The Wilds – A Safari in Southeast Ohio
This post is a little off topic, but I just had to enter a post about our trip yesterday. The Wilds is 10,000 acres of a 
former strip coal mine that has been transformed in to one of the largest and most creative wildlife conservation centers in the world. Open to the public since 1994, there are now approximately 1500 acres of rolling hills, woods, meadows and ponds that are fenced and are now the home of about 600 animals of over 20 endangered species from African Wild Dogs and Grevy’s Zebras to Asian Rhinos and Bactrian Deer.
What an amazing experience! Driving around among so many beautiful animals in such a beautiful setting was a day that I will not soon forget. There were babys and young animals in most of the herds and packs. The Wilds has been very succesful in their breeding program, they have been successful in getting some species to breed when many others have failed.
I highly recommend a trip to The Wilds in southeast Ohio.
Dan Bossenbroek
Garbage and Green Jobs: The Carrot or The Stick?
I woke this morning, the first day of my staycation to the sound of garbage trucks making their way down my street. It was a great feeling to know that even though my trashcan was not out on the street I could roll over an go back to sleep instead of getting out of bed and rushing to get it out there in time. Our trash had been collected the week before and now our trashcan was only about a quarter full. Then a thought came into my head: if everyone on my street would have reduced their garbage production over the last couple of weeks by composting their yard and kitchen waste and brought their recycling to the nearest collection station then those garbage trucks could have skipped our street this morning and I could have been awakened a half hour later by my kids playing in my son’s room.
What, you ask has this to do with Green Jobs? Well, if more people would compost their kitchen scraps then the demand for compost bins, compost tumblers, kitchen compost pails/crocks, worm bins, and red wigglers would go up. Furthermore, if everyone were to recycle more, the cost of recycled goods would theoretically go down and subsequently the demand for recycled goods would most likely go up. Thus, we could replace noisy, sleep disrupting garbage trucks and operators with jobs creating more composting products and products made of recycled materials and possibly lower our taxes at the same time.
Meanwhile the city of San Francisco decided last week to force every citizen to separate their recycling and compost from their trash. Every week city employees will have to empty three garbage cans from each household: one for garbage, one for recycling and one for composting. It seems to me that San Franciscans should be prepared for a tax hike, that is, if the fines levied to those that are not compliant don’t cover the added cost of collecting three bins instead of two, or even of one. Instead, I suggest that municipalities reward those of us who manage our recycling and compost, and who only put our trash cans on the street once every three or four weeks with tax rebates, while charging extra to those that set two trash cans out every week. In short, I suggest that it would be best for the government to encourage personal responsibility and use a carrot and not a stick to create more green jobs.
Dan Bossenbroek
Will Incandescents Make a Comeback?
One of the main stumbling blocks to the sustainability movement has been t
hat many people just don’t want to change the way they do things or what they buy. Some don’t like the color of CFL’s, others are concerned about the mercury they contain. LED’s are very efficient, but they are very expensive and it’s hard to find ones to replace 75 and 100-watt bulbs. For those that have not made the switch to CFL’s or LED’s there may be some help.
Scientists at the University of Rochester have learned how to alter the filament using an ultra-brief pulse from an ultra-intense laser and make them much more efficient. So far they have been able to produce a bulb that produces as much light as a 100-watt but uses less than 60 watts. Furthermore, they have been able to effect the color of the light that the fillaments emit. Hopefully this technology will soon be further developed and incoporated into mass production. This way, more and more people will be encouraged to save energy and money.
In short: More efficient incandescent bulbs = a great step in the right direction.
Dan Bossenbroek
Article Source
Indoor Air Quality – 10 Ways to Clean the Air in Your Home
The air inside most buildings is more polluted than the air outside. Controlling contaminants at their source in 
your house is a great first (or ten) step to improving your indoor air quality, your comfort and your health. However, this will not eliminate all of the contaminants in your house. There are some negative substances that are almost impossible to eliminate at their source: viruses, bacteria, pollen, dust mites, mold, carbon monoxide, just to name a few. Some of these contaminants can lead to increased short term allergic type reactions and symptoms like irritated eyes, nose and throat, dizziness and fatigue. These short term reactions are typically not serious health concerns, but some indoor air contaminants have been linked to long term and serious conditions such as respiratory disease, heart disease, and cancer. It is difficult to pinpoint what level of exposure to these contaminants is potentially dangerous, and it also seems to vary from person to person. These substances are created by every day activities like cooking, brining most any object into the house, visiting a sick friend, taking a shower, and running the furnace.
