It’s hard when you are busy with work, friends and family to always stay up on the latest eco-conscious items. Luckily, Conscious Box has your solution.

Conscious Box is a monthly subscription service focusing on sustainability, environmental stewardship and social responsibility. With a monthly subscription the busy bee can get a wide array of eco-conscious items without searching them out in local health stores. Items include unique pure and natural products, organic food and even vegan beauty products. I got my hands on November’s box and I was so surprised to see the wide array of products that were included. Some of the stand-outs include the packet of Funky Monkey freeze dried fruit. Crunchy, tangy and sweet, Funky Monkey fruit snacks have no sugar added, are vegan, raw and gluten and peanut/tree nut free. 100% Pure body lotion, all natural, with organic and vegan ingredients. The lotion had a great smell and was made with no artificial fragrances, chemicals or preservatives. I like how hydrating the lotion was, and it was great on my sensitive skin. For the kids, and adults who are still kids at heart, there was Honest Tea Kid’s pouch, which is made with USDA certified organic ingredients, with no high fructose corn syrup. The company also has the Honest Kids Drink Pouch Brigade which helps plant trees, donate to charities, and keeps drink pouches out of land fills.

It also comes with suggestions on how to reuse the box. Included with the products was a card on 5 fun ways to reuse your Conscious Box. Suggestions were very clever and included things like shred the boxes for a great base for creating compost, use the box’s window as a one-of-a-kind picture frame or plant a flower in it and watch it grow through the box’s window.

Conscious Box’s mission is to be dedicated to introducing people to the most ethical, sustainable, and honest businesses that create the purest products available. And they do the work for you by scouring the marketplace to find these great items that stand out above the rest. They are also committed to overcoming the problem of “greenwashing.” Greenwashing is a deceptive business that used tactics to lead consumers to believe something is “green” when it really isn’t. Conscious box hopes to educate, inform and prevent consumers from falling for these tactics by providing them with products that are authentic and purposeful.

To sign up for a monthly Conscious Box, or for more information, check out their website.

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This week, I had the pleasure of watching Capt. Charles Moore, founder of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, talk about his journey with plastics in our ocean. Within minutes of his presentation, you couldn’t help but feel for this concerning issue that simply doesn’t get enough media attention.

Capt. Moore first noticed this problem in 1997, on his way home from a yacht sailing race to Hawaii. He took an alternate route on his way home, and couldn’t believe what he saw. Since then, he vowed to conduct research and to inform people about the monstrosity that takes place far out of people’s sight: in gyres, where the current accumulates this debris.

The pictures he shows are astounding (see his TED talk below for some more visuals). The problem he presents goes into the chemisty, although it doesn’t take a scientist to understand that these plastics often don’t break down in water too easily. In fact, they don’t even break down in animal stomachs either. He shows some evidence of plastics that have accumulated inside of fish and whales, showing that our plastic simply doesn’t go away after humans put it in the trash bin. He shows some birds who have picked up plastic bottle caps and fishing nets/gear that have swallowed these things and attempted to regurgitate them to their young as food. His visuals become even more disheartening when he shows turtles that have lived their entire lives stuck inside the rings from plastic bottle caps (as they grew, their shells become abnormally morphed).

Through field studies, he shows us that these problems exist everywhere in the ocean. At the surface, the water may seem trashy in some areas, and blue in others. But when we look at some spots on the ocean floor, we see plastic bags and bottles littering the ecosystem. When we look at other depths of the ocean, we see habitats created out of cans and containers, causing species range shifts that were clearly unintended.

He notes that this field of research comes with flaws. There are a lot of people who fund our oil sands and others that despise when spills happen in our oceans. But when it comes to plastics (which are made from oils), they get no media coverage and no policy is in place to clean these up. Although beach clean-ups are a great educational tool, they don’t target the root of the problem. With more people attempting to research this field, Capt. Moore remains hopeful that we will start finding solutions.

