A Very Martha Earth Day

I hope everybody had a super Earth Day and did one thing to make a positive impact on our planet. Here's how Eric and I celebrated our Earth Day...

We woke up bright and early--5:30 AM. Yes, I'm on Spring Break this week, and no we weren't going to work. Why were we up so early? To head into New York! I requested tickets for The Martha Stewart Show and we were given tickets for Earth Day! So we left at 6:30 and by 8:15 AM, Eric and I were in the line for audience members.




It turns out that it was a special live Earth Day episode! We couldn't have gotten any luckier than that! Well, maybe if we won the eco-friendly washer and dryer that another audience member did win (and she's from the same Sussex County town as us)!

Seeing Martha in person was awesome! Seeing the studio in person was amazing as well. Though it wasn't my first screening of a television show, it's always fascinating to see how many crew members it takes to keep the show going. It's constant motion. Here are just a few of the show highlights...

Jaime Pressly, from My Name is Earl was on the show. She and Martha stamped reusable totes with fabric paint and potatoes to make them a bit funkier.

Simran Sethi, host of Sundance's "The Green," shared some important information about our drinking water and the use of plastic drinking bottles.

Martha also shared some tips for washing and folding towels. She has a new line of towels available at Macy's.

After the taping of the Earth Day episode, we stayed for the taping of some Memorial Day segments which will be airing on May 23rd. Not only did we enjoy watching the taping of the shows, we got free stuff to boot! We each got a three piece set of towels, a magazine, a big book of flags, a coupon for a Sigg water bottle, an outdoor flag-hanging kit, and two free tote bags!

We walked the mile and a half to a vegan eatery in the Village that I was curious about trying for lunch. I'd read about Sacred Chow on Disease Proof and we were not disappointed! I had the shiitake mushroom and spinach salad with South Indian dressing along with the Korean tofu slices. Eric has a tempeh reuben. Everything was delicious and I highly recommend this place if you're so inclined to try it!

As we were on our walk back to the car, I couldn't resist stopping at Sabon, my favorite all-natural luxury bath and body shop to pick up some mud-from-the-Dead-Sea soap! Our last stop was at Whole Body to try some organic Aubrey shampoo--and we got another free tote in honor of Earth Day! Woo hoo!

(On another note, we stopped at Bleeker Records to peruse the basement full of vinyl and happened to stumble upon the filming of a commercial of sorts. A British female musician named Kate Nash was being filmed to seemingly promote herself and the record store. At least that's what I had gotten out of it. We had never heard of her but googled her tonight. She reminds me of Lily Allen.)

Can you live like Ed?

Have you seen the HGTV show "Living with Ed?" I haven't caught it yet(not sure if it's currently airing) but I have heard a lot about Ed Begley, Jr. lately. What an amazing guy. Ed is a real environmentalist. He retrofitted his VW Rabbit to run as an electric car. He rides his bicycle to Hollywood events. Ed and his wife Rachelle co-star in their living-green reality show.

Ed also has a book out called Living like Ed: A Guide to the Eco-Friendly Life. Check out the website for Living with Ed here. Also check out the website he created with two partners--Fixing the Planet. His websites and book offer tons of ideas for sustainable living.

Ed will be speaking at the global green Expo in Jersey City next weekend but I'll be here instead...oh, well.

Are you a locavore?

The word locavore was the Oxford Dictionary word of the year for 2007. But do you know what a locavore is?

locavore--the name of a person who only eats locally grown and produced foods

The word didn't even exist until 2005! The locavore movement began in San Francisco when a group of "concerned culinary adventurers" challenged people to eat local foods only for the month of August back in '05.

Over the past year or two, I think we've all begun learning why it's so important to eat foods grown close to home. Supporting our local farmers helps our local economies. Big corporate owned factory farms put more and more family owned farms out of business every day.

Did you know that our food travels an average of 1,500 miles to get to our supermarkets? So how fresh do you really think those strawberries in your refrigerator are? Buying food in this way (the way that most of us Americans do), has detrimental effects on our economy, global warming and our health.

I just finished the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. It's a year spent in the life of Barbara and her family who, for a one year period, live the lives of locavores. On their Virginia farm, they grow mostly everything they eat. And the rest is all local--with the exception of a few staples like coffee and spices. Most of us aren't going to be able to grow all of our own food. But I highly recommend this book. It really is something that we need to think about as the outlook for our planet grows more and more dire on a daily basis.

