:

“Take only memories, leave nothing but footprints.”

… tread lightly in our daily lives, because this planet is truly amazing!

Over the past weeks, we’ve had a raccoon hid her babies in our yard, snakes take up residence in a bush outside our front door and two birds nest under a different bush.  A raccoon even stopped by in our open garage while I was quietly doing something one evening. (That event caused me to let out a “startled scream” that sent mama running!)

All this in a suburban neighborhood, close enough to urban life that we can see downtown Cleveland from our backyard.

I truly wondered “what gives!” until my husband pointed out that we have the most natural place in the neighborhood… no chemicals, no fertilizers or pesticides, no unfriendly environments… and I think he’s right.

When my neighbor saw the snakes, she suggested we pay for an exterminator or snake wrangler to get them out of here.  (Seriously?  I should pay someone to evict these poor little harmless creatures?!  But she is the same person {although she is a nice lady} that chopped down all of her backyard trees last year.) Then there is the other neighbor (also a “tree chopper“) that called out his OWN tree service to look at removing a tree in OUR yard because he didn’t like the leaves it was dropping in his driveway!  He offered to pay half, which we politely declined.

Maybe animals really do have a sense of “someplace safe”… yea, MomGoesGreen’s yard, of course!  And our kids are loving the animal park in their own yard (but yes, I do understand the dangers of raccoons, so they have been educated on safety.)

If you believe in karma, I think you’ll agree that my husband is right.  There IS a natural attraction because we do let off all whole lot of “good nature karma!”

Not long ago I talked about an encounter with a TruGreen (ChemLawn) truck and feeling as though we were going to be asphyxiated as we drove by the chemical spray being applied to a neighborhood lawn.

I simultaneously felt a sense of guilt that I used to have a lawn service and those same chemicals were once sprayed on my yard.  I still gasp at the thought.  Those chemicals are pollutants that contaminate ground and surface water, as well as pose a threat to wildlife and beneficial insects.  Plus they create serious health risks for humans, with children being the most vulnerable.

But those precious little feet can still have a healthy, green lawn. And if you just adopt some simple practices, you can have a nice, clear conscience too:

• Go easy on the watering – lawns only need an inch of water per week so this means about ONCE a week.  And if mother nature is helping (via rain), even less frequently. Too many shallow waterings also bring roots to the surface and burn out the lawn faster.
• Don’t “mow low” – the optimal length is 3”, so don’t over-mow or mow too short.  Taller grass grows a deeper root system, grows slower, requires less water and helps prevent weeds.
• Don’t “ bag it” – mulching mowers actually cut grass and chop it so it can act like mulch to hold moisture, but if you do have a bagging mower, consider composting the clippings.
• Consider timing – don’t mow in the heat of the day (grass loses moisture) and water in the early morning or evenings to prevent evaporation.
• Water wisely – actually water the lawn (not sidewalks and drives!), use timers or pay attention not to overwater and prevent waste.
• If you must control a few weeds – use white vinegar in a spray bottle and spot treat.
• Go crazy – sell your lawn mower and buy a push mower (although my husband’s not “buying that one” just yet!).
• Skip the fertilizers – even the organic kind. Honestly, do you really need them?

I think all we really want is a lawn that is healthy and green… a place where our kids can run, play and roll around without worry, and a sense that we aren’t doing more harm than good “in pursuit of the most pristine lawn on the block”.  I assure you, your kids don’t care about that, but the environment surely does.