See below for his TED talk. For more information, check out this book, Plastic Ocean. This event was sponsored by Sustainable SFU, the SFU Sustainability Network, and SFU Vancouver.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Joe’s cartoon archive, twitter ramblings and StumbleUpon page…

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Last week, the state of Vermont began legally fortifying itself against the wave of hydraulic fracturing that is currently sweeping the nation. The State House Fish, Wildlife and Water Resources Committee unanimously passed a bill that places a 3-year moratorium on hydraulic fracturing in the state. The moratorium would provide enough time for the Environmental Protection Agency to complete the studies necessary for the state to determine whether an outright ban is appropriate.

After watching residents of Pennsylvania have water delivered to their homes when their wells were contaminated with fracking chemicals, legislators understand that Vermonters are concerned for the safety of their drinking water. Two-thirds of the state’s population uses groundwater, which is most vulnerable to contamination in the fracking process. Fortunately for local residents, in 2008 the state determined that groundwater is a resource held in the public trust. On Vermont Public Radio, Representative David Deen explains: “And what that means is that everybody has a right to use it but nobody has the right to deny its use to anybody else. Consequently, any pollution source would not be acceptable under the public trust doctrine.” Listen to the entire conversation: here.

Potential drilling would be focused in the northwestern part of the state, where the Utica Shale formation contains commercial amounts of natural gas. This formation exists in many northeastern states and extends into Canada. Exploratory wells have been drilled in nearby Quebec.

The bill will continue through the state House and Senate later this week. Currently, there are no pending permits for hydraulic fracturing projects in Vermont.

These political efforts represent Vermont’s proactive and independent environmental culture. As legislators use this bill to declare the state’s independence from big fossil fuel coroporations and the state’s determination to protect its beautiful landscape, Governor Schumlin struggles to prevent the renewal of permits for the Yankee nuclear power plant. Schumlin argues that the state has the right to deny their renewal because it was instrumental in allowing the permits forty years ago. However, a judge recently ruled that the federal government controls nuclear power plants; the state has no jurisdiction over nuclear energy production.

Rugged and environmentally conscious, Vermonters demand the ability to protect their water and determine how their resources are (and are not) utilized.

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For Christmas, W and I amassed quite a haul of stuff to make our balcony more exciting. From a wormery to a bird feeder, to a beautiful box of seeds and tips from Allotinabox. I even got a can with a sunflower seed in it. Eating locally just got a whole lot more local.

Last weekend I piled the seeds up on our coffee table, grabbed the little trowel and got excited about planting. I turned over the packets to read when to plant them. It turns out January is not a planting month. For anything. Step one and my woeful lack of gardening skill is highlighted. After sulking for a few minutes, I finally marked on the calendar when we can starting planting what. Everything is at least a month away.

As I pack the seeds back into the box, sighing mournfully as my Sunday afternoon planting plans drift out the window, I turn over the last pack and read: cress.

The favourite plant of primary school kids everywhere. The easiest vegetable you can grow. If it even is a vegetable? Its grows whenever and where ever you like. My green fingered Sunday is not lost!

I grabbed a tupperware, added some damp cotton wool balls and sprinkled on some seeds. It took all of 3 minutes (including finding the cotton wool balls).

“This is my kind of gardening.” I muttered to my newly planted cress as I covered them with a wet tissue.

The next morning most of the seeds have sprouted…something. It looks exciting. By the evening they are all sprouted and took hold in the cotton wool. The following day, green bits are growing up all over the place.

It’s been less than a week and my first foray into urban gardening looks like this.

The satisfaction vs time involved in growing cress appeals highly to my low attention span. That and the fact that it is almost impossible to mess up. Although I fear it may have lowered my expectations for simplicity when it comes to growing my ‘real vegetables’ from Allotinabox in the next few months.

But for now, my journey into the urban gardening world has started, and I’m loving it! Bring on the egg and cress sandwiches.

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The anti-fracking movement is solidifying its foundation in grassroots organization’s loosely knit groups of concerned citizens. Quiet bands of citizens are coming together to protect their regions from shale gas exploitation. International corporations are licking their chops just thinking about releasing the profit potential hidden under the Marcellus Shale formation, which stretches from New York to Ohio to West Virginia.

There are ongoing online strategy sessions being held on websites like ShaleShock.org and FaceBook pages, like “paddlers OPPOSING fracking,” aimed at winning popular support and legal battles. Folks are gathering in Town Halls, in chat rooms, and in basements. People all around the nation who fear for the safety of their water and farmland are finding creative ways to continue the conversation and organize.

