BS: Save The Earth! 'Green' tips.

Subject: BS: Save The Earth! 'Green' tips.
From: gnu
Date: 26 Jan 13 - 06:18 PM

I have had a close commune with Mother Earth since I was about 9 years old. That's when my old man first took me hunting and fishing in the wilds of New Brunswick, Canada and taught me about my ties to the very dirt under my feet. My respect for our environment has grown steadliy ever since.

So, I want this thread to be about "Green Tips" that might not be otherwise thought of. Oh, yeah, we all know about sorting dry and wet garbage, turning down the heating system and putting on a sweater... but I want us all to "think outside the box" and post such thoughts herein.

I'll start with an example.

I save citrus fruit rinds in a jar with a solution of water with 5% vinegar by volume so that it doesn't go rancid... you don't need much. On Saturday night, I pour a cup of this solution in my toilet and I drink beer and I don't flush the toilet until after the last pee before I go to bed. I save a LOT of water from being flushed away when it's not necessary. Save the water, save the world, eh? And there is a lovely fresh scent of lemon and orange in the house as the vinegar negates the other odor... which, BTW, is slight if you have the dedication required to drink enough beer. And, I am dedicated to our environment. Yer all welcome.

Anybody else thinking outside the box in our collective efforts to save the environment?

Subject: RE: BS: Save The Earth! 'Green' tips.
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 26 Jan 13 - 06:35 PM

Here in the UK the local authorities, in the city in which I live, tell me that they spend £1.96 million per year mowing grass. In other parts of the city managers of sports fields and golf courses are all spending money to keep grass a few millimetres high and thousands of private citizens are doing the same thing in their gardens. Why is our culture so obsessed with very short grass? Obsessively mown grass is poor in wildlife, whereas long grass full of wild flowers can be very rich in biodiversity. If you want to save the world, try cutting the grass less!

Subject: RE: BS: Save The Earth! 'Green' tips.
From: Joybell
Date: 26 Jan 13 - 06:38 PM

That's a great tip, gnu. Thank you. I sprinkle bicarb soda on surfaces, like chopping boards, and scrub them with citrus rinds. I'll keep them in vinegar in the future.
Joy

Subject: RE: BS: Save The Earth! 'Green' tips.
From: GUEST,mad jock
Date: 28 Jan 13 - 05:53 AM

there is a very good book called "365 ways to improve the world". It is full of all sorts of interesting and most times very easy things to do .

Subject: RE: BS: Save The Earth! 'Green' tips.
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 28 Jan 13 - 06:15 AM

Don't pee in your toilet at all.
Do you have roses, fruit trees, vegetables or a compost heap?

Subject: RE: BS: Save The Earth! 'Green' tips.
From: GUEST,Musket sans cookie
Date: 28 Jan 13 - 06:59 AM

My cut grass goes on the compost heap. Sorted.

Good point Keith, I piss on the compost heap (the open one anyway) each night last thing whilst letting the dog have a midnight run.

Got the usual water reclamation, solar panels, ground source pump, usual toys to make me feel smug about doing my bit, but to be truthful, that might be for the same reasons I buy new phones etc cos I love gadgets.

We eat what we buy, support the local farm shop and grow lots of our own veg and fruit. We produce more electricity than we consume and to be fair, Mrs Musket is far more save the planet than me.

Then we let ourselves down. We have an aga range burning gas 24/7. We are presently on a skiing holiday, flew here etc. ( I read that ski resorts are not planet friendly) and I love my sports cars.

Can't get everything right eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Save The Earth! 'Green' tips.
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 28 Jan 13 - 07:24 AM

In the UK at the moment we are not into ' saving water ' we need to get rid of it we've got that much.

Dave H

Subject: LYR ADD - Drip Drip by Margarert Bradford
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 28 Jan 13 - 07:34 AM

clean your teeth using a mug of water, rather than a running tap.

Dip brush in mug, apply toothpaste, scrub teeth, spit out foam as close as possible to drain, pour a little more water on brush, scrub, spit, pour ... until teeth are clean, spit, take a mouthful of water, gargle, spit, repeat until mouth is rinsed. Use the rest of the water to remove all foam from the basin.

I read about this idea decades ago in a children's magazine!

--------------------------------

Drip Drop by Margaret Bradford, 1998

Drip. Drop. Drip. Drop
Wasting water's gotta stop
Drop. Drip. Drop. Drip
Turn that tap off quick!

Water's precious can't you see
It's a rare commodity
Creeks and rivers dry up fast
You gotta make that water last and last, and last, and last, and last and last, and last

Drip. Drop...

