Back to school!

Hey, hows it going?

I'm good thanks. Been riding my bike to school.

Saves me a lot of gas and money. Not time though, but to me, it's worth it.

Check her out. Isn't she a beauty?

And she rides like a dream.

I don't know much about bikes, but I know I love this one.

President Bush, What happened?

Today I would like to share with you a video from 2007 of the wonderful wishes and dreams of the Country's favorite President everyone has forgotten about: George W. Bush

Check it out here.

Brought to you by ColbertNation.com, this is a memorable moment of GBush's many strong Presidential actions while in office.

And some people thought he only cared about war!

But of course Bush, being the freedom-fighter we all know him to be, did not make any binding contracts or commitments. Instead he thought it best that each government figure out for themselves when and how they want to deal with global warming. And, you know, if they want to deal with it at all.

We've got all the time in the world! What are you worried about?

BP Oil Spill, old news, literally.

The BP oil spill may have made some Global headlines, but lets not forget, this is not the first oil spill the world has seen. In fact, Planet Earth has experienced oil spills since 1967, and these are just the recorded ones.

The Mariner Group has a list of most of the oil spills all over the world. You can check that out by clicking here.

But for now, I thought I would remind you about the Exxon Valdez oil spill back in March of '89. If you dont recall this oil spill, let me refresh your memory: The Valdez was positioned off the coast of Alaska when it ran aground spilling 10.8 million gallons of oil along the Alaskan coastline, according to Associatedcontent.com. Even better, they list this as only the 35th worst oil spill in history.

Just so you know, there way are over 100 oil spills recorded.

I wonder where BP will rank?

P.S. wanna know the biggest joke on youtube? BP has their own youtube channel. Here.

The Truth Behind Airfresheners

Air fresheners are pretty common. They can be found in many homes, bathrooms, dormitories, locker rooms and anywhere else that might be prone to stink. The soft sweet smell of lavender bliss or ocean breeze tricks our nostrils into believing it's harmless. Unfortunately we are wrong.

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) found that out of the 14 common air fresheners they tested, 12 of them contained "hormone-disrupting chemicals known as phthalates."

What are phthalates? Exactly that, hormone disrupters. Because phthalates interfere with hormone and testosterone productions, little kids especially are vulnerable to these chemicals. Yet none of these air fresheners, not even the "all natural" ones, listed phthalates on the label. I wonder why?

According to NRDC, "the state of California notes that five types of phthalates- including one detected in air fresheners- are 'known to cause birth defects or reproductive harm.'"

Phthalates are also used as solvents in perfumes and fragrances.

What's a good alternative to air fresheners? Home-made ones! And they are very easy to make.

Here's a quick DIY for air fresheners.

What you'll need:

1. Plastic spray bottle- Can be found at local drug stores or target for about $1

2. Baking soda- $3 at your local grocery store

3. Extract of your choice (vanilla, almond, lavendar, etc)- these range from $5-$15 at grocery stores (maybe you already have this in your pantry?)

4. And water- free if from your sink!

Combine these ingredients in the spray bottle, shake and sprits away! It may take a few tries to find the right measurements of each ingredient for the mixture, but you'll figure it out.

Also, if you squeeze some lemon or lime juice in your vacuum bag before vacuuming your carpet, it'll smell citrusy fresh by the time you finish!

Now remember, this is just a quick fix. If you want to get more detailed, there are some serious freshening recipes out there with ingredients such as vodka and corn oil. These involve boiling water and mixing ingredients at the perfect temperature, but I'm a simple kind of girl myself. There are many recipes out there, so do some research and find the one thats best for you!

Shit, its been a while.

10 days as a matter of fact, and my 30 days segment is just about over.

More like really over.

I blogged for more than 30 days, and will probably continue blogging about living a "green" lifestyle.

The most important thing you should all know:

ITS NOT HARD.

At all.

(but we'll talk more about that next time)

Living green is all about conscious decisions. Whether you want to make those decisions or not, the Earth needs a change.

This time, I want to talk about greenwashing.

