One More Reason to Love National Geographic

National Geographic's Green Guide Ten Tips for Earth Day: Preserving Biodiversity.

Yes, Earth Day has passed but of course, in my world "everyday is Earth Day." So there. :-P

Seriously, these are good. I've already discussed a few and I actually do some of them but hadn't thought about talking about them here...for example, paperless bills.

Home Energy Usage

I got this tip in my inbox this morning:

Make HER do it instead. Call a Home Energy Rater - a specialist who finds out how efficient your place is and can estimate how much you'll save by making specific improvements.

If you want to see how energy efficient your home is I suggest following through with something like this. Ideal Bite suggests hiring a Home Energy Rater which will cost b/t $250 and $600. I am sure this is more comprehensive than the one my power company offers but NES offers a free audit...check your power company and see if they do too.

Technorati Tags: home, energy, energy consumption, eco-friendly

Food

Mmmmm, food. Sometimes there is nothing better than a good (fill in the blank). This is also an area you can have the most impact with the smallest amount of effort.

Think about the food we eat. It comes from somewhere, it takes energy to produce and it creates waste. It impacts how you feel, which impacts what you do and so on.

In my household we eat organic and local foods as much as possible. My wife is a major proponent of all things organic. When we met I ate some organic food, used some organic items but I didn't really go out of my way. She does most of the shopping so the percentage of organic in my life has increased greatly. Why do we eat organic (or use organic products)? It's all about reducing the amount of chemicals we use, ingest, or require because of the manufatured goods we buy. And what does that matter? Well, selfishly we want to live as long as possible. In addition to that we feel a responsibility to our community. We believe that everyone in the community must do a share to make the world a better place. Why does that matter? Because that's what being a part of a community is about. Sen. Hillary Clinton wrote a book...It Takes a Village. From what I know of the book it takes the concept from traditional societies, in particular African societies, that a group (community, society, neighborhood, family, take your pick) will work best only when everyone works together. In sports and in the military you hear things like "you are only as strong as your weakest link". This concept, this ideal is the most practical and most efficient way to survive.

Here are some of the things we do:

1. Eat organic and local as much as possible and hopefully organic and local are the same thing.
2. Eat what's in season (farmer's markets are great places to learn this info).
3. Support a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture).
4. Avoid chains and fast food.
5. Compost fruit and veggie scraps.
6. Cook as often as possible, freeze and/or take the leftovers to work.
7. Eat more fruits & veggies, less meat.

Easy Stuff - Socially Responsible Behavior

This concept mirrors the "buy black" movement that shows up every few years. Whenever you spend money check what the sources are. Buy items you conscious says are "drama free". Support items, manufacturers, and retailers who support treat their product, employees, customers, and environment with respect, fairness, and honesty.

If you don't know about a certain company just ask or go to the interweb, there are a few of sites to help:

1. Business Ethics Magazine Top 100 2006 (.pdf)
2. Co-Op America's Responsible Shopper
3. Care2's Shopping Page

Stop eating fast & chain food. If you must eat out go to an independently owned restaurant. Ask the server if they buy locally grown food. If they don't suggest that they might. My wife and I love Middle Eastern/Greek and there are a few places in Nashville (Istanbul, Chicago Gyro & House of Kabob) we frequent and they all have a mix of mass bought ingredients and not.

So as usual, there is no perfect answer we just have to do the best we can do.

More Easy Stuff - Cleaning Products & Their Substitutes

I've started this blog with cheap & simple changes you can make. Changes that don't really seem like changes. There are behaviors you can modify, there are substitutes you can make and you don't have to spend much money. Here are some notes about clearing out the toxins from your cleaning stash.

My parents grew up in an era when America discovered the power of the chemical. They could buy something in a jar or bottle that was strong enough to deep clean without much effort, they could see the dirt disappear. I have come full circle. I have come to a place where I recognize that those things are harmful in the house both for the possibility of ingestion and the inhaling of fumes. We (my wife and I) have gone back to our grandparents or great-grandparents era to tap their ideal of using simple, accessible things to do a great cleaning job (or supporting companies who make these products). I doubt my grandparents knew this stuff was safer, it was probably the only thing available.

So, here you go:

Baking Soda is sodium bicarbonate. It has a number of useful properties. It can neutralize acid, scrub shiny materials without scratching, deodorize, and extinguish grease fires. It can be used as a deodorizer in the refrigerator, on smelly carpets, on upholstery and on vinyl. It can help deodorize drains. It can clean and polish aluminum, chrome, jewelry, plastic, porcelain, silver, stainless steel, and tin. It also softens fabrics and removes certain stains. Baking soda can soften hard water and makes a relaxing bath time soak; it can be used as an underarm deodorant and as a toothpaste, too.

