A round-up of this week’s environmental, green and ecofriendly news and updates.
Wow! An Australian woman has run 40 marathons in 40 days to raise awareness about water issues – isn’t that incredible?
She runs alongside the world’s major rivers to highlight the amount of water used in consumer goods.
“Only 5% of the water that we use is in our household consumption – the rest is in our ‘invisible water footprint’,” says Mina Guli, a lawyer turned conservationist.
She has run her marathons along the Colorado River in the US and Mexico, the Amazon in Brazil, the Murray in Australia, the Yangtze in China, the Nile in Egypt and along the River Thames in London. Along the way she has met with a range of locals to talk about the water issues they face. She wants to spread a simple message: many countries use water faster than Nature can replenish it. Population growth, poor governance, pollution and climate change all contribute to the problem. In 2012, she founded Thirst, a global charity to educate young people on the topic.
I really admire people who do amazing things for what they believe in!
With Summer nearly here, it will soon be time to pack away those Winter woolies. If you want to protect them against moths and other clothes destroyers, don’t use toxic mothballs.
There are safe alternatives – and there’s also a really useful tip that could save you a lot of trouble.
This is consistently one of my most popular articles – read it now so you know what to do.
What to see in the night sky this May:
- The annual Eta Aquarid meteor shower on May 5 – the shooting stars will appear to come from the constellation Aquarius. If you have clear, dark skies you should be able to see about 30 meteors per hour. (Best views from closer to the equator and the Southern Hemisphere, but most areas should see it) .
- May’s full moon is called the Flower Moon (as flowers are blooming in the Northern Hemisphere) and it’s on May 10.
- Did you see Jupiter last month? It was easy to spot, close to the Moon. This month it’s still visible, and if you have a telescope you’ll be able to see its Great Red Spot, best on May 11.
- You’ll be able to see Mercury just before dawn – look for Venus and Mercury will be just below it, close to the horizon.
Do you ever think about how your home can impact climate change and the environment – in a good way?
This is a Guest Post on green technology and its impact on our houses. It’s an interesting way of looking at it!
Global Green News:
I had to laugh when I read about China’s latest policy. When I traveled in China, I quickly found out that public toilets there were – well, interesting. Either there was no toilet paper at all (horrors), or a dragon-like lady handed out 3 squares per person. “I’m sorry, but I’ll need a little more this time” was totally beyond my language skills. Tourist attractions in Beijing were spending a fortune on toilet paper, as apparently people took more than they needed. So now they’ve introduced biometric security on automatic toilet paper dispensers – you stand in front of the dispenser for the facial scanning and are then given 2 feet of toilet paper. Need more? No problem. It’s a 9-minute wait for another 2 feet. I’m always in favour of reduced waste, but this is a little extreme. A bit like shopping bags I think – bring your own!
US Green News:
I wrote last week about the new op-ed columnist at The New York Times being a climate denier (amongst other things). His first post (surprise!) denied climate science. It, combined with the snotty response from the NYT’s Public Editor to criticism of the article, has lead to a rash of subscription cancellations. There’s even a hashtag #ShowYourCancellation.
It seems that lead poisoning in children is a lot more common than anyone knew. A new report found that health officials are not detecting lead in blood. Many Western and Southern states mistakenly think it’s a “northern” problem and don’t test, resulting in up to 80 percent of cases going unreported.
Lead is linked to behavioral and developmental problems. Children living below the poverty line have double the risk of exposure to lead, and black children are 2.7 times more likely to be exposed than their white peers.
What do you think? Let me know in the comments below.
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