Stuck for christmas gift ideas?

Eco friendy gifts

Want to give your man, your girlfriend, your wife, your kids something a bit more special or unique why not try an Eco friendly gift. There are so many wonderful gift ideas for everyone, for the family.

Lots of low carbon, eco friendly gifts: choose from solar powered, recycled and eco friendly Christmas decorations, Christmas trees, cards and gifts. Great quality for the Xmas spirit!

How about a beautiful Sun Jar Solar Light - store sunlight in a jar! a warm glow in the room at night.

The Sun jar is an ingenious portable solar powered light. It looks like a storage jar, but it has a solar cell, batteries and LED light under the lid - it stores sunlight in the daytime and when it gets dark the Sun Jar automatically turns itself on and glows with the day’s sunshine.

A lovely warming gift at Christmas time!

GO GREEN with Amazon!

Shop with Amazon - they now have a superb range of Green products, customers choice. Eco friendly shopping delivered to your doorstep. Lots of products to choose from; green buying guides, tips and a place to add your personal comment.

Minimise your footprint the easy way.

Zo Nicholas

Have you been watching  the Olympics?

2008 Beijing Olympics goes green

The past couple of weeks have been amazing. First of all the Opening Ceremony was just riveting, a real spectacle! and every day the different events have kept me glued to my seat watching the feats, commiserating with the losers and applauding the winners.

China received its own Gold medal, when U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson presented Chinese officials with a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold award for the 2008 Olympic village. 80hectares, total building floor area of 470,000square meters, accommodating over 17,000 athletes together with a 760hectare ‘forest park’, providing safe and comfortable facilities for all participants. The world-class sustainable development boasts a variety of features including solar panels, green roofs, and an extensive rainwater recycling system.

While China’s pollution problems and their growing carbon footprint are a major global concern (China is now the largest greenhouse gas emitter by volume), the country made strides in an effort to “green” and clean up the city of Beijing for the Games, spending 17.6 billion dollars to reduce pollution and emissions. Let’s hope the short-term successes in support of the Olympics provide a model for China’s future, and the country vigorously addresses its significant contribution to global warming.

Congratulations to China for such an extra-ordinary spectacular!

Trying to make it a better place,
Zo Nicholas

Wood is a renewable and biodegradable resource.

By switching to biodegradable wood cards, hotels and resorts can reduce plastic waste by 1,300 tons annually — an amount of plastic waste equal to the volume of seven Boeing 777 airplanes.

GREENING IS KEY @ DNC
Next week’s Democratic Convention will be the greenest political convention ever. From the hybrid and biodiesel buses transporting the delegates, to the post-consumer recycled products and biodiesel generators being used, every detail has been thought through.

Reinforcing the “green” theme, Sustainable Cards has donated more than 70,000 biodegradable wood hotel key cards to area hotels, in an effort to reduce the waste and negative environmental impact created by traditional plastic key cards. The company’s mission is to reduce waste to zero during the convention and throughout the year by encouraging the use of eco-friendly wood cards in every hotel in America.

Trying to make it a better place,
Zo Nicholas

Evidence of air pollution

Have you ever driven in an open top car, say a Westfield kit car; gone out for a day out, driven around, had some fun and then back home exhausted. It’s a super way to spend a day especially when the weather is good.

At home take something like a wetwipe, or damp cotton wool or even a wet flannel and wipe your face……!!!……that’s the real evidence of pollution. Its all around, no matter where we live and its especially bad in major cities. Unconsciously we breathe all these damaging particles every day without ever really being aware.

The earth spills out masses of matter into the atmosphere every day via volcanoes, geysers air vents etc but we have certainly added to the mix with bonfires, industrial fumes, cfc gases, car exhausts etc. Our footprint on this earth is everywhere.

Zo Nicholas

Take a deep breath…

The Earth’s atmosphere is a layer of gases surrounding the planet Earth that is retained by the Earth’s gravity. It contains roughly (by molar content/volume) 78.08% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.038% carbon dioxide, trace amounts of other gases, and a variable amount (average around 1%) of water vapor. This mixture of gases is commonly known as air. The atmosphere protects life on Earth by absorbing ultraviolet solar radiation and reducing temperature extremes between day and night.

This is the air we breathe into our lungs everyday. Without it, we die.

Air pollution is the human introduction into the atmosphere of chemicals, particulate matter, or biological materials that cause harm or discomfort to humans or other living organisms, or damages the environment. Air pollution causes deaths and respiratory disease.

Air pollution is often identified with major stationary sources, but the greatest source of emissions is mobile sources, mainly automobiles. Gases such as carbon dioxide, which contribute to global warming, have recently gained recognition as pollutants by climate scientists, while they also recognize that carbon dioxide is essential for plant life through photosynthesis.

