Green Blog Gift Guide: Holiday Cards, Christmas Cards, and Gift Tags

When you are looking for ways to do your part in saving our environment this Holiday season, there are many different things you can do. But one that many people never think about is printing up their own Holiday / Christmas Cards and gift tags – but this is a great way to save yourself some time, money, and help save the environment all at the same time. Most of us already have a personal computer and printer in our home – and that is all you need to get started printing your own Holiday Christmas Cards and gift tags.

Of course, there are many different software suites available, and Hallmark even provides some great software, as well. But the truth of the matter is that it’s not necessary to spend the extra money on greeting card software – remember, besides saving our environment we’re also trying to save some money here, too.

Nearly every operating system comes complete with a basic painting program, and this is really the only software you need. Of course, having access to Adobe Photoshop or one of the other professional graphic suites is nice, too, and can really help to spruce up your Holiday Christmas Cards and gift tags.

Green Blog Gift Guide: Presenting Your Presents

How exactly to give your gift is an important decision – do you want to use fancy, sparkly wrapping paper, or do you want to give your gift in a bag? How about a giving out a gift basket to your loved ones for this Holiday Season? As you can see, there are a lot of options when it comes to actually presenting your presents on Christmas.

If you decide to go with wrapping paper, you may want to consider using old newspapers. Not only will this save you money from not having to go to the store and buy wrapping paper, but it’s a great way to get rid of your old, unwanted newspapers. For children, you might want to wrap their gifts using the funny pages – this assures a colorful and fun present right from the start. However, gift boxes and gift baskets have become far more common these days, and you may even want to forego wrapping paper altogether for one of these alternatives.

And lastly, always remember to minimize the amount of materials you do use when wrapping your presents, and try to save your gift boxes, bags and baskets to reuse them next year. Finally, recycle all of your Christmas wrapping paper, no matter what material was used. By keeping the three R’s in mind, you can help make this a great Holiday season not only for yourself and for your loved ones, but for our environment as well.

Green Blog Gift Guide: Battery Chargers

Battery chargers make for great “Green” or environmentally-friendly gifts for the simple fact that nearly everybody has a use for batteries – flashlights, remote controls, smoke detectors, they all take batteries, as do many children’s toys. By giving the gift of a battery charger to a friend or family member, you’ll not only save them money in the long run by not having to buy new batteries, but they will also be helping to save the environment, as well. Below are some great battery chargers offered by Amazon.com - and of course you can read the user reviews about each one to make sure that it is exactly what you are looking for!

La Crosse Technology BC-900 AlphaPower Battery Charger

This seems to be the most popular solar charger, and it comes with tons of accessories, including 4 AA and 4 AAA rechargeable batteries. This is a great way to get started with rechargeable batteries, and it makes a great gift idea. Best of all, it’s less than $40!

However, if you are looking for a gift idea that is even more “Green” and environmentally-friendly, then this solar powered battery charger is the perfect choice!

4 Battery Solar Charger by SunJia

It features all of the same charging capabilities as the one above, only this works on the power of the sun!

The Holidays Are Approaching Very Quickly...

The holidays are approaching very quickly and everyone here at the Green Blog would just like to wish all of our viewers a safe and Happy Holiday season! Thanksgiving is right around the corner, and soon after that Christmas – and before you know it we will be celebrating the New Year! They just keep going by faster and faster every single year, don’t they?

Anyway, you can expect some more frequent updates here on the Green Blog, even throughout the Holiday season. We’ve got some great environmentally friendly gift ideas coming your way, and of course a whole lot more! So stay tuned to the Green Blog for much more coming very soon!

Healthy Halloween Treat Alternatives

In just a couple of days your kids are going to be bombarded with more candy than they even know what to do with – it’s inevitable; Halloween is upon is. But here are some good ideas for treats you can hand out that won’t rot the children’s teeth, and won’t keep them up all night with a sugar buzz.

Glowsticks make great Halloween treat ideas because not only are they a valuable safety device, but they come in all sorts of shapes and colors, and kids love them! Drop one or two of these in the children’s bags and your house won’t be egged this year!
Small flashlights make great Halloween treat ideas, too – especially those small, inexpensive keychain flashlights. Nearly all children love playing with flashlights, and again, with the safety factor involved, this is a great idea.