Mulch that garden, watch it grow
When roots stay damp deep down below
Sun can't dry out soil underneath
You won't have to hose for weeks

Plant those natives watch 'em thrive
In hot dry Aussie they'll survive
Why water lawns to make 'em grow?
Then on the weekend you've gotta mow and mow and mow and mow and mow and mow and mow!

Drip. Drop....

[scat: dribble drop dribble etc.]

Keep that shower short and sweet
Just wet yourself from head to feet
Don't stand under there all day
You might develop scales and swim away

A cup of water's quite enough
To clean your teeth with that the stuff
Don't let that tap run, use a plug
Don't wanna hear that water glug

Drip. Drop....

Flushing loos use too much water
Don't flush it more than you oughta
If it's yellow let it mellow
But if it's brown then flush it down

Drip. Drop....

words from Ecopella site MP3 sung by Ecopella choir

Subject: RE: BS: Save The Earth! 'Green' tips.
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 28 Jan 13 - 09:36 AM

Plant fruit trees, fruit bushes and vegetables in all sorts of open spaces in your town, village, for folks to help themselves to. Incredible Edibles - http://www.incredible-edible-todmorden.co.uk/

Get your local council to do away with their Victorian flower borders and replace them with Wild Flowers that not only regenerate each year, but give life to the Birds, the Bees and the Insects....Torquay is finally thinking of doing this down on the seafront. They have already planted many wild flower meadows..

Build memorials out of white stones for all the species we are losing...preferably get the schoolchildren to help too, to make them aware of the danger we're in...

VOTE FOR THE GREEN PARTY!!!!!!!!!

Back Polly Higgins 'Make Ecocide Law' campaign.

Sign the 'End Ecocide in Europe' petition, started just a few days back after the European Parliament finally took its' collective head of its' arse..We need One Million Signatures!
http://www.endecocide.eu/

Support Evo Morales and his Law Of Mother Nature now being given the legal framework in Brazil.

Support IDLE NO MORE in EVERY WAY POSSIBLE!

Plant 'Food Forests' in your cities (Seattle is doing this now)
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/02/29/147668557/seattles-first-urban-food-forest-will-be-free-to-forage

Have tattoos of SUSTAINABILITY 4 EVER! and PERMACULTURE ROCKS! :0)

Join the Facebook page of Brigit Strawbridge to Save The Bees and learn all about EVERYTHING to do with Mother Nature (that lassie ROCKS!)

Build a Bee HOTEL for they're dying at an alarming rate and if they go, WE go!

Plant Butterfly Bushes everywhere!

Subject: RE: BS: Save The Earth! 'Green' tips.
From: GUEST,Jim Knowledge
Date: 28 Jan 13 - 10:07 AM

I `ad that Prof. Brian Cox in my cab the other day. `im that looks a bit like John Denver used to.
`e said, " Morning Jim. Could you take me to the Royal Society please, we`re `aving a seminar on `ow life follows the Second Law of Thermo-dynamics and what we gotta do to preserve it."
I`m like, "Come off it Pye Squared, that`s a waste of time, aint it?"
`e said, "Whaddya mean Jim, a waste of time!"
I said, " Look, as sure as eggs is eggs, out there in the great beyond is an enormous lump of rock as big as the Isle of Borneo and it`s `eading our way at umpteen miles an `our. Tomorrow, next year, ten years time or a thousand years `ence it`s going to blow us all to smithereeens so enjoy what you can while you can. And anyway, not everyone on this earth is worth preserving."
`e said, "Ah, we`re dealing with that. Next week we got a seminar on the Limitations of Preservation!!"

Whaddam I Like??

Subject: RE: BS: Save The Earth! 'Green' tips.
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 28 Jan 13 - 10:12 AM

DON'T "Plant fruit trees, fruit bushes and vegetables in all sorts of open spaces in your town, village, for folks to help themselves to."

Waste spaces (brownfield sites) are often biodiverse spaces! Arbitrarily planting things in them can be very bad for local wildlife! It's just another form of development! DON'T plant "wild flowers" unless the seeds are of local provenance and are suitable for the site.

DON'T plant "Butterfly Bushes" (presumably Buddleia davidii?) everywhere; in the UK this is an invasive alien species and doesn't require any help from people like you, Lizzie.

If you revere Nature, as you say you do, Lizzie, you need to understand it. Thinking that you know best and barging in and planting stuff just makes you part of the problem.

Sits back and waits for the abusive reply ...

