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So, here’s what they don’t tell you…

The Florida Everglades is slowly dying! Development pressures from industry, urban areas and agriculture have destroyed over half of the original Everglades. The sugar cane farms have graciously contributed pollutants from fertilizer run-off into the Everglades ecosystem, poisoning the surrounding environment!

For many years the State of Florida has been working on an Everglades Restoration Project, and last year Gov. Crist finally made a deal with U.S. Sugar Corp, the United States largest cane sugar producer, to purchase 180,000 acres of agricultural land for restoration purposes. However, due to the economic challenges of today, Florida is still trying to secure financing for this deal and U.S. Sugar Corp is taking bids from others in order to sell the land for more agricultural use, instead of trying to preserve it!

That being said, Florida Crystals, the second largest sugar cane producer in the state and also part owner of Domino Sugar, has been fighting Gov. Crist’s deal every chance they get, seeing the deal as an unfair competitive edge. As for the current deal, Florida Crystals Vice President Gaston Cantens said, “We’re adamantly opposed,” citing a land leaseback rate “that is well below market … That is just wrong.” Florida Crystals is also having talks with U.S. Sugar to possibly buy its assets; however, a big portion of the land must be left for agriculture.

So, Domino Sugar can boast all they want of their “Earth Friendly Farming”, but the reality is; they are killing the very earth they claim to be working towards saving!

~Wind

 
Photo Credit: Tatnuck Brook Watershed Association

Happy Earth Day!  Nearly 40 years ago the first Earth Day was formed by the Senator of Wisconsin, Gaylord Nelson, and nearly 20 million people participated!

There will be many celebrations to honor the Mother Earth around the world on this day; however, if you are unable to participate in any of them, you can participate in our own private celebration at home. This doesn’t mean having an Earth Day party at your house, although, that’s not a bad idea, but just by doing something for the environment around the house to give a tribute to the Earth on her special day!

• Plan a fully organic meal; support your local farmers, if you are able to use the veggies in your garden!
• Plant some herb seeds in pots. By keeping your herbs in pots you’re able to move them around so that they don’t get too much sunlight.
• Change out your incandescent light bulbs to CFL’s. This practice is not only good for the environment, but for your wallet too! CFL’s have gone down a bit in price, they are still a little more expensive than the Incandescent bulbs, but in the long run, they will save on your utility bill!
• Make some homemade household cleaners. This too will save you money and promote a lesser carbon footprint on the environment.
• Change the filters in your a/c, your car and your water system. Keeping the filters clean, enables the equipment that you are using not to overwork itself and it also good for your health.

Have a wonderful Earth Day!

~Wind

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Photo credit: Consumer Reports
And so it begins…the mass production of “environmentally safe” products! But are they really environmentally safe? I read an article today by Greener Design on the Environmental Protection Agency possibly loosening restrictions and allowing some manufacturers to market disinfectants as “environmentally preferable.”

Please forgive my skepticism but what exactly does “environmentally preferable” actually mean? Does this mean that on a scale of 1-10 these products aren’t as harmful as the others? It would be very easy for a consumer that is uneducated in the ways of the environment to be easily persuaded into purchasing a product that they believe is safe for the environment because the product has some misleading label.  When the reality is that the consumer has purchased a product that just isn’t “as bad” for the environment as all the others!

The only way to protect our consumer rights is to educate ourselves with the products that we use and limit the products that we buy. Practice creating your own natural products at home.  Items such as cleaners, clothes, growing our own vegetables and other food products such as eggs, herbs or cheese can be made or grown at home much safer and cheaper than the products that we buy at the store.  When you must by products at the store, do a little research to make sure of what you are buying, it’s important.

~Wind
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Photo: State of Delaware

There is another species that is on the verge of extinction, and I could not be happier!  Coal fired power plants are slowly fading into history! In the past couple of years, 95 of the proposed coal fired power plants have been either put off or cancelled altogether. This figure counts for nearly half of the total of proposed plants since 2000.

The plants that have been placed on hold are eagerly awaiting word from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), on whether limits will be placed on carbon dioxide emissions, due to the clean air act.  If a cap is put into place, this will inevitably put a halt to the construction of any new coal-fired power plants across the nation! Utility companies know this and are beginning to step back from coal and look to the future with clean, renewable energy!

