TravelingMel

Yesterday I posted The Story of Stuff. The latest video from Annie Leonard is The Story of Bottled Water.

I promise to get back to photos of cute kids, adorable dogs, handsome husbands and pretty flowers soon. Just humor me by watching one more of these videos. Seriously, I need to be humored; I'm very sensitive.

Have you seen this video, yet? It's all about the extraction, manufacturing and waste that goes into making our stuff. It's interesting, I promise.

This isn't to make anyone feel guilty--we all love stuff. But once in awhile it is good to think about what we are buying. Are we really going to use it? Does it make our life better/happier/more comfortable?

It's worth 21 minutes of your time. Or at least it was worth 21 minutes of my time.

I was cruising Craig's List a couple weeks ago. I was hoping to find an old horse trough to use in the garden like this.

I couldn't find any horse troughs and no one answered the wanted ad I put up. What I did find was an ad for eggs.

We'd love to have chickens, but that's not in the cards right now. We'd love to buy local, free range eggs, but they are close to $6 a dozen in the store. When I saw the add for local, free range eggs for $2 a dozen, I jumped all over it. Now we get eggs delivered to our door every Wednesday.

Free range chickens lay eggs with thicker shells, deeper-colored yolks and better taste. Most importantly, these chickens have good lives. The eggs you normally get from the store come from chickens in really horrible, disgusting situations. I won't go on since you can easily find out about industrialized egg production yourself.

I am ecstatic to find good eggs at a good price. And they come to me.

Frying them up.

H is pretty psyched about the eggs, too.

H is building some new garden beds, so that's taken care of, too. If you come across an old horse trough, grab it for me! I'll still use it.

If you don't already know, H is in Churchill filming polar bears right now. He'll be up there for two more weeks working for an organization called Polar Bears International. Once he gets some of his stuff posted I'll link to it here.

But, until then, here is another video produced for PBI. It's science, folksy music and environmental issues all wrapped up in cuddly polar bear fur. Right up my ally. I even tear up when they talk about the ice pack retreating. It's unbelievably sad that we will probably lose all this in my lifetime.

I posted about PBI and how you can help slow climate change (the polar bears' biggest enemy) at my other blog. And I posted the video here. (I'm just plugging my other blog, you can watch the video below.)

On that note, here's the video (It's more upbeat then I let on. Anders likes it.)

This Saturday, March 28th a worldwide event is taking place called Earth Hour. The plan is that everyone turns off their lights for 1 hour at 8:30 pm local time.

This year, Earth Hour has been transformed into the world’s first global election, between Earth and global warming.

For the first time in history, people of all ages, nationalities, race and background have the opportunity to use their light switch as their vote – Switching off your lights is a vote for Earth, or leaving them on is a vote for global warming. WWF are urging the world to VOTE EARTH and reach the target of 1 billion votes, which will be presented to world leaders at the Global Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen 2009.

This meeting will determine official government policies to take action against global warming, which will replace the Kyoto Protocol. It is the chance for the people of the world to make their voice heard.

This is the third year for Earth Hour, so if you missed the last two (as I did) this is your chance to participate.

Earth Hour began in Sydney in 2007, when 2.2 million homes and businesses switched off their lights for one hour. In 2008 the message had grown into a global sustainability movement, with 50 million people switching off their lights. Global landmarks such as the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Rome’s Colosseum, the Sydney Opera House and the Coca Cola billboard in Times Square all stood in darkness.

You can watch this video to find out more (it's about 3 minutes). It's a little dramatic, but I suppose the situation we are in is also dramatic. And I have to admit it did make me tear up a little bit.

So, if you want to participate cruise on over to the website and get registered! I did.