Much attention has been paid in recent years to what seems to be a growing environmental conscience in the United States. Going green used to be considered expensive and a luxury for those who could afford the trend. Now it appears that we are learning that not only is adopting more environmentally conscious attitudes good for our economic situation, but also our….health? Yes, if we dig a bit deeper we can see that dirty industries and backwards policy is actually harming the health of the earth for our children and the health of her inhabitants today.

How Does Environmental Policy Affect Public Health?

There are two levels of health consequences associated with dirty industry, both direct and indirect. The direct consequences are examples like increased asthma rates in areas with high smog indices. Chlorofluorocarbon release into the atmosphere has shown to decrease the filter of direct sunlight on the planet, resulting in more concentrated ultraviolet light reaching the surface of the earth. Perhaps it is no surprise then that in countries with depleted atmospheric gas, skin cancer rates are among the highest in the world.

The indirect health consequences are harder to see immediately, but closer examination reveals that these are, in fact, perhaps the most hazardous. Bi-products of dirty and backwards industries, such as coal and oil processing, include cancer causing substances like asbestos and benzene. A U.K. study conducted in 2002 indicated that coal and oil industry workers are at a much higher risk of developing mesothelioma (associated with asbestos exposure) and leukemia (traced to benzene and heavy-metal exposure).  Dr. David Sugarbaker among many other doctors who specialize in this area understand that these are substances that can be directly traced to antiquated pre-regulation equipment in industries whose environmental hazards are even more inherent.

Can we really afford to continue on the path we were on before? Investment in clean industry means not a healthier planet for our children and grandchildren, but also a healthier place for us to live today.

Written by Bill Hawthorne with the maacenter

Bionsen kindly sent me a bottle of its deodorant for me to test. Usually I’m a spray deodorant kind of guy but not being able to send aerosols through the post, I opted for the pump spray. At £2.49 it’s not unreasonable, although I tend to choose my spray by being on special offer so is probably a little more than I would pay normally.

I was also reticent about the pump spray and the fact it would be wetter on my underarms, but I’ll try anything so I ploughed on. Bionsen is a hypoallergenic range containing Japanese spa minerals (whatever they are) and is aluminium and paraben free. There’s some science behind the deodorant as instead of it blocking the sweat glands like anti-perspirants, Bionsen (and other deodorants) tackle the odour instead. The “antiseptic agents and germ-killing ingredients target and kill the bacteria that causes body odour on contact. Fragrances also work to combat body odour but the natural, finely-tuned balance of the body is not affected”.

So does it work? As I said before I was worried about the wetness of the spray but after a couple of times you work out the right amount so it doesn’t dribble down your side and then I left my shirt off for five minutes after that too to make sure. And it really seems to work. I actually chose the two hottest weeks of the year to start my testing (May is the new August it seems) and it performed admirably. In fact even when I was sweating a lot, I had to get the Tube one day, there was no bad smell whatsoever. I still sweated, but sweated in a sweet smelling way.

I’m not sure it’s better than other deodorants or anti-perspirants I use, but I know it’s better for me and it’s certainly not worse which I suspect some people would think it would be. I like the smell more than other products I’ve used and think I’ll use it from now on. I discovered the girlfriend uses the roll-on as well when she tried to steal this as she thought it was for her. The roll-on is a bit cheaper at £1.99 and there’s also an aerosol spray at £2.99, stick at £2.49 and this pump spray is also £2.49. It’s available at high street chemists, supermarkets and John Lewis.

What do Food and Climate Change have in common? Well if you look at this Cars=13% of all carbon emissions and Livestock=18% of all carbon emissions eating less meat or even going Vegetarian/Vegan is better than switching to a hybrid car and even better if you go vegan and own a hybrid!

About 5 months ago I went Vegan and have loved every last bit of it and I feel great being a vegan so I decided to create this post since it is “Green”.

What is a Vegetarian/Vegan?

Lacto-Ovo Vegetarian: One whose diet excludes meat and fish but permits milk and eggs.

Lacto Vegetarian: One whose diet excludes meat and fish and eggs but permits milk.

Ovo Vegetarian: One whose diet excludes meat and fish and milk but permits eggs.

Vegan (Strict Vegetarian): One whose diet excludes all animal products.

Why go Vegetarian/Vegan?

• Eating a vegetarian or vegan diet is healthy because you can prevent many diseases and cancers like heart attack, strokes, prostate and colon cancers and can even lower your cholesterol levels, lower your blood pressure, lower type 2 diabetes.
• You are less likely to become obese and you will lose weight and keep it off with exercise.
• You will discover you have more energy to do things, need less sleep and need little to no caffeine to keep you awake during the day.
• Raising livestock for food accounts for about 1/3 of all the US fossil fuels and about 50 of all the water in the US is used by the meat industry.
• Going vegan/vegetarian stops cruelty to the animals you eat because they feel pain too.

(Taken from http://www.sugarrocket.com/vegan/why-i-am-vegan.php)

Daily water usage in the US for…
An omnivore : 4,200 Gallons
A vegetarian: 1,200 Gallons
A vegan: 300 Gallons

Yearly land usage in the US for food…
An omnivore : 3.3 Acres
A vegetarian: 1/2 Acre
A vegan: 1/6 Acre
To make one pound of “food”…
Pound of beef = 2,500 Gallons of water
Pound of apples = 49 Gallons of water
Pound of lettuce = 23 Gallons of water

But don’t take it just from me do plenty of research at your local library, search on the internet on what vegetarians and vegans can eat and what items you can order when you go to a fast food/restaurant.

Also you don’t have to go completely vegetarian/vegan by incorporating a day or meal each week to be vegetarian/vegan friendly.