We don't need to have an all or nothing mentality about it. Personally speaking, I've begun to really read the labels of products. When I ran out of honey recently, I chose the honey produced in New Jersey as oppose to the kind that was flown in from far away. When our local farmer markets open for season, I'll spend an extra few dollars to buy produce there. Baby steps count!

Read more about it...

The New York Times article

Time Magazine

(Pic came from here...)

How green is your candidate?

Newsweek's cover story this week compares the three presidential candidates and where they stand on environmental issues. The article is here if you are interested...

Going greener!

I'm constantly debating how we can make our lives greener. Lately, I've been eyeing the Toyota Prius but, not only can I not afford a hybrid vehicle, but I still have 2 1/2 years left of payments on my Matrix.

As I'm reading the wonderful book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, I'm realizing the importance of locally-grown, organic food. However, right now, there is really no local produce to be had! And the cost of organic produce tends to be astronomical! So oftentimes, I'm buying the conventional-flown-in-from-Ecuador produce from the market. But I'll make a conscious effort to do better, come summer, when local produce is available.

Today's April 1st. Yes, it's April Fool's Day, but we also observe Earth Day this month. I have a list of things I'd like to do to turn Kermit-like this month, such as joining Green Dimes and learning about composting.

Today, my AAA membership is up and instead of renewing, I've decided to join the Better World Club. Their services are comparable to AAA but they are an environmentally conscious company. They donate 1 % of their total revenue to environmental cleanup and advocacy.

Instant Karma

Today, while Eric was making a purchase for himself at the Sharper Image, he surprised me and bought me the cd, Instant Karma, the Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur. Long title. Instant Karma is a two disc set of John Lennon covers by artists from Aerosmith to Jack Johnson. According to the website, "it seeks to mobilize millions around the urgent catastrophe in Darfur, Sudan. It combines the power of John Lennon's music recorded by some of the world's best-known artists, together with cutting-edge forms of instant activism enabled by Internet and mobile technologies. "

The back of the cd reads this...

The conflict in Darfur, Sudan, has led to some of the worst human rights abuses imaginable, including systematic and widespread murder, rape, abduction and displacement. Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been killed by deliberate and indiscriminate attacks, and over 2.5 million civilions have been displaced.

Click here to take action...

Food Stamp Challenge

Yesterday, while I was at High Holy Day services, the president of our temple spoke about the Food Stamp Challenge. Anyone ever hear of this? Back in May, a bunch of lawmakers were challenged to take up the Food Stamp Challenge. They were given a budget of $21 a week to eat. Thats $3 a meal, 3 meals a day. The purpose was to see how difficult it really is to eat for that tiny amount of money per week. I can't imagine it. The other day I left my purse at home and when I left work I was thirsty and in desparate need of caffeine. So what did I do? Drive to Starbucks and pay for $4 frappucino with spare change. Do we have any idea of what it's like to be hungry? I mean really hungry, not the kind of hungry I was at 11 am this morning, 4 hours after having breakfast.

When I do a 25 hour fast for Yom Kippur, I understand the true meaning of hunger. I was thinking of trying this challenge for a couple days. But could I do it? Could I give up coffee and nice restaurants and take-out? Fresh fruits and veggies? Either way, it makes you think.

This year I will definately try to give more to my temple's annual food drive.

In Memory of...

My father called me a couple days ago to give me the sad news that a 27 year old female soldier from my hometown was killed in Iraq. I didn't know her but I graduated, and later worked with, her older sister. There are no words to tell how I'm feeling right now. I was home at my parents' today and all over towns are signs, "We love you, Trista" and "We'll miss you, Trista." There was even one with a photo at the vet's office where I took Norton for his shots today. When is this war going to end? It breaks my heart that so many soldiers are losing their lives out there...

Here's a link to a story...

New York Taxis Going Green!

I found this interesting story on Grist today. The city of New York is planning on introducing 1,000 hybrid taxis in the year 2008. By the year 2012, all of the city's 13,000 taxi cabs will be hybrids. Awesome! And, according to Mayor Bloomberg, "And because taxis are so heavily used, the new standard will have the equivalent effect of removing 30,000 individually-owned gas-powered vehicles from our streets." See the full story here.

Update:

Yesterday, I found out that New Jersey's largest utility, PSE&G is also going green! In the next decade they will replace one third of their fleet with hybrid vehicles. Woo hoo! See story here.

