St. Louis was recently designated a 2009 Bicycle Friendly Community (BFC) by The League of American Bicyclists. I put this in the “call to action” category with President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize, “a kind of prayer and encouragement by the [BFC] for future endeavor,” to quote the NYTimes.
Author Archives: Melissa | Growing Green Nutrition
Preferred transportation
As planned, we biked to Saturday’s wedding under gorgeous fall skies. It was my hubby’s first time back on the bike. You know what they say about getting back on the horse. I enjoyed locking our bikes up right in front of the venue as all of the other guests walked past us.
Just for the heck of it, I rode a very short distance in my heels. Not recommended. At least not with clip-less pedals. I sustained no injuries in the process, but there were a couple of near misses before I switched back to my bike shoes.
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Fight it
Trying to be optimistic despite the discouraging news from the latest Pew Poll on climate change. I wish people would get their heads out of the sand (or other places) on this issue.
But here’s the thing, the actions that we (as individuals, as a nation, as a global community) can take to prevent climate change are good actions to take regardless of WHY we take them.
Colin Beavan, AKA No Impact Man, wrote eloquently about this in his post, “What I’d say if I was wrong about climate change.”
You can click on the link to see the original post, but here are a few of my favorites:
- I am glad the millions of children who suffer from asthma can now breathe easier thanks to the fact that we aren’t pumping the air full of toxins from our exhaust pipes and smokestacks.
- I am glad we’ve stopped building suburbs, which make people unhappy and [thanks to the happy suburbanites who wrote in] are designed for cars not people, and instead build villages where people can have strong community bonds that help make life fulfilling.
- I am glad we developed local, fresh food systems that care not just about filling bellies but what we put in those bellies.
- The list goes on and on, but in short, I am glad that we have embraced the opportunities presented by the crisis of climate change in order to improve our society in ways we should have done anyway.
Happy International Day of Climate Action! What action are you taking?
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Perplexing
Our local green general store carries a couple of “good for the environment” products that confuse me. I’m sure they’re made with materials and/or processes that are better, but really, could they not make a few simple changes?
1. Dental floss that comes in the standard plastic dispenser that could hold 200-250 yards of dental floss, but instead only comes with 50 yards of floss. How is that green? In general, I am perplexed by the fact that dental floss refills for the plastic dispensers are not readily available. The one refill I found online actually costs more than buying the entire new thing of dental floss in the store, dispenser and all. Something’s fishy there. Perhaps I have discovered a product gap. Sadly, I doubt I could make a living selling dental floss refills.
2. Razor blade cartridges that come in the plastic holder with spots for six cartridges, but contain only four cartridges. The other two spots are just a waste of plastic. Either sell me six cartridges or make a plastic holder with the correct number of spots.
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So insensitive
Sunday night we bought a heating pad to ease the aches and pains of being hit by an SUV. I also think it may help lower our energy use this winter. Matthew can use the heating pad and we can set the thermostat down near my desired temperature.
Responsible consumer that I am, I opened the instruction manual and started to skim the warnings. This one caught my eye:
“Do not use on insensitive skin.”
Don’t you just hate it when your skin is insensitive? How callous and thoughtless of it!
Her Green Life 