This post isn't for helping endangered animals or signing petitions on better energy conservation, it's about reaching the children of America and giving them the avenues to make better lives for themselves.
The Boat Angel Outreach Center of Queen Creek Arizona encourages a disciplined lifestyle, daily church services and abstinence from drugs and alcohol.
On a global level Boat donations have been instrumental in providing substantial funding for countless international preschool and grade school aged children in the poorest countries of the world. The Boat Angel Outreach Center currently supports six full time associate pastors in Ethiopia and three associate pastors the southern border of California/Tijuana, Mexico.
They do this by converting your donated boat into funds for their many programs. By participating in boat auctions they can raise funds of up to $500 even if your boat doesn't work. Some of their programs include school scholarships, World Wide Emergency relief funds, sponsoring the Job Force International USA, Christian Discipleship Training, etc.
If you are interested in participating click on Donate My Boat!
Maybe when people talk about mice running in a wheel to power their Internet connection...they are indeed onto something.
Science Daily has published an article which states, "Two graduate students at MIT's School of Architecture and Planning want to harvest the energy of human movement in urban settings, like commuters in a train station or fans at a concert."
My first initial thought was, I'm not sure how one could actually go about doing this. Do we really want a bunch of people in charge of running a train?
The students' prototype was ingenious to say the least. "The students' test case, displayed at the Venice Biennale and in a train station in Torino, Italy, was a prototype stool that exploits the passive act of sitting to generate power. The weight of the body on the seat causes a flywheel to spin, which powers a dynamo that, in turn, lights four LEDs."
I'm all for conserving energy. Absolutely all for it, and many moons ago people did power everything they used on their own. But there are reasons those practices ended. This can impact public safety on such a great level. Energy conservation is a must. You'll hear no arguments from me on that fact, but I'm not sure this would be the best route.
This graphic is from the MIT School of Architecture and Planning.
As most of you know, I'm a fan of charities and "take action" groups. In fact, I participate in many different organizations around the world. There are a variety of topics that tug at my heart strings and therefore I do what I can.
Navtej Kohli and I have the above sentiment in common. He has founded the The Kohli Foundation. This foundation provides the funding for food, education, and lodging for impoverished children from the Guanacasta province in Costa Rica.
His recommendation for you would be to find a charity which you support and follow it. I agree, even if you can't give money, you can still give your time and or your written letters if the need arises. You can look online for charities to find one that is in support of a cause you feel passionate about.
Charity Navigator has become the nation's largest and most-utilized evaluator of charities. They accept no funding from the charities evaluated, ensuring that the ratings remain objective.
Like most news reported by the media, facts can be skewed. Bias in news worthy stories is inevitable and should be expected. This is why thinking for yourself and doing your own research is important.
The Chicago Tribune recently did an article about BP. The same themed story was ran by the News-Sentinel as well, but the outcome of each article are quite different.
This is what all the fuss is about. "BP received permission from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to be exempt from environmental laws that cap the amount of toxins into the lake. It will be allowed to include in its daily discharges into the lake 54 percent more ammonia (above the current 1,584 pounds) and 35 percent more sludge (above the current 4,925 pounds)."
"The exemption will allow the refinery to continue with a planned $3.8 billion expansion that will allow it to handle heavy crude oil from Canada, which requires more extensive processing."
"The oil we get from Canada will be oil we don't need to get from the Mideast."
The good and the bad about this can be weighed and viewed on many different levels. There are always two sides to every story. The environmental implications are quite clear, but who is to judge the environment against the cost of oil to citizens and the dependence on countries who are not necessarily trustworthy.
The Chicago Tribune seemingly left out the part of this deal with Canada. Their implications were purely shedding light on the fact that this allowance for toxins to be dumped into the lake is bad for the environment. Folks, this is a Catch 22 clearly, debatable for many reasons. It's important whether you agree or disagree to always give all components of the story. Without understand the facts you are depriving yourself of valuable information. Sludge waste is NOT being dumped into the Michigan Lakes as the Chicago Tribune will lead you to believe. Emissions aren't as low as we would like and there is excessive silt being dumped into the lakes.
I do not agree with putting more ammonia in the air and I do not agree with allowing more pollution in any body of water. I do however see the debate and am happy that I do not have to make these types of decisions. One can only hope that a fair compromise can be made.
I mean do we really want to continue to depend on the Middle East to supply oil to our country? No, of course not. Do we want Michigan's lakes to be polluted? No, of course not. Fighting about this will not solve the problem, everyone needs to stop being catty and sit down to figure out other possible solutions.
Reducing emissions is something BP is striving to do as are many other companies in our nation. It's one thing in a pile of things that needs to be taken care of and checked off the metaphorical list. If you would like to learn more about BP you can read their fact sheet click through to the BP Whiting Refinery Fact Sheet.
Despite the global outcry and a ban on whaling since 1986, Iceland, like Japan, continues to kill whales using cruel methods, claiming it must slaughter these majestic creatures in the name of science. But scientists have long agreed that there’s no need to kill whales in order to study them. Even worse, whale meat has been proven to contain dangerously high levels of mercury, even though it is sold in supermarkets, restaurants and even school cafeterias in Japan.
The U.N. Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES) bans the international trade of all great whale species. Iceland was a member of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) when the ban on commercial whaling went into effect in 1986.
The return to commercial whaling is a flagrant disregard for international agreements to protect whales.
