Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Five Earth Day Ideas for the Entire Family
The 42nd anniversary of Earth Day, April 22, is Sunday, and everyone ages zero to 100 can show their appreciation to Mother Nature and the planet. The first Earth Day was celebrated in San Francisco in 1970 to teach others how they can have a positive impact on the environment by reducing, reusing and recycling their resources. Today there are celebrations in over 100 different countries and countless ways we all can give back to the planet!
Get out and celebrate our great planet by attending a festival or event in your area. Most are free and open to the public and have something for everyone including fun games for children, organic foods and drinks, arts and crafts.
Planning or attending a picnic is a low cost way to enjoy the nice spring weather and Mother Nature. You can share delicious dishes made from all-natural ingredients grown in your garden or purchased from a local farmers’ market.
Movie fans in your family can help support the Jane Goodall Institute efforts to save chimpanzees by purchasing a ticket to see Disneynature’s Chimpanzee, during opening weekend. The film is being released on April 20.
The little ones in your family will love getting their hands dirty learning to plant a garden or compost leftovers into food for nature’s smallest inhabitants. Children will better understand how food grows and can be used to strengthen their bodies’ and nature.
Hosting family “contests” to see who can pick up the most litter or make the most creative crafts or costumes from things found in your home’s recycling bin is a great way to teach children about keeping the Earth clean and upcycling old things into new ones.
Pick one of these ideas today and start planning your Earth Day celebration with the entire family. Happy Earth Day!
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Tell Legislators: Protect Our Water From Fracking!
Subject:Protect Our Water: Support The Fracking Legislative Package
Dear [Decision Maker],
I am writing to ask you to SUPPORT the hydraulic fracturing legislative package, a group of bills that would protect Michigan citizens from the dangers of Fracking.
Fracking has been associated with literally thousands of incidents of environmental contamination in several other states, which we must not allow to happen here. The EPA recently linked groundwater contamination to Fracking in Wyoming, Ohio underwent multiple earthquakes because of Fracking, and now scientists are suggesting that Fracking can also destroy air quality.
Michigan needs to delay any new natural gas Fracking until we have strengthened our safeguards and laws to protect our clean, fresh water, our air, our natural resources, and our communities.
There are some major problems with Fracking. The water that flows out of Fracking wells carries toxic and radioactive substances mobilized from the rock by the Fracking chemicals. A Congressional report on Fracking listed 750 chemicals used in the Fracking process, of which at least 29 of the chemicals are carcinogens or pose a risk to human health. Right now, companies are not required to fully disclose which of these cancer-causing chemicals they are putting into the ground.
In addition, each of these deep Fracking operations consumes up to 5 million gallons of water from local watersheds and the Great Lakes basin. However, Michigan's water withdrawal regulations currently exempt oil and gas drillers from complying with rules designed to protect waterways and groundwater from being depleted.
Michigan needs to "push pause" on Fracking until we learn more about this process and until we have more protections in place.
Please SUPPORT the Fracking legislative package, and help get this on the agenda of the House Energy and Technology Committee. This is vital in order to protect our water, our air, and our communities.
Sincerely,
Angelita Mercado
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