L.A. Moves Closer to Banning Single-Use Plastic and Paper Bags

The Board of Public Works votes unanimously to urge the mayor and city council to adopt a citywide ordinance banning single-use carryout bags. Story continues:

Plants, algae and cyanobacteria alter our planet in a way that only life can. They use photosynthesis to completely change the composition of the Earth's atmosphere.

Photosynthesis Re-Genesis I Aromatix 2007

Photosynthesis Re-Genesis II Aromatix 2007
Photosynthesis maintains Earth's habitability for life as we know it, and shapes the way we search for habitable worlds around distant stars. Scientists have discovered a microbe that can use low-energy light to perform photosynthesis. This discovery could alter theories about the types of stars that could support Earth-like worlds. Everyone knows that we as humans literally owe the air we breathe to the greenery around us. As school children we learned that plants (as well as algae and cyanobacteria) perform the all-important biological 'magic trick' known as photosynthesis, which helps generate the atmospheric oxygen we take in with every breath.

Without photosynthesis or oxygen, basically all recognizable life that we see in our landscape would be gone|

New way to store light could prove useful for optical communication:

Due to its high data carrying capacity and low loss, light can serve as an ideal information carrier. However, due to the high speed at which it travels, light is difficult to store. Because the ability to store light is important for optical networks as well as long-distance quantum communication networks, researchers have been investigating various light storage techniques. While previous studies have demonstrated that light can be stored as acoustic excitations, spin excitations, and atomic excitations, scientists have now added storing light as mechanical excitations to this list.

The team of physicists, who are from the University of Oregon and the University of California-Merced, have published their study on storing optical information as mechanical excitations in a recent issue of Physical Review Letters. Read More:

World's forests' role in carbon storage immense, profound:

Until now, scientists were uncertain about how much and where in the world terrestrial carbon is being stored. In the July 14 issue of Science Express, scientists report that, between 1990 and 2007, the world's forests stored about 2.4 gigatons of carbon per year. Story continues

Climate deniers & illusion of debate

The so-called “debate” on climate change has been over for decades in the peer-reviewed literature. It is time to accept the scientific consensus and move on, and to stop giving air-time to the cranks.

It is time for accountability.

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Reclaimed labrador gives back:

Owner Teaches Dog to Recycle Human Trash

So if you see me, have some courtesy, sympathy and taste:

A Father’s Day essay on the world we’re leaving our children.
The truth is that the people we like to share the least with are our own children. “We do not inherit the Earth from our parents, we borrow it from our children,” the saying goes. Right now, though, we’ve borrowed the entire Earth, trashed much of it, and don’t plan to give back. Daddy, could we have our planet back now:

Sympathy For The Antecedent:
Please allow me to introduce myself
I'm a man of wealth and taste
I've been around for a long, long year
Stole many a man's soul and fate

I was 'round when Jesus Christ
Had his moments of doubt and pain
Made damn sure that Pilate
Washed his hands and sealed his fate

Let me please introduce myself
I’m a man of wealth and taste
And I laid traps for troubadours
Who get killed before they reached Bombay
(woo woo, who who)

Pleased to meet you
Hope you guessed my name, oh yeah
(who who)
But what’s puzzling you
Is the nature of my game
(who who, who who)
Tell me, baby.. tell me, sweetie, what’s my name?

Troubadours & Occasional
Pirates: Jagger,Richards

At the edge of a cliff with nuclear power:

Unlike the 1970s, when nuclear power’s role was to reduce oil consumption, now there is uncertainty. What new reactors would mostly replace is coal and some natural gas. These have both been cheap lately, while nuclear power has a cost both certain to be high and hard to predict precisely.

“The nuclear industry is just so far removed from people’s lives, they don’t have much feeling for it,” said Baruch Fischhoff, a professor of social and decision sciences at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. “They don’t really trust it. Although it hasn’t done anything recently to lose the general public’s trust, it hasn’t done anything to gain people’s trust.” Read more:

In a War of Words, Makers of Plastic Bags Go to Court:

“Temperament lies behind mood; behind will, lies the fate of character. Then behind both, the influence of family the tyranny of culture; and finally the omnipotence of climate and environment; and we are free, only to the extent we rise above these.”
~John Burroughs, American Naturalist

The plastic bag industry filed a lawsuit against ChicoBag, a company that produces reusable bags, for exaggerating claims about the pollution caused by single-use plastic.

