Join Our Mailing List Email:

Green Living & Environment

Compiled by Rebecca D. Whittaker

Today our "Green Living & Environment" is our greatest concern. We worry about global warming and about our earth's climate changing and how this will affect our future and the future of our children. We worry about having a safe place for our children to grow up in. We want a place that will be safe and not full of dangerous environmental challenges. As we say Mother Nature is out there challenging us every day, hoping that we will allow her to grow and be who she was meant to be.

Climate change is already happening  and represents one of the greatest environmental, social and economic threats facing planet. The European Union is committed to working constructively for a global agreement to control climate change, and is leading the way by taking ambitious action of its own.

The warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and r9ising global mean sea level. The Earth's average surface temperature has risen by 0.76° C since 1850. Most of the warming that has occurred over the last 50 years is very likely to have been caused by human activities.

What can we do? Well, according to Green Living the E Magazine Handbook for Living Lightly on the Earth by the Editors of E the Environmental Magazine: To make the most of the recycling opportunities in your community, it’s important to understand the fundamentals. The cryptic symbols on plastic containers and the rules on paper can be confusing. Obviously, regulations vary from community to community, but the everyday items acceptable at local recycling centers or curbside include: Recyclable Paper, Recyclable Plastics, Other Plastics, Recyclable Glass, Recyclable Metals, Other Household Items, Automobiles, and Toxic Chemicals.

Our use of energy…. According to Saving Planet Earth by Tony Juniper; how we use energy must alter as well. At present, a lot of the power we generate is wasted in running inefficient appliances, such as the old-fashioned light bulbs. Switching over to energy saving alternatives in a wide range of products could make a very substantial difference. Even changing the standby settings in consumer goods that now have little red lights signaling their readiness for use would save substantial amounts of energy.

Al Gore’s "An Inconvenient Truth" talks about how the climate crisis may at times appear to be happening slowly, but in fact it is happening very quickly -- and has become a true planetary emergency. The Chinese expression for crisis consists of two characters. The first is a symbol for danger; the second is a symbol for opportunity. In order to face down the danger that is stalking the planet and move through it, listeners first have to recognize that they are facing a crisis. So why is it that public leader seem not to hear such clarion warnings? Are they resisting the truth because they know that the moment they acknowledge it, they will face a moral imperative to act? Is it simply more convenient to ignore the warnings? So these are questions we should be asking ourselves obviously if Al Gore is asking them. He explores them and more in his book and DVD.

In The First Billion Is the Hardest by T. Boone Pickens he talks about that Today, Pickens is making some of the world’s most colossal energy bets. If he has his way, most of America’s cars will eventually run on natural gas, and vast swaths of the nation’s prairie land will become places where wind can be harnessed for power generation. Currently no less bold than he was decades ago when he single-handedly transformed America’s oil industry, Pickens is staking billions on the conviction that he knows what’s coming. In this book, he spells out that future in detail, not only presenting a comprehensive plan for American energy independence but also providing a fascinating glimpse into key resources such as water—yet another area where he is putting billions on the line.

According to Wikipedia: Clean coal is an umbrella term used to promote the use of coal as an energy source by emphasizing methods being developed to reduce its environmental impact. These efforts include chemically washing mineral and impurities from the coal, gasification treating the flue gases with steam to remove sulfur dioxide and carbon capture and storage technologies to capture the carbon dioxide from the flue gas. These methods and the technology used are described as clean coal technology. Major politicians and the coal industry use the term "clean coal" to describe technologies designed to enhance both the efficiency and the environmental acceptability of coal extraction, preparation and use, though specific quantitative limits on emissions are undefined as yet.

It has been estimated that commercial-scale clean-coal power stations (coal-burning power stations with carbon capture and sequestration) cannot be commercially viable and widely adopted before 2020 or 2025. This time frame is of concern to environmentalists because, according to the Stern report there is an urgent need to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.

