Willits Wildlife Rehab Team

Posts Tagged ‘Green’

Today building “green” is a burgeoning industry that’s quickly becoming the new wave of the future, and also one that offers many varied benefits, not only for homeowners, but for the precious environment as well. As energy costs continue to raise steadily right along with growing reports of global warming and air pollution, more and more of us are looking for active ways of making a change for the better and for our children’s futures.

Building new homes or commercial establishments accounts for a large portion of all greenhouse gas emissions with most reports estimating this number as high as thirty percent. Greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane all have a highly detrimental effect on the atmosphere by trapping heat and contributing toward air pollution. Thanks to these startling facts, building green is becoming more common, which is beneficial both for the planet and our uncertain economy.

As we know, the price of both heating and cooling our homes has risen significantly just in recent years alone, spawning a bevy of more efficient options to consider such as harnessing and utilizing solar power. Water furnaces and heaters powered by solar energy, although a bit more expensive outright, have the potential to save a considerable amount of money throughout the course of just one year as well as lessening our dependency on natural gas and our environmental impact.

Using windows with low-E (low emissivity) coatings along with specially constructed glass with protective layers in between the panes can greatly lower your cooling and heating costs as would installing special roof shingles that are heat resistant.

Lumber for building materials that’s harvested by environmentally responsible growers along with engineered woods and wood fiber composites are becoming more and more popular in the green building industry for walls and flooring. OSB, or Oriented Strand Board, is also used in the majority of homes and buildings constructed today instead of the usual materials we’ve used in the past helping to cut down on the number of waning forests around the world.

Recycled materials and wood such as bamboo are great alternatives to traditional flooring options and either can cost either the same or less than the usual hardwood floors. And, the use of soybeans to create a spray foam insulation is a far better alternative than the chemical filled insulators we’ve relied upon before.

Going green should also apply to the outsides of our homes including certain landscaping techniques that will help to lessen our environmental impact such as correcting damaging drainage issues, using turf grass and native plant life, or eliminating the use of harmful, chemical laden pesticides and fertilizers.

Although experts agree that implementing green building practices into your next project has the potential to add ten percent to the overall cost, the money you’ll be able to save throughout the years is immeasurable, not to mention doing your part for helping the world around us to become a healthier, better place to live.

Go Green, The push of the decade! Save the environment, save generation x. Seems like that is what everyone is talking about now days. Air Quality, the Environment, global warming, climate change, melting of the artic ice. Lets stop this now! Great idea but is there a way to achieve it? Read on. We all have to take the blame for the way our earth is now. The way we design our containers for food products and what ever else we wanted to throw into them. The use of plastic and the way we discard them. How about all of our super fancy electronic, computers, cell phones ect.. You know the ones we buy that are outdated almost as soon as we get them home. The foolish waste of electricity, water and other utilities. We never cared or most likely ever knew just what we were doing to our planet. We do now, and now lets take action. Here is how. Lets start easy and save money too boot. How about turning down the thermostats a couple of degrees in the winter and raise it a couple in the summer. You would not believe how much energy you will save a year and the all mighty dollar in your pockets. Then multiply that globally. Water, Where do you find good water? Most parts of the country the water is so filthy it takes numerous filter to clean it, just so you can drink it. I know as I am a full time RV er and travel all over the country. But that is going on a tangent, we need to talk about water conservation.

You need to conserve water by turning the faucet off while you brushing your teeth, take shorter showers and even buy low flow shower heads. Another is faucet aerators on each faucet. These are inexpensive and the return on money spent is great. The one that saves you the most money and also saves the land fill, is bottle water. Just calculate how much that bottle water is costing you. I think you will find that it is more than a gallon of gas. Use purified water instead. Here is another easy one. How about instead of going to Barnes and Noble to buy a new book, you borrow one from a friend or maybe buy a used one instead. Noble idea, yea. Not only a good idea but the trees would thank you. The best is yet to come. Read on. Fuel economy. With the high rise in gas and diesel prices and the shortage they say is coming, here is the best tip yet. The quickest way to beat the price increase and fuel shortage is to either quit driving, reduce driving or ride with a friend. These all work with not driving at all being the best. Well, here is another alternative. Hydrogen, brown gas, oxyhdrogen gas, what ever you want to call it.

This kit, also called HHO Kit, hydrogen generator kit, hydro kit or water for fuel is a kit you install in your vehicle. This kits helps clean up our environment by putting more oxygen into the air. The petroleum we use not only throws carbon dioxide out into the atmosphere, but several other chemicals that is not good for the environment. As a bonus, not only hydrogen cleans the air quality but also increases fuel mileage from 30 to 60 per cent. Not bad for a go green product. But look, lets break this down in three ways. Amount of fuel savings. If you take an average person who drives a vehicle, he puts about 15,000 miles on his car every year. Say this person car gets 20 mpg. Every year he would go through 750 gallons of fuel. When he installs an HHO kit on his vehicle, we will again use the average amount of increases of 40 per cent, that would be an increase of 8 mpg. So going again 15000 miles per year, he would now use 535.7 gallons. This is a saving of 214.3 gallons a year. If you multiply that by 1 million drivers, that is an annual fuel savings of 314.7 million gallons. Price of Gas. Using the same scenario as above but just taking for one driver and the price of gas is 3.00 a gallon. When you calculate the 40 per cent increase in mileage with the hho kit you would now pay only 1.80 a gallon to go the same distance. What a savings.

