Eye Opener: CSPI

CSPI stands for the Center for Science in the Public Interest.  It is a non-profit watchdog group headed by Michael Jacobson.  Its focus is mainly on nutrition and health, food safety, and alcohol policy.

Quiz:

I chose to do the Eating Green Calculator quiz. Below are my results.

To start off I was really surprised by my cholesterol level! YIKES!! My diet contains 85% cholesterol.  That is really scary! Also the amount of manure that is produced from the animals that I eat is ridiculous it is 2,565 pounds! Wow!  All of that manure is just producing more gas emissions too, so definentely not good for the environment! But overall I don't think that my diet on the environment is terrible, but for my body it may not be that healthy! I also had 0% fiber from this quiz..I know that I do get some in my diet from other sources, but still that is an important part of a diet and I don't get any from this part of my diet!

Improve Your Diet:

When I did the improve your diet part of that quiz, which allows you to put the amount of each food that you would be willing to give up my amount of fertilizer and manure went down by quite a bit!  Also my cholesterol went down by 22% which is a lot considering I didn't change my diet very much and my fiber went up by 16%.  I think that can help out on my own body a lot as well as the environment! Below are my new results!

Pledge or No Pledge?

I chose to pledge and take the challenge!  I don't think it would require a drastic change in my diet that I wouldn't be able to handle.  If it is going to improve my health for one and the environment also why wouldn't I want to challenge myself to try and fix it?  It wouldn't make sense not to at least try it! It can't hurt!:)

What it means to me:

I learned that my diet isn't as healthy as I like to think it is!  Actually it wasn't very good at all. Also I realized how much it affects our environment and by just cutting out a few meats and dairy products a week I can drastically help our environment.  It is a small change in my eating habits for a HUGE change to our environment.  I think it is a real eye opener to see how much we don't realize the smallest thing that we do can cause an enormous impact on our surroundings. It definitely made me more aware of what I eat and how it affects the environment!  I wish more people would have the opportunities handed to them as we do in this class to realize our impacts.  I know that everyone can go out there and find it, but it is a lot easier to have someone guiding you in the right direction! Thanks Dr.V for all the opportunities you offer us!:)

Share and Voice: Shutting Down For Earth Hour

I have been seeing commercials on TV for esurance and they have been talking about "Earth Hour." I looked up what it was all about and it is a really cool idea. There are 35 countries participating and on March 29th and 8:00 pm everyone is supposed to shut their lights off for 1 hour! It's supposed to prove the point that something really does need to be done for our environment!! I am challenging everyone to turn off the lights and every other electronic for one hour on March 29th! Below is the video from the commercial!

Share and Voice: Car That Runs On Water -Best Latest Invention 2008

I found this video on youtube while I was looking up automobile companies and what they are doing to go "green." I thought this one was really cool! I also think that this just goes to show that we definentely have the technology to better our earth by producing less gas emissions! A car that runs on water is amazing!! Although it is a really good idea and they say it doesn't really take that much water to make it run for quite some time, it could cause some problems considering that we already are having water shortages throughout the world. Watch the video and let me know what you think!

Reflections: Weeks 3 and 4

So these last 2 weeks we have mostly been watching the documentary called "An Inconvenient Truth." I really like this video and think it is packed full of information, most of it I didn't even have a clue about! I think that everyone should watch this documentary, because it is a real eye opener. Also it hit me the hardest to think that the government more or less just ignores the issues and comes up with every excuse in the book of why they don't do anything about it! It makes you feel kind of helpless considering that they run our country and can most of the time make the biggest impact. I also really liked that he put many real life examples throught the video, such as when he showed if Antartica melted the sea level would rise 20 feet everywhere in the world. He had pictures that showed how it would cover Manhatten, San Fransisco, and many others. Examples like that, at least for me, hit me the most because I feel that it is something that I can relate it to. It's one thing to hear about what is going on in the world and the impacts that the way we live has, but to actually see what is happening or will eventually happen is VERY POWERFUL!

Also we did quizzes for our first Eye Opener post. It was fun to see what everyone's results were. I think that everyone was really shocked to see the impact they make on our earth. I know that I was shocked to see mine. I think the ecological footprint was probably my favorite quiz that I took. We really started to get into more environmental issues these past 2 weeks and it seems the class is only going to get better from here on out! I can't wait!

P.S. Everyone's blogs are turning out really great! Keep up all the hard work!!:)

Eye Opener: Ecological Footprint

The first quiz that I took was called the Earth Day Network Footprint Calculator. It was actually a fun quiz, until I got my results. It said that if everyone lived the way I do we would need 5.3 planet earths to survive. I am kind of embarrased that I live this way. I didn't realize how much harm I am doing to the environment, or how much of its' resources I am using up. It also says that to support my lifestyle it would take 23.5 global acres of the Earth's productive area. The most being for land to get energy! This one quiz alone had opened my eyes to how I live and things that I NEED to change, and immediately! I for one am going to try and start eating more organic and locally grown foods, because I do eat a lot of processed foods, which is transported here using gas to get here! It is like a chain of events to harm our environment just because I eat processed foods, which is easily changable!