These small, decentralized regional groups are educating their neighbors and their local leaders about the toxicity of the natural gas industry. They understand that the amount of energy and water used to break the shale and release the gas is too costly to make any logical sense. And when their city councils and mayors refuse to listen, these ordinary members of our communities are stepping up and taking part in the democratic process, running for office themselves.

Photo by Marcellus Protest via flickr

New York is suddenly the focus of the anti-fracking movement because its citizens continue to fight at the local level. Their actions could be considered a primer on engaged citizenry and democratic participation, inspired by the threat of environmental catastrophe. The impact that fracking has on these communities is so direct that neighbors cannot ignore it; it is about the survival of the land and our communities. It is about the future of our people.

And those of us who debate strategy and mobilization efforts, online, need to take notes on New York (whose efforts are focusing on zoning ordinances). This movement relies on self-education as much as it relies on grassroots organizing. It is an exercise in environmental and legal experiential education.

We need not be corporate lawyers or scientists. We are capable of learning the information necessary to protect our health, our families, and our land. Each county, each state is a different battleground with unique terrain, rules, and players. Our local movements inspire fracktivists nationwide, and it is this momentum, this sharing of knowledge and techniques, that will continue to sustain the movement.

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It is difficult to imagine sharks eating birds that do not associate with water, but they do. Not all sharks do; tiger sharks are one example.

While route sampling off the coast of Alabama in 2009, Dauphin Island Sea Lab’s Markus Drymon caught a tiger shark. While examining, he saw that the shark “coughed up some feathers,” which he later told the National Geographic News reporters. He released the shark and exmined the feathers at the laboratory. While it is common that the tiger sharks eat sea birds, Drymon discovered that feathers actually came from land birds.

As such, Drymon and his scientists captured 50 tiger sharks by studying their stomachs. They found that about half of the animals had bird parts in their stomachs. These birds included woodpeckers, tanagers, and meadowlarks. They are mostly migratory birds. They often get disoriented by the lights so they oftentimes hit the oil rigs and they can also get too tired and plunge into the ocean, according to the American Bird Conservatory’s bird collisions campaign manager Christine Sheppard. An interesting fact is that the death toll of birds is higher in rig collision than the 2010 Gulf oil spill. Sheppard suggested that the “sharks may actually be learning there are places where there are birds available to them.” Drymon said that “it could just be that tiger sharks in this area have learned to take advantage of this prey resource.” His paper with the results will be published in the future and said more studies on sharks eating birds is required.

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If you are one of these mind-boggling Republicans, remember these toxins and carcinogens get into the mother and have an immediate and drastic effect on fetuses. If anything, protect the earth from harmful toxins for the fetuses. You won’t have to call yourselves “environmentalists”, call yourselves “Fetus Purifiers”, or something of the like…I’m sure you’re quite clever.

By the way, there are even Republicans environmentalists. You can join them (or him).

It’s never too late to stop cutting off your nose to ensure the major polluting industries that back your politician keep making insane profits (sharing none of the gains yet all of the “unforeseen” losses) while making us sick. I think that’s how the saying goes…

More on protecting the environment for fetuses (and the living)

From Medscape: Childhood Cancer and Environmental Toxins Are Both Increasing
From Discovery Health: Infant Development and Toxins
From Sierra Student Coalition: Tackling Childhood Asthma Not Coal Industry Priority After All
From NRDC: Benefits of Organic Food (or, “Why conventional farming is harmful”)

Joe’s cartoon archive, twitter ramblings and StumbleUpon page…

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California Coastal Commission members were surprised to find out that a large amount of Los Angeles County’s most desirable beaches were not being used by the public. In order to see what the problem was for themselves, they went on a bus tour that lead to some disappointing answers.

