Ever notice the warning labels on paints contains such statements as, “known to the State of California to cause cancer in humans,” and the extra “California” section on your water filter instructions?  It seems California does a pretty good job of researching chemicals and putting regulations into place to protect their citizens.  

Manufacturers, not wanting to miss out on the huge California population, will usually bend to these rules, even if it means listing something as carcinogenic on the label, if they get to continue selling their products in California.  The rest of us reap the rewards!

According to The Daily Green, 30 more chemicals were just listed by the State of California to be toxic in one or more ways.  Check ‘em out – In the words of The Daily Green

Male Reproductive Toxicants

1. n-Butyl glycidyl ether, a chemical used to make epoxy resins with a number of uses in common products
2. Carbaryl, a household pesticide used to kill a range of insects, and sold as Sevin by GardenTech and Bayer (also a developmental toxicant)
3. 2-Chloropropionic acid, a chemical used to make herbicides
4. Dichloroacetic acid, which forms in drinking water as a byproduct of disinfection using chlorine
5. Diglycidyl ether, a chemical used to make epoxy resins
6. Ethylene oxide, a chemical mainly used in the manufacturing of chemicals like antifreeze and polyester (also a developmental toxicant)
7. Ethyl-tert-butyl ether, a common gasoline additive
8. Methyl chloride, a chemical used primarily to make silicone polymers, but also used in other processes, including the oil refining
9. Methyl n-butyl ketone, an industrial solvent
10. Phenyl glycidyl ether, an industrial chemical
    

Do you think that colleges and universities will be more or less inclined to green their facilities in the wake of the recession?  

I was reading about different ways colleges are trying to reduce their costs of operations and turned up some greener options being taken on, mostly as a way to save money.  According to this New York Times story by Tamar Lewin, the savings are in some ways favoring the environment as well.

Here are a few highlights:

Most widespread, most proudly announced — and, it seems, most likely to have nicknames — are cost-cutting programs that help sustainability. Hundreds of colleges and universities are turning down their thermostats to save on heating, in programs like “Chill-Out” at Davidson College in North Carolina.

And:

Cafeterias, too, are saving money, cutting food waste and reducing hot-water and detergent costs by eliminating trays. When Whittier began “Trayless Tuesdays” last fall, lunchtime food waste dropped to 4.6 ounces per student from 7.4 ounces — and the college saved almost $30,000 a semester after going fully trayless in the spring.

Last week, the New York Times published Neighbor, Can You Spare a Plum? by Kim Severson that detailed the growth of foraging for fruit.  

In Royal Oak, Mich., a woman investigated how to start a fruit exchange modeled after Fallen Fruit (fallenfruit.org), an arts group that designs maps of accessible fruit growing in Los Angeles neighborhoods.

In Alaska, cooks used Facebook to find willing donors of backyard rhubarb, the first dessert crop that grows after the long winter. In Columbia, S.C., university students pulled spare peaches from orchards and donated them to a local food bank.

Supporters of this movement hold two basic principles. One, it’s a shame to let fruit go to waste. And two, neighborhood fruit tastes best when it’s free.

Wow, so people taking advantage of the wealth of fruit trees and bushes in people’s yards.  Sounds great, but pickers should be aware that asking first is the best policy:

Green Life Project is a weekly series of posts highlighting one change for readers to make in order to gradually green their lives.

This week’s Green Life Project action item is to get and use a library card (or use the one you already have). Get in this habit rather than first buying and then seeing if you like the book. If you like it enough that you really want to own it, after checking it out of the library, then go purchase it!

How is a library card making my life greener? You may have already picked up on it! I want to read a book and instead of buying it, essentially spending money and creating demand for the production of a book made from paper and shipped to a store. Most of my books, once I’ve read them (provided that I actually read them entirely), end up sitting on the shelf, maybe not being picked up again until the bookshelves or I need to move.  I have occasionally sold them on Amazon, passing them on to someone else, but there’s a cheaper, greener way to do this process.

I’ll probably be adding more posts like yesterday’s and today’s which include video highlights of lectures and speeches from fora.tv.

