Category Archives: organic

How to Make Your Poop More Eco-Friendly

by CaryVeale17 Posted on November 29, 2016

The amount of fecal waste we excrete each day can rival the size of a small chihuahua. Have you ever considered how all of that poop affects the environment?

Poop isnt a big topic in the battle for reducing our environmental impact, but the way you handle your number twos can make small, but important changes if you put in some effort. Here are a few ways your poop can become more eco-friendly.

Compost human poo. Perhaps the most eco-friendly thing to do with your poo is to compost it and allow it to fertilize new life. If you’ve ever been camping, you may have pooped in aClevis Multrum composting toilet. It’s not pretty, per se. But all our nasty excrementgets to serve a higher purpose. If you invest in a composting toilet in your own home, you have the power to turn human waste into plant fuel.

By nourishing your soil with the nutrients and microbes fromyour composted poop (rather than letting it flow in freshwater to the treatment plant) you are doing your part to perpetuate nature’s natural and intricate circle of life support. All life comes from good soil, after all, and soil health across the country is suffering.The downside:composting your wastedoes require that you become a little more up close and personal with your poop.

Clean up your diet. Theoretically, if you keep your diet clean, your gut bacteria will be healthier, which means your poo will have a healthier spectrum of microbiota. It also will be full of good nutrients. If youre composting your waste, healthier poop can mean healthier, richer soil.

Just like us, plants need bacteria and minerals to survive and thrive. If we treat our digestive systems right, human compost can help other plants to flourish.Eat lots of organic, local produce, limit red meat consumption (and always eat grass-fed when you do), drink plenty of water and eat complex carbs like root veggies, seeds, nuts and grains (if tolerated). Eating resistant starch, found in tigernuts and cooked-then-chilled potatoes or rice, promotes the growth of beneficial bacteria the compost of your digestive system. And, above all, take probiotics before, after and during any bout of prescription antibiotics you must take, which can decimate your system. If ourwaste is more diverse and balanced, it makes for a healthier earthin the long run.

Use green toilet paper. Always opt for 100 percent recycled and unbleached. Need I say more?

Keep your pups poop green, too. Have you considered how eco-friendly it is to clean up your dogs poop? Biodegradable bags can actually take anywhere between 10 to 1,000 years to decompose. They really aren’t the best option, although buying high quality ones is the best way to go.

Other options for your pup’s pooinclude using flushable bags made of PVA that will dissolve in water (make sure your water treatment center can handle dog pathogens, as some cannot) or composting. There are plenty of options out there for dog compost that don’t involve burying your dog’s poop daily or keeping smelly, unsightly piles all over your yard. Try dog composting tanks if you have plenty of yard space, and toss all your pal’s plops in there. Mainly, just don’t leave black, non-biodegradable baggies strewn about in nature, and you will bewell on your way to becoming the owner of a dog with green poop.

Sure, maybe poop isn’t at the forefront of the sustainability movement, but it’s something to be aware of. After all, our poop is an indicator of our internal health and can help to fuel the cycle of life on our planet. If you live in a rural area where it would be feasible, would you ever consider composting your poop?Share your thoughts below.

Related:
Ditch Alcohol, Try Mocktails
How Does Acupuncture Work
Another Reason You May Want to Avoid Wheat

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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How to Make Your Poop More Eco-Friendly

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Presenting the Bad Hombre and the Nasty Woman: Cocktails to Get You Through Election Night

by TiffinyHarter Posted on November 4, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Bite is Mother Jones‘ new food politics podcast. Listen to all our episodes here, or by subscribing in iTunes or Stitcher or via RSS.

If this year’s presidential race hasn’t made you want to shotgun an IPA at full speed, then you haven’t been paying attention. Even the most reserved of us have probably reached for the bottle more than we’d like to admit. But election night is nearly upon us, and to toast the end of the shit-show as the total counts come in, we’re going to need some drinks. Strong ones. Lots of them.

