Posted by gerry @ 1:32 pm on February 19, 2009
Today, during Obama’s visit to Ottawa, Canada, he made it clear that he wants to move quickly, within the first year, to establish U.S. credibility on the environment. Both Obama and Harper have pledged to work together to catapult environmentally-friendly technologies into action in order to cut emissions from dirty energy sources in both countries.
Could this be the first step towards a continent-wide clean-energy policy? Hope is definitely in the air.
Source = http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/590043
Posted by Courtney @ 10:58 am on January 13, 2009
On Monday, Loblaws started charging $0.05 for the use of plastic bags in Toronto. By April 22nd (Earth Day), all the stores across Canada will be charging for plastic bags.
Personally, I think this is a great idea, and I applaud them for making the effort to do something that would reduce waste in our landfills. I already bring my own canvas bags and grocery bins. But if I didn’t already, would this encourage me to? I don’t know. I’m a little skeptical that 5¢ is going to make much of a difference. It’s the whole convenience factor - spend 5¢ or bring your own? Yes, it would add up quite quickly - imagine for a four person household how many plastic bags would be used per week for grocery shopping… but are they charging enough to make people want to change their habits?
Posted by Courtney @ 10:00 am on January 5, 2009
Did you do anything new and exciting with your garden this year? How about around your home - were there any exciting changes to make your life more green? Let us know, we’d love to hear about your accomplishments! Send any pictures of your garden or green choices, and we’ll post them on our blog!
Posted by gerry @ 5:00 pm on December 17, 2008
Are we doomed to roam space in an intergalactic space cruiser, after we’ve destroyed the earth’s environment? This was actually the premise to a cartoon I watched this weekend, “Wall-E.”
Here’s the synopsis of the movie:
By the early 22nd century, the Buy N Large megacorporation took control of every economic service on Earth, causing excessive worldwide consumerism to cover the planet in un-recycled trash. A plan was implemented that would have the Earth’s population evacuate the planet into space on fully automated luxury starliners where they would spend the next five years, while an army of waste disposal robots called “WALL-E” units (Waste Allocation Load Lifter, Earth-Class) would be left to clean the planet. This plan failed, however, and the planet was deemed uninhabitable. For the next 700 years, humanity continued to live in space while all of the WALL-E robots on Earth eventually broke down.
Is this storyline far-fetched, or could it really happen to us?
Posted by Courtney @ 1:19 pm on
The holidays are fast approaching. Mid-way through next week, I’m going to be heading off to visit my parents for about a week and a half. While I’m gone, I want my apartment to be using as little electricity as possible, and to stay as green as possible. I’ve been looking into everything that I can be doing over this period of time to make it as green as possible when I’m away. I’m unplugging everything except my refrigerator (and my stove, which is staying plugged in as I cannot pull it out and get to the plug). If something is plugged in, it still draws power. Whether it’s for a clock, or because it likes to respond to remote controls, it draws power. And there’s really no sense in it doing that while no one is home.
A lot of sites that I’ve been looking into that talk about greening your home when you go away on vacation mention turning down your heating. For me, that is hard because I have no control over the heating - the whole building uses radiators that the landlord controls the settings of.
Are you going anywhere for the holidays? Are you planning on greening your home while you’re away?
