A GREEN you is a better you

Being Green is a simple thing anyone can do. One person CAN make the difference, can help change the world for the better. It is just a matter of doing. I have found these ten incredibly easy things, from the World Watch Institute website, that anyone can do, and hopefully as a starting point our class can do to start helping to better our world and start being Green! 

Save Energy, Save Money

Not only can these easy steps better our world, but they can also save us money! A simple task such as turning your thermostat a few degrees lower in winter and higher in summer can make a huge difference. This eliminates excess power used, and saves yourself from high heat or high AC costs. You can also use compact fluorescent light bulbs instead of incandescent light bulbs because they use 75% less energy to power and maintain a much better light. Unplugging appliances, and anything electrical when not using can also eliminate too much power usage and cut your energy costs. Lastly, with regards to laundry, simply use cold water, and dry your clothes on a clothes line. These both save power and energy costs for yourself!

Save Water, Save Money

Everyone knows, at this point, that saving water is a huge thing in our world today that we must all learn to do. whether it be with turning off the water while brushing your teeth, or taking shorter showers. These both will lower your water bills and save our water of course. A low flow shower head also helps with the energy savings, as well as a faucet aerator, which conserves heat and water.

Less Gas, More Money, Cleaner Planet

If you are within a distance that you can bike to work, you should consider doing it. This would save a lot on gas, as well as help clean the air we breathe. If you don't have access to a bike or are too far away, consider carpooling or taking the bus. These both cut one extra car out of the roads, which is a good start to eliminating pollution as well as saving money once again. 

Eat Wisely

One meatless meal per week can help you save money, as it can be high in price, as well as save you from potential heath and environmental issues. When buying your food, consider buying locally raised food, vegetables, fruits, meats, eggs, dairy, etc. This helps keep money in the local economy. Also if there is a higher demand for locally grown food, this will decrease food that is not local, which decreases pollution from transportation trucks.

Recyclable Water Bottles

When thinking about your drinking water, you should always have an aluminum water bottle with which you get your water from a filtered tap. Bottled water is just more trash leftover once the water is consumed. It leaves us with more waste on our land, and can potentially leave us with a hole in our pockets with all the money we are continually spending on it.

Be Thrifty and Borrow 

Check out local website services that sell used items, or even thrift stores. Buying from certain stores can hinder our planet, such as the use of transportation and the pollution it gives off. Borrowing saves you money, as well as saves you energy, depending on what you borrow. Borrowing anything powerful will save you money as well as energy, as you won't have it plugged in all the time. 

Be a Smart Shopper

When purchasing items that which you will continuously need the rest of your life, or for a span of time, consider buying in bulk. This will save you money, and save packaging for the company and the waste for you. Also, buying long lasting more expensive products can save you in the long run. You will have a reliable product, that will last you a longer time than buying a cheaper one that will need replacing sooner. Clothes that do not need to be dry cleaned are helpful to the environment, as you do not need to get anything chemically cleaned, which is toxic towards our environment. 

Do Not Throw Electronics in the Garbage

When in need of disposing electronics, it is best for the environment, to recycle them at an electronics recycle plant. This helps eliminate toxins in our landfills. 

Personal Cleaning Products

Discover non-toxic cleaning products and start creating and using them today! Baking soda, vinegar, lemon, soap are just a few things that can be substituted for those toxic products you can buy in stores. This saves you money, time, wasteful packaging as well as air quality and health. 

Be Aware

Stay in the know about little things, or even big things you can do to be Green. It can go a long way.

For more details on these ten steps, or additional information, go to http://www.worldwatch.org/resources/go_green_save_green.

Eco Friendly Movies

Now while there are tons of movies out in the world today that send terrible messages, there are a few gems that send the right one. I'll be reviewing a few eco friendly movies I have in my collection.




Medicine Man:
Staring Sean Connery, as a eccentric  scientist working in the Amazon jungle. He sends for a new research assistant because he is close to finding the cure for cancer. When the research assistant turns out to be a woman, Connery wants nothing to do with her. The bulldozers are tearing down more and more of the jungle and Connery and his assistant are running out of time.

The movie really pushes the fact that the trees on our planet are important, and such an untapped resource. Who knows what problems could be answered studying the trees instead of cutting them down.

FernGully:
With a fantastic cast of voice actors including Tim Curry and Robin Williams, FernGully is about a rainforest in Australia, filled with fairies. The fairies think that the humans have long since died out, driven away by Hexxus an evil spirit. When Hexxus us set free again by the humans, one fairy and her companions must stop his evil from destroying the forest and their home.