We commissioned a bartender to mix up some presidential-race-inspired cocktails that turn Donald Trump’s off-color remarks into an excuse to have a stiff drink or two (or seven, we’re not judging). To hear how to make the Bad Hombre and the Nasty Woman, plus an interview with the Obama administration’s chef Sam Kass, listen to our latest episode of Bite below. The cocktail segment begins at 1:00.

Nicky Beyries is the bar manager at Foreign Cinema and Laszlo in San Francisco. When creating these political party favors for us, she cleverly chose spirits made by women and people of color (like Square One vodka and Ilegal mezcal). She also avoided predictable choices, like a cosmo for the Nasty Woman.

“I get really tired as a female bartender who faces a lot of sexism—not only from guests, but from the industry and from liquor companies themselves—of the idea that for it to be womanly it has to be a certain way or a certain color,” Beyries told me. “There’s nothing more feminine about something because it’s dyed pink.”

If you can’t track down the products Beyries recommends, our own Tom Philpott has another take on the Bad Hombre, with ingredients you just might have on hand.

So without further ado, here are the recipes for your election-night imbibing pleasure. Cheers!

Bad Hombre

1 dash chili bitters
2 dashes chocolate bitters
1/4 ounce creme de cacao (Tempus Fugit brand)
3/4 ounce Cocchi di Torino vermouth
2 ounces Ilegal Reposado

Stir well over ice, pour into a cocktail glass, garnish with a small chili de arbol balanced on the rim, and a sprinkling of fresh cinnamon.

Photo courtesy Nicky Beyries

Nasty Woman

3 Thai basil leaves
1/2 ounce simple syrup
3/4 ounce fresh lemon juice
2 ounces Square One Basil Vodka

Shake, double strain into a glass, and top with about 1.5 ounces Fever-Tree bitter lemon soda. Garnish with a spring of Thai Basil.

Don’t have these fancy ingredients at home? Try Tom Philpott’s out-of-the-cabinet Bad Hombre:

4 ounces mezcal
2 ounces dry vermouth
2 splashes Cointreau
2-4 dashes of orange bitters
A pinch of chipotle powder (or smoked hot paprika)
A teaspoon each of salt and chipotle powder (or smoked hot paprika), mixed and laid out on a small plate
Garnish: two quarter orange slices, dusted on both sides with salt and chipotle powder.

Wipe the edges of two coupe glasses with an orange slice to moisten. Dip them into the salt/powder mixture to line the edge.

Combine the mezcal, vermouth, Cointreau, a pinch of chipotle powder, and the bitters in a jar. Add ice cubes, stir vigorously, and strain into the coupes. Garnish with the oranges slices. Serves two.

And just in case you missed the internet frenzy over Trump’s “bad hombre” and “nasty woman” comments, here’s a round up of the best memes.

Originally from:

Presenting the Bad Hombre and the Nasty Woman: Cocktails to Get You Through Election Night

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For every ton of CO2 pumped into the atmosphere, we lose 32 square feet of Arctic sea ice.

by RicardoCorbould Posted on November 3, 2016

This is according to a new study in Science. That’s a sizable slab: Rose and Jack could have floated on a ’burg that big with room to spare (and Titanic would still end with a frozen hunk!).

If you live in the U.S., you are accountable for about 17 tons of CO2 a year. That’s roughly 1.4 tons a month, or one and a half Rose-and-Jack rafts every 30 days. Multiply that by 300 million people in the States, plus Europe, plus Australia, plus … you get the picture. In the last 30 years, we’ve lost enough ice to cover Texas twice over.

Thirty-two square feet per ton is a scary, but useful, statistic. It nails a number to our individual actions, the consequences of which might otherwise seem abstract, says Dirk Notz of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, Germany.

For example, Notz offers, a round trip flight from New York to London knocks out 32 square feet of summer sea ice “for every single seat” — something to factor in when you’re calculating the price of a ticket home.

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For every ton of CO2 pumped into the atmosphere, we lose 32 square feet of Arctic sea ice.