Subject: RE: BS: Save The Earth! 'Green' tips.
From: Megan L
Date: 28 Jan 13 - 10:18 AM

One should always take great care where planting edible plants and trees, Many former industrial sites are contaminated with all sorts of dangerous chemicals and metals that permeate the crops grown and if consumed can prove fatal.

Subject: RE: BS: Save The Earth! 'Green' tips.
From: GUEST,John from Kemsing
Date: 28 Jan 13 - 10:21 AM

Following the 1987 hurricane when Kent alone lost 15 million trees ( I don`t know who counted) One Tree Hill in Sevenoaks, which incidentally had hundreds of trees, was decimated. The council decided to just live with it and it has resulted in a revived area with plants etc., that were previously restricted due to canopy provided by the big trees.

Subject: RE: BS: Save The Earth! 'Green' tips.
From: GUEST,Peter
Date: 28 Jan 13 - 11:20 AM

DON'T plant "wild flowers" unless the seeds are of local provenance and are suitable for the site.

A common near me has had the "benefit" of being planted with Spanish bluebells.

With regard to obsessive grass cutting, local authorities have tried to turn verges into linear nature reserves only to have local residents cut the grass themselves.

Subject: RE: BS: Save The Earth! 'Green' tips.
From: GUEST,999
Date: 28 Jan 13 - 11:25 AM

Navy showers (for the dedicated).

Subject: RE: BS: Save The Earth! 'Green' tips.
From: MarkS
Date: 28 Jan 13 - 11:57 AM

Use manure when possible instead of commercial fertilizers for your garden. Many times farmers will be glad of the chance to get rid of some with you!
Grass cuttings make a quite effective weed barrier and help you cut dowm or eliminate herbacides.
Oh, remember the 60's - shower with a friend!
Mark

Subject: RE: BS: Save The Earth! 'Green' tips.
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Jan 13 - 01:19 PM

During droughts, various communities get requests from the Water Company to not water lawns ..and to "not flush for everything". We have seen the wisdom in that and reduce the number of flushes a lot, even after the drought is over. Saves a bit of $$$ over the months, too.

I even have a rule when we are going to be out of town for a few days to turn the temperature on the gas water heater down to the minimum.

Out local electrical authority has offered a 'buy-back' when older, inefficient refrigerators and air conditioner are traded in for modern ones. THEY pick up and recycle the old ones and prevent the CFLs from escaping. I have an old refrigerator that is going soon! (The damn thing was built better and runs forever...but..)

Many many ways to do one's part.

Subject: RE: BS: Save The Earth! 'Green' tips.
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 28 Jan 13 - 02:29 PM

Well, forgive me, for I thought folks on here would have the intelligence NOT to plant in 'open spaces' where there is industrial contamination etc...

I see I should have qualified things a little more clearly..

Sigh.........

I put the Incredible Edibles webpage up for you to see, which has the entire story of their WONDERFUL SUCCESS!

Gawd, pedantic Mudcat!

And as for the Wild Flowers comments..

I give up!!

Throw rubbish everywhere, don't vote Green, don't plant ANYTHING, pull up ANY buddleia bush you see, even though it be COVERED in Butterflies, for these things are NOT NATIVE to this country and therefore Mudcat Folks want to DESTROY THEM!

Yeesh!!!!!!!!

So, does this way of thinking also work for PEOPLE who are not from this country 'originally', 'cos if it does, we could have some nasty thoughts on our hands here, folks...

For FECK's SAKE!!

Plant BUDDLEIAS and SAVE THE BUTTERFLIES!!

Subject: RE: BS: Save The Earth! 'Green' tips.
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 28 Jan 13 - 02:32 PM

And, Shimmy, you'd best phone up Sir David Attenborough and tell him to pull his buddleia bushes up too....!

http://www.itv.com/news/2012-07-12/sir-david-attenborough-warns-of-threat-to-uk-butterflies-after-record-wet-weather/


SIGHHHHHHHH!!

Black!

"White, Lizzie, WHITE!"

White

"Black, Lizzie, BLACK!"

Subject: RE: BS: Save The Earth! 'Green' tips.
From: Megan L
Date: 28 Jan 13 - 02:39 PM

Why do you always have to be so agressive and rude ? most people who have replied on the thread have managed to do so in a civil fashion.

Subject: RE: BS: Save The Earth! 'Green' tips.
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 28 Jan 13 - 02:45 PM

Because, some folks on here will disagree with *anything* I say, purely for the sake of it, Megan...and it gets up my nose. Sorry to offend, but trust me, you need to have walked a mile in my mocassins, as they do say....