In conclusion: Going Vegan/Vegetarian reduces animal suffering, consumption of natural resources, makes you healthier and reduces your carbon footprint!

Posts by the Green Girls you may like:

Veganism – Part 1 (The Reasons)

Guest Editor: Vika Lebedeva – 10 myths about vegan

Useful Links:

http://www.goveg.com/environment-globalwarming.asp

http://www.goveg.com/healthConcerns.asp

http://www.tryveg.com/img/vsg0501.pdf

http://www.goveg.com/feat/chewonthis/index.asp

http://www.backwardshamburger.com/

http://www.veginity.com/

http://www.vegbox-recipes.co.uk/index.php

http://www.vegansociety.com/html/

http://myhq.com/public/s/u/susanv/

http://www.viva.org.uk/goingvegan/index.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MD67tltFyAw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05zhL1YUd8Q

Movies/Documentaries to see:

Earthlings

Fast Food Nation

Super Size Me

The Future of Food

A few days a go I had found a article in Good Housekeeping which talked about what are these fancy names we put on products in the store like “natural” and “no CFC’s” and what they really mean to the consumer. I had read this article and knew about most of the labels and learned some about these labels but there was one that I was curious what it really means when it is labeled so I thought I would do some some research on this label. The label I was curious and done some research on was “organic” the information I had found online was kinda interesting. So heres what I had found out about organic labels.

Organic is a agriculture product made without pesticide, harmful chemicals, hormones. You can find “organic” on most anything but most of the time it is not completely organic unless you see one of many logo’s like these.

These logo’s on products found in groceries stores are quite hard to get placed and certified on a product because they test just about everything from fertilizers to what the wood was treated with on fences and if one thing that is tested as “modified” the produce won’t be certified to sell as organic. Only 100% organic products may use the organic seal. if a product is 95% is organic they can’t put the organic seal but they can say it is a organic substance. If the product is at least 70% they only can label up to three items that are organic. finally if a item has less than 70% organic they can’t say its organic anywhere on the item. for more information visit this site http://www.ams.usda.gov/nop/FactSheets/Backgrounder.htm Heres the actual chart that was in the magazine Good Housekeeping. In other words your best bet will be finding a product that has a certified seal that states that it is certified “organic” on the product you want to buy.

Before you buy something try to remember what the correct labels for a item should be and what labels you should not buy into on a certain product.

I’m not sure any of this information applies to people in the U.K. but it certain it does apply to the people in U.S.A.

Global Warming is about a lot things that us humans have done to the earth due to past resources such as gas that runs our cars and it is found in the materials in our plastic bags.So blame the ones who overuse or who rely on this power to much of this power when we should be preserving for when we really need it.

To understand this we will have to look at one element that makes life well alive. Carbon is the central element that makes us move and to have energy to do things. We are a Carbon-based life form. Carbon is a very special element because it can be found practically anywhere it’s in pencils, paper, plants, coal, the food you eat and even in you and down to the smallest cell in your body. Carbon is even unique because of it’s strong force known as a bond. When a Carbon bonds with another element that bond between them has a very strong force holding them together and with in that bond there is stored energy. A professor at MIT says that even when something dies the Carbon bonds still keeps its energy even with death. In fact if you went back a long time ago you would have found a sea in what we call middle east in this sea there were zooplankton and many other creatures that lived in the sea and when they did die there corpses piled on top of corpses compressed over several thousands of years to form this mush we call today Oil which is fossil fuel or ancient life just liquified. Coal is fossil fuel but in a solid form.

Now back to Oil. Oil is used in most anything from Cars to plastic. The only way to break this carbon bond is to excite the carbon and this can be done by a spark or a flame or a some other way. for example if you were to light a piece of paper has carbon with in it and the heat coming off is the excitement of the Carbon, when you eat a apple you break a carbon bond which converts into energy for you to use, when you turn on a gasoline engine the spark ignites and excites the Carbon atoms to break apart and off you go. When you break a carbon bond it almost immediately finds a new partner and whats better than having a stable element such as Oxygen but not just one but two Oxygen. When you break a bond it doesn’t matter if it is a piece of paper, gas or a apple you release CO2 in to the atmosphere. CO2 is a colorless and a odorless gas. CO2 or known as Carbon Dioxide is one of several greenhouse gases which makes about 75% of all greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Most of the greenhouse gases are from cars and industrial plants and power plants. yourself may release CO2 but its in a smaller form so humans are not really part of the problem. When traveling from here to there either using cars, planes, buses, boat to many other things like mowing the grass and shipping items thats when us humans effect our environment. So you could blame the Oil industry for polluting the environment, and they were the ones that killed the electric car but they only wanted to make some money or you could blame your self for not being educated on how the things we do each day effects our atmosphere. Whatever it may be we all effect this atmosphere either in small or big way.

There are things we can do now that will help because there may be a point in time where there may be no point of no return to a better environment which we don’t want to happen right? and think about our future generations to come. Something we can do now to limit our carbon emissions can come very simple as transport. you could cycle to where you have to go, you could walk, you could roller skate/skateboard, you could carpool instead of driving alone you would be transporting one to about eight coworkers/school mates. For food you could buy organic foods that are within 0-100 miles of where you live, buy foods that don’t come in plastic containers unless it has a recyclable sign, you could support your farmers market and don’t have to wonder if your food came from new Zealand or some odd place, you can bring your own canvas bag for items bought from the places where you buy your food.

There are a lot of things you can to limit your carbon emissions but there are so many things that I may not even know about yet but I try to tell you about most anything I find out or have come across with each week and will post about it with a tip of the week.