Let the World know you care! Add your name to the Earth Hour list.

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On March 29, 2008 at 8 p.m., join millions of people around the world in making a statement about climate change by turning off your lights for Earth Hour, an event created by the World Wildlife Fund.

Earth Hour was created by WWF in Sydney, Australia in 2007, and in one year has grown from an event in one city to a global movement. In 2008, millions of people, businesses, governments and civic organizations in nearly 200 cities around the globe will turn out for Earth Hour. More than 100 cities across North America will participate, including the US flagships–Atlanta, Chicago, Phoenix and San Francisco and Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.

We invite everyone throughout North America and around the world to turn off the lights for an hour starting at 8 p.m. (your own local time)–whether at home or at work, with friends and family or solo, in a big city or a small town.

What will you do when the lights are off? We have lots of ideas.

Join people all around the world in showing that you care about our planet and want to play a part in helping to fight climate change. Don’t forget to sign up and let us know you want to join Earth Hour.

One hour, America. Earth Hour. Turn out for Earth Hour!

The cool kids: The senior people of the company are obviously at the top of the social structure; they are the elite who generally don’t talk to those on the lower rungs of the ladder.  Like high school your social status in the company is related to who you hang out with.  Take administrative assistants as an example: the  assistant to the site general manager is very important, she commands respect strictly by association; it’s like she’s got a laminated hall pass and she knows it.

Social life:  Who you drink with and how much you drink is the stuff of legends and fodder for years of gossip.  Believe me, if you go out and party it up with coworkers, and you make a fool out of yourself all night, everyone will know about it on Monday. You can hold onto the illusion that we’re all adults now, and no one cares about stuff like that, but they do.  And there is always someone who needs to be the most important person in the room for the moment it takes to tell everyone about how you were so drunk you took a digger on the curb on your way to the cab.   And the story will follow you for years, so be careful.

Fitting in:  If you have weird quirks, you’re out.  In high school, the quirks might have been talking to yourself, or being a big nerd in class, answering all questions with an eager, hand waving, oh, oh, oh!  In corporate America, it’s more acceptable to be the smartest person in the room, but less acceptable to eat tuna sandwiches in your cube or sing at the top of your lungs with your headphones on.  It’s social and professional death.

So how do you graduate?  Be professional, carry yourself as if you are an important, high status person in the company, even if you aren’t.  Treat everyone with equal respect and work to be respected by others.  Refuse to get involved in the high school drama.   Because when you sit around talking about someone’s weird fashion sense, or who they hang out with, or how they should spell check their emails, then you are contributing to the big bad pep rally that is the gossip mill, and you will be stuck in the high school of the corporate world forever.

Some of us work hard and take to heart all the tips and tricks to help the environment.

But are we really saving the world from global warming when we choose paper over plastic, or glass over aluminum, or even idling your car versus turning it off?

So let’s knock off some of these so called “green” living tips and start really doing something about our environment.

1. Cans or Glass Bottles?This is a tricky dilemma. Do we choose aluminum that is resource-intensive or glass which uses an abundant amount of natural materials? The answer: It doesn’t really matter what you choose, the key here is to recycle and drink more water. Well, water that isn’t in a plastic bottle, that would just defeat the purpose now wouldn’t it?
2. Paper or Plastic?Most will tell you to choose paper because you can recycle paper, it’s biodegradable and it’s from a natural, re-new able resource. Then others will tell you that plastic is the way to go because it actually generates less pollution than the process of producing paper. The answer: neither. There is essentially no difference between choosing one over the other. To make a true impact on the environment; bring your own bag to the store.
3. Diapers: Cloth or Disposable?Now we’re getting into the nitty gritty; cloth or disposable diapers? The answer: It’s your preferance. For the same reasons as paper or plastic, they both use realatively the same ammount of resources. Cloth diapers are reusable, yes but they take a lot of energy to wash, dry and transport. On the other hand, disposables are filling our land fills. There really isn’t a solution to this problem unless you are a brave soul and go with diaperless parenting.
4. Computers: Shut them down or put it in “sleep” mode?Contrairy to popular belief, shutting your computer off when it isn’t being used saves more energy than putting it in sleep mode. Shutting it down will also save you wear and tare, helping your computer last longer.
5. Cars: To idle for a few minutes or turn it off? The answer: turn it off. Tests from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Laboratory and the California Air Resources Board confirm that when given the choice of idling for a few minutes or turning your car off, you should always to turn it off.Tests comparing emissions over minute-long increments for restarted versus idled cars confirm: Idling produces more emissions. Fast fact: Over nine minutes, an idling car will emit double the pollutants of a car that is turned off and then restarted.