Therefore, additional efforts need to be made in order to provide the clean air that will promote healthy living:
1. Open the windows: Many times simply opening the widows will provide enough air movement to flush most of the lingering contaminants out of your house.
2. Whole house fans: Using one of these is a great way to really flush any lingering unwanted gasses and some fine particulates out of your house
3. Bathroom fans and stove hoods: Some contaminants are byproducts of other positive and necessary activities. The down-side of a warm shower is the excessive moisture that can sometimes be left behind and lead to mold and mildew. Cooking on the stove can result in culinary masterpieces, but it can also result in carbon monoxide, lingering odors, smoke and other contaminants. Using bathroom fans and stove hoods can quickly eliminate the excess moisture and other contaminants before they can spread throughout the house and become a problem.
4. HEPA Filters: A HEPA filter for your furnace or air purifier will help to remove many small particles like dust, dust mite allergens, anthrax spores, mold spores, pet dander, and even some harmful gases and airborne asbestos from the air in your house.
5. Carbon Filters: Many air purifiers rely on carbon filters to eliminate smoke, fumes, and odors from your house. Air is forced through a layer of activated granular charcoal which absorbs the odors and allows clean fresh air to pass through.
6. UV Germicidal Light: This ultraviolet light feature of many air purifiers neutralizes and eliminates many bacteria, mold spores, protozoa, yeasts and even some viruses.
7. Ozone: This naturally occurring unstable gas quickly oxidizes with the pollutants in the air moving through the air purifier and completely neutralizes them. Many air purifiers use this chemical reaction to effectively eliminate bacteria, fungus and odors from the air.
8. Ionize: Air purifiers with ionizers create negatively charged ions which attract small airborne particles such as viruses, pollen, bacteria, smoke, dust, animal dander as well as other allergens. Once this occurs the particles cling to a metal collector or the particles to fall out of the air.
9. House Plants: All plants absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen (O2), but some plants will effectively 
absorb one or more other unwanted gasses such as: benzene, formaldehyde and trichloroethylene. Another benefit of having houseplants is that they help to humidify the air in your house. Some of the best plants at cleaning the air in your house are: English Ivy; Spider Plant; Golden Pothos or Devil’s Ivy; Peace Lily; Chinese Evergreen; Bamboo Palm or Reed Palm; Snake Plant or Mother-in-Law’s Tongue; Heartleaf, Selloum, and Elephant Ear Philodendron; Red-edged, Cornstalk, Janet Craig, and Warneck Dracaena; Weeping Fig; Gerbera Daisy or Barberton Daisy; Pot Mum or Florist’s Chrysanthemum; and Rubber Plant. Get out your green thumb and breathe a little easier.
10. Suck it up: Purchase a quality vacuum cleaner, one with cyclone cleaning and a washable HEPA filter. Using it frequently will help to eliminate many of the contaminants that collect all over your house and are stirred up in a number of ways.
Every one of the above strategies will help to improve the indoor air quality in your home, but each works on different contaminants and they should be used in combination in order to clean all types of contaminants from the air in your house.
Dan Bossenbroek
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The sun bathes the earth with energy every day, but only a fraction of this energy is ever harnessed to heat our houses. Installing a solar air heater can dramatically reduce your heating costs by supplementing your current system regardless of the type and pay for itself in a little as three to six years. This payback period can be significantly reduced if you take advantage of the Federal Tax Credits that are now available. During the day the solar air heater will pull air from in your house, heat it up by as much as 30° and then return it back indoors. This hot air in turn warms up the walls, ceiling, floor and other items in the room. This sun warmed air will keep your conventional heating system from coming on as often during the day and even into the evening as the heat stored in the room slowly warms the air in the room. A single collector can heat up to 750 square feet and will last for many years. Thus over the life of your solar air heater it will pay for itself multiple times.
