Natural and Sustainable

How long ago was the last time you checked your tires air pressure? Three months? Six months? Longer? With today’s high gas prices, that inefficiency can add up to significant money. At $3 a gallon for gas, a 25 mpg vehicle with neglected tire pressure will require an extra $60 of gas each year compared to a car with properly maintaned tires. The bottom lins is you have to start with a good tire gauge to maintain that pressure. Most digital gauges cost between $10 and $40, depending on the models’ specific features. Like a backlit screen, LED flashlight, and/or programmable memories that retain your car’s recommended front and rear tire pressure.

Here’s how to improve your car’s fuel economy:

Not everyone is in the market for a new vehicle. But that shouldn’t stop you from improving the fuel economy of the car or truck in your own driveway. Below are a few standard maintenance tips, and the precentage improvement they can house on your vehicle’s mpg.

• Replacing a dirty air filter-up to 10 precent.
• Getting an engine tuneup-average of 4 precent.
• Keeping tires inflated to the proper pressure-up to 3 precent.
• Using the recommended motor oil grade- up to 2 precent.
• Seek out low-resistance tires-up to 6 precent.

How to calculate your fuel economy:

1. Fill up your tank. But don’t top off-the extra gas more than likely will get sucked back into the station’s tanks anyway.Even if it doesn’t, the backfire vapors contribute to air pollution.

2. Reset your trip meter to zero. Now you’re on your own vehicles fuel economy clock.

3. Fill your tank when the time comes. In warmer months, you iwll get more gas for your money in the early morning or late evening, when the temperatures are cooler and gas is densest. Cooler conditions also mean less evaporative emissions from pumping gas, smog forms more easily when it’s hottest outside. In winter months, it’s a good idea to keep your tank at least half full for safety and to prevent freezing.

4. Write down the number of gallons it took to fill your tank and the number of miles on your trip meter. A receipt is an easy place to write these down; most already include the number of gallons you bought. Reset the trip meter before you restart the car.

5. Divide the trip miles by the gallons of gas. Bingo, that’s your fuel economy. For example: 293.1 miles divided by 8.374 gallons= 35 mpg

6. Keep a small notebook in you car or make a simple spreadsheet on your computer to track the numbers over time. There you could also records basic notes on mpg influences such as speed, tire pressure, driving conditions and use of air conditioning. If you see a dramatic drop from one tank to the next and don’t have an obvious explanation, your vehicle might need some maintenance. ( Source: Car and Driver 2007)

**Are you a Chris Daughtry fan, well he is the People’s Choice. Over at American Idol, Reed Dunn has the particulars on the rising star and his band Daughtry. Read about it here.**

*Natural and Sustainable Living Tip: Keep your shades down in the summer and up in the winter to help conserve energy. If you have thick shades leave them down in the winter to help hold in the heat if your windows are drafty. To help conserve even more energy, you might consider replacing your windows with Energy Star approved ones.

• Hotel Green: (Nantucket, Massachusetts) Environmentally aware hotel, which opened last year. The rooms have been given a fresh coat of milk-based paint and are outfitted with organic French liunens, window boxes of wheatgrass and hemp shower curtains. ($175 a night for a double)

• Proximity Hotel: (Greensboro, North Carolia). This new hotel’s modern lofts are built in an ultra-eco foundation and have gained praise form the U.S. Green Building Council. The building is constructed of recycled concrete and steel, its roof is covered in grass and solar panels, and it uses and “energy recovery” system to circulate air. ($189 a night for a double)

• Devil’s Thumb Ranch: Tabernash, Colorado. Overlooking the Continental Divide, this ranch provides adventures among the Rockies. The ranch uses a geothermal heating system to keep the handsome lodge and private cabins warm in the winter. Much of the food comes from Morales Farms, which is right down the road from the ranch. ($195 a night for a lodgeing double)

• Hotelito Desconocido: Costa Alefre, Mexico. Italian designer Marcello Murilli’s upscale palafitos (Thatched-roof beach bungalows) on the Pacific resemble those in a traditional fishing village. The hotel is solr-powered, and almost everything in the rooms, at the spa, and on your plate is local and organic. ($312 a night for a double with included breakfast)

• Aspros Potamos: Crete, Greece. Origianlly built as harvets-time housed for olive farmers, these 10 stone cottages have been transformed into charming hotel. Each room is lit primarily by lanterns, with a solr-conversion system powering a fridge and a lamp. Stone walls keep the housed cool in the summer and warm in the winter months. ($50 a night or a house.)