If off shore wind power were completely developed off the east coast, the windmills could generate enough electricity to replace nearly all coal-fired power plants in the nation, according to Ken Salazar, Secretary of the U.s Department of the Interior. The winds off the ocean could generate 1 million megawatts of power, which is the same amount that 3,000 coal-fired plants could produce. It would take many years to build a fully operating off shore wind system, but now is time to start moving in that direction, before it’s too late.

~Wind

Photo Credit: Thiswaytothe.net
In 1992, it was first proposed by the Government of Canada at an Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, that World Oceans Day should be designated by the United Nations as a time of celebration for the world’s oceans. Unofficially, many organizations have celebrated Worlds Oceans Day on June 8th, as a time to acknowledge our personal connection to oceans.

However, finally, after many years and thousands of petitions, the United Nations has declared it official, that World Oceans Day is June 8th of every year. He have celebrated Earth Day since 1970 and it has taken nearly 40 years for the world to acknowledge the seriousness of the Earth’s degradation and to finally act on the issues.  Let’s hope it doesn’t take that long for us to realize the importance of our oceans and the critical role they play in maintaining the planet’s ecosystems.

~Wind

Florida has a season for everything! We have Hurricane Season, Rainy Season, Foggy Season and yes, we have sea turtle nesting season…and this year it started early!  Sea turtle nesting season normally begins on May 1st and ends on Oct 31, however, this week the officials in St. Johns County have discovered two leatherback turtle nests on the beaches.

These turtles crawl out of the water, make a nest on the beach, lay their eggs and head back for the waters overnight.  Once the hatchlings arrive, they are usually greeting by a host of creatures that would like nothing more than to make them breakfast!  Birds, fish and raccoons are the three top predators for newly hatched leatherback turtles.  Most counties in Florida implement some sort of protection plan for these little turtle babies to ensure their survival until they make it back into the water, once in the ocean, they are on their own!

Since the turtles have started to come early this year, none of the normal beach restrictions have been put into place, therefore, residents and visitors in Florida are urged to reduce the beach front lighting and limit their driving time along the beach at night and during the early morning hours, this will reduce the risk of possibly harming the leatherback turtles.

~Wind

Mountaintop removal has destroyed over 500,000 acres of land and buried 2,000 miles of streams over the years.  Due to recent protests and many campaigns, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has objected a total of 5 mountaintop removal mining permits that the federal Army Corps of Engineers were prepared to dole out!

The mines that have been objected to are A&G Coal Corps Ison Rock Ridge Surface Mine in Wise County, Virginia, Massey Energy’s Republic No. 1 Surface Mine in Kanawha County, West Virginia, Frasure Creek Mining’s Spring Fork No. 2 Mine in Mingo County West Virginia, Patriot Coal Co. in Lexington, Kentucky and Rhino Resources in eastern Kentucky!

According to Care2 , over 100,000 of you took action to putting an end to these horrendous mining projects! This is not over and we have not won, but we are definitely taking steps in the right direction.  To all of you that have taken action, I say…thank you, to any of you that would like to take action, please visit the Stop Mountain Removal website and see if there’s anything there that strikes an interest.

~Wind

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In 2005, the State of Florida and Lee County purchased 73,000 acres of land on the 90,000 acre piece of property known as Babcock Ranch.  The ranch has served as a protected home to much of the Florida wildlife, including the Florida Black Bear. As an exchange for selling the land to the state, developer Sydney Kitson got the “go ahead” to turn the remaining 17,000 acres into a green city!

The first step in Kitson’s vision, is to construct a 75-megawatt solar photovoltaic array, which is scheduled to begin later this year or in the early part of 2010, according to the signed deal with Florida Power and Light. The construction of the array will employ nearly 400 people for about a year, as this is the largest planned array on the planet! The photovoltaic panels use cells that will convert sunlight into electricity preventing 61,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions in a single year. The plant and the city will be plugged into FPL’s power grid, however, since the city will use less power than the array will produce, it will become an exporter of solar electricity.  This means that solar electricity will power the city during the sunny days and will then send any unneeded energy to other FPL customers.