Inexpensive Halloween masks or make-up kits can be given out in place of candy, too. While they probably won’t get much use out of it for this year’s Halloween, they can hold onto the stuff for next year, or even use it for dress-up at some other time of the year!
And that’s just a few ideas of some of the things that you can use to replace Halloween candy. Using your own imagination, I’m sure you can come up with a lot more!

Some Halloween Safety Tips...

For kids, the most important part of Halloween is of course all of the candy you get from Trick-Or-Treating. But parents have a whole separate concern – and that is keeping their children safe while they are out at night Trick-Or-Treating. Even while accompanied by adults, accidents can happen and children can get hurt – but there a few steps you can take to minimize the risks and dangers to your child while Trick-Or-Treating.

First of all, try to avoid walking in the streets. If you have no other choice, stick to the sides of the road and if you see or hear a car, get out of the way immediately. Your kids should have glow sticks hanging around their necks at all times while Trick-Or-Treating; not only will this allow them to see a little bit better in the dark, but it will allow you and others to spot them easily, as well.

And remember as a parent to always inspect the candy your children are given before you allow them to eat it. While you don’t have to actually go through and taste test each individual piece, you should definitely take a few minutes of your time once you get home to look over every item in their candy bag. If you notice anything suspicious, throw it out – there simply is no need to take the chance.

Closer Look: Joe Biden on the environment

Well we’ve covered Barack Obama’s views on the environment, we’ve covered John McCain’s and we’ve even taken a look at Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s views on the subject. Now we’ll see what the Democratic vice presidential nominee and the least popular figure of this whole race, Joe Biden has to say.

First of all, according to the Humane Society, he scored an 80% on their scorecard when it comes to animal protection. He voted yes for mercury regulations on smokestacks (and has said publicly that the EPA needs to do a better job cleaning up existing mercury deposits), and no on funding for additional forest roads. Joe Biden has also voted yes on California desert protection and EPA risk assessments, as well. He is working to end commercial whaling and illegal trading of whale meat, and he is for stronger penalties for the humans involved in animal fighting.

Overall, he is a good match for Barack Obama – just as you would expect. And even though the Democrats appear to be holding a sizeable lead over their Republican counterparts, it’s still anybody’s race – and with less than a month left until the election, we’re not going to have to wait very long to find out who is going to come out on top.

Closer Look: Sarah Palin on the environment

Because Sarah Palin is from a state like Alaska, one that is crucial on today’s environmental issues and the topic of global warming, and because she may very well be the next vice president of the United States of America (and possibly even president), her views on environmental topics are very important. Since we’ve gone over the views of both John McCain and Barack Obama, it’s now time to take a look at Sarah Palin’s views and next, we’ll see what Joe Biden has to say, too.

Sarah Palin supports off-shore drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve. This is something that even John McCain is against. She has however, taken steps as the governor of Alaska to promote “green” technology in her state, and has even established a very reputable Climate Change Sub-Panel. This group will further explore their options when it comes to helping with the environment and provide “green” energy for use in homes, and states that she would like to become energy independent.

However, Governor Palin opposed protecting salmon from mining pollution, she wants to sue the U.S. government in order to get them to stop listing the polar bear as an endangered animal, and doesn’t want beluga whales on that list, either.

Please - Do not burn your leaves!

This is just a brief message from the folks here at the Green Blog:
Please, as Fall season is upon us and we will all soon be faced with the very tedious chore of raking our leaves, we just want you to remember one important thing. PLEASE DO NOT BURN YOUR LEAVES! The smoke produced from burning leaves is very thick, bad for your lungs and it is horrible for the environment as well. Not to mention the fact that burning dry leaves is a tremendous fire hazard, as well. Oh, did we mention that in most places it is illegal, too? The fines you will get cost far more than the cost to pay the neighborhood kids if you can’t do it yourself.

