Going Green in Comfort

Photo by Holger Link on Unsplash Amid the stories in my Facebook feed of how deadly Covid-19 was in China and its progression to other nations, was this map: NASA and European Space Agency This shows the nitrogen dioxide — most commonly produced by automobiles and power and industrial facilities — in the air over China from before the Covid-19 quarantines began to a period during the emergency measures. The difference is startling, and as the virus spreads and other governments enact similar quarantines, more nations will also see a drop in nitrogen dioxide until the crisis passes. Since I first saw this comparison, I’ve wondered if this might be the silver lining in an otherwise devastating epidemic? Could this sudden drop in what people continuously pump into our atmosphere buy us more time to make permanent environment-friendly behavior changes? An ABC News story posted March 5, 2020, is not encouraging on this front. Andrea Dutton, a climate scientist at...

( Beverly Omalley / FreeRangeStock.com ) From food to housing to the technology at our hands, we get a lot of use out of our planet. That's why I want to spend this holiday by showing my appreciation. For those who'd like to do the same, I offer the following suggestions for a greener Thanksgiving: Shop locally for what you can. Get as many ingredients as possible from farmers markets and stores with locally sourced foods. It might mean making a few nontraditional side dishes, but this could be the start of new traditions among your family and friends. Minimize your packaging. Cleanup will be tougher if you opt to use your own roasters and pie pans instead of aluminum ones you can throw away, but isn't our planet worth a little extra scrubbing? Likewise, forgo paper plates, plastic utensils and paper cups, if at all possible. Also, when you shop, take your own reusable bags. Put leftovers to use . Food rotting in landfills contributes to up to 25 percent of me...

Recycle or upcycle My daughter and her second-grade classmates recently learned a little about recycling and got to do a little upcycling in the process. The assignment: Turn discarded items you find around the home into something useful. My daughter’s idea: A tin-can “robot army” that functions as a desk organizer. Because a person can use only so many pens and pencils, my husband and I recommended that she scale it down to a single pencil holder, but we both agreed that making it look like a robot would be adorable. She created a face on a circle of cardboard and made robot “feet” out of the bays of an egg carton. She drew start and stop buttons onto used paper, and cut slivers of cardboard and glued them on the side to look like arms. In the end, it looked very little like a robot, and, to be honest, if I were to go to the store and buy a pencil holder, I’d choose one that looked a lot more generic than what she created (though, once the one she made comes b...

In 12 years, my daughter will be 19. Another round of midterms will be just weeks away, and for the first time, my daughter and her peers will be old enough to vote. But if we haven't acted by then to limit global warming to a 1.5 degree Celsius temperature increase, there will likely be little those new voters can do to alter what could be a very bleak future, according to the U.N. report on climate change released Oct. 6, 2018. Even at a 1.5-degree increase, we'd have problems — and already do at the current 1-degree increase. The effects can be felt not just in extreme weather, but in crop yields, heat-related deaths, flooding, and more. But those negative impacts increase rapidly as the world heats up, even by a fraction of a degree, the report shows. The Guardian compiled a graphic showing the impacts and threats by degree, based on the U.N. report, that shows coral reefs already are at high to very high risk. (Scroll down on the previous link to "Rising Tem...

The headlines on climate change over the past couple of weeks have been down-right depressing. Have you missed it? Here are just a few links I recommend. From the New Yorker: The dire warnings from the United Nations' latest climate-change report From CNN: What the new report on climate change expects from you Opinion from The Boston Globe: Climate change: A crisis that can't be ignored From Vox: 4 big takeaways from the UN's alarming climate change report You know that old phrase, "Don't sh*t where you eat"? Well, we've been doing it in spades, and we're already seeing the negative impacts. According to the science outlined in the articles above, we are on course to do serious damage to our food supply and our homes. With the U.S. midterms less than a month away, I urge everyone concerned about the course we're on to get out and vote for the candidate most likely to support protecting our environment. It's the greenest action ...

FreeRangeStock.com My iPhone 6s has had a few problems lately. The battery seems to run down a lot faster, and occasionally, the phone locks up and I have to reboot it. For now, those are both problems I can live with. But I have a feeling I might need to start thinking about getting a new one soon. I'm so glad to see that these days, there are tons of places to recycle a smartphone. That wasn't always the case. But now, I can drop a used phone off at Best Buy or other locations, or I can mail it to several websites for a little extra cash. There's even an ATM machine at our local mall that I can drop it in and get a like $15 back. I just love that so many places are making recycling outdated technology simpler!

( Merelize / FreeRangeStock.com ) I need to buy lemons, lot of lemons, for the thorough cleaning my home desperately needs. I've for a long time that people use lemons to clean, but I didn't realize how powerful they can be. According to an article on GreenAmerica.com, lemon juice can cut grease . I had no idea. The same site lists a bunch of other natural cleaners I already knew about — like vinegar, baking soda, club soda, hydrogen peroxide, and borax — but also a few that surprised me, including: Corn meal to soak up spills on a carpet. Olive oil as a furniture polish. Some essential oils may have antibacterial and antifungal properties. " Get Things Clean the Natural Way ," a post on the Better Homes & Gardens website, adds a few more natural cleaners: Salt as an abrasive cleaner.  Microfiber cloths to remove germs. Do you have more tips for green cleaning? Please share in the comments below.