Happy New Year from 11th Hour Action!  We are very looking forward to a bright and productive 2009!  The new year is always a great time to take stock of goals and priorities and set and renew positive intentions.  We are hopeful that with the incoming Obama administration with it's emphasis on renewable energy, green jobs and conservation, and with more and more people becoming hip to the green revolution everyday, that 2009 will be a great year for environmental awareness and action!

Here are 11 EASY things we can do to make conservation and sustainability a part of our everyday lives:

1. Set your thermostat to 68. You can always put on another layer if you get cold!

2. Make sure your tires are properly inflated. It improves your fuel efficiecy, thereby cutting back on CO2 emissions.

3. Plan a weekly trip to your Farmer's Market to buy local and organic foods.  Eating local cuts down on the your carbon footprint and organic food does not contribute to pollution from pesticide use.

4.  Cut back on water use. Take shorter showers, wash car using a bucket instead of a hose (or better yet, use waterless carwash products!), only wash clothes & dishes with a full load, and turn off the faucet when you brush your teeth!

5.  Unplug your appliances and chargers when they are not in use. Use a smart power strip to make this easier! Turn off the lights when you are not in the room (I know it sounds silly but a lot of people still don't do this!)

6.  Bring your own bag to the store! The hardest thing about this one is remembering the bag. Keep them in your car or the compactable nylon ones in your purse!

7.  Recycle all you can!  Go online to find out what you can and cannot recycle in your area. You might be surprised that your city is capable of recycling more than you think!  Also, find out how you can properly dispose of or recycle electronic waste, prescription drugs, and yard and food waste. Consider making 2009 the year you start composting!

8. Consume less!  If something breaks, consider repairing it before you replace it. Repurpose things that still have some life left in it or donate it to someone who can use it when you are through.  

9.  Change your light bulbs. I know this is totally cliche by now, but believe it or not a lot of people are still using incadecent bulbs! CFLs and Cold Cathode bulbs are improving all the time, especially when it comes to bulbs used with dimmer switches.  If you tried to switch in the past and couldn't find what you needed it might be a good time to look again.

10.  Drive less. If you life in a mild climate, walk and ride your bike as much as you can.  Be efficient with your time and fuel by running all your errands during one outing instead of taking lots of seperate trips. Carpool and use public transportation!

11.  Take Action!  Consider finding a local organization that is working towards a sustainable future and volunteer!  Talk to your friends, family, co-workers and anyone you meet about these easy ways they can make a difference!  

These are just a few things that we can all recommit ourselves to doing in the New Year!  Remember, all these little actions add up to a big impact and we can all do our part. 

Thank you, you know who you are. Do I know who you are.........probably not. lol

http://www.unclejayexplains.com/media/UJ%2012-22-08.wmv

"Every day I get to work in the morning, get my coffee, jump online and read the news. Every day I go home sad and depressed...  Then I found your site and after reading the first story I immediately felt my spirits lift and I never went home sad again. Reading ordinary news we get a sense that that's all there is, but your site reminds us the world is not as bad as the news would lead us to believe. Thank you for everything. " -Sean Nolan, New Zealand
http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/

 Canada's Top Ten Weather Stories for 2008  - Environment Canada

"The news wasn't all bad, though! Our air was clearer than in most years; there were no summer blackouts; the pine beetle took a hit; it was a quiet year for wildfires; and there were fewer West Nile-carrying mosquitoes."

"Canadians are some of the most weather-conversant people in the world. We talk about weather more than any other subject. Our weather was anything but boring or unimportant. For example, the thinning and shrinking of Arctic sea ice may not have grabbed headlines, but in many ways its accelerated disappearance was more shocking and worrisome than the year before. And while Canada continued to shrink in the North, Western Canadians proved their mettle as a winter people by beating back a brutal cold spell in late January. Easterners were no less heroic, having to shovel and plough record snowfalls."

 http://ec.gc.ca/doc/smc-msc/2008/toc_eng.html

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It has been nine days since my last entry. Thanks to Michael for his comment.  I have been thinking carefully about what I wrote and would like to pose the following for thought and I hope some thoughtful commentary.

 

It is easy to rant! My first entry was a bit of a rant. The comment was also a bit of a rant. The are so many things that an individual can do to support a more “green” society and so many others pointing out additional avenues to promote a greening of our world. It is relatively easy to put many of these green initiatives into practice.

 

What is difficult is getting countries, states, industries, and other political entities to take action; initiating policies and programs that respond to the environmental crisis we face. It seems to be a matter of the kinetics of change and because of the lag in action by so many countries, the kinetics seem to favor the increasing degradation of our climate. Global warming, and other serious environmental challenges we face, may be reaching the tipping point. What can we do about relentless degradation of our environment if we are indeed at the tipping point?

 

Consider the following proposition. We must consider that even if all the initiatives and personal actions to make the world greener, we are in for some serious changes to our environment. Therefore, in addition to fostering individual actions and lobbying our governments and industries to make needed changes, we need to also follow another path. That path is research based on the idea that we will need to develop technologies to cope with the changes to come. Not only green technologies, but also technologies that can allow the peoples of the earth to survive in the altered states of our environment to are projected. I have some ideas of areas of research that need to be exploited. I propose we start a discussion on line to generate research directions that will promote discoveries and techniques that will allow us to cope with the effects of global warming and the increased toxicity of our environment. What are your thoughts?

 The CBC  Nova Scotia 2008 newmaker of the year is a Standardbred racehorse.

Somebeachsomewhere (foaled 25 May 2005 is a champion standardbred racehorse and equal world champion. The colt was purchased as a yearling for $40 000, and is currently owned by Schooner Stables of Truro, Nova Scotia.