You can take action by sending a letter to members of the Icelandic Embassy telling them to call off their first commercial whale hunt in twenty years.
Sierra Club rules and one of the many reasons why is because they will e-mail you daily with tips on living green. Who can turn down daily e-mails with ideas for living well and doing good? Certainly not me.
Here are the two most recent tips.
1. If it's time to buy a new clothes washer, consider a front-loading machine. They use one-third to one-half the water and less soap than top-loaders, and they're gentler on clothes too.
2. Food travels an average of 1,500 to 2,000 miles to reach our plates -- but not if you buy it from one of the more than 1,200 small U.S. farms that offer fresh produce "subscriptions." Find one near you at foodroutes.org.
"Like flies, mosquito feet are equipped with hooked claws for clinging to skin. Like geckos, they have hairy pads on their feet that stick to nearly any smooth surface with a velcro-like grip. But it's their ability to walk on water that really makes mosquitoes stand out in the animal kingdom."
Why oh why oh why are they so naturally equipped with survival attributes? They have been in existence since the Jurassic period. Are YOU HEARING what I'm telling you? For millions of years these blood suckers have been prevailing! Yes, I know, only the female mosquito actually bites and sucks blood. Bah! Women are so blastd strong when given wings!
I mean did you know they kill millions of people per year? Did you!? Mosquitoes are a vector agent that carries disease-causing viruses and parasites from person to person without catching the disease themselves.
Thus, we need more dragonflies. Yes, because THEY are the number one mosquito killer and they eat mosquitoes at all stages of development
Increased water temperatures sometimes contributed to by global warming can do something known as "coral bleaching." The corals in the ocean get stressed and when this happens they lose their color. That is unless they are soft corals. Soft corals won't just lose their color...they will melt away completely.
The National Geographic website recently discussed soft coral "melting." Here is a small excerpt from the article written by Mati Milstein for National Geographic News.
"I have observed sites before and after bleaching in Okinawa, Japan, and it was remarkable to see a massive disappearance of soft corals," said marine biologist Hudi Benayahu, head of the Porter School of Environmental Studies at Tel Aviv University.
"You can't imagine this was the same site. Just two years passed and the entire area was deserted, lifeless."
I don't know about you, but to me this is a bit alarming. It's not that I have a deep love for soft corals, but it makes me wonder just what other damages are happening to unknown ocean elements.
There is currently a plan underway to open wide areas of the Arctic to oil drilling.
Despite the overwhelming objections of scientists, native communities and Members of Congress, the Bush Administration has reversed many of these protections and plans to allow drilling in nearly all the remaining Teshekpuk Lake area, as well as other parts of the Western Arctic region.
We need to act and take a stand now. 70 million acres in the Arctic Ocean are already open to oil and gas drilling. The Sierra Club says, "What our country needs is a cleaner, smarter Energy policy that focuses on safe renewable forms of energy."
Please don't think I am biased because I am a member of the Sierra Club. But I couldn't possibly agree more with their statement! That is exactly what needs to be done. Less reactive and more proactive measures need to be taken!
America's wolves were nearly eradicated in the 20th century. Now, after a remarkable recovery in parts of the country, wolves are once more threatened.
In the Northern Rockies, the federal government has put forth a proposal that could lead to the slaughter of hundreds of wolves in Idaho and Wyoming. Even Yellowstone wolves could be shot on site if they wander outside the park's boundaries!
In Alaska, state officials continue to allow airborne gunners to kill hundreds of wolves. Easy targets against the snow, hundreds of wolves have been shot from above or chased to exhaustion and then killed by aerial gunners who land and execute them at point-blank range.
In the Southwest, misinformation and anti-wolf sentiment runs high, with wolf recovery in Arizona and New Mexico limited to a defined area if the wolves set up territories elsewhere, they are captured and returned.
The lovely thing is gray wolves in the Northern Rockies are protected under the Endangered Species Act. But who is to say that an aerial gunner will know whether or not they are aiming at a gray wolf?
Right now, streaming live, are a bunch of zebras. Yes, it's true. Walking around and eating grass, some are even nuzzling each other. It's so cute. You can even hear the birds in the background.
You must check this out if you like animals, it's awesome.
"In a filing submitted yesterday to the Montreal-based CEC, the group also alleges that Ottawa is allowing such high numbers of seals to be killed each year, including regular quota overruns, that it could deplete the population and cause "serious or irreversible damage to the northwest Atlantic ecosystem."
You know, sometimes I think people don't realize the actual cruelty involved in seal hunting. It is very upsetting. I don't care if they are animals, they are still live beings and they do not deserve to be tortured and killed. If you are interested in seeing the brutality, you can watch this video...it immediately turned my stomach.
"The 2006 Canadian seal hunt left more than 350,000 seals dead -- almost all of them were babies as young as 12 days."
You can sign petitions and boycott Canadian seafood. You can also wear "Seal Protection" gear. They have some very cute shirts to support the cause.
The Union of Concerned Scientists has kicked off voting for its second annual "Science Idol" editorial cartoon contest. "On issues from air quality to global warming, government science is being censored, manipulated, and distorted on an unprecedented scale. To draw attention to this problem and have a little fun, the Union of Concerned Scientists is hosting Science Idol: the Scientific Integrity Editorial Cartoon Contest."
And not it is time to vote! There are twelve finalists this year. The one you see posted here is #6 if you'd like to vote for it, but please make sure to look through all of them.
