meat.reducers.unite

If it's good enough for a Beatle, it's good enough for us!

A recent convo between Laurie David (Founder, StopGlobalWarming.org) and Sir Paul McCartney revealed some interesting and frightening statistics!!

A long-time vegetarian and environmentalist, Paul shared his thoughts regarding an important link between these two spheres of interest. He drew statistics from a 2006 UN report on the subject.

"According to the report, an astounding 18 percent of global warming emissions come from raising cows, chickens, pigs, turkeys and other animals we eat. That's 40 percent more than all the world's cars, SUVs, airplanes, and other modes of fossil-based transportation, which combined account for 13 percent. For further comparison, every house, residential and office building in the world accounts for just 8 percent."

There's now a huge trend in Europe called "Meat Reducing", where along with recycling and eschewing plastic bags, people are eating meat at LEAST one day less per week.

Try being a "Meat Reducer" right away!! It's the smallest thing you can do to help save the environment, not to mention your health and the well-being of my little farm friends!!

animal.writes

And we're back with another bit of animal writes.

Today's topic comes from my friends at the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). Basically, Senate and House members will be meeting to iron out their differences over their final versions of the Farm Bill.

The protection measures that we are fighting to get through are as follows:

- The use of former or stolen pets in research. (Click here)
- Puppy imports (Click here)
- Strengthening the federal dogfighting law (Click here)
- Animal Welfare Act (AWA) Accountability (Click here)

What can you do to help ensure that these issues be enforced legally? Take a minute or 2 (I don't know how fast you can click and type) to fill out this letter to our local congress, urging them to include these measures in the Farm Bill.

I've already sent mine, please help me strengthen our government's awareness of these critical issues!!

green.back

OK, OK, so it's not THE most original post title, as it was basically lifted from Mr. Migraine's office's new initiative to cut down on waste in the workplace: Go Green, Get Green.

How super fabulous is that?!

According to Mr. M., his company is holding a contest to come up with great ways to reduce waste around the office, with a grand prize of $150! Just imagine how many energy-efficient light bulbs and rolls of recycled toilet paper that would buy!!

I'm going to offer up some suggestions on this, mainly since I spearheaded an initiative at my former prison (read: office), to be as green as possible!

• Switch over to recycled paper products - printer/copy paper usage can be DEADLY to forests given how much we go through in a single workday! This can also include filing folders, calendars, notebooks, business cards, brochures, pamphlets, paper towels, toilet tissue (see above!) etc..
  
• Buy office supplies in bulk. Look, the delivery truck is coming now ANYWAY.. save in fuel and emissions by having things delivered in fewer trips!!
• Engage in more tele/video conferences. Rather than meet in person and waste more fuel, emissions, etc. in traveling - hold your meetings electronically!
• Enforce the total shutting down of computers, lights, electronics of any kind across the board at the close of the business day. LOADS of energy is wasted needlessly from having computers, printers, copiers, lights, etc. on standby or sleep mode all night long. (This would save the company quite a lot of money on their energy bill as well!!) Just make sure that things are definitely shut off - unplugged would be ideal.. but I know how many calls to the IT guy would ensue...
• Keep a normal, regulated temperature at all times. How many of us suffer needlessly at the hand of the almighty Central Air Conditioning of Abominable Strength (yes, ca-ca)?!?!?! By keeping the thermostat at a reasonable temperature, you can save bundles of energy!
• Provide training to the employees on how to properly print, copy, fax. I know this sounds moronic, but I can't tell you HOW MUCH paper (and ink!) gets WASTED because people do not know how to use these machines and have to trial-and-error their way through REAMS of paper!! Get them taught correctly right away and avoid this mess altogether.
• And of course, MAKE SURE YOUR OFFICE HAS A RECYCLING PROGRAM IN PLACE!! At least we can make something positive come out of those office jerks who think they're too smart or important to attend their copy machine training!
  

So there's my first round of idears for greenery. If you have any other nifty tips to add, please share!

*Edit: I found a great site that offers 10 tips for greening up at work.. there are a few repeats from my list, but with a bit more expansion! Enjoy!

trader.joys

So the boy and I went to our favorite new grocery store Trader Joe's last night. I'm sure most of you are familiar with it, but in case you haven't had your own personal TJM (Trader Joe's Moment), allow me to give you the lowdown.

Trader Joe's offers the widest variety of organic, natural and non-processed foods and produce for the absolute lowest prices around. Sure there's Whole Foods and a litany of other local health food shops but they are generally overpriced, even in comparison to your average run-of-the-mill grocery store.

Anyhoo.. in our plight to be conscious consumers and shop at places and for products that are not only good for us but also for the environment, we decided to bring along a couple of our sustainable and reusable recycled plastic totes to carry our groceries home with! Upon seeing our highly eco-LOGICAL effort in bringing our own bags, the uber-friendly staff at the checkout counter entered us in a raffle to win LOADS of free goodies from the store!!

The raffle will be decided on later in the week, but the moral of the story here is that being kind to your environment often has its own secret hidden benefits! Even if your local supermarket doesn't honor you with raffle prizes, try to bring your own bags with you instead of wasting paper and plastic (it takes the Earth 10,000 years to break down a plastic bag, people!!)