• Whitepod: Aigle, Switzerland. Set in the Alps, Whitepod’s canvas domes look like igloos from the outside and cozy hotel rooms inside. The pids are green colored in the summer and covered with white canvas in the winter for maximum energy efficiency, and are built on platforms that won’t leave a trace on the land. Food is provided by local farms as well. ($275 a night for an Expedition pod.)

• Lama Di Luna: Andria, Italy. No chemicals are used anywhere within the hotel. In each of the ten rooms, the heat is solar-generated and unbleaches sheets dress the feng-shui-arranged beds. ($180 a night for a double, which includes breakfast.)

You Know It’s An Eco-Friendly Hotel When:

1. They proviude bikes, so you can cut down on rental-car use.

2. Stocks its menu with food from local farms or local farmer’s markets.

3. Provides soaps and lotions in refillable container in its bathrooms.

4. Has a kids’ club that encourages communing with nature, rather than just the TV for entertainment.

5. Compost and recycles waste.

6. Sprays the grounds with natural mosquito repellents, not pesticides.

7. Uses solar or wind generated energy.

8. Is built with natural or reclaimed materials.

9. Uses a alternative wasy to purify its pool rather than chlorine.

**Want to know how to make crockpot pork chops? Then you’re in luck, over at Elementary Chef, Stephanie shows just how to do that. Read how by clicking here.**

*Natural and Sustainable Living Tip: Buy or borrow pre-used moving boxes. Or better yet if you do purchase them, purchase ones that have been or are recycled.

When the time comes to pick a rental-car company at the airport with traveling, you may make your choice one whichever company will save you the most moneu, but keep this in mind when making that choice next time you travel: More than 1.6 million rental cars emit carbon on the road each year. With that knowledge alone and gas prices steadily climbing, why not use this guide to make a more eco-friendly, fuel-efficient decision.

1. Enterprise: 3,999 Toyato Priuses and 41,000 vehiucles that run on E85, a fuel makde of 85 precent ethanol and 15 precent gasoline. $60 million pledged to plant 50 million trees over 50 years.

2. Hertz: 3,400 priuses and 35,000 other hybrids. $1 from each of those rentals goes to the National Park Founation to support environmental preservation and education.

3. Avis & Budget: 1,000 Priuses each in California, Portland, OR; Seatle and Washington, D.C.

If you will be taking a trip with children, give Echo Lake Science Center a try. They offer a hands-on learning environment and teach children everything from eco-friendly ways to help keep the earth safe for many more generations to come.

And Always keep in mind when traveling to leave a lighter footprint every time you travel. Check out Eco.Orbitz. This site offers everything from green hotels to a complete low-impact itinerary for a holiday in the jungles of Belize.

**Arkansas beat LSU 50-48 in triple overtime. Over at University of Arkansas blog here at 451 Press there is a link to the RSS feed to read the whole story. Get the whole scoop by clicking here.**

*Natural and Sustianable Living Tip: Find new uses for old things.

Ever wonder how your life changes can make a difference? Here’s some tips to give you the push in the right “earth-saving” state of mind:

• Once released into the environment, the spread of pesticides cannot be controlled. Radioactivity traced pesticides sprayed over the United Kingdom were detected five to seven days later in the southern part of the United States. So always use earth-friendly pesticides on your lawn and garden plants. And if at all possible, don’t use any at all.

• Wrap a package of energy-efficient fluorescent bulbs in recycled paper. Each new fluorescent light bulb reduces greenhouse gas emissions by about 1,300 pounds over its lifetime.

• The government won’t solve our problems of global warming it is up to us as individuals. If you feel guilt about driving so much in your gas-powered car, then everytime you fill up, put 20 cents into a box and at the end of the year donate that “cents” fund, which will be dollars by the end of the year if you start come January 2008, to a local charity.

• When you travel to a beach or resort located on the many hundereds of coast lines make sure that resort or lodge developed the coast in a sustainable way. If they don’t then stay elsewhere. Every person who takes a trip to the coast lines ends up putting great pressure on that coastal area.

• Calculate your carbon footprint. Reduce the footprint. Offset that footprint. And produce your one power whenever and however you can.

• If 100,000 households each installed an eight-foot diameter wind turbine, the cumlative annual CO2 reduction would be 900,00 tons.

• When you make a purchase, remove the package waste there at the counter after checking out. It may seem silly, but if enough people did this, then the stores would have to tell the manufacturers to cut back on package waste.

