GreenFriends

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“Children, remember that nature stand before us as a symbol of our renunciation. Like mountains, rivers and trees, every single object in nature is teaching us lessons in renunciation. Look at a tree – it gives fruit, it gives shade, and it imparts cool air. Even as it is being felled it offers shade to the person cutting it down. Similarly, if we consider any object in nature, we will see that they practise renunciation is some way or the other.”

Amma’s Message, Matruvani September 2011

Om Namah Shivaya

Recycling at Christmas

Christmas comes in for a lot of stick these days as the season where consumerism goes even more insane than usual. This is undoubtedly true and there are plenty of statistics to show this. The following link has some of these.

http://www.recyclenow.com/christmas_10/festive_facts.html

But there are ways to reduce your impact on the environment at Christmas. Here are some examples below.

Wrapping Paper

Wrapping paper can be reused again and again if the present is very carefully opened. Magazine pages also make an attractive alternative to gift wrap paper.

Christmas Cards

Many people no longer send Christmas cards because of the huge amount of paper and cardboard they use, as the vast majority of them are not made from recycled materials. An alternative is to buy only cards made from recycled paper.

Another alternative is to reuse the cards sent to you. Simply cut the picture off the greeting card, paste onto a folded piece of paper, and write your new message inside. There are also special labels you can buy to reuse envelopes. See the photo below for some examples.

Please put photo “enews 2012 jan card” here Ian and Sophie Continue reading →

Simon Dale is a family man in Wales.  His interest in self-sustainability and an ecological awareness led him to dig out and build his own home: one of the loveliest, warmest, most inviting dwellings you could ever imagine. And it cost him only £3,000!
Can you imagine a more charming entrance?

Gaia-Health
Simon Dale

“2020Vision is the most ambitious nature photography project ever staged in the UK. It aims to engage and enthuse a massive audience by using innovative visual media to convey the value of restoring our most important but often fragmented habitats – to show that healthy ecosystems are not just for wildlife, but are something fundamental to us all.”

1) BBC: “Nature ‘is worth billions’ to UK”
2) Independent: Valuing Nature: Why protecting the world’s wildlife is good for our wallets
3) A major four-year study reveals that earthworms can help prevent flooding and droughts.  Floods and droughts are caused by cycles of dry weather and monsoon-type rains, which are associated with global warming.  The average worm weighs less than half an ounce; but it is able to eat through a third of its own weight in soil a day.  When worms tunnel, the soil absorbs more water, meaning that in their millions worms can turn the ground into one vast sponge, soaking up the water in floods but retaining it during dry spells.  (Biodiversity Information Network)