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, organic, Paradise, PUR, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on For every ton of CO2 pumped into the atmosphere, we lose 32 square feet of Arctic sea ice.

Even with climate pledges, the world’s on track to warm by more than 2 degrees.

by BonitaQGUN Posted on November 3, 2016

This is according to a new study in Science. That’s a sizable slab: Rose and Jack could have floated on a ’burg that big with room to spare (and Titanic would still end with a frozen hunk!).

If you live in the U.S., you are accountable for about 17 tons of CO2 a year. That’s roughly 1.4 tons a month, or one and a half Rose-and-Jack rafts every 30 days. Multiply that by 300 million people in the States, plus Europe, plus Australia, plus … you get the picture. In the last 30 years, we’ve lost enough ice to cover Texas twice over.

Thirty-two square feet per ton is a scary, but useful, statistic. It nails a number to our individual actions, the consequences of which might otherwise seem abstract, says Dirk Notz of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, Germany.

For example, Notz offers, a round trip flight from New York to London knocks out 32 square feet of summer sea ice “for every single seat” — something to factor in when you’re calculating the price of a ticket home.

See more here – 

Even with climate pledges, the world’s on track to warm by more than 2 degrees.

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, ONA, organic, Paradise, PUR, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Even with climate pledges, the world’s on track to warm by more than 2 degrees.

Your local farmers market stand might be reselling produce.

by MickeyRolph Posted on November 2, 2016

The Republican candidate on Monday promoted his plan to purportedly save the government $100 billion over eight years. It involves cutting all federal spending on climate change programs, both domestic and international.

“We’re going to put America first,” Trump said at a Michigan rally. “That includes canceling billions in climate change spending for the United Nations, a number Hillary wants to increase, and instead use that money to provide for American infrastructure including clean water, clean air, and safety.”

As Bloomberg BNA reports, Trump didn’t give a precise tally for how he got to $100 billion:

[The] campaign press office said that the figure combined an estimate of what the Obama administration had spent on climate-related programs, the amount of U.S. contributions to an international climate fund that Trump would cancel, and a calculation of what Trump believes would be savings to the economy if Obama’s and Clinton’s climate policies were reversed.

That math, however, doesn’t work out: According to a 2014 report from the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers, a global temperature increase of just 3 degrees C would cost the United States 1 percent of GDP, or $150 billion a year, by damaging public health and infrastructure and battling sea-level rise, stronger storms, declining crop yields, and increased drought and wildfires.

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Your local farmers market stand might be reselling produce.

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Why We Should All Live in Earthships

by RodolfoSpowers4 Posted on November 2, 2016

Over the years, as I’ve become more and more in touch with the ways of green and natural living, I’ve started to become more aware of the things in my home that aren’t quite what they could be. We rent now for a variety of reasons, but one reason I’m grateful for that is because we’ll have the opportunity to build the house of our dreams when we’re ready.

Researching the best ways to build that dream home is something I’ve developed quite a passion for. During my research, I stumbled upon a concept that I find pretty fascinating: Earthships.

No, I’m not planning to blast off the earth in a ship. But I am planning to build a home that has everything we need to live sustainably on earth, and you can live in a sustainable Earthship, too.

If you haven’t yet heard of Earthships, you’ll likely find them just as fascinating as I do if you care deeply about our planet. Here are some of the main features that make a home a sustainable Earthship.

Use of totally natural and/or recycled materials

A focus on the use of local materials is of great importance in the construction of an Earthship. The focus is on sustainability and accessibility of materials.

The most common materials that create the outer walls of an Earthship are old, recycled tires stuffed with earth. Then those tires are covered in mud. Recycled glass bottles and cans can be used to make more colorful and unique interior, non-weight-bearing walls.

The use of these materials has a variety of benefits. They are more durable and resilient than traditional building materials like wood. They hold up better in earthquakes and they don’t rot or become susceptible to termites over time.

Little to no need for heating or cooling systems

Did you know that our planet is capable of delivering temperature stability without the need for pipes or wires? The sun is basically a nuclear power plant and the planet is a thermally stabilizing mass.