Here’s Bill McKibben talking about the urgency, the emergency status of global warming. He discusses feedback loops and the point at which we may not be able to do anything about global warming.

I was checking out fora.tv today and found this video.  Check it out!  He talks about living in Colorado using a very efficient, well-insulated home, recycling the heat from water, etc.

Think again!  Check out this video!  Found here.

It seems that in the upcoming Wiwa v. Shell trial, the judge had Wiwa remove the video from its website. Don’t let this short documentary about murder and human rights abuses be silenced. Please share it on blogs, Facebook, and other places!

Here on Earthascope, when we talk about dirty sources of fuel, we’re usually talking about the environmental impact, which in turn, is having, and increasingly will, impact humans.

In this case, Shell’s drilling of oil directly and dramatically impacted a people, environmental impact aside.

This coming week, I will be posting an article by Earthascope’s very first guest writer, Dan Harrison, from EnviroGadget.com!  We are excited to feature his work on our site.  We also wanted to let our readers know that as a way to bring new voices to the discussion we host here, we will strive to bring more guest writers as time goes on.

I would encourage readers to visit Dan Harrison’s blog, EnviroGadget, as well as Low Power PCs.  His work is focused on gadgets and tech that can help users to use less of our finite resources.  I applaud his efforts and would enjoy having him back on Earthascope for future posts!

With that, I would like to open the door to other contributors who may want to get involved with writing stories here on Earthascope.  Please simply contact us and let us know that you are interested.

Check out for Dan’s guest post, Great Gadgets for your Eco-Friendly Kitchen, which features three green gadgets for your home!  Coming up here on Earthascope next Monday!

Green Life Project is a weekly series of posts highlighting one change for readers to make in their life in order to gradually green their lives.

This week’s Green Life Project action item is to pick up one piece of litter each day.  

Oh, and after this week, continue the good habit.  

Simple?  Yes!  Easy?  Maybe not for all of us.

Picking up a piece of litter (or many pieces) was something taught to me by my parents, and even more so, that littering itself was, “bad.”  My dad used to take a bucket to pick up litter along the road of our very rural property, which always included beer bottles, food wrappers, and cigarettes.

But over the last few years, I have rarely picked up litter, my squeamishness about “dirty” garbage getting the better of me.  I also feel watchful eyes on me, as if it’s something to be embarrassed about.  I’ve gotten over both of these and have begun to pick up the errant bottle or plastic bag here and there and either recycle, or, at the very least, throw it into the garbage.  Some days I miss, and some days I pick up several pieces to make up the difference.

I realize that while this is a simple act, for many possible reasons, it may not be that, “easy” for all of us to perform.  For the vast majority of us, I consider them excuses to be overcome, and let me from here explain why picking up a piece of garbage everyday can make for a much cleaner planet.  I realize we will all miss days — I know I have — but try to do one per day and I know that you’ll often double up on other days.

I read this opinion piece on The Huffington Post this week and found it especially intriguing.  Sure, $3 million is a lot to you and I, but they say it is enough to endow a research center and, by association, the preservation of a green space?  Wow!

From that piece:

So, how do we ensure that these treasures survive to inspire our descendants and teach them about the many-layered complexities of life? A permanent research presence goes a long way towards protecting a parcel of nature in perpetuity, while simultaneously building a better understanding of that parcel. Terborgh and Sinclair both estimate that it would cost a minimum of $3 million to endow their respective field stations, forever. In Peru, the revenue flowing from such an endowment would pay the salaries of two permanent scientific directors and cover the scant operating costs of the rustic station. In Tanzania, the goal is to underwrite the training and permanent presence of additional Tanzanian scientists, spreading the sense of stewardship of the country’s living assets.

Okay, so where does such money come from?  Well, I worked for the advancement office for my college while in school, and we handled endowments as alums and others donated different sums of money for professorships.  Schools and other non-profits alike have a development or advancement office, charged with bringing in both small and large donations for the institutions.  Typically, $1 million or more would endow a chair for a professorship, which meant that a professor who earned the title would be given extra resources, assistants, equipment, etcetera, to carry out teaching and research in a specific field, using the interest from the endowment each year for expenses.