Subject: RE: BS: Save The Earth! 'Green' tips.
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 28 Jan 13 - 02:52 PM

It's no wonder that the Green Party only has one MP! can you folks FFS stop dissin one another, and get on with limiting the damage to this planet. Purists need not apply!

Subject: RE: BS: Save The Earth! 'Green' tips.
From: GUEST,Musket sans cookie
Date: 28 Jan 13 - 03:24 PM

Naw. Disagreeing on principle just saves time. Leopards don't change their spots any more than giraffes change their target attached to their arses.

Mind you. My buddlia gets out of control, some bushes more than others. I never thought of digging them up. The psychedelic moths would have to go find somewhere else to look pretty. On the plus side their young 'uns might leave my brassicad alone. .

Subject: RE: BS: Save The Earth! 'Green' tips.
From: gnu
Date: 28 Jan 13 - 03:39 PM

Long grass allows the mosquito a place to "roost". A short lawn is a good thing.

A WHOLE mug of water? I don't use any. I clean the spit up next time I wash my hands... apply enough water to cupped hand in which leftover shower soap sliver is held. Soap up hands. Rinse lightly... you don't NEED to get ALL the soap off. That comes from hauling water from a spring 2km away when I was a lad*.

*I was the one who had to haul the water buckets.

Subject: RE: BS: Save The Earth! 'Green' tips.
From: GUEST,CS
Date: 28 Jan 13 - 04:07 PM

Two of the easiest, cheapest and most effective things a person can do in order to have less of a negative impact on the environment is a) go vegetarian and b) don't have children:

http://www.downtoearth.org/environment/top-10-reasons
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/07/having-children-brings-high-carbon-impact/

Subject: RE: BS: Save The Earth! 'Green' tips.
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 28 Jan 13 - 05:11 PM

The most positive thing you can do, to reduce your impact on the environment, and contribute towards the continuation, and fertility of this earth, is to die. Don't bother to be embalmed, or get buried in a coffin made of wood treated with chemicals.

Subject: RE: BS: Save The Earth! 'Green' tips.
From: GUEST,999
Date: 28 Jan 13 - 06:12 PM

I'm working on it.

Subject: RE: BS: Save The Earth! 'Green' tips.
From: gnu
Date: 28 Jan 13 - 06:41 PM

You can, 9. I can't... it's against the law in my province. You gotta pay the undertaker here UNLESS you donate yer body to Dalhousie Medical School. They will take you in and treat yer ass with the respect it deserves - slice and dice and grind you up- three years later they will burn yer ass and put you in a container and ship ypu back to the sorry SOB you tell them to send you to. Best deal I have found in AGES!

Yakked at me buddy who is the head of family medicine in Atlantic Canada and asked if they will send me back by registerd mail. He didn't know. I said I hope not because if I do get back to my buddy he can spread my ashes where I ask him to and tell the undertakers I must be lost in the mail. Kinda like sidesteppin purgatory and the taxman if ya follow, eh?

I have always been a smart shopper keepin my eyes out fer a bargain. This is the best deal I have gotten in YEARS!

Subject: RE: BS: Save The Earth! 'Green' tips.
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 29 Jan 13 - 03:54 AM

You've reacted exactly as I thought you would, Lizzie - so predictable ... I'm not going to comment any further (condemned out of your own big mouth!) except to deplore the outrageous implication that I might be some sort of closet racist because I am against the deliberate introduction of alien species into the British countryside (as are most responsible conservationists).

Subject: RE: BS: Save The Earth! 'Green' tips.
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 29 Jan 13 - 05:01 AM

If it's OK for Sir David Attenborough, Shimrod, then it's OK for me..

And besides, HOW do you know WHAT is 'native' to this country? I mean, truly, HOW can you trace it all back? Seeds will have found their way here over many centuries. So HOW do you know which are the actual 'True Natives'????

The whole thing is nuts!

BUDDLEIAS SAVE BUTTERFLIES

BUTTERFLIES ARE POLLINATORS

Without the pollinators we'll go the same way as them.....

But hey, I'll leave you to tell people NOT to plant buddleias, if that's what truly floats your boat...They can make their own decisions, I'm sure.

Subject: RE: BS: Save The Earth! 'Green' tips.
From: GUEST,KP
Date: 29 Jan 13 - 07:46 AM

As most estimates say that 30-40% of our greenhouse gas emissions (in the UK) come from heating cooling and ventilating our buildings, I'd say the best thing for most of us to do would be to insulate our houses better. And there's a lot of money to be saved!

