And now, still learning educating and training the younger generation’s to involve individually and collectively in all eco-development activities and decision makings  I have individually conducted hundreds of seminars and converted them to eco-actions,

24 hour x 7 days Snake Rescues along with a trained team,

Free seminars, slid shows and movie for the all local and surrounded educational institutions,

Conservation based weed removal action for Tribal livelihood development trainings

Clean renewable energy solar lamp implementation to rural and tribal those not accessed with power,

And many innovative initiatives like craft from the plant lantana camera which is considered as a weed destroying native forest and farm lands, GREEN CROSS eco action clubs, and more to bring a change in the un-mind full living of the most populace   even though we find very tuff and hard to move every step without any support, I believe that we can make it, I also swear that what ever happens I am not going to quit my duty towards nature, of conserving the only home at least in this 11 hour... 

Greenbuild 2009 International Conference and Expo is being held in Phoenix, Arizona from November 11th - 13th.

Former Vice President Al Gore will be the opening Keynote speaker tonight, November 11th at the Greenbuild conference. You can watch his speech and other keynote speakers live or as archived video later here at GreenbuildExpo.org.

The Anacostia River Cleanup and Protection Act of 2009 PASSED!

The Committee of the Whole approved the Committee Report on B18-150, the Anacostia River Cleanup and Protection Act of 2009 without question or discussion.
We still have a second and final vote in two weeks; however, since it was unanimous, it's going through. Please thank all council members involved for passing this bill.
www.TrashFreeAnacostia.com

What does the Anacostia River Cleanup and Protection Act of 2009 do? 

* Place a 5-cent fee, paid by consumer, on all disposable recyclable plastic and paper carryout bags from Retail Food Establishment license holders (including grocery stores, food vendors, convenience stores, drug stores, restaurants) and Class A & B liquor licensees.
* Ban non-recyclable plastic carryout bags.
* Require that if a plastic carryout bag is offered, that it must be recyclable and clearly labeled as such.
* The retail establishment will get 1 cent of fee returned tax exempt to the retailer.
* Retailers who choose to offer a carryout bag credit program will retain an additional cent, for a total of 2 cents per bag.
* The remaining fee per bag will be deposited into a new Anacostia River Cleanup & Protection Fund.

I'm not really into blogging. I mean who really reads these things.  I guess why I feel it is safe to say: 

"My name is Erica and I'm eco-obsessive compulsive."

It has been my secret shame for quite some time (except for my roommates who were repeatedly harassed in to recycling everything)

I'm ashamed to admit that it took me a few months to get around to watching the 11th hour. I was impressed when I bought it because it actually came in recyclable packaging.  I avoided the movie because I was afraid of feeling depressed and helpless as I watched the images and absorbed the harsh reality (the inconvenient truth, as it were) and as a single parent working in the automotive field I was mostly concerned with feeding my children and caring for those around me.  I didn't think I could make a change on a global scale.  So I put watching this on my to do list and tryed to save the world as best I could, tightening faucets and turning off lights. I hate to admit to the garbage picking that went on...  I still can't put ANYTHING in the garbage. I will donate any useless thing to charity rather than add to the landfills,  I just can't.

As I said I am, for the time being, an auto worker.  When I first started my job people were talking about how Kyoto was just being ratified in Canada.  I was happy but I knew right then that it was going to cost me my job one day. I knew at that point I would be getting ready to do something else and that the big 3 would still be producing these shiny cancer causing dinosaurs.

So the day is here and I'm still not sure what to do. I was already frightened about the future so why not get right into it and face it all at once.  The thing is that I wasn't afraid after I watched it.  I'm hopeful!  I think it is possible that I can make a change, even if I still don't know how.  I don't even know how much longer I will be working, but I know that I will be leaving my polluted little town and going out west and from there I will meet like minded people...