Not only will the green city contain nearly 20,000 homes, but Kitson plans to bring renewable energy companies into the city, bringing ‘green jobs’ into the development, creating nearby jobs that won’t require long drives into the major surrounding cities.  In addition to the green homes and green businesses, Kitson intends on equipping the city with electric car chargers, green roofs, a natural storm water system and a power grid.

The Babcock Ranch solar array will be the 4th major solar project that FPL has taken on, as construction has already begun on three other projects in the State of Florida which combined create 110 megawatts.

“Florida is finally becoming the ‘Sunshine State’ for real,” said Earthjustice attorney David Guest. “This is a fabulous Happy Earth Day present for Florida.”

~Wind

3/4 of the Earth’s surface is made up of water; 90% of the human body is made up of water, it would be needless to say that water is the life force of the planet.  The Rivers and streams upon the earth are the veins that move the life force from one place to another, feeding our ecosystems and our communities.

Our rivers are in danger from pollution, outdated water and flood management.  American Rivers have been releasing an annual endangered rivers report for over twenty years, below is a list of the top ten endangered rivers in our country for 2009.

1. Sacramento-San Joaquin River System in California is suffering from poor flood management and outdated water.  This river serves nearly 25 million California residents and more than 5 million acres of farmland.
2. Flint River in Georgia flows for over 200 miles undamned, however, the lawmakers in Georgia would like to end that by putting damns into place that would cover over 50 miles of river flow destroying the ecosystem.
3. Lower Snake River in Idaho, Washington and Oregon is suffering from the four dams that were placed in the river by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for irrigation.  What hasn’t been taken into consideration is the salmon and steelhead trout that can no longer reach there spawning areas, killing 90% of the fish that depend on migration to survive.
4. Mattawoman Creek in Maryland is falling victim to a highway development that is threatening clean water sources.
5. The North Fork of the Flathead River in Montana is being destroyed by a coal-mining project that is located across the Canadian border.  50,000 acres of this river are in jeopardy of being transformed into another industrial gas field.
6. Saluda River in South Carolina is suffering from an excess of sewage waste, increasing the phosphorous and algae levels, which in turn, depletes the oxygen for the fish and other water life.
7. A bottling plant and tourism related development located near the Laurel Hill Creek in Pennsylvania is becoming a threat to the local water supply and ecosystem surrounding the creek.
8. Beaver Creek in Alaska is facing extinction if one of the oil and gas development projects in the area continues to construct the 600 miles of roads, pipelines, airstrips, drilling pads and gravel mines all alongside of the creek.
9. Pascagoula River in Mississippi is facing a threat from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). DOE wishes to hollow out the natural salt domes located 30 miles away from the river for a storage area for nearly 160 million barrels of oil.  The plan consists of a 330 mile long pipeline, that would take water from the river to dissolve the salt domes and distribute oil to and from the storage area.
10. Lower St. Croix National Scenic Riverway in Minnesota and Wisconsin is in danger of a 26 mile re-zoning project that would allow for a major development to be constructed on the riverfront. This could lead to erosion and more storm run-off along the riverside.

These 10 rivers still have a chance for survival, but only with the help from local governments, local residents and the power in numbers.  If these rivers disappear; the veins that deliver our life force from place to place, goes along with it.  Water that we and the earth need for survival will disappear! River’s from past lists conducted by American Rivers have been saved; these rivers can be saved to!

~Wind

Ever wondered if the quality of air within your home is up to snuff? According to Kamal Meattle in Delhi, there are three plants that you should keep in your home to keep the air fresh and healthy; these plants are the Areca Palm, the Money Plant and the Mother-In-Law’s Tongue!

Apparently you should keep one Areca Palm per person in the house to cleanse the air during the day; 6-8 Mother-In-Law’s Tongue’s per person to convert the CO2 to oxygen during the evening and the Money Plant filters out Formaldehyde and other Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC’s)!

According to Meattle, and his 15 years of research, by providing enough of these plants within your home, you could survive in an air tight bubble! Meattle has been testing this theory at the Paharpur Business Centre in India which occupies 300 people, by filling it with over 1,200 plants.  The Indian Government has not only rated this building to be the healthiest in all of Delhi but suggests that after spending 10 hours inside the building your body will be working better than it was before!

Not only is filling your homes with live plants a beautiful addition to your home;  but it’s a natural and healthy one as well!

~Wind