More Information

1. Use Organic Bedding
   Have you ever worn an organic cotton t-shirt? It is the softest material you could put against your skin. Who wouldn’t want to sleep on that? Other materials available include hemp and linen. Conventional bedding may have pesticides and other chemicals that are known to cause allergies and/or illness.
2. Use an Organic mattress
   If your in the market for a new bed, consider an organic mattress. An organic mattress will be free of toxic chemicals. A conventional mattress may contain pesticides, VOCs (volatile organic compunds), and chemicals that encourage allergies and/or illness.
3. Get an Energy Star Ceiling Fan
   Ceiling fans will save you on your energy bills by circulating the hot and cool air. They will also make you more comfortable.
4. Compact Fluorescents
   Efficient lighting is a key to help lower the use of energy. Using CFLs has been stated a lot by many people but is an easy and simple way to lower your impact on the environment.
5. Use Natural Lighting
   Natural light is the most cost effective. Open you curtains or pull up your blinds. Natural light is easier on your eyes. If your in the remodeling mode, consider adding sky lights through out your home.
6. Insulate your ceilings and walls
   Proper insulation will lower your energy bills dramatically and make your house more comfortable throughout the year. There have been some neat inovations for natural home insulation using recycled denim.
7. Fix leaky windows and doors
   Leaky windows and doors are a real waste of energy with a quick and easy do-it-yourself remedy.
8. Use Non-toxic Paint
   There are many alternatives for paint other than the chemical filled traditional paints including Old Fashion Milk Paint, made from milk protein, lime, clay and natural earth pigments. Milk paint is environmentally safe and non-toxic.
9. Use Eco-friendly Flooring
   Going green in this area is worth pulling up that old nasty carpet that holds dust mites and was made from harmful and toxic chemicals. There are several options when going green with your flooring including bamboo, which looks beautiful in any home. There is also cork, and reclaimed wood. Bamboo and cork are fast growing plants making them a renewable resource.
10. Used furniture or furniture made from recycled and sustainable materials
    Craigslist and eBay are two great resources for finding used furniture. For new furniture look for companies that are using sustainable, renewable resources or recycled materials.

1. Donation

   Make a donation to the many organizations that need your support. Organizations such as the Susan G. Komen Foundation to help fight breast cancer. Or help kids fight disease with a donation to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Find a charity that is close to your heart or supports a cause that means something to you.

2. Go Shopping

   Make purchases from organizations like Orphan Lyrics that donate proceeds from sales to charities. Or buy from the organization it self where the proceeds go directly to the charity. Habitat Store

3. Volunteer

   There are numerous organizations that have volunteer programs. Find one (or two) that interest you and schedule a date(s) to help your community. Habitat for Humanity can always use volunteers. Find local charities that may need your help. For example, Phoenix’s WNBA team the Phoenix Mercury have partnered with the local Habitat for Humanity and have created “Habitat Women Build” established in 1998. They recruit their local fans to help build homes for families in need.

Whatever your choice; donation, volunteering, make sure to get out this Valentin’s Day and not only show your love for people close to your heart but also think about the larger community that we all live in.

I had to drive to my local grocery store and depending on what I need to buy and where I need to go this could be a 5 to 10 mile one-way trip, just for the grocery store.

Everything is in plastics; plastic bags and containers all of which get thrown away as soon as they are consumed.