My biggest passion at the moment is solar energy, maybe electric vehicles.  I bit my tongue at a child's birthday party last weekend when handed a bottle of water... there is a time and a place. Wind turbines get me all warm and gooey inside. :)

I was also thinking that there should be a movie that shows the possibility for the future. Like what a big city like LA would be with cleaner cars and solar panels (they also have waves that could power much of the city and surrounding areas)

With all the disaster movies out there people will feel helpless and keep these negative images in there heads. (the media is NO HELP in that area) we need a movie that shows possibility (Hopefully we can slip it past the oil companies and their lap dog politicians)  I know that http://www.thevenusproject.com/introResearch.php are working on a movie kind of like I have in mind.  The ideas expressed there are great for the most part but I don't know how soon something like that would be possible AND I don't think we should just give up on the old cities that we already have. We do need to start making what we have work more efficiently a.s.a.p., then we can switch over from there and preserve some of the more stunning pieces of architecture and historic sites as we go.

these are just some of my thoughts.  I don't know what good I've done expressing them but I intend to keep doing it until I figure out what to do next :) ec

As promised, I'm posting my framed autographed 11th Hour Poster that I attained through the Global Green USA eBay Auction. I also received in the package The 11th Hour stickers designed by Shepard Fairey.

I had previously purchased the Shepard Fairey 11th Hour shirt, so now I tried to improvise and create a complete ensemble with the stickers. Using the stickers, I revived a purse and wallet I owned. I put the remaining sticker in a used photo frame that I bought for $1.00 at a Goodwill Store.

Since I had to purchase a new frame for my 11th Hour Poster, I wanted to support a local business rather than a national retail framing store, so I had my poster framed at a family owned framing business here in my town. When you have to buy something new and cannot reuse or recycle something you already have, then I feel it is best to support a local business. Buying from local businesses rather than chain stores keeps more money in your community because when compared to chain stores, locally owned businesses recycle a much larger share of their revenue back into the local economy, enriching the whole community. Local businesses create good jobs, boost the local tax base, which in turn improves your schools, parks, and the quality of life in your town. Plus, local businesses are invested in their community. It is usually a local business owner who partakes in civic activity that contributes to the common well being of the community; you are likely to find a local business person, giving their time, and often their money, to the common good.

I was happy to be able to support Global Green USA by participating in this online auction. I have also been Planting Virtual Flowers for them too. The one thing I have not done yet, but I’m still planning on doing to help support Global Green USA is to down a few VeeV-a-la Green Martinis for them. Starting on Earth Day, April 22nd and running through May 31st, all Rande Gerber's 30 lounges across the globe, including Whiskey Blue, Whiskey Park, and Stone Rose will donate fifty cents from every VeeV-a-la Green cocktail purchased to Global Green USA. VeeV, the world’s first Açaí spirit, is made with 100% all-natural ingredients, and $1 from every bottle sold is donated to The Sustainable Açaí Project, which helps preserve the Brazilian Amazon Rainforest.

We have a Stone Rose Lounge a stones throw from my home, so I have no problem cocktail sipping for a good cause. Going “green” is not only good for the planet, but good for your buzz too.

Help NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC KIDS Magazine set a Guinness World Record™ by donating your old jeans and other denim to help create the world's largest collection of clothes to recycle.

What Will Be Done With All This Denim?
All the denim will be donated to Cotton From Blue to Green.®.  This denim drive recycles jeans into UltraTouch™ Natural Cotton Fiber Insulation, which is used to help build houses in places that have been damaged by hurricanes, tornadoes, and other natural disasters. Your jeans will help set a record, keep clothes out of landfills, and build houses for families to live in!

It’s a Fact
It takes about 500 pairs of jeans to recycle enough denim to insulate one average-size U.S. house.

Here’s How You Can Get Involved!
1. Get a parent’s permission and select as many denim jeans as you like. (Any denim clothing is OK.)
2. The denim must be used.
3. The denim can be any brand.
4. The denim can be any color or size but must have been worn by a human (no doll clothes!).
5. Please print out this form and include it with each package!
6. Send as many jeans or denim items as you wish to:

NG Kids / Set a Guinness World Record
P.O. Box 98001
Washington, D.C. 20090-8001

For shipments that cannot be delivered to a P.O. box:
NG Kids / Set a Guinness World Record
1145 17th St. NW
Washington, D.C. 20036

Jeans must be received by June 30, 2009!        