• When your fishing buddy calls, and you repond, don’t use mailorder wigglers. Anglers as well as home composters are responsible for for proliferation of nonnative species in just wigglers alone. If you travel to a national park or another country, be sure not to bring back anything with you as well. It is not only illegal, it is also harming the environment more than you think. (There is 60 billion metric tons of CO2 released annually by the world’s soil.)

• If one million U.S. airline passengers skipped one coast-to-coast flight, it could eliminate the emisson of one million tons of COs.

• Next time you stay at a hotel or resort, look around, if you can’t tell what country you are in or what continenet you are on, then you are at a place where there is zero unsustainable tourism. Talk to the hotel clerk and managers and let them know how you feel about sustainable traveling. If you are one in a thousand that does this, then the hotel must meet demand.

• If every U.S. home received and paid their bills online, annual greehouse gas emissions would drop by 2.1 million tons.

**Jennifer Hoffman over at the Milwaukee, WI blog has posted some great shots of the Veteran’s Day Parade that was held there in her city. To view these photos and to read more about what Jennifer writes about for Veteran’s Day, click here.**

*Natural and Sustainable Living Tip: Go toxin-free in your own home. Start with the cleaners you use on your shower and toilet. What are they? If they hurt your nose when using them, then why flush those down the drain and toilet and then eventually into our waterways?

FUEL EFFICIENCY: It’s as simple as driving a more fuel-efficient car. Chevrolet currently offers eight 2007 and 2008 models that get an EPA of 30 MPG highway miles. Some models offer the best V8 fuel economy and have a better standard highway fuel economy than some other brands out on the market. It’s all due to new technology and this technology is helping achieve greater fuel economy in most vehicles no matter what the brand.

E85 ETHANOL: For the last seven years, Chevy has been producing vehicles capable of running on a fuel that growns from the earth. The fuel is called E85 ethanol ( 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline). It is the renewable fuel source made from U.S. grown biomaterial. what falls under U.S.-grown biomaterial is corn, and other grain products. It will help us decrease our dependence on petroleum and it burns more clearer than gasoline as well. It has a higher octane rating over gasoline as well. Chevy has over 1.5 millionm E85 FlexFuel vehicles on the road presently.

HYBRID: This fall, Chevy is bringing to the table the Tahoe Hybrid. This hybrid will provide the power of a regular gas-only SUV, but what it will do a step more is control gas-loss and fuel waste. It will also be 25% more fuel-efficient as well. The Malibu® Hybrid will also be added to the line of Chevy cars the end of the fall season.

FUEL CELL: Chevy is bringing to their car line up a test-fleet of 100 hydrogen-powered fuel Equinox® SUVS coming to New York City, Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles in a program called “Project Driveway”. Hydrogen fuel cells use zero gasoline and produce no emissions and it will also help reduce our dependence on petroleum.

ELECTRIC: The Chevy Volt® has a revolutionary GM® E-Flex Propulsion Systen. It is different than any other electric vehicle, because it will use a High-Energy Battery and range-extending onboard pwoer source that can run on gas, or biodiesel to recharge the battery while driving. Also the electric car no matter what the brand helps toward the ultimate goal in reducing our dependence on pretroleum and produce zero emissions.

**There are a lot of fun and cool things to do in Sacramento, California on Veteran’s Day. Read Jennifer Springers suggestions for Sacramento, CA here.**

*Natural and Sustainable Living Tip: Babies go through about 2,500 diapers before they’re potty-trained; cloth diapers washed at home cost $0.03 per use, while disposables costs about $0.22 each. Disposable diapers produce at least 70 times more waste than cloth diapers, and Americans trash 18 bil diapers each year. To help reduce this waste, the only other option is cloth. Cloth diapers have come along way since the 50’s and 60’s and some cool brands to try are: Under The Nile velcro diapers, G-diapers starter kits, and Seventh Generations chlorine-free diapers.

Dust is full of chemicals!
Clean Production Action, a nonprofit group that promotes the development of sustainable products, tested the vacuum dust in 70 homes across the country and found toxic chemicals in every sample. The list included not only PBDEs but also phthalates (plasticizers in vinyl, hair sprays, and nail polishes), organotins (an additive in vinyl), alkylphenols (found in paint and cleaners), perfluorinates surfacants (in floor polishes, herbicides, and insecticides), and pesticides. These substances may cause allergies and asthma; harm your cardiovascular, nervous, and reproductive systems; and lead to breast, colorectal, lung, and prostate cancers.