The materials used to build Earthships take advantage of the natural properties of earth to maintain comfortable temperatures in nearly all climates. Depending upon the climate in your region, you can adjust the design of your Earthship to accommodate your heating and cooling needs naturally.

Total power autonomy

The design of Earthships allows them to survive off the power grid (or it can be tied in, depending upon your needs). They are designed to produce their own electricity by using solar power and/or wind power.

The energy is collected and then stored in giant batteries, which in turn routes electricity into your home. You can have all the comforts of a modern home in an Earthship with the right design.

This Earthship is in Taos, New Mexico. Photo credit: Sue Stokes / Shutterstock.com

Sustainable, optimized water collection and use

While Earthships can have city water run to them, it’s not always necessary. Earthships are designed to collect water when it rains and snows.

That water is then used four times. The first time it’s used to bathe or wash dishes. It’s then cleaned and used to water indoor gardens. It’s then filtered again and used to flush toilets. Finally, it’s treated and used to water outdoor gardens.

Nothing goes to waste in the water use design, and the groundwater is never polluted, either.

Increased food independence

As mentioned above, Earthships are typically designed to have indoor and outdoor gardens. Because of the design of the water collection and use system, gardens can be watered using water filtered after other household uses.

You can grow pretty much any fruit or vegetable you want in your Earthship with the right plan. See the chart at the bottom of this page for more details on choosing plants for your Earthship.

Completely contained sewage treatment system

We discussed gray water being used to flush toilets after it has watered the indoor gardens. This gray water does not smell and is much more eco-friendly than using fresh water in your toilets.

In addition, once the gray water has been used to flush the toilets, it’s treated and ready to feed your outdoor garden. Don’t worry, the systems are designed to then flow to a conventional leach field, so there’s no worry about the treated water polluting aquifers. It’s really a well-thought-out design!

Examples of Earthships to inspire your design

This Earthship was created from bottles, tires and concrete. Photo credit: IrinaK / Shutterstock.com

Now that you know the general makings of an Earthship, let’s look at a few of the more popular designs. Earthships can come in all shapes and sizes!

If you’re not an architect, and you don’t want to hire one who’s well versed in Earthships, then your best bet is to go with the Global Model. It’s the most tested and built model to date, so you know it’s a good plan to go by. It’ll cost you about $230 per square foot to build the Global Model.

If that’s a bit rich for your blood (even though you’ll be able to rid yourself of most monthly household expenses) and you just want to get off the grid, then you’ll want to look at a Simple Survival design. You won’t get all the bells and whistles you can pack into the Global Model, but you will get what you need to survive.

Yet another option is to go with a Packaged Model. This design has some pre-fabricated components, so you don’t get as much flexibility in the design. However, you can lean on the expertise of the Earthship Biotecture to consult with you or even build your Earthship for you.

EcoWatch put together a stunning collection of Earthship photos you have to check out! It’s amazing how many different ways there are to style an Earthship.

Buy an already-built Earthship

Recycled tires make up a decorative element on one Earthship. Photo credit: Kangwan Nirach / Shutterstock.com

Want to live in an Earthship without needing to design and build your own? There are plenty of Earthships for sale around the country. There are also Earthship Villages where you can live near other like-minded people who care about the earth as much as you do.

Would you consider living in an Earthship? Why or why not?

Featured image courtesy of IrinaK / Shutterstock.com

About
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Chrystal Johnson

Chrystal Johnson, publisher of

Happy Mothering

, founder of

Green Moms Media

and essential oil fanatic, is a mother of two sweet girls who believes in living a simple, natural lifestyle. A former corporate marketing communication manager, Chrystal spends her time researching green and eco-friendly alternatives to improve her family’s life.

