Raw Living Foods Lifestyle - chiDiet.net

Everyday pollution we can avoid

Environmental Working Group researchers found 95% of San Francisco Bay Area wastewater samples contained at least one unregulated, widely-used, hormone-disrupting chemical commonly found in personal care and household products.

Male fish exposed to these chemicals can grow eggs in their testes -- so what happens when people are exposed? Birth defects in babies, infertility in women, and reproductive problems in men are among the array of possibilities.

Read the full report: http://www.ewg.org/reports/downthedrain

• The good news? You can take simple steps to help protect your family's health and the environment:
• Make sure your personal care and household products are fragrance-free.
• Pass on the plastic bottles and utensils. Stick to glass and stainless steel.
• Skip the "antibacterial" products and use plain soap and water. It's just as effective.

More steps you can take: http://www.ewg.org/node/21843

A Different Perspective

This new series looks at contemporary American culture through the austere lens of statistics. Each image portrays a specific quantity of something: fifteen million sheets of office paper (five minutes of paper use); 106,000 aluminum cans (thirty seconds of can consumption) and so on. My hope is that images representing these quantities might have a different effect than the raw numbers alone, such as we find daily in articles and books.

Statistics can feel abstract and anesthetizing, making it difficult to connect with and make meaning of 3.6 million SUV sales in one year, for example, or 2.3 million Americans in prison, or 426,000 cell phones retired every day. This project visually examines these vast and bizarre measures of our society, in large intricately detailed prints assembled from thousands of smaller photographs. My underlying desire is to emphasize the role of the individual in a society that is increasingly enormous, incomprehensible, and overwhelming.

http://www.theglobalintelligencer.com/dec2007/arts

- Thanks to Gerald Perry of Phoenix for sharing this with us.

Genetically engineered corn could affect water supply

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- A study by an Indiana University environmental science professor and several colleagues suggests a widely planted variety of genetically engineered corn has the potential to harm aquatic ecosystems. The study is being published this week by the journal: Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences: http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/email/normal/6507.html

The ecological effects of eating meat

Would you ever open your fridge, pull out twenty plates of pasta and chuck them into the bin, and then, eat only one plate of food? How about leveling fifty-five square feet of rainforest for one lunch or dumping two-thousand-five-hundred gallons of water down the drain? Of course you wouldn't. However, just eating half a kilo of meat will cause this. Eating meat will cause inefficient use and destruction to our resources and environment, cause immense animal suffering, and have detrimental effects on our health. So, if roasting a dog to complement your mashed potato disturbs you, then why roast any other gentle animal?   

A UN report has identified that “cows not cars, are the top threat to our environment.” It gives evidence that the world's rapidly growing herds of cattle is the greatest threat to the climate, forests and wildlife. Farmed animals produce one-hundred-and-thirty times more excrement than the entire human population of the United States and this concentrated slop ends up polluting water, destroying top soil and contaminating our air. Furthermore, their bodily gas and manure emit more than one third of methane, which warms the world twenty times faster than carbon dioxide. Meat-eaters are responsible for the production of one hundred percent of these wastes which is about eighty-six-thousand pounds per second. But, by giving up animal products, you will be responsible for none of these.

Moreover, our taste for meat is taking a toll on our supply of non-renewable resources. A staggering two-thousand-five-hundred gallons of water is needed for the production of each pound of beef, but, in contrast, it takes only twenty-nine gallons to produce a pound of tomatoes and a hundred-and-thirty-nine gallons for a pound of whole wheat bread. Half the water, eighty percent of agricultural land in the United States, almost all the soy bean harvest and over half of the world's grain is used to raise animals for food. While we are doing this, one billion people are suffering from hunger and malnutrition and twenty-four-thousand children die every day alongside fields of grain destined for the West's livestock. However, world starvation would be eliminated if our scarce resources were utilized efficiently by converting land to raising crops for feeding people.

