Category Archives: Environment

Environment

Do your kids like to explore? #BugWisdom

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7189320582_b21d4444f4_mI remember running around catching lightning bugs and capturing frogs when I was little. My kids like to do this as well and it’s fun seeing them outside exploring. Except of course when Finn then comes in covered with mosquito bites. For his birthday my brother gave him a backyard exploring kit and it was one of the first things he opened and tried out. I have a picture of him looking with a magnifying glass out into our garden bed. Finn has always been an explorer, the photo on this post is from his early explorer days in 2012 when he was three years old.

I bet your kiddos have the same adventurous tendencies and so we’re offering to our readers a Backyard Explorers Kit from Orkin.

The Orkin Backyard Explorers Kit includes:

  • The Orkin 9-Page Activity Bug Book
  • Orkin Bugview Bug Catching Tool and Magnifier
  • Red/Black Summer Wayfarer Sunglasses

Orkin has a new new “Bug Wisdom” video series geared towards children to teach them that some of life’s biggest lessons come from small places. They, being the bug people that they are, understand that bugs are smart, curious creatures and so we can learn a lot from their ways.

Many thanks to @AskTheOrkinMan and the Orkin folks for this giveway opportunity, I know kids everywhere will be super psyched!

To enter the contest you can use the Rafflecopter form below. The contest will end at 12am on Friday, July 18th and we will need the winner to respond within 48 hours with their contact information so the prize can be sent to you. This giveaway is open to the U.S.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Each household is only eligible to win 1 Orkin Backyard Explorers Kit via blog reviews and giveaways. Only one entrant per mailing address per giveaway. If you have won the same prize on another blog, you will not be eligible to win it again. Winner is subject to eligibility verification.

Entertainment, Environment

Super Bowl Ads will be the best part of the game this year for sure

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My husband has to work during the Super Bowl and neither of the teams we like are in the big game so really all it has going for it are the commercials and of course whatever snacks I decide to make for me and the kids.

One of the talked about ads this year will not be airing and it is for SodaStream. Sadly, Pepsi said they simply won’t allow the competition. Coke on the other hand didn’t really care one way or the other, probably because their commercials are usually awesome anyway.

A commercial which will be airing is one by the America’s Wetland Foundation and it has a super cool story.

The America’s WETLAND Foundation (AWF) will launch its new ‘GAME ON!’ campaign to save coastal Louisiana with an advertisement titled ‘Eagle,’ during Super Bowl XLVIII, expected to be one of the most-watched television events of the year.

game-on-ad“Seventy-four percent of people in this state consider saving the coast to be the most important issue of our lifetime,” said AWF Chair R. King Milling, referencing a statewide poll released last week by the Foundation “The public knows we’re out of time. But we have a plan in place, and if we come together now, we have a chance to accomplish something truly extraordinary.”

AWF’s ad will feature young Louisiana football players as part of a call for teamwork to save the coast for future generations. Louisiana loses the equivalent of a football field of land every 50 minutes, a fact first popularized by AWF when it created a virtual ‘flooding’ of LSU’s Tiger Stadium ten years ago to raise awareness of coastal land loss. Since then, the football field metaphor has helped to generate billions of media impressions throughout the country and around the world.

AWF’s poll found that 97 percent of voters believe it will take a team effort of government, industry, education and non-profit organizations to the restore the coast, agreeing that a unified effort is the best hope for coastal restoration and protection, not assigning blame for what has been lost.

“It’s time for us all to get our game on and that’s the message we’re taking to the public on Super Bowl Sunday,” said AWF Senior Advisor Sidney Coffee. “Think of everything that is rooted in the coastal landscape that is disappearing so rapidly – the unique cultures and communities, vital national economic assets, and a truly critical ecosystem of global significance. With so much at stake, we hope this is one of those Super Bowl ads people remember.”

AWF’s new GAME ON! ‘Eagle’ ad will run both before and during Super Bowl coverage on Fox affiliates and Cox Media throughout southern Louisiana. The ad was produced by Compose Digital Design and Marmillion / Gray Media, both based in Baton Rouge.

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Environment

Are you ready for some football? Louisiana’s coast is gearing up for MNF on 9/30

AW_logoThe America’s WETLAND Foundation will be showcased at the nationally televised Monday Night Football game between the New Orleans Saints and the Miami Dolphins on September 30, 2013.

This news comes to us just as I have learned that Ruth Patrick has died at the age of 105 years old. Patrick, recipient of dozens of the nation’s top science awards including the National Medal of Science, died Monday at The Hill at Whitemarsh retirement community in Lafayette Hill, Pa., according to the Academy of Natural Sciences at Drexel University. She would have loved to know that a cause near and dear to her heart was going to be receiving national recognition at a popular sporting event.