And what about all the toxic chemicals that I brought home because I thought they smelled nice; air fresheners, laundry detergent, house hold cleaners. You know those “pretty” smells are all created from chemicals to mask the true chemical smell.

This is a bad habit and it needs to be broken.

1. Bring your own bags - Paper? Plastic? “Neither, thanks”. And hand them your reusable bags. If we all made it our goal to do this we would prevent millions of plastic bags being used every day. We would prevent millions of bags from littering our parks, rivers, lakes and oceans, polluting our soil and ground water.

2. Even for your produce - Yes, even those wimpy little bags need to go. They still use a ton of oil to make and are causing just as much damage. Reusable bags for produce

3. Buy less plastic - Instead, go for glass and metal which can be fully recycled locally, depending where you live. Plastics are not fully recyclable and in most cases have to be shipped out to be recycled.

4. Buy organic products - When possible, buy organic products. Organic farmers must meet strict government regulations and most organic products will use recycled packaging.

5. Buy locally farmed food - By supporting local farmers we can help lower the chemical impact on the environment of traditionally farmed foods which use chemical pesticides. We’ll get healthier foods that have not been grown on over farmed land where vitamins and nutrients are lacking. We will also keep money in the community and improve the local economy.

6. Buy and eat less meat - Raising cattle and other livestock has an incredibly large impact on our environment. They generate more greenhouse gases (CO2) than all transportation combined and are a primary cause of land and water degradation. If you do buy meat, purchase organic, free-range meats. These animals have been raised without antibiotics and hormones and have been fed organic feed. Ranchers also have to meet the USDA standards for organic foods.

7. Use less disposable items - Use a towel instead of paper towels, use regular plates, instead of paper or plastic plates, use real forks, spoons and knives instead of plastic ones. The goal here is to create less waste.

8. Avoid toxic chemicals - There are natural ways to clean your home and laundry without exposing your family and pets to the dangerous chemicals. Air fresheners are included in this and are not a necessity in our homes.

9. Buy plants and trees - Plants will naturally clean the air in your home and produce clean oxygen for you and your family. Planting a tree can help reduce your carbon footprint.

10. Walk - Walk as often as you can. It’s healthy for you and will keep your not so environmentally friendly car in the garage.

I know this isn’t an all-inclusive list but hopefully it will get us all off to a good start.
Do you have any ideas I can add to the list?

• Don’t take things personally
  If you really think about it, you know that most things just aren’t personal. Most often the explanation of a situation goes back to the other person. Let’s say a coworker doesn’t share information with you that would be beneficial to your job performance. It’s not personal, it’s likely that the person is insecure about their status in the company, fears getting fired, or is threatened by you, so they feel they must hoard information. That doesn’t mean you have to sit back and let someone trample all over you, but that leads to the second item…
• Don’t gossip
  This is a tough one, I know. But there is no good result from gossiping. Even if you have a real issue, like someone who is deliberately trying to bring you down. You absolutely can’t go to a coworker and complain about it. It may sound paranoid, but you should trust no one when it comes to work place gossip. The problem is, you usually learn this lesson the hard way, you talk to someone who then shares with someone else, and now you are in the middle a the mess that you can’t get out of. If you have a real work-related issue, you have to go to your supervisor or HR, or you have to suck it up and vent to someone outside of work. But don’t vent too much, remember…
• It’s just work, it’s not your life
  In the end, you will not care who worked harder on a report or what coworker had the worst annoying habits. And your family doesn’t want to hear your work stories every day, believe it or not. If you are obsessing over a work issue, or work in general, try this: pretend like your 70-year old self is writing you a letter, giving you advice from a place of experience and wisdom. You know what? She’s going to tell you to LET IT GO.

When you have a good work ethic, you care about your job and your career, but just remember that it still is not who you are, it’s just what you do. And the stress you create by obsessing over certain coworkers is not worth it.

Next up: The No-Gossip Pact - Should You Make One?

1. Avoid idlingWhen we idle in the morning to warm up the car we are increasing the engine wear and emissions from our cars. The emissions from a cold engine are much higher than from an engine that is warmed up enough to be working at high efficiency.