The Editors Of E The Environmental Magazine helps you learn to live green: Experts suggest that by 2005, 40 percent of American homes will buy organic, yet a large majority have only a limited knowledge of how to actually make informed, green choices. Green Living, from the editors of E/The Environmental Magazine offers a thorough, step-by-step plan for every aspect of your life, from the laundry room to the kitchen:

Maintaining a healthy home Going organic and avoiding genetically modified food Finding a planet-friendly car Making socially responsible investments Using personal-care products free of damaging chemicals.

Saving water also saves energy. 6.5% of the energy used in the state of California is for pumping and treating water--in fact, pumping water south (and uphill) in the State Water Project accounts for 2-3% of all the electricity used in the state. And for your personal energy bill, using less hot water saves on water heating. On the flip side, saving energy and using alternative energy saves water--electricity production from fossil fuels and nuclear energy is responsible for 39% of all freshwater withdrawals in the nation.

Wind power is the conversion of wind energy into a useful form, such as electricity, using wind turbines. At the end of 2008, worldwide nameplate capacity of wind-powered generators was 121.2 gig watts. Although wind produces only about 1.5% of worldwide electricity use, it is growing rapidly, having doubled in the three years between 2005 and 2008. In several countries it has achieved relative3ly high levels of penetration, accounting for approximately 19% of electricity production in Denmark, 11% in Spain and Portugal, and 7% in Germany and the Republic of Ireland in 2008.

Wind energy has historically been used directly to propel sailing ships converted into mechanical energy for pumping water or grinding grain, but the principal application of wind power today is generation of electricity. Wind power, along with solar power, is non-dispatch able, meaning that for economic operation all of the available output must be taken when it is available, and other resources, such as hydroelectricity, must be used to match supply with demand.

Large scale wind farms are typically connected to the local electric power transmission network, with small turbines being used to provide electricity to isolated locations. Utility companies increasingly buy back surplus electricity produced by small domestic turbines. Wind energy as a power source is favored by many environmentalists as an alternative to fossil fuels, as it is plentiful, renewable, widely distributed, clean, and produces lower greenhouse gas emissions, although the construction of wind farms is not universally welcomed due to their visual impact and other effects on the environment. The intermittency of wind seldom creates problems when using wind power to supply a low proportion of total demand. Where demand, additional costs for compensation of intermittency are considered to be modest.

Solar energy is radiant light and heat from the sun that has been harnessed by humans since ancient times using a range of ever-evolving technologies. Solar radiation along with secondary solar resources such as wind and wave power, hydroelectricity and biomass account for most of the available renewable energy on Earth. Only a minuscule fraction of the available solar energy is used.

Solar power provides electrical generation by means of heat engines of photovoltaics. Once converted its uses are only limited by human ingenuity. A partial list of solar applications includes space heating and cooling though solar architecture, potable water via distillation and disinfection, day lighting, hot water, thermal energy for cooking, and high temperature process heat for industrial purposes.

Solar technologies are broadly characterized as either passive solar or active solar depending on the way they capture, convert and distribute sunlight. Active3 solar techniques include the use of photovoltaic panels, solar thermal collectors, with electrical or mechanical equipment, to convert sunlight into useful outputs. Passive solar techniques include orienting a building to the Sun, selecting material with favorable thermal mass or light dispersing properties, and designing spaces that naturally circulate air.

Be Sure to stop by our store and check out some of our DVD’s by Vice President Al Gore, Environmental DVD movie by Julia Roberts, Free Willie Environmental DVD, National Geographic, History Channel, Leonardo DeCaprio, Audio CD’s by Newt Gingrich, Al Gore, President Barack Obama, William McDonough and Michael Braugart, and Books by David Halvarg, Diaane Maceachern, Lee M. Silver, Ann Marie Holmes, E Magazine, Ed Begley Jr., Ken Midkiff, Tony Juniper, Mark Lynas, and many more. You can find all these authors and their books in category " "Green Living & Environment" ".

As you can see there are many things in our  "Green Living & Environment" that require our attention. With all these things that I mentioned and many more that I have not mentioned, we can greatly help our environment. We can all work together for a happier, healthier, greener planet earth.