The atmosphere is a complex, dynamic natural gaseous system that is essential to support life on planet Earth. Stratospheric ozone depletion due to air pollution has long been recognized as a threat to human health as well as to the Earth’s ecosystems. Source:Wikipedia

Are you guilty of adding your air pollution footprint today?

Zo Nicholas

Our environment is the place we live; the dwelling we occupy, the neighbourhood we frequent, the town or city we travel to, the leisure areas we enjoy. We leave our pollution footprint here, wherever we go.

Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into an environment, of whatever predetermined or agreed upon proportions or frame of reference; these contaminants cause instability, disorder, harm or discomfort to the physical systems or living organisms therein.

Pollution can take the form of chemical substances, or energy, such as noise, heat, or light energy. Pollutants, the elements of pollution, can be foreign substances or energies, or naturally occurring; when naturally occurring, they are considered contaminants when they exceed natural levels. Source: Wikipedia.

Pollution, whatever form it takes can make us feel distressed, diseased or can even cause death.

Zo Nicholas

100 percent renewable and truly clean electricity within 10 years

Is this goal realistic?

If we change our reliance from carbon based fuels,  the answer is yes. There is enough solar enegy, wind energy and geo thermal power if we decide to make this change. The goal is achievable, but it takes the power of the people to push the governments to do so, it takes you and me.

If Goverments world wide took a long deep look at their policies they would see  how they destroy the planet. Our current policy here in the U.K. only feathers the nest of those who have a vested interest. Isn’t it time to make the change and use the renewable energy sources, create a new industrial revolution based on sustainable ‘alternative’ resources. Not just change lightbulbs, as Al Gore said. I remember over twenty years ago Jonathon Porritt of ‘Friends of the Earth’ urging us to make changes to what was then called the ‘alternative’ lifestyle. Not just  recycling, the ‘hippie’ way, but real changes in the way we live. With hindsight, he  was right, way ahead of government thinking.

Change must come from the top!

Listen and read Al Gores challenge and join the action.

The world is a mess, the weather is a mess, our meddling footprint is everywhere to be seen.
 

Zo Nicholas

See the evidence everywhere.

Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into an environment….Pollution can take the form of chemical substances, or energy, such as noise, heat, or light energy. Pollutants, the elements of pollution, can be foreign substances or energies, or naturally occurring; when naturally occurring, they are considered contaminants when they exceed natural levels.
Source: Wikipedia

Major forms of pollution can be seen everywhere in our environment and in nearly every country around the world in a higher or lesser degree. Industrialisation although bringing about a better standard of living for many has created many side affects that we reap today in many different ways.
Man has certainly left his footprint on this planet.

Zo Nicholas

Global warming - just another global agenda?

Fact or Big hoax

The weather, a topic we all discuss daily.
Whats the weather like? What will the weather be like tomorrow, next week, next month? We plan parts of our lives around the weather, our holidays, our days out, barbeques, beach parties. Wouldn’t it be nice if the weather was ‘nice’ when we wanted it!

If we look back say, even just 50 years most of us will admit that the daily weather is not like it used to be. Here in the U.K  where I live, summers were summers, long and hot, and winters were cold with snow. And now.. summers seem to come earlier, unpredictable, and a non event.  Winters are milder and longer. Plants are flowering earlier in the spring. Rainfall or drought more intense, more violent. Real extremes of temperature. So is the earth going through a change? Did we create this climate change with all our interfering in the earths atmosphere and crust. Is this the footprint we leave behind?

The climate is changing and quite rapidly, changes can be seen daily especially if we look at the polar ice caps that are melting, and the mountain glaciers that are retreating. We can easily measure the differences. Aerial photgraphs clearly show the changes. The question here arises, is this man made or the earths natural cycle like with the ice ages or is it all due to the ‘ toxic chemical atmosphere’ that we create every day in our industrialised world? Toxic ‘greenhouses gases’ are created daily  by the earths natural emissions like volcanoes, around long before the car, or have we just helped to unbalance the natural balance the earth maintains.

Wandering through a city and observing the old archictecture, the rapid erosion of old buildings is clearly seen, the masonary pitted and decaying due to the toxic atmosphere. Would this be happening if there were no car emmissions and fumes? Are all these emmissions causing the rise in the earths temperature?

If we look around in our environment we see so many instances of changes happening right before our eyes, natural earth cycle or man made? The hoax supporters suggest that this has all happened before and part of the earths evolution. Science agrees with the man made theory, providing evidence to support it.

Dwindling resources, weather changes, over popluation: a good excuse to reflect how we live and make some changes ourselves.

Zo Nicholas