5 Reasons to Consider a Reel Lawn Mower
By TC Thorn
Back in the old days, a people-powered push reel lawn mower was all anyone had. Gas and electric mowers weren’t an option. But then these modern replacements came along, and soon the push mower became something of an antiquated notion.
Thanks to the environmental movement though there has been a renewed interest in people-powered mowers, and quite a few reel mowers are on the market today, many of great quality that can last with minimal maintenance for years and years. And if you’ve priced gas mowers lately, you’ll probably be pleasantly surprised at how affordable these guys are (the top of the line models rarely go above $200, and you can buy new ones for less than $100).
I’m a reel mower owner myself, so I can speak from experience as I give you a few reasons to consider a reel mower:
5 Reasons You Might Want to Get a Reel Lawn Mower
1. Reel mowers are eco-friendly and sustainable.
Perhaps one of the main reasons people go for reel mowers is they’ve read about how horrible for the environment a gas-powered mower is. Giving off far more carbon emissions than a car (unlike with a car, you don’t have to take your lawn mower in for an annual inspection), gas mowers are environmental pollutants to the extreme.
2. Reel mowers are quiet.
In addition to being un-eco-friendly, gas mowers are also noisy and annoying to your neighbors. You’ve doubtlessly had the experience yourself: you’re outside enjoying a sunny day, maybe puttering in the garden or reading a book, and the next door neighbor fires up the lawn mower for an hour of noise making. It’s hard to relax with that going on!
A push mower doesn’t make any noise.
3. Maintenance is a snap.
Even if you’re not a green freak, you’ll appreciate how simple a reel mower is and how easy it is to maintain. There’s no fuel to be purchased, no oil to be changed, no spark plugs, air filters, fuel filters, etc. etc. etc. Every couple of years, you might need to sharpen the blades, but that’s about it!
4. Pushing a reel mower is good for you and your lawn.
Modern reel mowers are actually pretty easy to use, and I’m not sure pushing mine is much (if any) harder than pushing a heavier gas-powered mower, but knowing you’re cutting the grass by your own efforts, makes you feel pretty good.
Also, studies show that a reel mower is better for your lawn too. The blades work differently than with a gas mower (snipping, such as with scissors, instead of tearing) and are better for your grass. On golf courses, they actually use reel mowers (albeit pulled by tractors) to cut their large lawns, because they’ve found them to keep the grass healthier and better looking!
5. Reel mowers don’t get more expensive to use down the line.
When gas was up to $5 a gallon, you probably started to think twice about purchasing some just to pour into mowing your lawn. What does a lawn do, after all, except look good? As I write this gas prices are lower, but there’s no telling what the future will bring. The folks who study peak oil are pretty convinced that we’re close to an era where demand will outstrip supply. Why have all these tools in your garage that require gas to use when you can choose an eco-friendly, non-noise-polluting, human-powered alternative that will never get more expensive to use?
The author has written more about her reel mower experiences at her sustainable living blog, “Off the Urban Grid.”
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=TC_Thorn
http://EzineArticles.com/?5-Reasons-to-Consider-a-Reel-Lawn-Mower&id=2268986
Reel Push Mowers
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Not only are gas powered lawn mowers noisy, they are also expensive to maintain. The solution is a reel push mower, that is a real reel push mower, not the cheap kind that you find at a discount store. Quality reel push mowers are less expensive than quality gas powered mowers, they cost almost nothing to maintain and operate, and they shear the grass instead of ripping it. Thus your lawn is healthier, you have more green in your pocket and more under your feet. Lawn and Garden
The Ultimate Cloth Means the Ultimate in Green Cleaning
Do you have a closet full of cleaning products – a different product for every surface? Do you have a childproof lock on your cleaning supplies so your children cannot get to these dangerous products? Have you ever shuttered at the safety warnings on even so-called “safe” cleaning products? Are you tired of finding streaks on your windows and stainless steel kitchen appliances even after you’ve finished cleaning? Would you like to be a “greener” cleaner? Have you ever had a skin or respiratory reaction to cleaning products?
If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you might be interested in a new non-toxic cleaning product that lasts for years, is effective on any virtually surface, and contains absolutely no chemicals. Plus, this new miracle cleaning cloth cleans streak free, lint free, dust free, and spot free – guaranteed!