The Saints will honor the Foundation for its efforts to bring all interests to the table to find solutions to Louisiana’s coastal land loss and to raise a regional voice to the nation and the world about the ecological and economic value of the state’s endangered coast. This is the second year in a row the Saints have honored AWF.

“In the time it will take the Saints to beat the Dolphins Monday night, Louisiana will lose the equivalent of four football fields of land,” said Val Marmillion, Managing Director of AWF. “The Saints are helping us get the word out so we can turn the tide in securing our coast’s vital assets,” Marmillion said.

Participating in the presentation will be AWF board chairman R. King Milling and his wife, founding member of Women of the Storm, Anne Milling, along with Val Marmillion. AWF’s popular action heroes, the Estuarians, will also be on hand.

Environment

Be the Buffy to your Vampire Energy

vampire-energyDid you know billions of dollars are wasted each year on electricity for appliances in homes that are “turned off?”

Yesterday, the Earth Day Network introduced their first action of the series: Slaying Vampire Energy. Even when appliances are turned off, they still consume electricity, called “Vampire Energy.” Each year, vampire energy is estimated to cost US consumers $11 billion. Since the majority of electricity is produced by fossil fuel power plants, vampire energy is also responsible for millions of tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year!

Fortunately, there are several easy steps we can take to cut down on vampire energy. Unplug appliances and chargers when they are not in use, plug appliances into power strips, which can be easily turned on and off with one button, or replace old appliances with energy efficient models.

Make the pledge to reduce the amount of electricity wasted in your home today! Tell your friends! And be sure to engage with the Earth Day Network on Twitter: #ActOfGreen.

Environment

Save America’s Pollinators Act

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super-beeMy dear friend Claudia is a big supporter of this cause as she has her own apiary. I have learned a great deal from her regarding the bees plight and it has become something I follow.

Representatives John Conyers (D, MI) and Earl Blumenauer (D, OR) have taken a major step to protect pollinators. They have recently introduced the Save America’s Pollinators Act, calling for the suspension of a certain class of systemic pesticides that are killing bees: neonicotinoids (“neonics” for short).

Just last month, 50,000 bumblebees were killed in a parking lot in Oregon by these very chemicals. This past spring, the European Union placed a two year ban on most neonics.

This bill calls for the suspension of neonics on plants attractive to bees until a full review of scientific evidence indicates they are safe and a field study demonstrates no harmful impacts to pollinators.

You can read the entire Act on the Center for Food Safety website.

I urge your support of H.R. 2692, the Save America’s Pollinators Act.

Tell your Representative to support the Save America’s Pollinators Act and protect our bees!

Environment

Glad to know the First Dog’s Carbon Footprint Is Reduced

Sungevity highlights benefits of solar energy in response to President Obama's climate change plan. (PRNewsFoto/Sungevity, Inc.)
Sungevity highlights benefits of solar energy in response to President Obama’s climate change plan. (PRNewsFoto/Sungevity, Inc.)

Okay this is cute and everything, but solar panels are not cheap and really how much electricity was that dog running? I know people somewhere thought this was a cute idea and yes I am laughing, but man I bet President Obama will catch flack for this one.

Sungevity and First Dog, Bo, today announced that the solar panels installed on his Presidential doghouse have successfully reduced his carbon paw print, and he is hounding President Obama to follow suit. Bo’s announcement follows an impassioned speech by the President in which he urged Americans to redouble their efforts in the fight against climate change. Bo’s 100-watt solar power system, which he leases from leading residential solar company, Sungevity, provides clean energy for his home’s electric fan, lighting, and electronics, all while lowering his electricity bill. Not one to sit and stay, Bo hopes to teach President Obama this new trick for addressing climate change, creating jobs and saving money all at the same time.

“Bo begged his owner to address climate change, and today the President did just that,” said Sungevity co-founder Danny Kennedy. “Bo is throwing President Obama a bone and showing him what the rest of the country already knows – that solar power is cleaner, more affordable, and better for America and the world than traditional dirty energy. Good boy, Bo.”

SMH.

Bo is a pretty smart dog.

Environment

Happy Earth Day #googledoodle

googledoodle_earthdayGoogle has an interactive Doodle on their main search engine page in honor of Earth Day. Be sure to check it out and watch while the sun rises and sets through an animated nature scene.

For some neat Earth Day Printables check out my post from earlier this month.

Curiosity.com from Discovery has a super cool video which is supposed to be Earth Day in the year 2020. It starts off with warning Manhattan of a tsunami. Wow, quite a prediction for something only 7 years out. It’s pretty realistic while you listen, I wonder what Manhattan would do in such a scenario. Interesting to think about.