Latest posts by Chrystal Johnson (see all)

Why We Should All Live in Earthships – November 2, 2016
Fun (Really!) Alternatives to Halloween Candy – October 26, 2016
6 Inspiring Ways to Reuse Flower Arrangements – October 11, 2016

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Why We Should All Live in Earthships

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5 Freaky Ways To Have A Green Halloween

by EdmundoGutierre Posted on October 24, 2016

It can be quite challenging to maintain an eco-friendly lifestyle during holiday seasons, particularly Christmas and Halloween. It requires walking a fine line between successfully maintaining your environmentally conscious values and becoming a grouchy grinch who forbids fun in the name of the greater good.

Over the past few years, I think I’ve successfully refined my approach to major holidays, managing to navigate a happy balance between conscious consumption and celebration. With All Hallows’ Eve approaching, I’ve put together five ways to help you have a green Halloween.

1. Spookily Secondhand

Swapping your kids’ costumes can be a great way to save money and reduce waste. Photo credit: Shutterstock.com

It seems like Halloween costume stores pop up in every empty storefront as soon as the first leaf falls from the tree in September, but despite the allure of these one-stop shops, secondhand stores are actually the best place to shop for a costume — either one you put together yourself or one you choose from a rack of store-bought options that were someone else’s creepy or cute aliases a year before.

These costumes will be a fraction of the price compared with buying new, and reusing a costume means you’ll not only save money, you’ll prevent that wicked witch or swashbuckling pirate from haunting a landfill somewhere.

This tip works especially well for kids’ costumes — often worn for just a few hours before being discarded, they’re usually in great shape and kids will enjoy choosing their own secondhand costume without price limitations.

2. Boo-tiful Reusable Decor

Halloween decor like these wooden blocks can be reused from year to year. Photo credit: Shutterstock.com

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This year, eschew disposable decorations like police tape and spray-on cobwebs and opt for well-made decorations that can be used year after year instead (these can be found secondhand, too!). Choosing items made from sturdy materials like wood or cloth instead of plastic or Styrofoam means that they’ll last for years and be less likely to get damaged in storage.

Saving spooktacular decorations from one year to the next also means you can refine your sinister tableaus with each passing year instead of having to reinvent it from scratch each time.

3. Tricky Treats

Organic chocolates wrapped in foil are preferable to candy in plastic packaging. Photo credit: Shutterstock.com

This one is perhaps the most challenging obstacle to overcoming a wasteful or polluting Halloween. Those teeny-tiny chocolate bars and fruit snacks are called “fun sized,” but the environmental impact of all those plastic candy wrappers is anything but — especially when you consider that we buy $2.2 billion in candy each Halloween season. All of those tiny wrappers add up, but handing out a box of raisins is sure to get your house egged — what’s a green ghoul to do?

Thankfully, there is an easy solution that can also help provide a happy Halloween for children with food sensitivities, too. Handing out a non-candy item like Halloween pencils or natural rubber pumpkin erasers allows you to sidestep the individually wrapped treats, but foil-wrapped organic chocolates are a great option, too.

If budget or tradition prohibits either of these options, don’t beat yourself up. It’s one day a year. Give in to the fun of the holiday and purchase normal Halloween candy, but buy a bit less of it (we all know that you end up eating a third of it anyway) and give out one piece per trick-or-treater.

4. Monstrous (in Moderation)

Limiting the number of houses your kids trick-or-treat at can cut down on waste (and sugar overload!). Photo credit: Shutterstock.com

Your kids are going to hate me for this one. (Please apologize to them on my behalf.) But limiting the number of houses your kids collect candy from while trick-or-treating will do a lot to decrease the amount of trash — not to mention nutritional damage — done by all of those chocolate bars and bags of chips.

Again, the goal isn’t to strip any shred of fun from the holiday, so don’t be stingy about it, but do set a limit — either a length of time or a number of street blocks. Parents can make this decision for kids under 5; kids older than 5 can work with you to find a limit that’s acceptable to you both. And rather than an exercise in deprivation, use it as a chance to talk to your kids about moderation, being happy with having “enough” and the effects — environmental and physical — of so much junk food.

