Our Children are spending a lot more of their time in front of electronic devices to amuse themselves and less time outdoors. As of 2010, teen age kids are spending up to 53 hours a week inside the multimedia world, which keeps them in the house and away from the outdoors.

The amount of time indoors is up from 44 hours in 2009.Experts are concerned that today’s children are not getting enough time in the great outdoors and their health and well-being are suffering for the lack of fresh air. Most children, studies show, cannot name 10 plants that grow in their own backyard and as a result, have no idea about the environmental issues affecting our planet.

Bateman and Wieland, renowned wildlife photographers, are sponsoring a program called ‘Get to Know’. Get to Know is a contest that is designed to get kids outside to see, interact and learn about species of plant life that they would not normally encounter in their daily indoor lives.

Kids, ages 5-18 are invited to submit articles, photographs and video entries to the Get to Know website, where a winner will be picked. Wieland considers taking care of the planet to be one of the most important areas of life that kids can get involved in. He believes that getting kids interested in their own yard is a good start to a life of taking care of the planet.

This gateway into the outdoors will lead today’s children and future generations in the fight to address the major problems we are facing. Climate change and deforestation are big global issues that will become the problems for tomorrow.

The Get To Know project has had an impact on a surprising group of organizations. The U.S. Forestry service, the Wildlife and Game Commission, the National Wildlife Federation, and the Children and Nature Network are just a few that has weighed in the program objectives. In all, more than 30 groups have joined.

Winners will receive monetary prizes up to 500 dollars, a weeklong stay in a Canadian National Park and being on the cover of the gettoknow.ca calendar. All the entries have expressed the effectiveness of the program in how they have gotten more interested in the outdoors and how fulfilling it is to impact the future.

Many have expressed a desire to continue to study in college for jobs that would keep them in the environmental industry and allow them to find more ways to impact world. All in all the work of the Get to Know group is making a positive impact on our children and our planet.

Steven Glaser is a former lobbyist for the World Fuel Cell Council who lives in north London with his wife, Ulli, and his sons, Sam, eight, and Leo, five. The 42-year old activist is responsible for the creation of the Bridgestone Eco Rally, which premiered in 2007. Its purpose was (and still is) to raise public sustainable awareness by promoting environmentally-friendly vehicles that range from cars to vans to motorbikes, mopeds and electric pushbikes.

The Eco Rally works because it has nothing to do with politics or special interest groups. Climate change affects everyone and this union of minds attracts geeks, environmentalists and your everyday Joe and Jane who may just be curious about the cars of the future that are here today.

Even among electric cars there are distinctions. Many have different battery ranges and there are even those that can run for as much as 100 miles on a single charge. There are also cutting edge models that run on biomethane from food waste.

The Eco Rally is the site for eco heroes such as Steven Glaser and others of his ilk who dare to push the boundaries of the imagination and expand the frontiers of thinking and innovation. Thinking outside that proverbial box with an eye on the needs for the future is a boon to all mankind.

Check out this video featuring the Bridgestone Eco Rally of this year.

Kudos to you, Mr. Glaser. Kudos to you.

Photo Source:

http://positivetv.tv/news/steven-glaser-eco-hero-the-green-car-rally-organiser/

Dogs have always been a boon to mankind but can their waste help humans save planet Earth as well by serving as alternate energy source? This idea is currently being considered in Gilbert, Arizona, and if the dog waste digester is approved by their city council, this concept could mark a new era in sustainable living.

The dog waste digester enlists the participation of humans who place the dog’s feces in a biodegradable bag and then into the digester. The mixture is then stirred via a crank and the alchemy begins; converting waste material into reusable methane gas.

Animal shelters might possibly financially benefit by this idea if there were a way to gather animal waste, convert it into methane gas energy and somehow provide it (sell it) to the government. Maybe even a subsidy of some sort could be in order to sustain the financial life of many shelters as well as the planet.

While only dog waste is being considered at the moment, there are always cows, cats, horses and pigeons to consider. This would certainly change that saying about dust unto dust, which now might possibly become… you guessed it, crap to crap.

According to the Arizona Republic, the issue will be either approved or disapproved at a city council meeting next month.