FernGully is held an important message for the children of the 90's about saving the rainforest against deforestation. It's a simple message with a strong environmental theme.

Wall-E:
In the distant future, a small waste collecting robot inadvertently embarks on a space journey that will ultimately decide the fate of mankind. We start the movie with Wall-E, a robot alone on a long since abandoned Earth. We can see how the people and major corporations have destroyed it, stripping it of all its resources. When another robot shows up to do a routine check for plant life and discover a tiny plant in Wall-E's possession, Wall-E is whisked away on a journey to see what humans have become.

A movie that has no speaking for over half, relies on sounds and imagery to convey it's message. An unbelievably powerful movie and arguably one of Pixar's finest it will send an important message for all ages for years to come. Hopefully it will make people think twice about the ever expanding corporations that threaten to take over the earth.

Our Interview With Adria Vasil, Author of Ecoholic

For this week's class we got the pleasure of a one-on-one with Adria Vasil, author of Ecoholic and Ecoholic Home (thanks to the Skype network). She informed our class of a wide variety of topics including how she went from a column writer for NOW Magazine to a successful book author. 

As a graduate of political science, she got her start working for a non profit organization that dealt with labour rights and corporate abuse issues. After going back to school for a 2 year post grad program at Ryerson University for magazine journalism, she became an intern for NOW Magazine in spring 2004, writing articles for the Ecoholic column, a popular column dedicated to important environmental issues. What started out as a simple column, Vasil ran with the ideas to produce a full, accurate story with personal emotion behind each piece. 

After a few years and many articles later, Vasil was approached by an editor who was a fan of her work, and insisted on a book to be released with similar content. This is where it all began.

Going from a column writer to a full time author was a big commitment to time and research, spending 15 hours a day/7 days a week, researching and organizing all important content. With true facts from research, mixed with her quirky and fun personality, it was an interesting task to produce a    book about something as serious as eco awareness, but keeping people interested in the content as well. 

From first draft to the time Ecoholic hit the shelves was about a years time in 2007, a large effort of dedication to get the final result. Vasil worked with Random House publishers where there was a lot of give and take, from the design of the book cover itself to insisting that all content of her book would be produced at a green printer that uses renewable energy, printed on 100% post-consumer recycled paper, as well as using oil based inks.  

With one book on the shelves, she decided to take parts covered briefly in Ecoholic and write a second book, focusing on environmental issues in your own home, with the title Ecoholic Home, released in 2009. This book focuses mainly on how to keep money in your pocket by making your home energy efficient and a healthier environment for families, covering everything from cleaning products to renovating tips. 

Look for a third book titled Ecoholic Body to hit shelves Earth Day, March 2012. This book will focus on another section briefly discussed in Ecoholic relating to everything from beauty products to body care solutions. 

Final advice from Adria Vasil: 

- "You don't have to be an activist, just be aware of green change."

- Every position, no matter what field of work you're in, there will always be an area for environmental change, so don't be shy; speak up  and bring your ideas to the table. "Raise your voice and speak up."

- It's the journey there that counts."

Visit her website at ecoholic.ca for more information or
Check out her Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/ecoholicnation

Nomadic Cardboard Furniture

Our class’s latest project is to design, build and market furniture (or any other object currently made from wood) solely made from cardboard. This project will have us thinking outside the cardboard box, so to speak. We will learn to think in news ways of the ability to reuse and re purpose what we currently think of as waste. 

Right now we are in the research and cardboard collecting stage. But stayed tuned to see our final pieces—they will be done by the end of the month!

Students gathered used cardboard from our college's bookstore. Choosing boxes that were suitable for each of their designs.

To learn more about cardboard furniture see:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOa1kHEiIpg

www.foldschool.com

"Ecoholic" and "The Story of Stuff"

Ecoholic: Your Guide to the Most Environmentally Friendly Information, Products and Services in Canada
Author: Adria Vasil 

Chapters:

In Store $24.95
Online $16.46
 

"Ecoholic" truly IS Your Guide to the Most Environmentally Friendly Information, Products and Services in Canada. This is Canada’s best resource for practical tips and products that help you do your part for the earth. "Ecoholic" touches on what not to buy and why, for things for the home, office and even for your pets. "Ecoholic" is based on the eye-opening guide “Ecoholic” column that appears weekly in NOW, which Vasil has been writing for since 2004.

Here are some of the things Vasil touches on in Ecoholic:
The Best Green Products such as:

Cleaning products, jewellery, litter solutions and sporting goods.