Borax is a naturally occurring mineral, soluble in water. It can deodorize, inhibit the growth of mildew and mold, boost the cleaning power of soap or detergent, remove stains, and can be used with attractants such as sugar to kill cockroaches.

Cornstarch, derived from corn, can be used to clean windows, polish furniture, shampoo carpets and rugs, and starch clothes.

Isopropyl Alcohol is an excellent disinfectant.

Lemon Juice, which contains citric acid, is a deodorant and can be used to clean glass and remove stains from aluminum, clothes, and porcelain. It is a mild lightener or bleach if used with sunlight.

Mineral Oil, derived from seeds, is an ingredient in several furniture polish and floor wax recipes.

Soap (NOT detergent) is made in several ways. Castle soap can beuse d as a shampoo or as a body soap. Olive-oil based soap is gentlest to the skin. An all-purpose liquid soap can be made by simple dissolving the old ends of bar soap (or grated slivers of bar soap) in warm water.

Steel Wool is an abrasive strong enough to remove rust and stubborn food residues and to scour barbeque grills.

TSP is trisodium phosphate, a mixture of soda ash and phosphoric acid. TSP is toxic if swallowed, but it can be used on many jobs, such as cleaning drains or removing old paint, that would normally require much more caustic and poisonous chemicals, and it does not create any fumes.

Vinegar is made from soured applied juice, grain, or wine. It contains about 5 percent acetic acid, which makes it a mild acid. Vinegar can dissolve mineral deposits, grease, remove traces of soap, remove mildew or wax buildup, polish some metals, and deodorize. Vinegar can clean brick or stone, and is an ingredient in some natural carpet cleaning recipes. Use vinegar to clean out the metallic taste in coffeepots and to shine windows without streaking. Vinegar is normally used in a solution with water, but it can be used straight.

Washing Soda or SAL Soda is a sodium carbonate decahydrate, a mineral. It can cut stubborn grease on grills, broiler pans, and ovens. It can be used with soda instead of laundry detergent, and it softens hard water. These items are available from drug and chemical-supply stores.

And here are some tips on what to do with this stuf:

Freshen air by opening windows and doors for a short period; distribute partially filled dishes of vinegar around the kitchen to combat unpleasant cooking odors; boil cinnamon and cloves in a pan of water to scent the air; sprinkle 1/2 cup borax in the bottom of garbage pails or diaper pails to inhibit mold and bacteria growth that can cause odors; rub vinegar on hands before and after slicing onions to remove the smell; use bowls of potpourri to give inside air a pleasant scent.

All-purpose cleaner can be made from a vinegar-and-salt mixture or from 4 tablespoons baking soda dissolved in 1 quart warm water.

Disinfectant means anything that will reduce the number of harmful bacteria on a surface. Practically no surface treatment will completely eliminate bacteria. Try regular cleaning with soap and hot water. Or mix 1/2 cup borax into 1 gallon of hot water to disinfect and deodorize. Isopropyl alcohol is an excellent disinfectant, but use gloves and keep it away from children.

Drain cleaner. Try a plunger first, though not after using any commercial drain opener. To open clogs, pour 1/2 cup baking soda down drain, add 1/2 cup white vinegar, and cover the drain. The resulting chemical reaction can break fatty acids down into the soap and glycerine, allowing the clog to wash down the drain. Again, do not use this method after trying a commercial drain opener--the vinegar can react with the drain opener to create dangerous fumes.

Floor cleaner and polish can be as simple as a few drops of vinegar in the cleaning water to remove soap traces. For vinyl or linoleum, add a capful of baby oil to the water to preserve and polish. For wood floors, apply a thin coat of 1:1 oil and vinegar and rub in well. For painted wooden floors, mix 1 teaspoon washing soda into 1 gallon hot water. For brick and stone tiles, use 1 cup white vinegar in 1 gallon water and rinse with clear water.

Metal cleaners and polishes are different for each metal -- just as in commercial cleaners. Clean aluminum with a solution of cream of tartar and water. Brass may be polished with a soft cloth dipped in lemon-and baking-soda solution, or vinegar- and-salt solution. Polish chrome with baby oil, vinegar, or aluminum foil shiny slide out. Clean tarnished copper by boiling the article in a pot of water with 1 tablespoon salt and 1 cup white vinegar, or try differing mixtures of salt, vinegar, baking soda, lemon juice, andcre am of tartar. Clean gold with toothpaste, pewter with a paste of salt, vinegar, and flour. Silver can be polished by boiling it in a pan lined with aluminum foil and filled with water to which a teaspoon each of baking soda and salt have been added. Stainless steel can be cleaned with undiluted white vinegar.

Oven cleaner. Sprinkle baking soda on moist surface and scrub with steel wool. Or use Arm & Hammer Oven Cleaner, declared nontoxic by Consumers Union.