According to Greenpeace, www.stopgreenwash.org, greenwashing can be defined as "Used to describe the act of misleading consumers regarding the environmental practices of a company or the environmental benefits of a product or service."

Most of the big oil companies like Exxon and Shell and Chevron are huge examples of greenwashers, airing commercials about "clean coal" and "less CO2." What people don't understand, and what you'll see from the video below, is that there is no such thing as "clean coal" or "less CO2."

I recently watched a video on 60 Minutes with Scott Pelley, on Duke Energy and their greenwashing bit. It's pretty unsettling to think that America is such an educated country about the danger our world is in, but we willingly choose not to care or do anything about it. Better yet, most people choose to be ignorant about it. Good idea, lets just pretend because we can't actually see anything wrong, that nothing is really wrong and we'll all live happily ever after!

Our Earth doesn't have much time left, and obviously neither do we.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4969902n

P.S. check out TheCorsairOnline.com for the articles I've written about my green lifestyle adventures, hopefully you'll learn something new.

I've got a lot to update y'all on. To start, here's a composting tip from a friend in New York:

Carbon to Nitrogen Ratio- Carbon=Browns, Nitrogen=Greens. You always want more browns than greens.

Here's a link to a sight with some excellent examples of each and the ratio to maintain.

http://www.composting101.com/c-n-ratio.html

I got some more worms from The Armstrong Garden Center back in my parents hometown. Mixed with the ones I got from the Urban-worms lady, there should be enough for my worms to mate and reproduce, woohoo! One pound of worms can devour about a half a pound of food waste in 24 hours, keep in mind.

Now for the upsetting news- Greenwashing! Greenwashing can be defined by Greenpeace as "Used to describe the act of misleading consumers regarding the environmental practices of a company or the environmental benefits of a product or service."

Here's a prime example:

An excerpt from a 60 Minutes interview with Duke Energy CEO, Jim Rogers, taught me in twelve minutes that our Earth is doomed. One of the world's largest coal companies, Duke Energy has been fooling everyone with their greenwashed "Clean Coal" ads.

Rogers stated that Duke's clean coal plans should be in full effect by 2050. Too bad for us, we don't have that long. NASA researcher's and engineers have estimated that optimistically we might have 20 years left.

According to Rogers, we have no choice. In order to keep glutenously overindulgent American consumer-driven lives afloat, we can't cut coal out, ever.

Check out the video and other Greenwashing Giants at:

http://members.greenpeace.org/blog/greenwashing?cat=34335

Almost Half-Way!

So I'm about thirteen days in, and although I'm not as far as I wished to have been by now, I still feel excellent about what I have accomplished.

Trying to reduce you're own waste isn't really that hard. Sometimes it can be more work to be wasteful. I've saved money, time, and electric energy, woohoo!

Today I found biodegradable dryer sheets (with no nasty chemicals!) at Whole Foods. I was originally looking for the Trader Joe's brand of lavender dryer sheets, but the store by my place doesn't sell them anymore, interestingly enough.

Want to make some eco-friendly money? If you collect the plastic bottles you want to recycle, you can take them to certain recycling stations and they'll pay you. Granted, its a few cents per bottle, but that should only encourage you to recycle more; the more bottles, the more money!

Lately, one of the hardest parts of composting has been actually finding the worms. Everyone is sold out. Even the Urban-Worms.com lady! Apparently, vermi-composting is all the rage now-a-days. You can always order them online from a bunch of companies, but I'd prefer to pick mine up in person, and name all 1,000 of them.

Quick tip for composting: Carbon to Nitrogen ratio! Brown stuff is Carbon (shredded newspaper, soil, etc.) and Green stuff is Nitrogen (food waste). You always want more Carbon (brown) than Nitrogen (green).

If you're compost is too wet you're worms will try to escape or it can get to moldy and attract too many insects. Put more browns, in there and make sure its the consistency of a damp sponge.

Don't forget that foods like meat, dairy, fats, and oils should be avoided because they can create maggots and attract unwanted predators, yikes!

Hopefully you checked out last week's Composting Article of mine in the corsair. If not, go on over to TheCorsairOnline.com and check it out!