Thursday, April 22, 2010

Happy Earth Day!

In honor of Earth Day, I thought I'd share some interesting/cool links I've seen over the past few months. I created a fictional nonprofit program for a course with a few really bright ladies - our focus was creating workshops where people in the community could dialogue about green living ideas, tips, and facts. In evaluating the reasons for potential funders to adopt such a program, we had to find some evidence of need. I've come across a lot of great stuff lately - while the 'green' movement is picking up somewhat and attitudes are changing, we found that actions are much harder to change. I believe it... my bags have been sitting in my study for 3 weeks waiting to be recycled. Eco-guilt is on the rise, and community accountability can help us to make changes and kick the guilt. Some thoughts:
  • From a recent google buzz - Most plastic bags take over 400 years to biodegrade. Plastic bags cause over 100,000 sea turtle and other marine animal deaths every year when animals mistaken them for food.
  • If each U.S. home replaced just one of its incandescent bulbs with a CFL, the electricity saved each year could light 3 million homes and prevent greenhouse gas emissions equal to that of 800,000 cars.
  • Apartment Therapy is an interesting site with eco-friendly tips for apartment-dwellers. Sometimes it feels like a lot of 'green' decisions are made by homeowners only (energy-efficient appliances, gardening and planting trees, etc.), but there is a lot that renters can do as well! We can control our use of utilities, recycle, and even plant indoor gardens!
  • The idea of Creation Care is gaining steam in the Christian community. I'm sure there are some IV Press books on this very issue... ;-)
  • Finally, a productive use of all those pesky plastic bags - make your own flowers that never die! Well, apparently they would take 400 years to die (see above).


Flowers made from plastic bags - More DIY How To Projects

4 comments:

  1. there are most definitely some great IVP books on creation care. there's a great one about the theological underpinnings of the mvmt... i loved it!

    it's called care of creation: focusing concern and action. it came out in the mid 2000s

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  2. Looks like you put a lot of thought into this!

    Any interest in becoming an environmental lawyer? Green jobs are gonna expand.

    You should subscribe to the Global Warming newsletter. They have a lot of green tips and it's always surprising. They also have success stories in different cities. Seems like something you might be into. They don't do a lot of 'action alerts' so it's not like that either.

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  3. @Joyce - thanks for the tip! Do you have a copy I could borrow?

    @Sara - I have seriously thought about environmental law - I learned a lot in the course and I've had several people mention that I should go into environmental based on my interests! Right now, I haven't found any jobs in the area, but I'm keeping hope alive! I'll check out that newsletter too.

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