I also did the The Cleaner and Greener® "Pollution from Electricity Use" Calculator and it showed that for a year the electricity that we use in my house produces 18,993 pounds of green house gas emmissions! That is a ton!! No wonder our earths atmosphere is getting thicker!! I think in my house for the most part we turn everything off when we aren't using it and are a little more aware of electricity, so I can't imagine people who don't pay attention to things like that. They must be producing a lot more! Also you have to think that the pounds we are producing is for 4 people in an average sized house and there are billions of households out there!

I did one more little exercise and I think that EVERYONE should do this one just to see the results, because I can't put them all in here. It is really shocking and neat to see how where we live relates to other places. It's a pollution calculator and you put in your zip code and it show you how we rank among other counties in the U.S. with pollution rates. It also shows you other things, like what kind of toxins we produce the most of. It is really neat. One thing about Duluth that stuck out the most to me was that we are rated one of the dirtiest/worst counties in the U.S. for releasing recognized carcinogens into the air. We are in the 80-90 percentile range for releasing carcinogens. I was shocked to see St. Louis County as one of the worst in the country. Duluth isn't even that big, so if you think of all the other big counties/cities in the world I feel like our earth is doomed! On a lighter note though, we are considered one of the cleanest/best counties for air releases of recognized developmental toxicants, so that makes me feel a little better.

I hope that some of these quizzes and quick exercises will help some of you guys realize some little things that we can change in our daily lives to help our environment!

Share and Voice: Steve's Photo Contest

This isn't really a post, but I just really like this picture and wanted it to be on my page! I linked it incase anyone wants to see it bigger!

Share and Voice: Drinking Orange Juice Might Be Worse Than Bottled Water

Hey guys! So I found this really cool website that has a lot of really good articles about the environment. It is an entirely “Green” website! I was searching for articles and I found the one below really interesting, it caught my eye right away. I admit I drink bottled water, even though I know that it is bad for the environment from the production that goes into it. I didn’t realize it was this bad, and to find out that orange juice is even worse by quite a bit was shocking. I’m assuming that orange juice isn’t the only juice that is this bad either! I just thought maybe some of you would find it kind of interesting to realize that things we do everyday, such as drinking a glass of orange juice, can have such a big effect on our environment. If you multiply the 1.98 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions per glass of orange juice it makes by the amt of people who drink at least 1 glass a day is just crazy to think about! Hope you like the article!

P.S. The website that I found is
http://planetgreen.discovery.com/





Drinking Orange Juice Might be Worse than Bottled Water
How to pick out the greener beverages.
By Brian MerchantBrooklyn, NY, USA Thu Feb 05 10:00:00 EST 2009
Boris Grdanoski/AP
In a recent rumble match between bottled water and orange juice over at TreeHugger, the beverage revealed to be the worst eco-offender surprised and upset lovers of classic breakfast drinks and screwdrivers everywhere. Yes, it turned out that while drinking bottled water is bad, but orange juice was even worse.





Bad News for Orange Juice Fans

Hit the link above for the full report, but the gist is this. Considering everything factors into the production of both drinks (bottle production, fertilizer, processing, transportation, etc), it was determined that every liter of Fiji water that makes it to your local convenience store creates a total of .55 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions, while every liter of Tropicana orange juice you pour into your breakfast glass generates 1.98 pounds.
So what does this mean for those of us trying to minimize our ecological footprints? It means it's time to start looking at orange juice in a whole new light.
In most parts of the world, it really should be considered a sort of luxury: as is pointed out in the piece, there's really no way to get orange juice without causing carbon chaos. Even fresh-squeezing is out, as the packaging is often more intensive for oranges than for orange juice.
So unless you're fresh squeezing local, organically (fertilizer-free) grown oranges, we have to accept the fact that OJ is tough on the environment. So what can we do?
Orange Juice Alternatives

We can look for OJ alternatives, of course. Anything that's mass-processed and fertilized is out, so check those drinks off your list—that's where most of the harmful emissions come from. Anything locally made and fertilizer-free are safe bets for low-emission drinks.
A good idea is to find out what grows locally in your area—fresh fruits and vegetables from your local farmers markets and CSA would make the ideal low-impact drink.
I doubt I'll be able to convince anyone to entirely give up orange juice, and maybe giving up oj isn't so essential in the scheme of things anyway. But we do need to think about it—so when do pour yourself a glass, savor it. Just think of the emissions it cost to refresh you.
And next time you're in Florida, stock up on organically grown oranges.