It’s still a beautiful world in most cases, but we need to take action to keep it that way.
In honor of the 2009 Blog Action Day topic, climate change, I’m writing about some of the not-very-pleasant health effects we might see if climate change goes unchecked.

According to the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, changes brought about by climate change are expected to affect the health of millions of people directly. Climate change can affect your health in the future directly via heat waves, floods and storms. It can affect your health indirectly by increasing smog and ozone in cities …read more

Blog Action Day was founded by Collis Ta’eed in the summer of 2007. Along with the support of his wife, brother, father, and team at Envato in Australia, he managed to recruit 20,000 bloggers to all write on the same topic on the same day, October 15, 2007. The topic that first year was the environment and it was a huge fun event. In 2008 the topic was poverty and even more bloggers came out to participate. The third annual Blog Action Day is coming up, and there’s still plenty of time for you to jump on board.

What: Blog …read more

Recently more than 90 global leaders gathered for a climate change summit in New York City to brainstorm about the affects of global warming and to come up with some possible solutions to combat the problem. President Barack Obama spoke at the summit, noting that taking zero action on climate change could leave future generations with an “irreversible catastrophe.“
President Obama also noted that the United States is “determined to act” and has put climate at the top of the diplomatic agenda with countries across regions, from China and India to Brazil and Mexico. U.S. leader at the summit agree that …read more

The annual Earth Hour event is here again folks. In case you haven’t heard Earth Hour is a big ol’ event started in 2007 in Sydney. That first Earth Hour, 2.2 million homes and businesses switched off their lights for one hour. In 2008, more than 400 cities, thousands of businesses and over 50 million people around the world participated.

This year, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), among other organizations, wants you to turn off your lights for the 2009 annual Earth Hour.
Depending on where you live Earth Hour is taking place tomorrow (it’s still Friday in my time zone) on …read more

Your opinion of me just might change by the end of this post.
Nothing major. It will probably go from, “hmmm, that Gab is a little odd” to “man, that Gab is really odd.” I can live with that.
Here’s my confession: I sleep better at night with a Go Bag by my door and a car equipped with spare water, food, a camp stove, tent and other survival essentials. Ok fine, here’s another confession – maybe we just haven’t fully unpacked it yet from our two-year road trip.
I don’t consider myself a survivalist. I make no promises that I can go …read more

First, it was the (very publicly) waxed chest of Harrison Ford, now, pro beach volleyball player Colleen Smith will sport a huge (1/2 meter long) temporary tattoo of crashing waves to raise awareness of rising sea levels due to global warming. Colleen says, “Educating volleyball fans is huge. This is where I have leverage.” In addition to leverage, Colleen also has a ton of green goodies including reusable totes, flourescent lightbulbs and tips to go green that she’s giving to her fans at tournaments this summer. *
I’m wondering, how do you feel about wearing your environmental views on your sleeve …read more

Today, I am delighted to share a little guest post with you, written by the lovely Liz Lewis. You probably know Liz from Healthbolt, which ain’t your mama’s health blog. But did you know that Liz is ready to lead you down a greener path at Traveling the Green Way, one of the newest additions to b5media’s Travel and Culture channel? You didn’t? Better ask somebody…
Green Candy for Your Conscience
Breath mints that support breast cancer research ?
Chocolate with carbon offsets attached?
A candy dispenser that helps save animals ?
Who knew that eating candy could be so damn good for your conscience. …read more

Carbon Rally is a social networking site that rallies communities together to take action to reduce their CO2 emissions.
Teams compete against each other with challenges like “go one week without using any disposable coffee cups” or “unplug your computer every night for one month”. By accepting challenges and incorporating carbon reducing ideas into their daily lives, individuals boost their team efforts while creating a collective effort to cut back on carbon emissions.
The idea came from Massachusetts Sierra Club activists Jason Karas, Stan Ward, Bill Filler and Steve Barrett. Karas wanted to create an fun, interactive and engaging catalyst that would …read more

An article in Thursday’s New York Times called Study Paints Dire Picture of Warmer Northeast focused on a peer-reviewed, collaborative report from the Union of Concerned Scientists (USC) that calls attention to the problems the region will face should greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase.
The USC report, “Confronting Climate Change in the U.S. Northeast,” is an expansion of a 2006 study by the Northeast Climate Impacts Assessment (NECIA).
Together they address:
how the climate of the nine Northeast states will change under two scenarios: one that assumes an increase in global warming emissions from continued heavy reliance on fossil fuels, and another …read more

Perhaps you were one of the 10 million people who watched online or maybe you were at Wembley Stadium bouncing to Madonna’s late night set. Wherever you happened to be on the Earth last night it’s likely you felt a strange vibration as the seven-continent concert series Live Earth made its way around the globe.
In the pre-event buzz, critics of the concert’s organizers Al Gore and Kevin Wall pointed to the intrinsic energy intensive nature of such a massive concert event. Electricity for sound and lighting. Materials for stage and set. Fuel for transport of over 100 artists, speakers and …read more