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Switzerland Nuclear Power Phaseout Approved By Lawmakers

BERN, Switzerland -- Swiss lawmakers approved a proposal Wednesday to phase out the use of nuclear power, a move spurred by election-year politics and growing skepticism over the use of atomic energy.
Read more:

Germany to phase out nuclear power..

In their White House press conference Tuesday, President Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel stood together on topics ranging from the global economy to Libya.

Yet last week, Chancellor Merkel parted ways with the US on what had been a shared vision of how to maintain thriving economies while reducing greenhouse gases. For both nations, part of that plan had been nuclear power. For Germany, it is no longer.
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Perhaps today’s youth will be the generation interested enough to take the actions needed to combat climate change:

Floods and droughts may be the "new normal" and sea levels may be rising faster than previously thought, but the younger generation isn’t willing to accept these climate change consequences for their future. As the grownups duke it out in Washington, kids take action with visible results, proving they may be more capable than adults in fighting man-made climate change.

Alternative Promotional Corporate Gifts – Sustainable promotional gifts & products:

Cedar Hanger Inserts |

Sustainable promotional products are different from traditional promotional products. They make a statement, provide useful advertising space and are not harmful to the environment. As more companies opt to take steps to ensure the health of our world, it is likely that environmentally friendly promotional products will continue to grow in popularity.   Click here for a question, quote or idea:


American made promotional gifts and products:

BBC Report: Rice, straw, coconut & agricultural waste fibers are the new alternatives.

Why nuclear power may never supply the world’s energy needs:

The 440 commercial nuclear reactors in use worldwide are currently helping to minimize our consumption of fossil fuels, but how much bigger can nuclear power get? In an analysis to be published in a future issue of the Proceedings of the IEEE, Derek Abbott, Professor of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Adelaide in Australia, has concluded that nuclear power cannot be globally scaled to supply the world’s energy needs for numerous reasons. The results suggest that we’re likely better off investing in other energy solutions that are truly scalable.
Read more:

The World's Water Crisis

Of all the various crises besetting the developing world, the water crisis may be the hardest for those of us living comfortable lives to comprehend. We are never far from a tap that provides free water or a store where we can buy bottled water.

Bloomberg and Clinton Merge Climate Groups:

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and former President Bill Clinton, two of the world’s most influential spokesmen for environmental sustainability, will merge their global climate groups under a plan to be announced on Wednesday morning, according to people told of the plans: Read More

Safe Energy & Issues Of Waste

Decreasing consumption, increasing efficiency, and increasing the role of renewable energy sources:

Confronting health issues of climate change:

The shift in the planet's climate is affecting the health of patients -- and physicians are starting to see the results. Read More:

GE to build nation's largest solar power plant:

NEW YORK - GE is taking aim at the world's biggest solar company in a bid to expand into a fast-growing renewable energy market.Story Continues:

Ozone layer faces record 40 pct loss over Arctic:

In this July 19, 2007 file photo an iceberg is seen off Ammassalik Island in Eastern Greenland. The Arctic is a thermostat against overheating and a barometer of change, but now its own protective ozone layer that keeps out damaging ultraviolet radiation has thinned to record levels, the U.N. weather agency said Tuesday April 5, 2011. Read more:

Energy Ideas Democrats and Republicans Agree On

Public health is another part of the energy picture where there is common ground. We have about 100,000 premature deaths in the U.S. each year from petroleum-related air pollution and 6.5 million annual hospital visits by people with respiratory illnesses caused by the same thing.

These deaths are far greater in number than the combined deaths from car accidents, drunk drivers, gang wars, suicides or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Energy Ideas Democrats and Republicans Agree On!Read More:

Break The Bottled Water Habit

The $14.4 billion bottled-water market has come under fire for being environmentally incorrect as those discarded plastic containers keep piling up in landfills.

Bottled water? That's so '80s! Break The Habit.

On Sale Now!

Illness prevention is often times easier to manage than making a correction after the fact.

The Value of Vaccines:
Vaccines against five diseases:





Our survival is the continuity of our youth

All Lives Have equal Value:

Sharing Our Progress in Agricultural Development

2011 Annual Letter

2011 Annual letter on foreign aid, vaccines, polio and the importance of leadership:

Vaccines Save Lives

It has helped the world get to the threshold of something amazing:

Mobile Phones + Savings: A Powerful Pair

To call attention to the incredible impact that global health programs funded by the U.S. government are having on people’s lives
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