Before you pooh pooh poop, just consider how badly our choices of other forms of energy have impacted our planet in the last one hundred years.

Could dog poop fare any worse?

 

Photo Source:

http://nuckingfutsmama.com/?tag=poop

Westport, Connecticut and the grassy Levitt Pavilion is the site of the EcoFest 2011, which will be held this coming Saturday, June 11. This six-hour celebration is meant to educate by raising environmental awareness in the community. Festivities start at noon and fifteen bands will perform until 6pm. In between the music, 35 exhibitors will offer tips on sustainable living. These include but are not limited to the Fairfield Organic Teaching Farm, New England Smart Energy Group LLC, Alteris Renewables, Brighter Concepts of Connecticut and Sunlight Solar Energy.

The music this year is particularly varied. Performers cover such diverse musical fields as: folk-rock, alternative, classic rock, techno and singer-songwriter songs. This is the second year that EcoFest will be held at the Levitt Pavilion behind the Westport Public Library. The goal is education and inspiration to all who wish to develop a sustainable life style.

Sponsored by the Club Green at Staples and Westport’s Green Village Initiative, free admission and food are available to all who attend the event, which will showcase local green projects and initiatives.

Events like EcoFest raise awareness on a grand scale and there is no question that sustainable living is the way of the present and the future of all of us who seek to find ways to save our planet.

If you are going to be near Westport, Connecticut, this weekend, stop by the Levitt Pavilion for an afternoon of fun and good cheer. If you want more information on EcoFest, visit www.clubgreenct.org.

In celebration of Earth Day, New Yorkers planned a special event.  A clean energy vehicle parade that included hybrid garbage trucks was in full swing, as well as the representation of a virtual forest appearing in a most unlikely location; namely, the billboards of Times Square. A group of more than 30 electric and alternative fuel cars, including an Inizio, the world’s fastest electric sports car and an electric Delorean, toured Manhattan with pride.

This eye-catching, visual call to action was the work of Joanne Black, Earth Day New York’s managing director, and today supporters of the environment can make a one-time $5 donation for the United Nations’ Year of Forest that will appear in the form of a running tally that will play out on large screens supplied by corporate sponsors. Some of these include: CNN, MTV, Reuters and Toshiba.

The tally is lit-up and fits right in with the quintessentially chaotic New York landscape. Donations will be debited from cell phone bills and the money will go to fund the planting of trees in lands as far a way as Mexico, the Philippines, India and Kenya.

The Times Square Alliance has tried to lead a sustainable life and although it does not maintain records on the total amount of electricity the billboards consume, it is a fact that those utilized today run on considerably less energy than billboards in years past.

The hybrid vehicles were provided by the city Departments of Transportation, Parks, and Sanitation.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg is determined to make his administration the one that will change the face of New York from a city often depicted as grimy and polluted to one more sustainable and green.

Here’s to everyone’s favorite color: Green!

This week PepsiCo has launched amid much fanfare, the world’s first soda bottle made entirely from plant-based materials. In constant competition with the Coca Cola company, which is currently producing a bottle using 30 percent plant-based materials, PepsiCo Inc claims that its new bottle made from a common form of plastic known as PET, trumps all that came before it when it comes to reducing potential carbon footprints.

The components of the new bottles are not kept under lock and key in a secret vault stashed in some mysterious and very misty place like the formula for the drink itself might be. They are definitely the proud byproducts of Mother Nature herself, ranging from cornhusks and orange peels to potato scraps and pine bark, just to mention a few.

The good news is that this new bottle will not go unnoticed in the soda industry, and silently but surely it will push the establishment of a new standard for sustainable bottles. Even better news is the fact that the new bottle protects the drink just as effectively as those currently in use.

PET plastic is very effective, well researched and is currently employed in the food industry, although formerly it was made by using fossil fuels and not plant materials. It is lightweight and shatter-resistant and does not in any way affect the flavor of the drink. This plastic is recyclable and costs about the same as others of its ilk, although it is not biodegradable or compostable.

One question remains:

Would PepsiCo have gone the extra mile if their competitor had not taken the first step for improved sustainability with their bottling first?