The Most Current Information about things like:
Sustainable seafood, meat and veggie choices, eco-tourism, how to get involved in the Big issues Canada faces in todays day in age and even on how to "green" up your love life!

The Most Helpful Services including:Electronics and computer recyclers, Green general stores and incentives and rebates for greening your home.

"Ecoholic" also includes a city-by-city guide:
Calgary, Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, Winnipeg
Personally I haven’t yet read this, however when I finish “The Story of Stuff” it will most definitely be my next read.

Next week Adria Vasil will be joining us via Skype at 9am in class.....so don't be late!!!


 
The Story of Stuff
Author: Annie Leonard

Chapters:

In Store $32.00
Online $21.12 

There are five main components in this book: extraction, production, distribution, consumption and disposal. Since I have only read to the "production" process, I will go ahead and share how my views have changed, only since reading part one "The Story of Stuff". 
For me, ignorance truly has been bliss because once I have all the facts explained to me in terms in can understand (which Leonard does very well, by the way) I can't ignore them anymore and therefore must become part of the solution instead of part of the problem....or at least get started on it. 

The part that struck me the most was the section titled "Conflict Minerals" (or diamonds) which is the term for valuable rocks the fuel violent conflict when the profit from their control, sales, taxation or protection funds criminal, gangs,  brutal regimes and weapons. According to Global Witness, these rocks "have funded brutal conflicts in Africa that have resulted in the death and displacement of millions of people. Remember the movie "Blood Diamond"? Well according to Global Witness' Combating Conflict Diamonds campaign, the film does a pretty good job of illustrating the brutality of both the rebel forces and the government forces. Just to refresh your memory, a vicious rebel army called the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) utilized violence and terror, including RAPE, the SYSTEMATIC AMPUTATION of victims' limbs and MASS MURDER oh and of course the kidnapping of young children and turning them into child soldiers. All this destruction for money and vanity. MONEY AND VANITY!!!! These were actually human beings with families and quiet lives, who were stripped of everything, all for money. I used to wonder why many places such as Africa were so poor, when all of the prestigious gem come right from their land....only to find out that it's because it is stolen from them, because there aren't enough laws entitling them to what they considered theirs. "Diamonds are forever" it is often said. But lives are not. 

 

SAVE A TREE, KILL A WHALE 

Trees are a precious resource and 

do more than make our planet look good. 

What do trees do?

• Clean up carbon dioxide and create oxygen
• Collect and filter our fresh water, moderating floods and droughts
• Keep soil from eroding into waterways, killing fish and marine life 
• Provide potential cures for diseases

What can we do to save trees?  

71% of today's paper supply is coming from trees, not recycling bins. 1 ton of office paper we consume equals to 19 trees according to Environment Canada.

In our daily life, for example; "the average person goes through about 100 rolls of toilet paper a year, which is equivalent to 5 km of toilet paper, according to Greenpeace. If each household in Canada switched just 1 roll of the virgin bleached stuff with 1 roll of the recycled kind, we'd save almost 48,000 trees and 4,500 kilos of air and water pollution! Just one!!" – Adria Vasil

Another little step we can take to save trees is to use FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified or Rainforest Alliance certified paper whenever possible.  
   
This is not enough though. Why?

Even if we all recycled our paper, we need to keep in mind that recycling process itself leaves quite a bit of carbon footprint and releases toxic materials into our planet; for example, paper to be recycled is shipped to a remote country where labour is cheap and then sorted out and processed in a plant where toxic material is released back into our water supply killing many marine species before it is shipped back to our country to be processed further for recycling.
 
So, what's the best we can do?

We need to keep recycling first of all.  However, keep in mind that recycling does not justify over-consumption. Don't forget this phrase, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!

Welcome to Social Greenhaus!

Social Greenhaus has been put together by a third year Graphic Design class as an outlet for broadcasting the work we are doing in the classroom. Every week there will be two posts from students to transmit what we are doing in class, our projects, and speakers.

This semester we are focusing on environmentally responsible and sustainable design. We were inspired by many eco-friendly blogs, including: inhabitat and treehugger. Our class was divided into five groups and each group had to design a blog and come up with a name for . The final submitted blog designs were presented in class and after seeing all five presentations the class voted for a winner. We chose this blog as a clean professional design to communicate with the design community. This blog is equipped with social media widgets so we can reach a wider audience. There was a lot of debate and voting in the classroom about what the name of the blog and tag line should be. As a class we agreed on Social Greenhaus: Graphic Design Students for Sustainable Change because it best reflects us and the purpose of this blog.
 

Social Greenhaus will be a class collaboration and every week there will be 2 new posts so check back often!