How To Have An Eco-Friendly  Green Summer

It may seem premature in the second half of April, but making early plans for how you are going to enjoy the summer can really get you in the mood for the evenings getting longer, the days getting warmer and the decrease in rainy days. Taking green issues into account is something that can happen naturally – after all, if you are going to be spending a lot of time outside, then you are less likely to need to use a lot of energy indoors. Heating will be less of an issue, you won’t need to put lights on as early, and in the kitchen the chances are that salads will take the place of soups, so the hob won’t have to be on so much for a start.

But beyond the saving you will make on energy and the dent you can make in your environmental impact, there are other ways that you can prepare for a green summer. These take many forms. Things that you can do to keep the household green, to make your daily lifestyle more environmentally friendly, and ways that you can change the annual summer routine – some of them very subtle – to make things more green-friendly. You’d be surprised where you can make a difference!

There are few people, for example, who do not enjoy a good barbecue in the summer months. It allows you to enjoy simple, grilled food while not having to be cooped up in the kitchen. So often, people serve up dinner and run into the lounge to watch television while they eat. But eating outdoors allows you to make the best of the natural resources that for so much of the year are either absent or ignored. A barbecue can bring with it environmental difficulties, though – the air can get polluted pretty quickly, so you need to look for a green barbecue. One that uses less gas or coal would be ideal.

At that barbecue, you will of course have some guests who would love a cold beverage – as often as not it will be a beer. You can help the environment while enjoying a beer, which is news that will encourage some of the more skeptical enviroskeptics to give some thought to helping out. You can do this by buying organic beer. It does the same job as your typical beer, and goes just as well with grilled food, but producing it impacts the environment a great deal less.

While outside in the sunshine there is of course the danger of succumbing to the lobster factor. Some of us tan beautifully at just the right speed. Others are not so lucky, and can burn up after less than an hour outdoors. For this reason, it is ideal to have a brand of sunscreen which is non-toxic. Additionally the chances are that with all that food and drink around, you will be visited by bugs. Just as with your sunscreen, a more natural brand can be the winner here. It is better for the environment and better for you.

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Eco-Friendly Green Gardening

It is commonly held that global warming and other environmental concerns are far too big for humans to turn back. Some even believe that global warming is not man-made despite the large amount of evidence to suggest that it very much is. For such reasons, there are many people who decide not to do anything about it, and say “I’m only one person – what can I do, realistically?”. These people are missing the point. If no-one does anything, then there is no question that the problems will get worse. In order to turn back the tide, there are things that we can do. Although many may feel that it isn’t worth bothering, if enough of us take a lead, then at least we can set an example.

Setting a good example can be done in many ways, but the chances of it being taken up depend on several factors. Not least of these is the fact that people can specifically benefit themselves by taking a greener approach. This is best referred to as the “What’s in it for me?” factor. Although there may be little incentive for someone to take a greener approach to life if all it is going to achieve is a lessening in the global problems some years down the line, they will think differently if they feel that it might benefit them in the long term and the short term. One way to do this is to look at planting a vegetable garden.

Although gardening is seen by many as a pastime for older people, there is little doubt that it can benefit us all. Taking it on the most basic level, all of us need to eat in order to live. Inevitably, part of our diet is sure to come from vegetables. Now, we can get in our car and drive to the supermarket to b uy veg there. The advantage of this approach is that it is convenient. But aside from that, there is little reason why we should do this. Supermarkets, for all their eye-catching green initiatives, are simply not going to take part in any approach that may hurt their profit margins. And the vegetables they sell will come with a healthy profit for the company – putting us, the consumers, out of pocket.

If we grow our own veg, then we immediately create a saving for ourselves. Instead of having to drive to the supermarket (spending money on fuel as we do so), buying the veg (and thus paying more than we would had we grown it ourselves) and putting it into a bag (we pay for that, too), we could be cutting out these extra costs and helping ourselves. Additionally, we are causing less pollution by cutting out exhaust fumes and unnecessary packaging.

By growing our own veg we will also ensure the utmost freshness, which is always a major factor in terms of taste. And although it takes an initial investment of our time, it saves us a lot more in the long run – how many people do you know who can take care of most of the ingredients for dinner just by popping outside for a few minutes?