Scouring powder can be made from baking soda or dry table salt. Or try Bon-Ami Cleaning Powder or Bon-Ami Polishing Cleaner.

Toilet bowl cleaner can be made from straight bleach (do NOT mix with any other substance except water), baking soda and vinegar, or borax and lemon juice.

Tub and tile cleaner can be as easy as rubbing in baking soda with a damp sponge and rinsing, or wiping with vinegar first and following with baking soda as a scouring powder.

Window and glass cleaner is easy with these tips: to avoid streaks, don't wash windows when the sun is shining. Use a vinegar-and-water solution, cornstarch-vinegar-and-water solution, or lemon-juice-and-water. Wipe with newspaper unless you are sensitive to the inks in newsprint.

Believe or not the government gave me these tips and they have more here

Technorati Tags: eco-friendly, money savings, household, cleaning, tips

Easy stuff

Easy stuff you can do to help the environment, your wallet, and your energy bill:

1. Turn off electrics and electronics when not in use...if you're not going immediately back to watch the TV or play on the computer then turn it off. Turn the lights off when you leave the room.

2. Only run dishwashers and washing machines when they are full.

3. Stop eating out, especially fast food. You will save a shitload of money by cooking your own and you cannot believe the amount of energy that is used to get your Big Mac & Fries on that tray. Besides cooking can be fun, especially when you have someone to do it with. It slows you down, which is good for your well-being and your digestion. You eat better quality and potentially less quantity when you cook it yourself.

4. Eat more fruits & veggies. It will save you money, it requires less energy to produce and it's healthier. Go to the library and pick up a copy of the New Moosewood Cookbook and you will see that you can do many wonderful, simple dishes without meat.

5. Take shorter showers and turn the water off while you brush your teeth. There's a possibility it might lead to a longer shower, if you're lucky you might have someone to shower with you might be able to save a lot of water.

Happy Earth Day

Looks like I'm 18min late but I hope everybody did something earth friendly to celebrate Earth Day. I didn't; I left the TV on when I wasn't in the room, I drove to Home Depot, I ate fast food.

So you see that I'm not perfect but I keep trying. Hopefully, I can make up for it tomorrow.

Why Black? The Manifesto.

You hear people ask the question whenever they see something ethnically focused. Why is there a Miss Black America or the NAACP or a Black Student Union? Well, historically there were or black-focused and black-organized variations of white institutions and organizations b/c Blacks didn't have access, or Blacks didn't have enough political/social/economic power to be heard. To change that they created their own social organizations, their own political action groups, their own entertainment collectives. Even if the necessity & influence of these ethnicity specific entities is dwindling they continue to work on several different levels.

The way I see it is even as we are exposed more and more to each other we have become more stratified, more desperate and more isolated from each other. Middle class doesn't understand lower class who doesn't understand upper class. Urban doesn't understand rural and rural doesn't understand suburban or exurban. And hardly anybody understands nature or self-control.

So, why Black? Because an eco-friendly, socially conscious mentality is a part of our collective history and social order that has been removed, or we've forgotten, or even co-opted. (This argument is not exclusively Afrocentric but because of our intimate history with the soil of this country we are in a special situation). All agrarian societies understand and the newly transplanted Africans understood that the earth sustains everything. They were eco-friendly by necessity. They knew you had to take care of your environment b/c that was the only way to make sure it continued to provide. There was no wasting, you used everything...why else do southerns love chitterlings or pigs feet or turnip greens? They were the foods wasted by those who had means (slave owners, land owners, etc.). How many southerners or black people do you know who still eat and love chitterlings or pigs feet or turnip greens? These food products were and are part of our tradition! This is but a small example of the eco-friendly life our fore bearers lived. What about passing clothes down to younger siblings or neighbors, what about rotating crops in the field, what about growing your own food? These are all things my grandparents did and these are all things that people in the "green" world would now consider aspects of a "green" lifestyle.

Social responsibility should go without saying in the black community! We are all beneficiaries of a socially responsible movement called the Civil Rights Movement. The idea is to treat everyone and do everything with honesty and respect. Act is if you are responsible for everything you do and say.

I understand that these are simple concepts but difficult practices. That's ok because every little bit helps.

So. I am asking readers to pay attention to what they use, how much they use and where it comes from. I am asking readers to demand the highest quality as well as products produced under the best, most equal and most honest conditions. I am asking readers to join in working to a cleaner now and future. I am asking that we all try a little harder toward a better self, family, community, and world. I am asking for help. I don't know everything, what I know I will share and I hope readers will do the same.

I hope you will enjoy learning about and implementing this stuff as I do.

Definitions

I am still setting up things and part of that is organizing and defining what my intentions and desires are. So let me define some of the basic concepts for this blog.