This month the California Coastal Commission went on an unorthodox tour of the Malibu coast where many public beaches are not being used by the public. Their mission was to figure out why this issue is occurring. On the four-hour long trip, they made their way up the coast from the usually busy and crowded Santa Monica State Beach to the northern end of Malibu. Stops along the way had dismal results, insufficient access, fake “no parking (signs residents used to keep beachgoers at bay),” and movie shoots taking up most – if not all – of beach parking lots. On top of all this, they also found that there are more than 20 pathways missing to beaches, that were set aside on paper (some of them decades ago) but have yet to be built. For example, an “on-paper” pathway to Carbon Beach was blocked by a massive generator, a 9-foot-high wall and a tennis court. Or at Dan Blocker County Beach, the piece of land donated to the public in 1979 remains partly fenced off and difficult to reach. Broad Beach, which is a patchwork of public and private sand, has been an area of conflict for years. Homeowners have posted misleading, “private beach,” signs and even gone to the extreme of hiring private security guards to drive around on ATVs and remove visitors.

State coastal officials say they lack the funds and staff to open and maintain public access paths and must attempt to forge partnerships with local agencies to construct and operate the walkways before the agreements expire. In the meantime, The Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, currently maintains five paths in the Malibu area and is in the process of building a sixth. They are enthusiastic about working with the state to open the remaining access-ways. Unfortunately the pathways required by the Coastal Commission are a small portion of the more than 850 access points run by local and state agencies, nonprofits and some private landowners up and down the coast, but they are often some of the most hard-won.

Legal roadblocks to gain pathway access are sometimes the worst culprit. Efforts to build public walkways to beaches in Malibu are often met with landowner lawsuits which can go through litigation for up to fifteen years. According to a new report by the Coastal Commission, the 12-member panel charged with policing development and ensuring public access along the state’s 1,100-mile shoreline lags behind every other county in Southern California when it comes to opening public path to the sea. This leads to denying safe access to public beaches for years and years. Their report also showed that 60% of the 111 strips of land the commission has required landowners to offer for public access from San Diego to San Luis Obispo counties have been built and opened compared with 38% in Los Angeles County. It’s a poor showing from a county that has a tourist base that comes specifically to spend time at Southern California beaches.

At the end of the day, public beaches are for the public. They are a place where people can enjoy being outside in nature. The public should have access to these beautiful places, and people like the Coastal Commission are making sure not only that we do have access, but generations beyond us do too.

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While walking home the other day, I noticed my shoe was untied. In a lethargic fashion, I first didn’t care about my laces swaying to and fro as I walked. After some thought, I tied my shoe – not because it was annoying, but because it was the more sustainable thing to do.

My logic was that tying my laces would preserve them better than allowing them to be stepped on and slosh around on the snowy and dirty pavement. Although that may be perceived as silly, it will allow my laces to stay in tact for longer, and allow me to not give into planned obsolescence for a greater period of time.

This thought might seem radical – but I ensure you that there are eco-radicals that have taken the concept much further. The term isn’t meant to be condescending, but to highlight a group of people who have taken sustainability to the next level, all in the name of conservation and awareness.

Enter No Impact Man (also known as Colin Beavan), a man who turned his (and his family’s) world upside-down for one year in order to make no net impact on the environment. This bold change was far from swift – from no electricity in their New York apartment, to only eating local foods from farmers markets and not allowing the use of toilet paper and caffeine, the family endured it all. This was also enhanced through volunteering with the community, turning his no impact lifestyle into one of positive impact.

Another prominent figure was Vanessa Farquharson, owner of the Green as a Thistle blog and the author of Sleeping Naked is Green: How an Eco-Cynic Unplugged Her Fridge, Sold Her Car, and Found Love in 366 Days. As the title suggests, she made one change in her daily routines per day, creating a hyper-eco-friendly lifestyle in one year (and yes, as the title suggests, she switched to nude sleeping).

These ideas are amazing conservation efforts that are often scrutinized for the wrong reasons. Beavan was often bashed on his online blog about whether his project actually created no net impact, picking at the details of many of his eco-choices. Farquharson also had similar bouts with online commenters (some said sleeping naked isn’t green, because it simply requires more sheet washing). To me, this is semantics that attempt to mask the great awareness initiative that can positively impact many communities.

Through hearing these people’s stories, it empowers us to make a change – one that I love to see and hear about. Eco-radicals are the kind of eco-heroes that make me tie my shoes and fuel my love for the environment. I hope they have the same impact on you, too.

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