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Although the United Kingdom has often been pointed out by environmentalists as a country that “could do better” in terms of green initiatives, it does have a not insignificant Green movement, including a party which has tended to poll in fourth place in recent elections behind Britain’s “Big Three” parties. It may be in recognition of the green movement’s efforts that the governing Labour party has hit on its latest initiative – a plan to subsidize motorists who buy electric cars.

Although there have been similar initiatives elsewhere in the world, this is the most eye-catching effort yet by a United Kingdom government to put green issues at the heart of the agenda. Aware that there will always be some sections of society who will continue to ask “Why should I?” even after being shown several reasons why something will help the world, the people behind the latest plan are accepting that sometimes, people need personal incentives to do something good. In addition to this, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has earmarked the initiative as something that may help economic recovery.

With much of the world still struggling to unpick the economic mess in which the credit crunch has left us, there had been some fear that in a rush for expediency the major world governments would forget their green principles and prioritize economic recovery by any means necessary. According to Mr Brown, the situation is not an either/or matter. Economic recovery and environmental protection can go hand in hand, if addressed in the right way. In Mr Brown’s own words, the idea is that this plan can be a “job creator, a quality of life improver and an environment enhancing measure.”

The finer details of the plan are still being worked out and at this stage it remains uncertain how the plan would be put in to practice – whether by offering to pay some of the price of the car at the point of sale, or by offering buyers the chance to apply to the Government for a cash back payment after the car has been bought. The Government’s contribution per motorist would, it seems, be capped at £2,000 (Ca$3,600), which amounts to a quarter of the cost of one of the cheaper electric cars available in the UK at the moment.

As things stand, even with an ambitious and hard-working green movement, the uptake of electric cars in the UK has so far been slow. Along with a general lack of environmental awareness, reasons for this are believed to be an absence of recharge points where the cars can be powered up, and comparatively higher prices when compared to conventionally fuelled vehicles. With the latter hopefully being counteracted somewhat by the government, it remains a question of keeping electric vehicles in the public mindset and making it easier to recharge them – the latter being a point under consideration from London’s Mayor Boris Johnson. The Mayor has this week pledged to deliver 25,000 charging spaces in the nation’s capital in order to get more of the vehicles on the roads.

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Earth Hour Was A Global Success

This year’s Earth Hour seems to have gone off pretty well, if the early figures are to be taken at face value. An increase in the energy saved as part of the global initiative has been reported, with some individual cities reporting results which represent a doubling of the decrease in energy use. Along with this, some cities which joined in for the first time have reported large savings of electricity which have exceeded expectations. The big headlines appear to be the Philippines, where 647 cities and towns (and an estimated 15 million people) joined in with the initiative to deliver results way beyond what was expected.

Although there has been controversy over the event, with many people and news outlets, among them FOX News, weighing in on the skeptical side of things, a cautious welcome has been given to the results that Earth Hour 2009 has managed to bring about. In The Philippines, while some data is still being ratified, more towns and cities joined in than anywhere else, with Greece coming in second. However, there are other results with importance too – not least in Delhi, India, a first time participant, where the power demand dropped by 1000 MW.

In Canada, Ontario as a province managed a saving of 6% on electricity with Toronto on its own displaying a decrease of 15.1% having posted 8.7% for Earth Hour 2008. Figures like these certainly seem to suggest that Earth Hour is getting a message through to people, and encouraging a more stable use of electricity. The skepticism which continues to ride high centres around the fact that savings on the financial side of the matter have been more or less symbolic, but this misses the point. By showing that it is possible to make large-scale energy savings, Earth Hour may yet be able to drive home the point that our dependency on non-renewable forms of energy is something that can be broken.

A message is getting through to people that if they want to cut their dependency on these forms of energy, such a thing is possible. If people can see that it is not too difficult to live without the constant use of electric lights and non-essential power-driven appliances, then it is something that can be harnessed to allow us to live a cleaner, greener future as a planet. For one thing that has come out of Earth Hour 2009 is the sheer spread of the message.

Canada has always been among the most prominent areas in the vanguard of the green movement, but the continuing advances made by this year’s most compliant countries are telling as well. Countries as distant geographically and as divergent culturally as Canada, Greece and the Philippines, along with the likes of Sweden, Ireland and Vietnam are showing an ability to take the message and run with it, something that gives us all hope for the future. With the positive news still being digested, it is now important that no-one thinks the work is done, as there is a lot still to do to ensure that the non-essential energy usage stays low, and that Earth Hour 2010 is one of the last ones we need.

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