The Green Blog Network: 2011-03-27

Global Bee Emergency - Act Now - Global Buzz For Bees

GLOBAL BEE EMERGENCY

Quietly, globally, billions of bees are dying, threatening our crops and
food. But a global ban of one group of pesticides could save bees from
extinction.

Four European countries have begun banning these poisons, and some bee
populations are recovering. But chemical companies are lobbying hard to
keep all killer pesticides on the market. A global outcry now for a ban in
the US and EU, where debate is raging, could provoke a total ban and a
ripple effect around the world.

Let's build a giant global buzz calling for these dangerous chemicals to be
outlawed in the US and EU until and unless they are proved to be safe. Sign
the petition to save bees and our crops and send this to everyone:
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/save_the_bees/

WHAT YOU CAN DO

* Plant a pollinator-friendly garden
http://pollinationcanada.ca/?n=pc_lib_pfg
* Don't use pesticides or chemical fertilizers
http://google.ca/search?q=organic+gardening
* Naturalize / plant native flowers in your yard
http://google.ca/search?q=wildflowers
* Become a backyard beekeeper http://google.ca/search?q=backyard+beekeeping
* Support conservation, wetland conservation, biodiversity
http://planetfriendly.net/dontpave.html#links
* Avoid industrial food and GMOs -- buy local organic
http://planetfriendly.net/organic.html#food
* Be a pollinator observer http://pollinationcanada.ca/?n=pc_be_an_observer
* Learn more and get involved
http://planetfriendly.net/wiki/?title=Save_the_Bees
* Live sustainably. It's all connected.

Pollination Canada -- pollinating insects are "essential for over a billion
dollars of apples, pears, cucumbers, melons, berries, and many other kinds
of Canadian farm produce".
http://www.pollinationcanada.ca/

North American Pollinator Protection Campaign
http://pollinator.org/nappc/

Pollinator Partnership
http://pollinator.org/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Post your bee-friendly jobs, internships and volunteer
opportunities with GoodWork: http://GoodWorkCanada.ca/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Green Blog Network * Greening Hollywood * Greening Beauty

Greening Paris * Greening Vancouver

Recycle, Reuse, Rejoice!

Posted via email from Greening Beauty

There's Lead in Your Lipstick

There’s Lead in Your Lipstick

Toxins in Our Everyday Body Care and How to Avoid Them

By Gillian Deacon

By the time she heads out the front door ready to begin her day, the modern woman has spritzed, sudsed and slathered herself in more than 127 different chemicals, many of them toxic. Over 23,000 chemicals are registered for use in the Canadian market, and about 300 new ones are added to that list every year! Many of the creams and potions we depend on are made with a staggering number of mystery chemicals, many of which are more toxic than beautifying. The average woman eats a third of a pound of lipstick a year; that’s a lot of less-than-tasty chemicals to ingest!

So, how can you get smart at the cosmetics counter and go green from head to toe? Eco-expert Gillian Deacon will help you identify and understand the toxins and preservatives that are bad for your body and damaging to the earth, including formaldehyde in deodorant, nail polish, soap, shampoo, and shaving cream; coal tar in hair dyes; lead in lipsticks; and many more. Her tips will guide you through the minefield of the cosmetics aisle, helping you choose the best options to keep yourself looking fabulous while safeguarding your health.

Packed with over 200 healthy and eco-friendly personal care and beauty ideas, There’s Lead in Your Lipstick includes:

· Toxins and preservatives to avoid

· How to read ingredient labels

· Fabulous products available to keep you fresh and glowing – the natural way

· Luxurious and easy-to-make natural beauty recipes

· Resource list

There’s Lead in Your Lipstick is an indispensable handbook of personal care choices that are sustainable, both for your health and the earth.

Advance Praise for There’s Lead in Your Lipstick:

“Our toxic chemical exposure is nothing short of a calamity. This book is essential to understanding what is at stake and how to make healthier choices every day – for the planet and for our families.”

- David Suzuki

“This book connects the reader to the issues and the solutions in an engaging way. A can-do roadmap to a better and healthier life!”

- Dr. Rick Smith, Executive Director of Environmental Defence and bestselling author of Slow Death by Rubber Duck

“I love this book! Thank you to Gillian Deacon for your bravery in writing such an honest and comprehensive book about what we need to know about the products we put on our bodies.”

- Stacy Malkan, co-founder of Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and author of Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry

“This book just made me realize I’ve unknowingly been putting cancer-causing ingredients onto my head every day in my hair conditioner! It’s also reaffirmed my love of cocoa butter. A wake-up call to ease the chemical burdens on our bodies and our planet.”

- Sarah Harmer

“Gillian Deacon has given us all a generous gift: a comprehensive, exhaustive and timely guidebook to the Great Unwash.”

- Gord Downie

“Gill Deacon’s There’s Lead in Your Lipstick is a wake-up call for women of all ages to look beneath the gloss of the beauty industry. Essential reading.”