Most traditional cleaning products contain a variety of potentially harmful chemicals, most of which don’t have to be listed on the product labels. Many products contain phthalates and other chemical compounds chemicals that can harm the nerves, breathing, and reproductive organs of humans, household pets, and wildlife.
The ultimate cleaning cloth avoids these dangers. It is made from macrofiber, the next generation of microfiber. This amazing cloth makes it possible to have a clean home without using any cleaning products. That’s right, no cleaning products at all! That means no chemicals, no fragrances, no dyes, and no half-empty bottles lying around. All you need is a macrofiber cloth and water.
This miracle cleaning method-macrofiber cloth and water-works on all household surfaces, including windows, mirrors, glass, ceramic tiles, stainless steel kitchen appliances, bathroom fixtures, and counter tops. Plus you can use it to clean your vehicle’s body, windshield, dashboard, mirrors, and chrome trim. You can also use this ultimate cleaning method on the lexan, isinglass, plastic, or fiberglass on motorcycles, off-road vehicles, snowmobiles, boats, and other outdoor sporting equipment.
To clean your house, all you have to do is wet the cloth with plain tap water, wring it out, and wipe the surfaces. With its vacuum power, the ultimate cloth removes bugs, smoke film, tar, grease, cooking residue, dust, soap scum, bacteria, etc. etc.
If it’s not enough that this 21st century cloth cleans just about everything you can imagine without streaking and without chemicals, it’s also washable and bleachable so you can use it over and over. And it’s guaranteed for years of successful use. When you use this ultimate cleaning system – just a cloth with water – you save on the cost of cleaning products and supplies, help the environment by reducing chemical use and throwaway containers, and protect your family from toxins.
Being a green consumer isn’t just about using safer products. It’s also about buying less and using fewer products. A macrofiber cleaning cloth is a one-time purchase, totally reusable. It adds neither chemicals nor waste to the environment. Macrofiber cleaning cloths help you protect your family, your health, and the environment. What could be better?
About the Author
Chris Robertson is an author of Majon International, one of the worlds MOST popular internet marketing companies. For tips/information, click here: ultimate cloth
Visit Majon’s home-improvement directory.
Beat the Summer Heat and Conserve Energy with a Whole House Fan
I grew up in a house with a whole house fan, and no air-conditioning. The fan was great when the
temperature went down into the 60’s at night, it pulled cool air throughout the entire house and cooled it down quite nicely. It even helped after those scorching hot days when the temperature only dropped to the mid 80’s at night, it kept a gentle breeze flowing throughout the house all night. I’m sure it saved my parents hundreds of dollars even back then, and installing one in your house can save you up to 50% on your cooling bills every year or up to 90% if you eliminate conventional air conditioners all together.
One of the great benefits of whole house fans is that they will cool your house to a lower temperature than an air conditioner will when the temperature outside at night drops lower than the temperature 
that your air conditioner is set to. Thus, not only will it suck the hot air out of your house, but it will also suck some of the heat absorbed in the walls, floors and ceilings out of your house out too. Then in the morning, when the temperature is the lowest, close all of the windows in order to keep the heat of the day out. In this way you will start the day with a nice cool house that can absorb a fair amount of heat as the temperature climbs outside before the interior starts to become uncomfortable. The more thermal mass such as masonry or plaster walls, concrete, hardwood and/or tile floors that a house has, the more heat it can absorb during the day and be exhausted by the fan at night.
The two possible downsides to a whole house fan are the noise of the fan and t
he introduction of allergens into the house. The fan we had growing up provided a constant hum that just became a nice background noise and actually helped to put me to sleep. Many of the fans available today are quieter than those made in the past, and many of them have a low speed setting so that they operate even more quietly. With respect to allergens, if someone in the house has a problem with seasonal summertime allergies then you probably shouldn’t consider a whole house fan.
Two precautions that you should take are to and to seal all of the holes and cracks between the house and the attic and to make sure that you have adequate ventilation form your attic to the outside. There should be about one square foot of clear vent space to the outside from the attic for every 750 cfm of fan volume. If these precautions are not taken the fan will push hot dusty air right back in to your house.
Conserve energy and enjoy natural cool night breezes this summer. Turn off your air conditioner, and save hundreds of dollars by cooling your house with a whole house fan.
Dan Bossenbroek
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Philodendron Plant |