   However, in a well-tuned vehicle, you should not have to idle your vehicle to warm it up. Instead, you should start out driving slowly, not revving your engine, accelerate modestly and slow down gently.

2. Use the right antifreezeUse antifreeze that contains propylene glycol rather than ethylene glycol. The latter is very toxic to pets and wildlife. The sweet taste of the antifreeze attracts animals.
3. Use a block heaterIf you live in a cold climate, get a vehicle with a block heater. This will help your engine reach peak efficiency faster.

These sites typically allow you to connect with other readers and exchange books. Some use point value systems, others are a one-to-one kind of deal.

Bellow is a list of book swapping sites that are getting more popular by the day.

• Read It Swap It
  UK based - You register some books you no longer want. Then, find a new book you want to read in “The Library” and click ‘Swap with this member’. This will send your request to the owner of the book. He or she will automatically be invited to view a list of all the books you have registered with ReadItSwapIt. If you have registered a book the other user likes, he or she will agree to swap books with you.If you both agree and like each other’s books, you arrainge the swap through the web site. However, if one party does not like the deal, they can refuse to swap.
• BookMooch.com
  BookMooch runs a point system beginning with the number of books you contribute.
  1. Add a book to inventory: + 1/10th
  2. Give away a book (within your country): + 1
  3. Give away book (to another country): + 3
  4. Mooch a book (within your country): - 1
  5. Mooch a book (from another country): - 2
  6. Acknowledge receiving a book you mooched: + 1/10th
• Socialbib- for college students
  You need a valid .edu email address and you can begin posting books you need and books you have but are finished with. Our site will match you up with someone who has the book you need and then they will ship it to you for free. You will also be matched up with someone who needs a book that you’re finished with.

  There’s a built in credit system that lets you receive a book for every book that you give. But right now when you sign up you get a credit for FREE…which means you can basically get a free book.

Your carbon footprint is the amount of carbon monoxide you produce as an individual every year. The goal is to reduce your footprint by doing various things such as recycling, conserving energy, and purchasing bio-degradable products. But to reduce our carbon footprint we need to establish a bench mark to work from.

The National Wildlife Foundation has a calculator to help us set a baseline to work from.

My Carbon Footprint turned out to be 13,618 lbs. per year, or 7 tons, of carbon dioxide each year! It takes 545 trees to store this much carbon dioxide.

Ouch! I must admit, I was a little surprised at my carbon footprint number. I always thought I was aware of my impact on the environment.

I’m using this as a wake-up call. I know that I’m not the best at recycling or using less energy but I know I can do better. I’m a nature lover by heart and I hate to see our beautiful forests spotted with litter, or our beaches trashed, or our polar bears loosing less and less of their living environment.

I’ve scoured the internet to find easy, quick things that we can do that will have a big impact on our footprint numbers.

What you can do now:

1. Use less water
   • Take shorter showers
   • Put a full bottle of water in your toilet tank. This displaces the amount of water needed to fill your tank after use.
   • Water your plants with used cooking water. Most would see this water as waste water and it would go down the drain but in fact it is full of nutrients that your plants can use.
2. Use Less Energy
   • Turn the temperature down on your water heater. You’ll still have hot showers but this saves on the amount of energy being used to heat the water when not in use
   • Switch your lights to CFLs (compact fluorescent light bulbs). They can use up to 20% less energy and last about 10 times longer. They may pay for themselves
   • Unplug electronics that are not in use. Your DVD player, tv, cell phone charger, stereo. Even if you are not using them, they are still using energy to power the clock to other settings.
3. Create less waste
   • Use and bring your own cup to your favorite coffee shop or soda fountain. Most will give you a cup discount.
   • Put a fork and spoon in your lunch and reuse them instead of using disposable plastic ware.
   • Stop using paper plates. This is incredibly wasteful.

For More Information: Check out these sites

• Earth 911.org
• Tree Hugger.com
• National Wild Life Foundation