My Ecological Footprint

So tomorrow is Earth Day. And yesterday, I read an interesting article in the Star-Ledger about ecological footprints. An ecological footprint is basically the mark you leave on our planet. You can take the quiz to see how much land and water you need to support what you use and discard. Before reading the article in the newspaper, I didn't think I'd do too bad. I'm a vegetarian. (Sorry to do this, Meat-Eaters. But check out this link to see how horrific factory farming really is for the environment. Not to mention animal rights. But I digress.) I recycle. Though my car isn't a hybrid, its not a gas-guzzling monster. I'm always trying to do more. Or should I say do less damage on the environment. I just bought a new refillable water bottle and a Brita pitcher for Eric's house so I don't have to create more senseless waste with those single serving water bottles. Inspired by Becky's post on using canvas bags, I'm going to try to use less of the throwaway plastic bags and canvas-bag-it myself at the grocery store from now on.

So this quiz asks you fifteen questions. How far do you commute on a weekly basis? Do you drive a car, a motorbike or use use your own two feet primarily? What kind of mileage does your car get? Where do you live? Whats the size of your home? Free-standing or apartment? Running water? Unfortunately living in a place like the USA brings down your score because we're just the worst when it comes to things like global warming and polluting. Another question asks about where your food comes from? Is it packaged and processed or locally grown?

So I didn't do too well. I did horribly, actually. Here are my results:

CATEGORY GLOBAL ACRES
FOOD 3.5
MOBILITY 5.4
SHELTER 6.4
GOODS/SERVICES 10.9
TOTAL FOOTPRINT 26


IN COMPARISON, THE AVERAGE ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT IN YOUR COUNTRY IS 24 GLOBAL ACRES PER PERSON.

WORLDWIDE, THERE EXISTS 4.5 BIOLOGICALLY PRODUCTIVE GLOBAL ACRES PER PERSON.

IF EVERYONE LIVED LIKE YOU, WE WOULD NEED 5.9 PLANETS.

Shudder. This is scary! Being that tomorrow is Earth Day, here are some things that I can do to do better. Isn't that what its about? Just doing a couple extra things every day that will make a difference.

1. Start using energy-efficient lightbulbs.
2. Start canvas-bagging it like I mentioned up above.
3. Buy more locally-grown produce. I used to belong to a really cool co-op called Purple Dragon. You can find one near you if you live in the NJ area. You can join one and every two weeks, you pick up a delivery of locally-grown (inasmuch as possible) organic produce. Yum! The best thing about it was that you never know what kind of fruits and veggies you're getting until a couple days before the shipment! Once I was happily surprised with a head of purple cauliflower! Maybe I should rejoin...

Its a short list to start with but I think making small changes in your day-to-day routine is what counts. So tomorrow's Earth Day. Do something. And why not make every day Earth Day?

Great Music and Free Ice Cream and Lets Save the World, Oh My!

What a weekend! On Saturday, I dropped off my love at the airport so he could schlep out to Edinburgh, Scotland, to meet his parents for their 40th wedding anniversary. After dropping off Eric at Newark, I drove into New York to meet up with my friend, Amber. We had a delicious, if not overpriced, Indian dinner on the Upper West Side, then headed to the Beacon Theatre for a show. I received free tickets to see Guster with the Format through my favorite radio station, WFUV.

Just a side note endorsing my favorite radio station, WFUV. Its public radio and that means it's member-supported. You can listen online and check out the archives. Its a great station. If you dig it, throw some money their way. This week is their spring member drive.

Anyway. Back to the concert. The show was part of the environmentally-friendly Campus Consciousness Tour. Aside from the tour being "green," there were different stations set up around the concert hall to promote environmental issues. Plus, they were giving away free stuff! The highlights:

• Ben and Jerry's was giving away free ice cream. I mean a medium-sized-two-scoops of cinnamon buns--delicious!!! The catch? I signed a form letter to my local congressperson to do something about global warming. Sign up for Lick Global Warming and do something.
  

• I got a free bookmark and keychain from myGreenElectronics, a cool company that encourages consumers to recycle their electronics. So the keychain and keychain I got are made of recycled circuit boards...they're very sturdy--cool too!
  

• I got two free lip balms from Eco Lips. According to their website, its the "best lip balm for the world." Plus, the product is organic and has spf 30. I dig.

So. The free stuff rocked. I am serious about global warming and saving the world. I think I'll add some new links to my sidebar. The concert was great! The Format is a fun band that I've recently started getting into and they rocked! And Guster was Guster. They're an incredible band and the show was sold out. Check them out if you're so inclined.