- Emily Haines

About the Author

Award-winning broadcaster and bestselling author Gill Deacon is one of Canada’s best known environmental advocates. Gill hosted CBC television’s flagship daytime talk show, The Gill Deacon Show, and before that was host of @discovery.ca for five years on Discovery Channel Canada, and Discoveries This Week for Discovery Science Channel in the U.S. Gill is the author and editor of Green For Life, a guide to making more environmental lifestyle choices; and co-founder of The Global Cooling Society, an event-driven organization that promotes sustainable lifestyle choices to young urban consumers. Gill sits on the board of the Evergreen Foundation, and has served as a director of World Wildlife Fund Canada since 2002. She lives in Toronto with her husband and their three sons.

9780143172505/344 pages/$26/OTPB

Publication Date: January 2011

Printed on Ancient Forest Friendly 100% recycled paper

Penguin Canada

Green Blog Network * Greening Hollywood * Greening Beauty

Greening Paris * Greening Vancouver

Recycle, Reuse, Rejoice!

Posted via email from Greening Beauty

Green Reading

New Book Reveals Complex Morality Systems in Non-Human Animals

Evolution-Based Theory Challenges Conventional Thinking

“Dale Peterson adds originality and astonishing clarity to a discussion that has engaged science and philosophy in sometimes heated debate. This book is a delight to read. The Moral Lives of Animals will change the way many think of animals, and it will vindicate what others have always known intuitively. It deserves to be an instant bestseller.”—Jane Goodall

“The Moral Lives of Animals is without question the most fascinating book I’ve read in many, many years—a marvelously written page-turner about an important subject which until now has received little if any attention…There’s a special place in the hearts of many of us for books that express the ‘one-ness’ of life on earth, and this book tops them all.”—Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, author of The Hidden Life of Dogs

“Instead of humanity having developed morality from scratch, by means of its superior intellect, things may well have started simpler. In our fellow primates, we already recognize many of the tendencies that gave rise to the moral emotions. Dale Peterson does an excellent and engaging job explaining how the one may have led to the other. In doing so, he places us closer to other animals than many a moral philosopher would ever admit.”—Frans de Waal, author of The Age of Empathy

Wild elephants walking along a trail stop and spontaneously try to protect and assist a weak and dying fellow elephant. Lab rats, finding other rats caged nearby in distressing circumstances, proceed to rescue them. A chimpanzee in a zoo loses his own life trying to save an unrelated infant who has fallen into a watery moat. These scenes (actually observed) are often dismissed as odd happenstance after a moment of mild astonishment or simple amusement. But could there be more?

For centuries, we humans have viewed ourselves as the sole possessors of moral sense. However, in his new book, The Moral Lives of Animals, critically-acclaimed author Dale Peterson, Ph.D shows that morality in non-human animals not only exists, but can be—and is—a complex system of inclinations and inhibitions, much like our own.

THE MORAL LIVES OF ANIMALS

By Dale Peterson

Publication date: March 22, 2011

Hardcover, $26.00

352 pages

ISBN-13 978-1-59691-424-7

www.dalepetersonauthor.com

KRAKEN:

The Curious, Exciting, and Slightly Disturbing Science of Squid

““Taken as a whole, Kraken amounts to an episodic argument for the coolness of cephalopods. Luckily, Williams’ anecdotes and historical forays are fun, and her writing style is ideal for general-interest readers of many ages.”

--Daniel Strain, Science News

“Kraken extracts pure joy, intellectual exhilaration, and deep wonder from the most unlikely of places—squid. It is hard to read Wendy Williams’s luminous account and not feel the thrill of discovery of the utterly profound connections we share with squid and all other living things on the planet.”

—Neil Shubin, author of the national bestseller, Your Inner Fish

“Wendy Williams’s Kraken has the power to change your worldview about these creatures of the sea, while telling the gripping, wholly comprehensible story of the ways in which these animals have changed human medical history.”

—Mark J. Spalding, President, The Ocean Foundation

For hundreds of years, squid—giant, colossal, and otherwise—have been demonized as mysterious monsters of the deep. Even today they maintain a mystique, but scientists are gradually discovering some of their long-hidden secrets. Squid have been the source of some of medicine’s most important breakthroughs, and without them, neurosurgeons would be a little less well trained, obstetricians a little less well informed, and geriatricians much less knowledgeable about the aging process. Squid can help scientists cure Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, develop new antibiotics, and boost the health of babies born by cesarean section. www.BlueDotLiterary.com

Kraken: The Curious, Exciting, and Slightly Disturbing Science of Squid

By Wendy Williams

Abrams Image / March 2011

U.S. $21.95 / Can. $25.95

ISBN 978-0-8109-8465-3

Hardcover with jacket

224 pages / 5 ¼" x 9"

30 black-and-white illustrations and photographs

The Green Blog Network

The Green Blog Network

Pages