For the rest of the story, click here; http://al.godsdirectcontact.org/your_food/

- Contributed by:  Helen Terry

Confronting Climate Change in the U.S. Northeast

(NewsTarget) A recent report has enumerated the catastrophic changes that the northeastern United States can expect due to global warming, particularly if local and global greenhouse gas emissions are not curbed.

The report, "Confronting Climate Change in the U.S. Northeast," was a joint project of the Northeast Climate Impacts Assessment, the Union of Concerned Scientists and more than 50 scientists and economists. It looks at the likely outcomes of two different climate change scenarios, one assuming a continued increase in greenhouse gas emissions and the other assuming significantly lower emissions due to a shift to cleaner energy sources.

The high-emissions scenario predicts an 8- to 12-degree Fahrenheit increase in winter temperatures and a 6- to 14-degree increase in summer temperatures, while the lower-emissions scenario predicts increases of 5 to 8 and 3 to 7 degrees, respectively. The global sea level is expected to rise 10 to 23 inches under the high-emissions scenario, and 7 to 14 under the lower one.

For the rest of the story: http://www.newstarget.com/022391.html

Water: Use Less, Save More

There are many simple things we can do at home and at work to reduce our consumption of water. Here are 10 of the 100 smart water-saving tips from Water: Use Less, Save More:

1. If you are making a hot drink, fill the kettle with only as much water as you need. You will save energy as well as water.

2. Garbage disposals use a considerable amount of water. Start composting—put vegetable scraps in your compost bin.

3. Use a bowl to wash vegetables or to wash and rinse plates.

4. Don’t keep the tap running when cleaning your teeth.

5. While waiting for shower water to run hot, collect the cold water and use it on your plants.

6. Have a five-minute shower instead of a bath—and save 30 gallons of water.

7. Attach a hose to your washing machine outlet pipe. Collect the used water when the machine is discharging and use it to water the garden.

8. Use a rain barrel to collect the rainwater from your roof rather than using treated drinking water on your garden.

9. Make sure everyone in your home knows where the main water valve is and how to work it. Use it to turn the water off if you have a leak.

10. Keep the telephone number of a plumber handy for emergencies.

Committed to Raising Consciousness,

Dorit, Raw Lifestyle Film Festival Creator and Organizer
Book, Celebrating Our Raw Nature 1 & 2
http://www.serenityspaces.org
 

Consumer complaints CAN make a difference

Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2007 16:39:21 -0500
From: freerange@mail.democracyinaction.com

Free Range Fans,

Remember Sam Suds, the Poison Investigator?

Sam, a bar of soap, is a Free Range creation. He was developed to spread the word about the dangers of PVC and to get this poisonous plastic banned from Target Stores. What can a bar of soap and his friends do to influence a giant like Target? Check this out:

Today, Target stores have just announced the systematic removal of PVC from their stores!

This win is the result of a year-long effort by The Campaign for Health, Environment and Justice (CHEJ), which organized 230 press conferences, protests (some of which included a 25-foot rubber ducky), and events at Target stores across the country.

Over 75,0000 people watched Free Range's film Sam Suds and the Case of PVC, The Poison Plastic, moving thousands of viewers to action. On the day of Target's 2007 annual shareholder meeting, CHEJ ran an advertisement in USA Today calling on the company to "stop ducking the truth about the dangers of PVC."

CHEJ's efforts, along with your support, have led to this critical breakthrough in the case against PVC.  Thanks CHEJ, bravo Sam Suds, and congratulations Free Range Fans!

We urge you to keep up this fight-- watch the movie again and help CHEJ encourage other major retailers to remove PVC from their stores: www.pvcfree.org.

- Free Range Team

2007 Solar Decathalon competitions

Congratulations to everyone - students, coaches, parents, sponsors and The U.S. Department of Energy staff - who participated in the 2007 Solar Decathlon! While some teams finished ahead of others, every person who took up the challenge of the 2007 Solar Decathlon succeeded in meeting the competition’s larger goal: the promotion and advancement of solar energy.

For more on the advancement of solar energy and the 2007 Solar Decathalon: http://www.solardecathlon.org/

- Contributed by Helen Terry.