5. Eco-Bash

Opt for real plates and utensils at your Halloween party instead of wasteful disposable items. Photo credit: Shutterstock.com

If you’re brave enough to host a Halloween party, remember to avoid one-time-use serving items like plastic utensils and plates, plastic cups, and paper napkins. Investing in a set of inexpensive secondhand dishware and cloth napkins hugely reduces the amount of waste generated by parties and can be stored and reused for any special occasion, meaning you can avoid a truly frightening amount of trash.

From everyone here at Earth911, we wish you a happy, green Halloween!

Stumped on what to do with that jack-o’-lantern? Watch our video “What to Do with That Halloween Pumpkin” for great tips!

Feature image courtesy of Shutterstock.com

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Madeleine Somerville

Madeleine Somerville is the author of

All You Need Is Less: An Eco-Friendly Guide to Guilt-Free Green Living and Stress-Free Simplicity

. She is a writer, wannabe hippie and lover of soft cheeses. She lives in Edmonton, Canada, with her daughter. You can also find Madeleine at her blog,

Sweet Madeleine

.

Latest posts by Madeleine Somerville (see all)

5 Freaky Ways To Have A Green Halloween – October 24, 2016
4 Brands Doing Clothes Recycling Right – October 18, 2016
Does Being An Environmentalist Require A Certain Look? – September 21, 2016

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5 Freaky Ways To Have A Green Halloween

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5 Reasons to Kick Factory Farmed Meats Off Your Plate

by HungHolub80 Posted on October 8, 2016

These days, just about everything is mass-produced, including our food, with large, factory-style farms churning out a seemingly endless supply ofmeat, chickens,eggsanddairy products. All that mass production equals abundance and lower prices, but if those factory-farmed products are eroding your health, is the savings really worth it? Not in my book. Heres whats really going on with mass-produced meats and why you should steer clear:

1. Factory-farmed animals eat crap. Literally.

To keep production costs low, animals raised in factory farms are fed the cheapest possible grains and feeds containing among other things, by-product feedstuff, which begs the question, whats feedstuff? Its a nausea-inducing assortment of disturbing ingredients, including municipal garbage, stale cookies, poultry manure, chicken feathers, bubble gum and even restaurant waste. So, when you eat factory-farmed animals, youre also getting an unintentional serving of feedstuff.

In short, their bad diet becomes your bad diet which is counter-productive to your health.

2. Bad diets make for sick animals and people too.

Cud-chewing critters such as cattle, dairy cows, goats, bison and sheep were designed to eat fibrous grasses, plants, and shrubsnot starchy, low-fiber grains and feedstuffs. When these animals are switched from pasture greenery to grains, many wind up suffering from a number of disorders and painful conditions. The sickened animals are then given chemical additives, plus constant, low-level doses of antibiotics.

Their drugs in turn enter your system when you eat antibiotic-treated animals, settingthe stage for drug-resistance in your body, particularly if youre a heavy-duty carnivore.

3. Lousy ingredients wont create a nutritious product.

It should come as no surprise that animals fed a crappy diet will make for a less nutritious meal. Compared to grass-fed, factory-farmed, grain-fed meats have less vitamin E, beta-carotene, and little of the two health-promoting fats called omega-3 fatty acids and conjugated linoleic acid, or CLA.

So whats the end-result of the feed-em-fast-and-cheap factory farmed method? Inferior food with negligible nutrients and more of the unhealthy fats. Small wonder the stuff is so much cheaper than grass-fed.

4. Stress hurts everyone.

If your goal is to sustain wellness, factory-farmed products just dont deliver thenutritionalgoods. In factory farms, chickens, turkeys, and pigs are typically raised in inhumane conditions, tightly packed into cages and pens, unable to practice normal behaviors, such as rooting, grazing, and roosting.

In these conditions, the animals get stressed and wind up producing products that are lower in a number of key vitamins and omega-3 fatty acids talk about empty calories!

