fourwhitefeet » environment

Good things about wind

cathy — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 22:43:08 +0000

Wind …

flies kites
sails boats
makes music
pumps water
provides energy
sows seeds
pollinates plants
blows away houseflies and other pests
the #1 good thing — Wind dries out mud!

Why I’m vegan

cathy — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:33:41 +0000

The abuse of these infant calves is merciless. There is no excuse for skinning animals alive and shocking them time after time with electric prods when it’s obvious they are too weak to stand.

Veganism for me started when I was in Vermont stuck in road construction beside a veal lot. I didn’t become vegan overnight, but immediately reduced my intake of dairy products, including Ben & Jerry’s, whose headquarters ironically, was just a few miles down the road from that veal lot.

“Operations at Bushway Packing, Inc., a veal slaughterhouse in Vermont, have been shut down by Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vislack, pending further investigation. The footage that an undercover investigator from the Humane Society of the United States obtained was truly shocking, showing calves only days-old being shocked and prodded, and live calves being left in piles of dead calves.” –VegNewsletter

I’d hoped I could read more about the shutdown of the slaughterhouse without seeing any photos. I couldn’t bring myself to click play on the video on the HSUS website. The still image is almost too horrifying to bear.

Earth Hour

cathy — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 18:23:43 +0000

Tomorrow, Saturday March 29, 2008, turn off the lights for one hour at 8pm local time.

earthhour.org

Mars

cathy — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 18:52:23 +0000

~~Check out this interesting post about Mars on Olga’s blog.~~ Oops, the Mars Info was from 2003. She also has a link to info about the August 12, Perseid meteor shower. (That is for 2007)

Japanese mountaineer cleans up Everest

cathy — Mon, 28 May 2007 23:02:48 +0000

Ken Noguchi just returned from his fifth expedition to remove trash from Mt. Everest. The clean-up crew included 2 other Japanese mountaineers and 12 sherpas. I have often wondered, when I’ve seen documentaries about Everest; if people are so zonkered they don’t have the strength to carry their gear and trash out, should they really be up there? Noguchi thinks climbers are starting to take more responsibility for their junk.

“During this year’s cleanup expedition, I found that the amount of waste left on the mountain has been drastically decreased.”

Car idling and greenhouse gas

cathy — Wed, 09 May 2007 13:19:35 +0000

I was taught as a kid to turn off lights when I leave a room and not stand in front of the refrigerator with the door open. I was also taught to idle my car to warm it up on cold mornings. I stopped that 5 years ago when I got a Volkswagen TDI because I read that it was bad for a diesel engine to run while the car was not moving, particularly if the engine was cold. When I was out with Bonnie on the bike last week we passed a truck idling. A few days later, in the same drive, a car sat idling. It made me wonder if idling the engine was necessary for gas engines and how much greenhouse gas is added to the atmosphere each year just from people “warming up” their cars. In fact, the engine should only be run for 30 seconds before driving. It is also best to turn off the engine anytime your car will be stopped more than 10 seconds.

Water conservation

cathy — Thu, 03 May 2007 13:14:33 +0000

If you think high fuel prices are bad, what if you turned on the faucet and no water came out? A neighborhood in town spent much of the summer like that a few years ago. Not being allowed to water your lawn everyday may seem like a hardship, but it can get A LOT worse. Read this for inspiration to conserve water now!

An Easy Way to Save Water

cathy — Sat, 13 Nov 2004 15:42:29 +0000

Producing a quarter pound of beef uses about 600 gallons of water. So every time you choose a veggie burger instead of a hamburger you’re saving lots of water and other resources and preventing the release of greenhouse gases.

Pueblo Biodiesel

cathy — Sat, 17 Jul 2004 17:23:10 +0000

B20 is now available to the public at Acorn Petroleum, 400 S. Santa Fe Ave, 719-542-5479. Biodiesel pump is on north side of building. Go in side door and ask to have pump reset. They plan to accept credit cards at the pump island in the future. Price about 10% more than regular diesel.

Contact Richard Strah for more information. Blue Sun Links to Colorado Biodiesel Press Releases.

Drought News

cathy — Sat, 24 Apr 2004 17:11:36 +0000

When you step outside into more than 3 feet of snow it is hard to believe there’s a drought. But drought continues and about half of the entire U.S. is affected, including much of the southeast and midwest. This March was the warmest in 110 years of record keeping in the southwest. Even with some areas receiving record precipitation in April, the drought is expected to continue in most of the west at least through July. More at the Drought Information Center.