Round 2

Hi again & first off, thanks to everyone for all your great feedback on this new blog !
Some of you had really good ideas - keep em comin' .
I'm updating sooner, rather than later as it's shaping up to be an incredibly busy week.
Our house will be busting at the seams with company for the next week or so, so I've been washing bedding & doing some cleaning today. ( Yes, my cleaners are biodegradable, and I hung everything on the line to dry. See, I practice what I preach people !)
I had some interesting feedback from someone who has at this point in their life, a desire for info on all things baby related ( She's expecting baby # 2 ). There are more choices than ever when it comes to baby & childrens products but the 2 best I can think of right now are not only good for the environment, they are safer for the child also. If you do nothing else I'd say feed your baby only organic food & use organic soap & skin care products on your baby. Regular products have dozens of chemicals and lets face it, our skin is our protection from the world but it also absorbs whatever we put on it, into our body.Then our liver , which recognizes these as the toxins they really are, has to work extra hard to get rid of them. This actually is important for all of us, but even more so for little ones. I figure it's the same as food. If I can't pronounce it, I don't want it in my kid. Why do the powers that be approve these nastys ? I speculate that if something harms you slowly enough, it's hard to prove so the almighty dollar wins again $$ .The other thing I can suggest is cloth diapers. I used cloth at home, disposables on outings, for both my boys. I didn't know too much about environmental issues back then, but it was more economical that's for sure ! In fact, the first disposables only came onto the market in the 60's and yet the landfills are overflowing with them as they take forever to decompose. The fact is that...
In the first two years, the average baby will require between 5000 to 7000 diapers, and over four million disposable diapers end up in landfills, in Canada every day.
Disposable diapers in landfills prevent water from soaking to the ground. Even when using disposable diapers, the contents should be emptied into the toilet so that the waste can be properly treated. Disposable diapers also encourage babies to potty train faster than disposables, because with disposable diapers, the babies seldom feel any wetness or discomfort.
Disposables also contain chemicals like chlorine bleach, that come into contact with delicate skin & can cause irritation(diaper rash) .
For those of us who are past our baby rearing days... I'll get back on track next time but in the meanwhile I'd like to challenge you all to choose one organic or natural product instead of a mainstream one when you next go shopping . You deserve it !

Where to start ?

Well here it is, our latest adventure in the blogging world...We decided to do a blog that would venture off into different directions ( depending on whatever issues catch our eye at the moment) and hopefully it will be interesting, as well as helpful. Last week we went to see the Movie " An Inconvenient Truth" It provided some very eye opening statistics about exactly what we are doing to our planet, so that's what I'll start out with . If anyone has any comments on this or other subjects they'd like me to research, drop me a line....but for today....

Global warming, pollution, toxins etc are scary things and most people would rather deny or put off doing something about them. Truly, it's much easier to just not think about these things, but if each one of us doesn't at least try to step up to the plate & do our part we are in for some really drastic changes to the world our kids inherit, whether we admit it or not. Scientists have concluded that if global warming continues, we can expect that...

-Ocean levels could rise by over 20 ft. with the loss of shelf ice in Greenland and Antarctica. changing our coast lines forever !

-Heat waves will be more frequent and more intense.
-Droughts and wildfires will occur more often.
-The Arctic Ocean could be ice free in summer by 2050.
-More than a million species could be extinct by 2050.

It sounds scary BUT we can each make a difference without much sacrifice to our way of life if we choose too. We just each have to make the commitment to choose the health of our planet. Really people, since it's the only planet we can live on, what other choice is there ?
So, what can we do ?

• Replace regular light bulbs with compact fluorescent light bulbs (cfl). CFLs use 60% less energy than regular bulbs. This simple switch will save about 300 pounds of carbon dioxide a year. If every family made the switch, we’d reduce carbon dioxide by more than 90 billion pounds
• Use a clothesline instead of a dryer whenever possible.You can save 700 lbs. of carbon dioxide when you air dry your clothes for 6 months out of the year. ( and they smell great too ! )
• Turning off your TV, DVD player, stereo, and computer when you’re not using them will save thousands of pounds of carbon dioxide a year.

There are so many more things we can do that are virtually painless, so why not make a start everyone. For more ideas see the link to " An Inconvenient Truth" (where I got these from ) or wait until my next blog. Over & out people.