Check out make fuel safe web site to find out more. Environmentally safe. The way it saves our environment is that hho gas increases the flame spread in the engine. Since hydrogen burns hotter than gas more of the carbon deposit are burnt. This means more of the fuel is burnt in the engine and less goes out the tail pipes. Hydrogen is made up of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. With more fuel being burnt the more oxygen goes out the tail pipes. Hence a healthier environment. Then again you can find out more at make fuel safe web site These are just a few tips on helping our environment, I am sure you can think of many more. Save our kids, save us, generation x. Go Green and Live Healthy!

Each summer, I visit the Chequamagon National Forest in Wisconsin. An amazingly beautiful and lush forest, this place is my sanctuary. I stay at a low-key resort, in a cabin overlooking Lake Namekagon. It’s a breath of fresh air – quite literally – to spend two weeks each year at this place, away from bustling streets and busy people. It’s like a different world.

Or, at least, it was. I had a very different experience this past July. Upon entering our cabin, my fiance and I were greeted by a large television, equipped with Direct TV. Don’t get me wrong: I’m a TV-lover, through and through. There was, however, something strange about having to look around the television to see the lake.

We overlooked this; after all, we don’t own the cabin. Some resort-goers might crave 500 channels before they crave hiking and fishing. Convinced that the TV (both the sight of it and the temptation to watch it) would put a damper on things, we went out on the water.

As I started the old, rented pontoon boat, something occured to me. We were no better than the TLC, MTV, and MSNBC addicts. Yes, our boat was used for the enjoyment of the outdoors; however, it left a muddy, green wake behind it. Yes, we came to the resort to get away from everyday conveniences and to surround ourselves with nature, but we were staying in a cabin – not a tent or a sleeping bag. We cooked our breakfast every morning on a fairly modern stove, we drank coffee made in a Bunn coffeemaker, and we turned on the electric heat if the cabin got too cold. It turns out we weren’t roughing it; we were faking it.

Since this realization, I’ve been troubled. I don’t understand where our appreciation for nature went. I don’t understand how misguided travelers – myself included – consider themselves to be experiencing nature, when really all we’re doing is glancing at it between commercials. Granted, everyone experiences nature in a different way. For some, glancing at it through a window – or on a TV screen – might be enough.

I’m concerned, though, that by accepting this as a legitimate way to experience nature, we are missing something. Or, perhaps, we are missing everything. On a basic level, there is something satisfying about feeling a different kind of air on your skin, and about feeling the crunch of leaves and dirt beneath your feet. Where city lights don’t corrupt the night sky, we can see stars in a new way, and the level of darkness is foreign and exciting.

There more to this simple human/nature combination than deep satisfaction, though. There is a danger present in the ways we currently explore nature. It is common for travelers to hop on boats, jetskis, waverunners, or ATVs to travel through lakes and forests. In these cases, vacationgoers are experiencing nature – while leaving a trail of pollution behind.

And what about our cabin? Built in the middle of the forest, trees had to be removed in order for the resort to exist. There is an inherent disconnect, here: the resort was designed to house nature-loving travelers who want to see the forest’s natural beauty, and yet in order for the resort to exist, some of the forest had to be cut down. Instead of experiencing untouched and unscathed nature, vacationers are experiencing a forest marred by human interference.

This is the way with us. We, whether intentionally or accidentally, can’t help but tinker with nature in its natural forms. Even when we attempt to truly experience it, we are also hindering it. So, we must consider some simple pieces of advice if we wish….(read the full article at the link below)

In the recent time, the life of the people in the earth becomes more and more in danger, since the nature has already shown that somehow it is “tired” with the excessive exploration that is done by human to the natural resources all over the world. So many things and disasters are showing themselves since human does not preserve the natural environment around them. The natural resources becomes more and more extinct, such as the existence of the coal that is thinner and thinner because it is used as the fuel to produce many kinds of energy in people’s life, including electricity.

One development in solving or maybe reducing the excessive exploration of the natural resources of the earth has been done by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) in order to invite people in the saving energy programs to preserve the earth. The program is done in the form of competition sponsored by NYSERDA to make the New York Citizen to join the Shining Example Competition. The winner of this contest will have the opportunity to win a free compact Energy Star qualified fluorescent light bulb home makeover, a free home performance assessment, and the possibility of being featured in the NYSERDA television commercial and many other interesting prizes.

The New York citizens are able to join the competition by submitting a 90-second video or 250-words essay that shows the reason behind their switching to Energy Star qualified fluorescent light bulb and what it is meant for them, their lives, and their environment. The program has saved more than one million megawatt hours of electricity because of the installment of 16.9 million FLB all over the state. It means that the power of electricity that is saved is similar to more than 165, 000 houses per year. It is hoped that the other states or even other nations can follow the good will of the New York Government to protect the environment.