Black - people of African descent, which most Anthropologists will say that includes everybody on the planet. I have a BA in Anthropology so I will use this all inclusive definition BUT I will focus on issues more closely associated with the standard definition of African-American, we who have African slave ancestors.

Green - environmentally conscious and active. Being Green is the active part of caring for the environment & natural world.

Social Responsibility - making a commitment to the promotion of equality of humanity. You buy products that were made under humane conditions, you support businesses and organizations which show respect for their employees, customers and vendors and who also work to promote social and ecological responsibility, and you work to improve companies and organizations that don't work that way.

Eco-Friendly - you are respectful of and towards the natural world. You limit the amount of resources you use and pollution you generate. You promote this attitude to individuals and companies you encounter.

Socially Responsible Investing - see "social responsibility" and add money...you invest in companies who act responsibly and respectfully towards employees, customers, vendors, colleagues, competitors and nature

Why?

I was a kid who grew up outside. I was a Boy Scout for almost 10 years. I went camping or hiking or canoeing or backpacking once a month during those years. I loved animals and trees and bugs and rain. I also had a love/hate relationship with snakes, which still continues to this day. My Dad hunted some, fished some, gardened some but no matter what he was doing he spent most of his free time outside. I read the encyclopedia (World Book 1973) when I was a kid and I thought one day I might be a veterinarian. I am earth-bound, my feng shui reading says so. I get excited at the first sight of forests or valleys or mountains. I have been known to cry at the sight of sunset on a lake (I don't get up early enough for sunrises). When I got a car I drove a lot and I looked around while I drove. I imagine I probably looked like a little old man lost in some unfamiliar neighborhood. I would stop to admire a hillside or a lookout or pull over and take pictures of a cow pasture. I fly more often now but I still take pictures from the window of the airplane. I was fortunate enough to go to a college with a 10'000 acre campus, most of which was, and is, undeveloped land. I was on the championship canoe team, I wandered the perimeter trails and the flower gardens, I studied outside, and I even I remember going for bike rides at sunrise (after an all-nighter) watching the deer appear from the fog. You see where I'm going with this? There is very little that makes me as happy, that makes me feel like I am a part of something, that there is a point to everything as the natural world.

I am completely geeking out on Planet Earth. You must watch (hopefully on High Def!)

During the 90s I lived in Baton Rouge, LA. One of the first jobs I had down there was as a canvasser at Citizen Action. I went door-to-door talking to people about the politics of our ecological situations. We offered to contact legislators and we solicited donations with an effort to lobby legislators on environmental issues. Overall it was a bust, I didn't last long but the time I spent studying these issues cemented my belief that there really is environmental classism/racism. Depending on where you live they can be one in the same but they are not necessarily the same thing; depending on where you live those who get the brunt can be white or black or brown. We went to more poor, predominantly white areas than poor, predominantly minority areas. Some of the people we canvassed - mostly working poor - lived in the most appalling and hazardous environments I could've imagined. I truly began to recognize that something was unfair and that there was a pattern. The people who worked in the shittiest jobs at the chemical/oil companies in LA lived closest and were polluted more severely and more frequently than everybody else. Poor people consistently lived closer to landfills, incinerators and treatment plants and surely you can recognize the possible hazards associated with that.

Now as an adult and a homeowner I am trying to make sure I leave as small footprint on the earth as I can. In doing so I have run into problems with lack of information, lack of interest within my minority and larger communities. I understand that I was ahead of the curve on these issues and was not able to do some things the way I would have liked and I have had to settle for a "lesser evil". In 2004-2005 I tried to remodel green but couldn't find contractors who understood what I was asking. I have now begun this blog in an attempt to rectify as much of this as I can. I want to do my part to make it easier for the next person to work and live in an environmentally friendly, socially responsible way. I want to promote these ideals to minority communities b/c we too are people of the earth. This land we call home, the United States of America is rich with blood and sweat of minority peoples. If anyone can claim this land it is we who are here b/c those before us died (by force or by choice) so that we could reap the benefits. I firmly believe that we can take small steps toward an eco-friendly, socially conscious life and that those small steps will make a great impact on our communities and our persons.

This is an ideal of being responsible for what we do today because we are looking forward to make everyone a beneficiary of the bounty we have, and I promise you, we all have a bounty we just might not recognize it.

I hope this didn't come off as preachy, it was not intended as such. Most of what we will do here is practical info, interesting news and information. This will be fun.

Welcome to Green & Black!

My goal with this site is to create a resource for an eco-friendly lifestyle and community. I will focus on issues and solutions for all sorts of issues but I will emphasize those that relate mostly to African-Americans, both urban & rural, low & high ends of the economic scale.

Comments are needed and welcomed. I want to know which are the issues of concern for you.