What's Green with Betsy

Just as we all have made the switch to compact fluorescent bulbs (I hope!), along come LED light bulbs, which are now the most energy efficient, eco-friendly, long lasting and affordable bulb!

We’ve spent the last few days happily planting vegetable seeds on our farm. As every gardener does, we are hoping for a prolific harvest. To achieve that of course you need sun and rain; in dry spells you have to water.

Happily spring is here (though it doesn’t feel like it today) – trees are flowering, flowers and shrubs are blooming and lawns are turning green. Oh lawns, we love them and we hate them. They add beauty to the landscape and are a playground for our kids and pets, but to maintain a “picture-perfect” lawn requires a lot of time, money, energy, and usually toxic chemicals.

April 22 is the 43rd annual Earth Day. According to earthday.org, more than one billion people take part in Earth Day – individuals, communities, organizations and governments from around the world. This year, earthday.org is collecting and displaying images of people, animals and places directly affected by climate change as well as those helping to do something about it.

Come to the Plimoth Cinema next Thursday, April 11, where the Plymouth Network of Open Space Friends, the League of Women Voters, Goldenrod Foundation, and Plymouth Farmers Market are co-sponsoring the local premiere of the nationally acclaimed movie, bag it.

This Saturday, March 23 marks the 7th annual Earth Hour when people from around the world turn their lights out for one hour from 8:30pm – 9:30pm. Earth Hour started with one city and has grown to over 7000, with one country to seven continents, and with two million people to hundreds of millions of people.

Earth Hour was created to:

We have the same concerns for our pets about good health, proper nutrition and chemical exposure as we do for ourselves; they are vulnerable to many of the same illnesses such as cancer and diabetes. As with humans, there are fortunately now many organic products and accessories for pets, as well as alternative therapies like aromatherapy, homeopathy and botanical supplements.

If you think about it, single use products make no sense at all. That’s part of the problem. In our throwaway society, we don’t think about it. Continuing the theme of my recent post about eliminating aluminum foil and plastic wrap, I’ve listed below other products you can try cutting out (or at least cutting back on).