Subject: RE: BS: Save The Earth! 'Green' tips.
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 29 Jan 13 - 08:05 AM

Buddleia - Buddleia davidii hails from China. The 'davidii' part of the scientific name commemorates Jean Pierre Armand David, who was a French Jesuit priest and expert on the Natural History of China. I'm not sure yet whether he was responsible for finding it and introducing it to Europe. Perhaps someone called 'Buddle' did that?

Anyway, if Sir David Attenborough told me to jump, I might well think about it first!

Got to go now - I'm trying to save my local biodiverse patch!

Subject: RE: BS: Save The Earth! 'Green' tips.
From: GUEST,Musket sans cookie
Date: 29 Jan 13 - 09:47 AM

You live and learn. I obviously don't know how to spell what I thought were called buddlia.

Got about a dozen bushes mind.

A lot of people don't know things. Doesn't stop them posting though so I shall keep my foreign weeds unless that's the best thing I can do, in which case they join a feral cat on the compost (covered and is rat protected hence can have meat) heap.

Did you know that my 5 year old V8 Jag XKR is kinder to the planet than my sanctimonious neighbour's new hybrid Lexus? And my Triumph Stag (presently in bits) is even more of a tree hugger? Fascinating. . Mind you the 4x4 is less than two years old so craps on mother earth from a great height. I shall have to make up for it by wearing Greenpeace T shirts at gigs and getting the approval of GROLIES.

Subject: RE: BS: Save The Earth! 'Green' tips.
From: Mavis Enderby
Date: 29 Jan 13 - 04:03 PM

Well I think this is finally the thread to do it. Toodle pip...

Subject: RE: BS: Save The Earth! 'Green' tips.
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 29 Jan 13 - 07:18 PM

I think unless you absolutely must, don't have pets. They are expensive, some of them, create waste problems if they are omnivoers or carnivores..herbivores probably OK...require or owners are led to believe they require special foods. They take up time that could be spent in better use for some people..again, if you absolutely must have them, then have them, but a lot of people just go down the path of least resistance with their children etc...people put incredible amounts of filthy cat litter etc. in garbage..what kind of nasty virus concoction is brewing in landfills, along with baby diapers etc. Adding pet care to a family with two people out working and taking care of children and a house and yard..too much for many people. But if people can do it in a non=polluting way, OK..but keep that cat litter out of the garbage can.

Subject: RE: BS: Save The Earth! 'Green' tips.
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 30 Jan 13 - 08:42 AM

I prefer my animals to a lot of people I know, mg.

I'd say keep the animals and let's get rid of a helluva lot of selfish humans who don't care about Mother Earth, nor any other Species, including their own......

Subject: RE: BS: Save The Earth! 'Green' tips.
From: GUEST,CS
Date: 30 Jan 13 - 08:51 AM

"keep that cat litter out of the garbage can."

We use pellets made of pine sawdust (a waste byproduct of course) flush their poos down the loo when we go pee and put the sawdust on the compost. No mess no fuss.

Subject: RE: BS: Save The Earth! 'Green' tips.
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 31 Jan 13 - 04:19 AM

Lizzie, you shouted at me as follows:

"BUDDLEIAS SAVE BUTTERFLIES

BUTTERFLIES ARE POLLINATORS"

Gosh! I didn't know that butterflies are pollinators! So that's what they're doing when they perch of flowers! I just thought that they were flower lovers ...

Anyway, 'Ms Shouty-pants', when you've stopped telling your granny how to suck eggs, I note that you live in the South West of England (Devon, possibly, with a connection with Cornwall?). South West England has a very, very rich flora - when I've been down there, I've found myself in 'botanist's heaven'. And you want to endanger all of that richness by arbitrarily planting stuff all over it! Outrageous! You have to be stopped. Perhaps, instead of shouting at everyone and coming up with ill-informed plans off-the-top-of-your-head, you really ought to learn more about your own environment, rather than imposing things on it. If you really cared about "Mother Earth" you would take the trouble to learn more about Her rather than try to boss Her about and impose your own arbitrary notions on Her.

Subject: RE: BS: Save The Earth! 'Green' tips.
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 31 Jan 13 - 04:44 AM

Further research shows that Buddleia WAS found in China by Abbe David, in the 1860s. The generic name commemorates the Rev. Adam Buddle, botanist and Vicar of Farmbridge in Essex; he died in 1715 - around 150 years before David found B. davidii in China.