So how did they get into your house? It is beleived that these chemicals are in every home with consumer products. Computers, shower curtains, and wallpapper emit chemicals that settle into dust, which we breath, eat, and absorb through our skin. Manufacturers didn’t expect these chemcials to leach out of their products, but it’s happening. They off-gas the most when the’re brand-new, but continue to do so at lower levels through their life. What is not know yet is the level at which this exposure become a poison. To be safe, lower your home’s chemcials burden by keeping it well ventilated (open windows!), using a HEPA vacuum, and avoiding products made with flame retardants and vinyl. Go to Safer-Products for a list of manufacturers that are phasing out these chcmeicals.

For more environmental knowledge go to Environment Talk

*Natural and Sustainable Living Tip: To reduce your carbon footprint, only leave footprints when you travel. Never leave behind trash. Never pick vegetation unless you’re going to eat it. And you should never pick flowers, trees, or berries in a nation forest or nation park.

The bark of the pau D’arco tree battles yeast infections, food poisoning and maybe some cancers.

A thousand years ago, the Incas of Peru found the inner bark of the pink-flowers lapacho tree indispensable for treating fever, sore throat, dysentery, snakebite, bladder and yeast infections, and even some cancers. They also used its wood to make bows for hunting. Now called pau d’ arco (pow-DAR-co), which is Portugeuese for “bow-stick”, the term refers to various trees of the Tabebuia family that frow in the mountains of Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Peru.

The facts about the Pau D’arco Tree:

• Anti-Bacterial.
• Helps treat Staphylococcus aureus infections that reisit antibiotics.
• Active against human intestinal bactiera, which cause food poisioning.
• Has certain anti-inflammatory and anti-viral activity, including against herpes I and II.
• May reduce viural replication.
• Is especially effective agains Candida albicans, the fungus that causes vaginal infections ( soaking a tampon in a strong pau d’arco tea while also taking the herb orally.)
• Has been found useful in the treating of leukemia and other cancers. (It may kill cancer cells of the lungs, colon, and prostate. Pau d’arco is some time away from being used to treat cancer on a medical level, but the Incas may have been on the right track with this herb.)
Dosage for the herb should be in tablet or capsule form, 1 to 4 grams per day in divided doses-or 1 to 2 tsp. of tinture three times a day. Consuming 1.5 grams per day or more may cause dizziness and GI upset, so consult your herbalist. Avoid pau d’arco if you’re taking anticoagulants or hacing surgery, or if you are pregnant or nursing.

(Source: Some information pulled from Herbs Inc.)

*Natural and Sustainable Living Tip: Ride your bike whenever you can. If you live withing the city and it’s less than a 10 blocks from your normal store, ride you bike there. Don’t think of riding a bike as “poke-fun-at” activity. Riding your bike is one way you can help save fuel consumption and who knows, your little effort may be the one effort that lowers the fuel cost rate.

Check out Pedaling For The Planet And Yourself on ways riding your bike can save not only the planet but your health as well.

Bicycling is one of the most sustainable and beneficial forms of transportation. American car owners drive an average of 40 miles per day. If they rode a bike instead, they could save 14 gallons of gas (an a good bit of money) each week. They would burn around 500 calories per hour while helping keep the air clean and the climate cool. Here’s howto be an earth-friendly cyclist;

1. Buy used or reconditioned bikes: Check Recyled Cycles or eBay

2. Make your bike fit you life: Those who travel with bikes after or use public tansportation might consider a bike that folds to a smaller size. Montague Co offers a full-size folding bicycle; Bike Friday sells a small-wheel bike that folds to hit in a standard suitcase.

3. Increase your wattage: If your one-way car commute is 10 miles or less, an electric bicycle will get you there in about the same amount of time. Electric bikes are everyday bicycles with an added battery-powered electric motor that you plug in to recharge; they are perfect for a sweat-free trip to the workplace. Wilderness Energy sells electric bike conversion kits.

4. Switch to pertroleum-free bicycle products: Biodegradebable degreasers and vegetable-based lubricants will keep your wheels turning. Soy Clean offers a soy-based multipurpose lubricant; Pedras offers a biodegradeaboe degreaser made form citrus extracts.

5. Save bicycles from the landfill: Resource Revival recycles old bicycle parts into clocks, tables, picture frams and jewlery., For a list of more recycle programs, visit the International Bicycle Funds website, At iBike.

(Some information gathered from: Sustainable Travel Internationals Green Gear Guide)

*Natural and Sustainable Living Tip: Be sure to clean your fridge coils once a month for better productivity.