If you can get to a Trader Joe's, they do sell their tote bags in-store. You can also get some nifty canvas bags here or plastic bags here.

Added bonus: FREE BAG!

animal.writes

Good morning! Today I am introducing a new and recurring section dedicated to my favorite cause of them all: Animals. The goal here will be to frequently post important information, news related to animal rights, ways to help support their best interests, etc. You know - animal writes.

Following the same idea used in the blog about seafood, I'm going to start with a PETA-certified list of companies that STILL do testing on animals. According to resources, an estimated 50 to 100 MILLION vertebrate animals are used annually in testing and killed either during or after the experiments!! ** Animals bred for research then killed as surplus, or used for breeding purposes, are not included in the figures**

Before going on to the list, let me include some information about what we're really concerned with here.

There are dozens of categories of experimentation involved, including:

• Basic Research (behavior, development, functioning)
  
• Applied Research (related to the treatment or cure for disease in humans and animals)
• Xenotransplantation (transplanting living cells, tissues or organs from one species to another)
• Toxicology Testing (safety testing of products such as medicines, pesticides, food additives, household chemicals, etc.)
• Cosmetics Testing (duh.)
• Drug Testing (see above)
• Defense Research (animals bred by the military to develop weapons, vaccines, battlefield surgical techniques, and defensive clothing)

I plan to expand on these issues more in the future, as I'm quite certain that few of us really grasp what is involved with much of today's animal testing. But for now, onto the list!

Most of you are probably thinking "Wow, that's sad, but what can I really do about it.." Here's what you can do! Be a conscious consumer. Know your products, where they came from, and how they got you in the first place. Feel good in purchasing products manufactured by people who have NOT maimed, tortured and killed precious animal life to give you a better scented candle or shampoo or bleach or vitamin.

Here's a sampling of some well-known companies that have made it their mission to eliminate animal testing!!

• Abercrombie & Fitch
• Aubrey Organics (not well-known, but woo hoo!!)
• Aveda
• Avon
• Basis
• Bath & Body Works
• The Body Shop
• Bonne Bell
• Burt's Bees
• Clinique
• Conair
• Donna Karan Beauty
• Estee Lauder
• Hard Candy
• Liz Claiborne
• M.A.C. Cosmetics
• Method (my personal favorite!!)
• Pathmark (home brand products - I wonder if that includes their vodka?)
• Tom's of Maine
• Trader Joe's
• Victoria's Secret
• Wet 'n Wild

For a fully comprehensive list of companies that do NOT test on animals, go here!

Now as for the bad guys... the following companies, unfortunately, continue to manufacture products that ARE tested on animals. Please review this list and keep these companies in mind when you're out doing your shopping!!

• Arm & Hammer
• Chesebrough-Ponds (Vaseline, Ponds)
• Church & Dwight (Aim, Arrid, Brillo, Close-up, Lady’s Choice, Mentadent, Nair, Orange Glo International, Pearl Drops)
• Clairol (Aussie, Daily Defense, Infusium 23, Procter & Gamble)
• Clorox (ArmorAll, Formula 409, Fresh Step, Glad, Liquid Plumber, Pine-Sol, Soft Scrub, S.O.S., Tilex)
• Colgate-Palmolive Co. (Hills Pet Nutrition, Mennen, Palmolive, SoftSoap, Speed Stick)
• Cover Girl
• Dial Corporation (Dry Idea, Purex, Renuzit, Right Guard, Soft & Dri)
• Helene Curtis Industries (Salon Selectives, Thermasilk, Unilever)
• Johnson & Johnson (Aveeno, Clean & Clear, Listerine, Lubriderm, Neutrogena, Rembrandt, ROC)
• L’Oréal U.S.A. (Biotherm, Cacharel, Garnier, Giorgio Armani, Helena Rubinstein, Lancôme, Matrix Essentials, Maybelline, Ralph Lauren Fragrances, Redken, Soft Sheen, Vichy)
• Max Factor
• Mead
• Mennen Co. (careful to not get their jingle stuck in your head!!)
• Olay Co./Oil of Olay
• Oral-B
• Pantene
• Pfizer (BenGay, Desitin, Listerine, Lubriderm, Plax, Visine)
• Playtex Products (Banana Boat)
• Procter & Gamble Co. (Clairol, Cover Girl, Crest, Gillette, Giorgio, Iams, Max Factor, Physique, Tide)
• Reckitt Benckiser (Easy Off, Lysol, Mop & Glo, Old English, Resolve, Spray ’N Wash, Veet, Woolite)
• Sally Hansen
• Schering-Plough (Bain de Soleil, Coppertone, Dr. Scholl’s)
• S.C. Johnson (Drano, Edge, Fantastik, Glade, OFF!, Oust, Pledge, Scrubbing Bubbles, Shout, Skintimate, Windex, Ziploc)
• SoftSoap Enterprises
• Suave
• Unilever (Axe, Dove, Lever Bros.,)

For a fully comprehensive list of companies that DO test on animals, go here!

Happy shopping!!