What will you do?

For the past 2 1/2 years, I've been pushing news, events and my personal options on the globing warming trend.

I originally began by describing the changes I've been making to reduce the impact that our household makes. Changing light bulbs, reducing waste, recycling, choosing environmentally responsible energy options, eating locally produced food and spreading the word to anyone that wants to know. In the end, this blog was created.

Of course, there are only so many things we can do. I quickly ran out of things to post about. The blog became a board to post other news, information and events from around the world. This relied on finding relevant articles either from my sources or those referred to me.

This year, I began trying to post more personal items but I've been having a hard time. My support of other networks takes a lot of my time but I believe they have a far greater reach.

There are a lot of things I still need to do but my current budget will not allow. I'd love to put in a solar hot water and electrical system. I'd love to produce as much electricity during the day that I use at night. But, these will have to wait a bit longer.

I've been hoping for more comments and emails from readers but, I'm not sure I have many. A few of you have contacted me in some way, so I know I have a couple of followers.

Well, today is Blog Action Day and this is my contribution.
What I want to know is, What are you going to do?

Visit www.blogactionday.org

Turkey wars

If you're eating organic turkey this weekend, savour it, because by next Thanksgiving it may be easier to buy crack cocaine in Ontario than a drug-free bird.
Here's why: While the turkey industry marketing board tells growers to confine their turkeys indoors to reduce the chance of transmission of viruses from wild birds, new organics standards administered by the Canadian Food and Inspection Agency mandate raising organic birds outdoors.
Read here, http://www.thestar.com/news/ontario/article/708416--turkey-wars

Dow Unveils Solar Shingles

Dow Chemical has unveiled a residential roof shingle in the form of a solar panel designed to be integrated into asphalt-tiled roofs.
Jane Palmieri, managing director of Dow’s Solar Solutions unit, said the Powerhouse thin-film shingle slashes installation costs because it can be installed by a roofer who is already building or retrofitting a roof.
“As a roofer is nailing asphalt shingle on roof, wherever the array needs to be installed he just switches to solar shingle,” said Ms. Palmieri, who said the solar singles are similarly attached to the roof with nails.
“You don’t have to have a solar installation crew do the work or have an electrician on site,” she added. “The solar shingle can be handled like any other shingle – it can be palletized, dropped from a roof, walked on.”
Read more, http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/07/dow-unveils-solar-shingles/

Town’s LED street lights national first

Annapolis Royal may be the first town in Canada to replace all of its street lights with energy-efficient LED fixtures.
The Federation of Canadian Municipalities "is coming to do a feature on us," Mayor Phil Roberts said Wednesday.
"I didn’t realize we were the first in the country."
He said Nova Scotia Power started installing the LED lights about three weeks ago.
Read here, http://thechronicleherald.ca/NovaScotia/1145301.html

Pay It Backward Day

September 30th was Pay It Backward Day. This is from the PIB site,

"Pay It Backward Day is a unique, refreshing initiative that allows socially conscious individuals across Ontario to unite in the spirit of changing the world through small, daily acts of kindness. On September 30th, we invite you to come out to any of Ontario's participating Second Cup locations and offer to "pay it backward" by buying coffee for the person behind you in line. With each simple act of "coffee kindness", we* will donate $5.00 to SickKids Foundation. Alongside our generous sponsors, Second Cup and Silk Soy Beverage, we hope to inspire 2,000 acts of kindness on September 30th in order to reach our goal of raising $10,000 for SickKids Foundation in a single day! So, if helping out SickKids Foundation in a big way through small acts of kindness sounds like your cup of tea, coffee or soy drink … then JOIN THE MOVEMENT today and agree to pay it backward on September 30th!"
That's pretty awesome but to make it even better, I won a Coffee Hero Card for putting a PIB button here on my site. I was able to buy a "round" for everyone in the store. This wasn't really about me; it was about the intent of the day. I go to the same Second Cup every day so the staff knows me. I just gave them the card and explained what to do with it. If anyone asked, they told them it was me but most people were only told about the PIB movement and that somebody paid for their coffee. If you didn't know about it before now, please keep it in mind for next year.
Visit http://www.dailychallenge.org/events/payitbackward/ for more info on PIB or better yet, join The Daily Challenge and do something good every day. http://www.dailychallenge.org/

Four degrees of warming 'likely'

In a dramatic acceleration of forecasts for global warming, UK scientists say the global average temperature could rise by 4C (7.2F) as early as 2060.
More here, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8279654.stm