5. Factory farming pollutes the earth.

In a conventional feedlot operation, for example, confined cattle deposit large amounts of manure in a small amount of space. The manure must be collected and removed. As it costs money to haul it away, the manure is often dumped nearby, close to the feedlot. As a result, the surrounding soil gets over-saturated with the stuff, resulting in ground and water pollution. But when animals are raised on pasture, their manure is a welcome source of organic fertilizer, not a waste management problem.

Bottom line: raising animals on pasture is kinder to the environment.

In short, though factory farming enables us to have plenty of cheap and convenient food, its food with little nutritional benefit, that can increase your resistance to antibiotics as it pollutes your air, land and water. With so little going for it, doesnt it seem slightly crazy to eat factory-farmed meats? It certainly does to me which is why I strongly suggest that if youre going to eat meat, buy the good stuff, even if it means having to pay a bit more or buy less of it. Choose grass-fed beef, lamb, bison and poultry, to insure that youre eating nutritious and healthy meats, as nature intended.

This article originally appeared onDrFrankLipman.com, and reposted with permission from Naturally Savvy.

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

See the original post: 

5 Reasons to Kick Factory Farmed Meats Off Your Plate

Posted in alo, Everyone, FF, GE, LAI, LG, Omega, ONA, organic, PUR, Radius, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on 5 Reasons to Kick Factory Farmed Meats Off Your Plate

Canada’s Trudeau failed an environmental test in a big way.

by cazare268y1 Posted on September 30, 2016

Cannabis, according to a new report from EQ Research, could require as much energy as data centers to grow indoors.

In states where cannabis has been legalized like Washington and Colorado, growing operations may account for as much as 1 percent of total energy sales. And a lot of energy usually means a lot of emissions. A 2012 study found that indoor marijuana-growing operations produce 15 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year, equivalent to 3 million cars.

The high energy use comes mostly from lighting, ventilation, and dehumidifying, as GreenTech Media reports. But unlike other energy hogs (like data centers), it’s difficult for growers to take part in state and utility-run energy efficiency programs. That’s because the cannabis industry is illegal, federally.

According to the report, it will take electric utilities, regulatory commissions, state and local governments, and cannabis growers and business associations working together to create completely new incentives, programs, and financing tools for energy-efficient growing systems.

In the meantime, what’s the concerned marijuana user to do? Well, you can try to buy pot that’s grown outdoors — or, if that’s not an option, install some LEDs and grow your own. Just be sure to brush up on your local laws first.

Original article – 

Canada’s Trudeau failed an environmental test in a big way.

Posted in alo, Anchor, cannabis, FF, GE, Green Light, Mop, ONA, organic, Ringer, The Atlantic, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Canada’s Trudeau failed an environmental test in a big way.

Here’s another source of greenhouse gases you should be worrying about: hydropower.

by COEMonikaof Posted on September 29, 2016

Cannabis, according to a new report from EQ Research, could require as much energy as data centers to grow indoors.

In states where cannabis has been legalized like Washington and Colorado, growing operations may account for as much as 1 percent of total energy sales. And a lot of energy usually means a lot of emissions. A 2012 study found that indoor marijuana-growing operations produce 15 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year, equivalent to 3 million cars.

The high energy use comes mostly from lighting, ventilation, and dehumidifying, as GreenTech Media reports. But unlike other energy hogs (like data centers), it’s difficult for growers to take part in state and utility-run energy efficiency programs. That’s because the cannabis industry is illegal, federally.

According to the report, it will take electric utilities, regulatory commissions, state and local governments, and cannabis growers and business associations working together to create completely new incentives, programs, and financing tools for energy-efficient growing systems.

In the meantime, what’s the concerned marijuana user to do? Well, you can try to buy pot that’s grown outdoors — or, if that’s not an option, install some LEDs and grow your own. Just be sure to brush up on your local laws first.

See the original post:

Here’s another source of greenhouse gases you should be worrying about: hydropower.

Posted in alo, Anchor, cannabis, FF, GE, Green Light, Mop, ONA, organic, Ringer, The Atlantic, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Here’s another source of greenhouse gases you should be worrying about: hydropower.