If you live in the Phoenix metropolitan area instead of shipping material yourself, you can bring all your denim to a.k.a. Green before June 15th! They will bag everything up & truck one-huge shipment to the main denim drive in Washington DC.

I wrote a blog back in October 2007 about photographic artist Chris Jordan who began a series of digital photographs that present contemporary American culture by way of inconceivable statistics regarding American consumption. In his photographic series, Running the Numbers: An American Self Portrait, each image portrays a specific quantity of consumption: Plastic Bags, 2007 - Depicts 60,000 plastic bags, the number used in the US every five seconds; Plastic Bottles, 2007 - Depicts two million plastic beverage bottles, the number used in the US every five minutes. Jordan portrays these statistics by incorporating them visually in large, intricately detailed photographic prints assembled from thousands of smaller images.

In his new series, Runninng the Numbers II: Portraits of Global Mass Culture (2009) Jordan depicts mass phenomena that occur on a global scale. The first few pieces in this series depict statistics about threats to the world's marine ecosystems.

Gyre (2009) is the first set of images in this new series which represents the Pacific Gyre, or The Great Garbage Patch. The Pacific Gyre is the largest garbage swill floating midway between Hawaii and San Francisco and is roughly the size of Texas containing approximately 3.5 million tons of trash.

The below photographic image Gyre (2009) is composed of 2.4 million pieces of plastic – the estimated number of pounds of plastic that enter the world’s ocean’s every hour.

                              Actual image                                                                    Partial zoom

                           Zoomed in further                                                                  Viewed up close

Next in the series is a set of images called Shark Teeth, 2009. If you have read the 11th Hour Action blog about how sharks are under a global threat and yet may be a key to our survival then you may appreciate the significance of these images, and the serious consequences to killing sharks.

The below images depicts 270,000 fossilized shark teeth, equal to the estimated number of sharks of all species killed around the world every day for their fins.

                         Actual image                                                                                        Partial zoom

                              Zoomed in further                                                                            Viewed up close

To fully appreciate these photographic images you should really view them directly from Chris Jordan’s website. There are 11 images from the Gyre series, and 5 from Shark Teeth. Plus there are 5 images that depicts 20,500 tuna, the average number of tuna fished from the world's oceans every fifteen minutes.

Let’s face it…composting is NOT for the faint of heart. I’m sure there are a lot of people out there who would want to start composting, but they won’t give it a try because it quite honestly frightens the heck out of them. Plus they don’t know where to start or what they exactly need, and they probably don’t know anyone personally who is well informed that they can elicit their help and advice.

Well a Chicago woman, Stephanie Davies, is answering that call to frightened wannabe composters with her new business Urban Worm Girl by educating the community on composting with worms through home-hosted parties. There has always been a wide variety of home-based party sales businesses selling items like candles, jewelry, cosmetics and housewares. But the success of selling products like worm composting bins rely more heavily on the expertise of the consultant and their proficiency in educating and training their customer, plus their all important follow-up service they provide. With that all said, I think Urban Worm Girl has one dynamite 'GREEN' business.

Urban Worm Girl has all of the supplies and know-how needed to help start you on your worm composting, plus she offers on-site demonstrations and worm visits. Starting with her standard packages you will have personal support finding the right spot and setting up the bin in your home. If questions arise that are not answered in the manual provided, Urban Worm Girl will be available to give you support and advise by phone or a one time return visit to help you solve the problem. Arrangements can also be made to help you maintain your bin on a monthly basis and assist with harvesting.

I love reading about new eco-friendly businesses. I wish her much success and I hope others will start similar businesses that help people to start composting. We have the recycling thing down pretty well, but we still have a long way to go to get people to start composting. So I applaud the Urban Worm Girl who is filling this niche.

Urban Worm Girl was featured on Chicago's ABC News Live Green segment. You can watch the video of this segment HERE.

Urban Worm Girl web site

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