green living

Grow Your Own Tree Hugger: 101 Activities to Teach Your Child How to Live Green

admin — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 08:00:00 +0000

As a woman with young siblings, I have a vested interest in all materials that help me to have a positive influence on the adults they will grow up to become. I was very excited to see this new title by Wendy Rosenoff, an environmentalist who works with children through the Girl and Boy Scouts. Grow Your Own Tree Hugger contains, as noted, 101 activities that you can work through with your kids to help them better understand the planet and how to take care of it.

I often find it challenging (though necessary) to discuss lofty concepts with kids, and Rosenoff’s book helps because the activities serve as examples or analogies to larger, more complicated issues. For example, it might be difficult to get a child to understand the impact of pesticides and chemicals on our food, especially when these foods look the same as organic ones. Rosenoff suggests that you take two pieces of fruit—one organic and the other non-organic—and put them in the refrigerator. After several days, the organic fruit will be green and withered while the chemically enhanced one will still look new. This is a great, visual way to illustrate how pesticides prevent the natural decomposition process for kids.

Some activities do not actually involve activism, but offer a fun game as a way to encourage open conversation. Rosenoff suggests you make and fly a kite with your child and then use the opportunity to talk about wind power. She also encourages parents to take their kids out to experience nature, something the modern child often lacks exposure to.

In this day and age of the internet, video game devices, and television, some kids don’t spend much time outdoors at all. Rosenoff believes you should take them to examine tree stumps and determine the tree’s age, or get outside and plant something. She even includes recipes that parents and kids can make together with organic ingredients.

In working through Grow Your Own Tree Hugger, you not only inform your kids about the environment and the ways in which they can have an impact, but you get to spend time with them doing hands-on activities that are actually a lot of fun. You will probably both benefit from the time you spend growing your own tree hugger.

Written by: April D. Boland, April 30th 2010

CosmoGIRL 250 Things You Can Do to Green the World

admin — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 00:59:00 +0000

By Lauren A. Greene

Hearst Books

I never really considered myself a “green” person until I went to the Power Shift conference in Washington, DC last year. Things I or my family had done for years—recycling, composting, using reusable bags and cutlery—were second nature to me, and it did not quite click with me that we had been going green for years. After going to Power Shift, I made a decision to do more to help the environment, so when I saw CosmoGirl! had come out with a book with 250 ways to go green, I was intrigued.

The audience for CosmoGIRL 250 Things You Can Do to Green the World is the same audience as the magazine: high school girls. Many of the suggestions are targeted to that age group, such as ways to go green for the prom. Some of the tips extend to college students, such as dump and runs (a great idea, and a good way to pass on things you do not need anymore). However, many of the green ideas can apply to any age group. The pocket-size book is broken up into nine sections: fashion, home, food, beauty and fitness, travel, school, holiday, pets, and activism. I appreciated in their pet section that they recommend adopting pets from an animal shelter, a cause very close to my heart.

What makes this book very accessible is that many of the green ideas are easy to do. For example, tip #115 recommends keeping a pitcher of water in the fridge, then pouring into a travel mug or reusable bottle (bye bye plastic bottles!). Since the target audience is high school girls, many of the ideas take into account a limited budget. Many of the tips also suggests different eco-friendly organizations and charities that readers can get involved in. In addition, the book also gives a shout out to green groups run by women.

Each page contains one tip (except the ten eco-tips that are longer) and are easy to read—they resemble the blurbs of information found through a CosmoGirl! or Cosmopolitan magazine. However, I did find one small problem. In tip #176, the authors recommend buying a book printed on recycled paper; I could not find anywhere in the book stating that my review copy was printed on recycled paper. Besides that glitch, CosmoGIRL 250 Things You Can Do to Green the World is a good “going green” reference, especially for teenagers.

Written by: Elizabeth Stannard Gromisch, February 11th 2010

Permaculture Magazine (No. 60 Summer 2009)

admin — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 16:52:00 +0000

Edited by Maddy Harland

Permaculture Magazine seemed like an interesting concept that you don’t hear about in too much detail. I hate the ‘Go Green!’ trend and was interested in learning actual tips on sustainable living. On this front, the magazine was definitely able to deliver.

In this issue, I learned (theoretically) how to build an outdoor wood fire oven, how to care for chickens, tips for inexpensive and green day trips out with the family, and DIY recipes for beauty products, among other things. In addition to teaching, Permaculture Magazine also had stories from real people trying to minimize their carbon footprint by moving to sustainable farms, working on allotment gardens, and renovating old houses into more environmentally friendly ones.

This was all very interesting and inspiring. After reading this issue, I wanted to move out of my city, get a farm, build a wood oven so I can try the delicious looking pizza recipe, and live in a cute, renovated house in the countryside. However, after thinking about this for a minute, I realized that while these are all really neat ideas, they aren’t exactly practical for me, nor, I suspect, are they for a good majority of the population.

Permaculture is printed in the United Kingdom, and maybe they have more countryside and resources available there, but even though I’m from a more rural part of the United States originally, I don’t feel I could implement many of the ideas covered here. Many of the ideas require lots of land, resources, time, hard work, and research. Most of them require a hefty dose of capital to start up, even though they should save you money in the long run.

In the end, the only real things I could do after reading this magazine was to make the beauty products and take some advice from the green day trip outings section. The plus side is that all the beauty recipes are vegan. I did enjoy this issue; however, it seems to only cater to a very small, elite group so unfortunately it’s not for everyone.

Written by: Jen Klee, September 3rd 2009

Hey Mr. Green: Sierra Magazine's Answer Guy Tackles Your Toughest Green Living Questions

admin — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 17:23:00 +0000

By Bob Schildgen

Sierra Club

Readers of Sierra magazine will recognize Bob Schlidgen as "Mr. Green," the writer of an advice column about living ecologically. In Hey Mr. Green, Schlidgen offers a compact volume of the best of his column from over the years. The book's five chapters each focus on one area of green living: home, food, recreation, waste management, and "The Big Picture," which tackles often controversial but overlapping issues such as politics and religion, and how they relate to green living. Within these areas, the author covers a broad range of topics, written in an advice column format using actual questions from readers of the magazine.

Some questions seek actual information, others seek Mr. Green's opinion, and still others are purely commentary, but Schildgen always responds with frank, down-to-earth, often hilarious (but consistently well-researched) answers. For example, he responds to a question about space tourism by first stating that he believes that this activity is justifiable only if the trips are one-way. He then goes on to give a scientific answer about the actual chemicals involved in space travel and why they have a negative impact on the environment.

One of the most impressive aspects of this book is the lack of snobbery in the author's tone. Yes, Schildgen sometimes mocks or gets a little sarcastic, but he never holds his knowledge over the reader's head. Anyone could pick up this book, read a page or two, and have learned something that he or she could put into practice today, without buying fancy equipment or making a huge lifestyle change. At the same time, Mr. Green does present challenges to readers. In response to a question about manhood and SUVs, he states, "Real men ride bikes."

Fun and substantial, this green guide is a valuable read for men and women alike. Written clearly enough for everyday people, but detailed and far-reaching enough for hardcore environmentalists, Hey Mr. Green will find a welcome home on many different shelves.

Written by: Amanda Moss, August 29th 2009