"The three-year-old colt set four world records," CBC News 

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/nova-scotia/story/2008/12/08/virus-somebeachsomewhere.html

 Somebeachsomehwhere Global TV

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=bIdZpiJNc4U

 

Dear eveyrone, especially the wonderful people at treemedia,

My name is John E. Bergamini, an 18 year old from Norway that last winter was arranging with a group of other students an annual show that we have at our school. This years topic was Global Warming, and the name of the show turned out to be; Hot!.

 This show is an annual entertainment presentation by students at my age where the actors bring forth acts related to varied topics of Global Warming, and after several months of hard work we had made a presentation that in the end was presented to a total of more than 4000 people during the one week of shows. We were more than a 100 people involved in making Hot, and in the end there is no doubt that all of us were more focused on the environment and the negative changes of nature affected by humans.

This year we also used alternative measures to bring forth our theme of Global Warming, and my job was head of media - this job was to use video in several ways to portray the environmental changes made by humans, and what we can do to change. We had several projector screens showing video sequences of the results, what made the changes, individuals that take responsibility for what we have done to earth and several animations of what will happen in the future.

These individuals included the local major, head of Greenpeace Nordic, the Environmental Minister, 2 proffessors at Oslo University, our principle and unbeliveable enough, Leila Conners Petersen, the director of the11thhour.
The movie sequences were made by myself where Greenpeace was kind enough to open up their international database for videos and letting my download videofootage that was breathtaking.

The feedback we recieved both from the viewers and media were amazing! Neighbouring schools have had presentations during the same months, but none recieved as much attention as ours. We had without drawn attention to the entire area of the western suburbs of Oslo, especially in the young age group. We were recognized as "youths taking responsibility for the environmental way in a funny and entertaining fashion", a definition of our work that we were very satisfied with.

In the end, we had not only made a presentation that got good reconmendations for the entertainment level, but we brought forth elements of a serious topic and presented it in a quite different fashion that one is used to! the actors were singing "forever cold" to the beat of "forever young", all dressed up in polar bear, seal and whalruss(!) outfits.

With this I will highly encourage anyone out there with annual school-presentations (or connections to any) to bring awareness of environmental change through new ways, it does work!

I will especially like to thank Holli at Treemedia for her great cooperation and patience while working with stressed out 18-year olds, and I would also like to thank Leila Conners Petersen for taking time to say a few sentences about global warming - people were amazed that you actually did it, and it shows that the people at Treemedia really takes this seriouslly. THANK YOU!

 There is one more mentioning, and that is that this morning, on Christmas Day, my little brother and I recieved a present from our parents labeled with "becouse you are our future". When we opened it, it was the 11thhour - Dvd.
The Dvd is breathtaking and brings forth elements of global change that I had never seen before, and it does surely change anyone's idea of Global warming.

 Therefore, on behalf on Nesbru High School, I wish you a merry Christmas,

and once again, thank you for your help treemedia, and i encourage anyone to take action, in any way possible as any action at all is an action in the right way.

 Best Regards,

John Erik Bergamini

 

 

Have we identified all the problems with our un-sustainable actions? Can we say that we have proven with facts & evidence that the our home, earth, will loss it's environment that is sustainable for human to live on?

Have we, as the human race, been developing in a wrong method that we should be concern about?

 Of course, through all the years of scientific efforts and research, we have come to the conclusion that the earth will not be sustainable for human to live on - if we continue our current lifestyle. Many people are aware of this problem, but should we continue on raising aware by showing the consequences that will come before us? I believe we should take a step back, and flip this around and think of it in another way. Sustainable development is in action, currently day to day by many people. Instead of telling others what not to do, let us show others how we can be sustainable. Show that a growth in the economy and environment is possible. (Ex. Biomimicry, alternative energy, close loop, and many other more) Straight forwardly saying, these methods are interesting, because it is not your avg. day activities. From this interest, we can motivate others, in the context of sustainable development, to engage in providing solutions rather than acknowledging the problems. In addition, small ideas from others (around the world) can come together and provide an alternative solution that is effective. Let us inspire others with current sustainable development methods. Grab a hold of their attention through interest and curiosity of a mind. Use influence methods that leads to intrinsic rewards rather than influence methods that leads to extrinsic rewards. (We should focus on inspiring people rather than threatening people, but should always keep in mind the consequences that can occur.)

 We as the human race have been using un-sustainable development methods to achieve economic growth. We were and are still expert at it. Can we really say the previous generation lead the human race in the wrong way? I don’t believe so. Without the efforts in economic growth, we will not have the technology we have right now (our key to sustainable development). I believe it is just a shortcut path that the human race have token at the cost of nature. Now with our technology, we are able to research and create better energy efficient tools, and have multiple of theories to base our later development on. Without the economic boom, who is there to say it would’ve been better – or who is there to say it would’ve been worse? The point is, previous events that had happened already passed. The mistake that has been made and the progress that has been made should be taken into account when we create sustainable development. We should learn and study from the past (to gain the knowledge), and progress toward the future with great efficiency. P.S. This is only one way of thinking. I cannot say it’s right or wrong, but at lease it’s a thought to engage others.      

its snowing here in british columbia ,canada...

slow,continuos snow ,a blanket protecting the earth.mother nature is forcing us to stop and look. stop driving,stop everything. yet people still try.. still out there in the monster trucks,skidoos, whatever they can use to tear up the peace and tranquility she is providing.

people worried they wont be able to shop till they drop for the holidays.

take a break ,watch the world outside get wrapped in that thick white blanket and ......breath......