So always make sure to take your leaves to a designated leaf collection site or leaf dump. Most cities and towns have at least one. If yours does not, remember to always use paper bags when bagging your leaves, and leave them on your curb for the garbage man to pick up. If you have a place to bring the leaves to yourself (such as the woods behind your house, or something), you can do that too – just please do not burn your leaves!

McCain On The Environment

Well, we’ve weighed in on Barack Obama and Joe Biden’s perspective of the global warming crisis and what they plan to do in order to reverse the effects. Now it is time to see what the Republicans have to say about this hot button issue.

John McCain and Sarah Palin also realize our environment is of the utmost importance, and vow to work toward a more environmentally friendly United States. They promise to preserve our state forests, parks, beaches, shorelines and wilderness habitats. A McCain and Palin presidency will also see increased cooperation and expanded promotion of both public and privately run organizations and operations, too.

Policies will be put in place to better preserve our dying wetlands in America, as the current plan is obviously not doing the job. McCain and Palin will also work to expand “green” parks and set aside specific areas within city limits for new parks to grow and strive.

Both John McCain and Sarah Palin realize that climate change needs to be the number one priority for the next president of the United States. With their proposed Lexington Project, the McCain-Palin administration will make every effort to help end our dependency on foreign oil, clean up our air and created clean, dependable energy sources for our future.

Obama on the Environment

As the election for the new president of the United States draws closer, one of the most highly debated topics is of course the environment and what the new president has in mind for preserving it and fighting global warming. We’re going to take a look at both the democratic and republican candidate’s views on global warming, the environment, and the energy crisis. We will start by examining the views of Barack Obama and Joe Biden – after that we’ll find out what John McCain and Sarah Palin plan to do.

First and foremost, Barack Obama and Joe Biden plan to create 5 million new “green” collar jobs; this will be done by investing in private operations that provided clean energy. He plans on putting 1 million electrical hybrid cars on the roads of America by 2015; by recharging the battery with gasoline, some of the cars are capable of 150 MPG (miles per gallon). Furthermore, Senator Barack Obama promises that 10% of our nation’s electricity will come from green, renewable energy sources by the year 2012.

Obama also wants to make the United States a leader in environmentally friendly technology, climate change and environmental awareness – which they should be. He will help develop and implement a clean coal technology program, and work to cut greenhouse gasses 80% by the year 2050.

Condition of Arctic Sea Ice...

Well, a lot of arctic sea ice did in fact melt…even more than scientists had predicted (go figure). The arctic sea ice is now at is 2nd lowest level all time. According to both NASA and the National Snow and Ice Center (located in Boulder, Colorado), the ice on Friday was at 1.74 million square miles, compared to 1.59 million square miles since they began keeping records in 1979. There is no doubt that global warming is a direct result of this, and before long there will be no more arctic sea ice in the summer whatsoever.

And you hear this kind of stuff in the news all the time – global warming is happening at a faster rate than even Al Gore and the biggest environmental conservatives could have ever imagined. It’s time to wake up people, and take a stand against global warming before it really is too late. Stay tuned here for more information as it comes in, and some helpful tips, tricks and techniques you can use at home to do your part in helping to save our precious environment.

It’s too late – but it really is getting down to the wire. Help save Mother Nature, for the sake of you, your children and your children’s children.

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An Inconvenient Truth

Well, obviously no 'eco-friendly' or environmentally-themed website can go without mentioning An Inconvenient Truth- availble on DVD and 2 different books. This is Al Gore's work and claim to fame after losing (winning) the election to George Bush. Whether you know nothing about the climate crisis we face, or if you want to back up your own politics and arguments with facts, or even if you would just like to get a better understand on the concept of Global Warming, An Inconvenient Truthis a must have.

I won't spend a whole lot of time here, because the fact is, the majority of us have probably seen the movie, and we know full well the effects of Global Warming - that's why you're here. But it is definitely worth mentioning An Inconvenient Truthjust because it really is an eye-opener.

Welcome!

Welcome to the Green Blog! There isn't much here as of right now, but soon this blog will be packed full of all the latest news and information regarding environmentally friendly or 'green' issues. So stay tuned for many posts to come, and hopefully the Green blog will become your #1 source when it comes to helping preserve our Earth.