Here’s another reason. The Arizona Republic reports:

More than 265 teenagers from 44 U.S. states and nine Canadian provinces will meet at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff from Monday to Aug. 3 to participate as finalists in North America’s largest high-school environmental-education competition: the 2008 Canon Envirothon.

Teams will be tested on knowledge of soils and land use, aquatic ecology, forestry, wildlife, and a current environmental issue. This year’s current-issue topic for the competition is “Recreational Impacts on Natural Resources.” Students will analyze long-term and short-term environmental, social and economic factors relative to recreational impacts upon natural resources and their management.

Participants will compete for a share of more than $125,000 in educational scholarships and Canon products. The competition is organized by the National Association of Conservation Districts in the U.S., the U.S. Department of Agriculture and its Natural Resource Conservation Service, and the U.S. Forest Service.

Wow. That does not sound like an easy competition!

Recreational impact on natural resources is an important subject to me and an issue that the National Park Service grapples with constantly. Does rock climbing harm Devil’s Tower? Do power boats disrupt wildlife at Voyageurs National Park or the Everglades National Park? Is snowmobiling in Yellowstone really that big of a deal?

Looking at the few comments readers left on the Arizona Republic article, some folks think no, not really. One commenter suggests:

“Recreational Impacts on Natural Resources.” Translation: If you kiddies want any of our grant money, you must submit to our global warming eco-whacko brainwashing and stop having any kind of recreational fun. No hunting, fishing, offroading, four wheeling, hiking, biking, horseback riding. . No fun allowed in the future. Get it? You want fun? Keep it in your house.

What do you think?

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HGTV shares a list of Garage Sale Strategies to optimize your time and your dollar.  But I think the basics are:

• plan ahead,
• chart a route,
• start early,
• know what you are looking for and what you are willing to spend and
• don’t be afraid to haggle.

There is always a balance to be found between how bad you want something and how badly someone wants to get rid of it.  I know because last summer was the summer of garage sales for me, my husband, brother and any willing friend we could enlist. My parents were selling their house and our collective goal was to eliminate the need for a storage shed and minimize the amount of Stuff we would each get handed over to us and expected to add to our already-full households. We knew before we even set up in the mornings which items we were sick of looking at and would give up at any price and those that were a little more dear. Sure, I’ll say it - I waited until just the right little girl came by to give up my rocking horse. I needed to know it was going to get a good home.

Now that we are trying to transition most of the plastics out of our home, I am finding myself frequenting garage sales as a buyer more and more. How hard is it to find a non-plastic ice cube tray? you would not believe. In fact, I am still looking.

So, I will be out and about on August 9th. Will I see you around?

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With all the talk surrounding carbon footprints lately, it might be easy to forget that there are other natural resources in short supply.

H2OConserve.com helps you calculate your water footprint. How?

The Calculator gives you an estimate of the total amount of water you use, what is called your water footprint. The Calculator takes into account not only the water used in your home, but also the water used to produce the food you eat and the products you buy. Your water footprint includes other factors such as water utilized to cool power plants that provide your electricity, and water saved when you recycle. You may not drink, feel or see this water, but it makes up the great majority of your water footprint.

I took the test and scored lower than the national average, but not as low as I’d hoped. Here are the tips H2O Conserve gave me to lower my score:

• You do not have any low-flow faucets in your home. By switching to low-flow faucets, you can reduce your water flow by 3.5 gallons per minute.
• Your household uses over 15 gallons per person per day just for the laundry. Consider doing your laundry less often, and make sure that you only use your washing machine when it is completely full.
• Your household uses more than 1 gallon per person per day on the dishes, which is the national average. You may want to consider getting a low-flow dishwasher, and try to use fewer dishes when you cook and serve meals.

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Her favorite band is partnering with PickupPal to help fans find and share rides to and from all of their concerts for this summer’s tour. How cool is that?

The carpool is just a piece of the greenness that the Dave Matthews Band hopes to share with you. According to their website, here is more of the green:

• Calculated and neutralized the carbon footprint of the tour
• Biodiesel fueling for touring fleet
• Waste reduction and recycling backstage
• Biodegradable and compostable catering products
• Eco-friendly merchandise
• Green sponsorship

Fan Education and Outreach

• Interactive Ride-share program with Pickup Pal
• Reverb Eco-Village set up at each show
  • Local and National Non-profits
  • Green Technologies
  • Fan carbon offset program
  • Eco-friendly consumer sampling
• Informational eco-concert program distributed to fans
• Greening Website

Check out the Bama Green Project website to find out how you can volunteer at the Dave Matthews shows and become even greener in your own lives.

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Alas, much of a badass I like to think that I am, my air conditioner is running. And it probably will be a few more times this summer.

Even with the air on, my goal has been to keep our electric bill below 80 bucks a month. So far, I’ve been successful. How?

• We keep the thermostat set at 79 degrees. So it’s not frigid in here, but our books aren’t wilting with humidity either.
• We turn it off at night and opt for a small fan to circulate the cool air.
• Shades are drawn on the hottest side of the apartment. In the morning, that means the kitchen. Late afternoons - the living room and my office.

And, when the air conditioner running, it seems as if I am more aware of other energy suckers in the house. I make deals with myself: “Ok, you can keep the air on, but you have to shut down your computer. Not stand by….shut the darn thing down.”  Or, “Did you unplug the toaster and coffee pot? no? Well I guess you get to sweat a little longer, don’t you missy….”

Do you do this too? (Search for ways to be  more energy efficient, not talk to yourself. You don’t have to tell me that)

Lucky for us, Co-op America has just posted an article on Steps for Energy Efficiency. They’ve broken it into 3 levels of activity - things you can do right now,  things that take a little more time but yield a lot more savings, and then finally, bigger changes, bigger paybacks.

I’m stuck on level 2 since I don’t own the place where I live so therefore, don’t have much say over my windows, roof, etc. But perhaps your not. Each section includes the how, the why and where to start for each tip. Nice! This should grant me at least a few more hours in the cool.

The mission of Co-op America is to harness economic power—the strength of consumers, investors, businesses, and the marketplace—to create a socially just and environmentally sustainable society.

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Nothing major. It will probably go from, “hmmm, that Gab is a little odd” to “man, that Gab is really odd.” I can live with that.

Here’s my confession: I sleep better at night with a Go Bag by my door and a car equipped with spare water, food, a camp stove, tent and other survival essentials. Ok fine, here’s another confession - maybe we just haven’t fully unpacked it yet from our two-year road trip.

I don’t consider myself a survivalist. I make no promises that I can go out and hunt, kill and cook my own food if necessary. Good lordessa no. And I’m no nihilist. I’m not stockpiling my basement full of silver, guns and end-of-the-world type stuff “just in case.”

(Nevermind that I have neither silver, guns nor a basement.)

I just like to be mobile.

I like to know that should something (anything, nothing) happen and I need/want to split, I can. And I am so, so lucky to have a partner that shares this mindset.

When I lived in Poland, it was such a pain in the *ss to get back to my apartment at the end of the tram line that I probably spent more nights at friends’ families’ homes than my own. So there was that Go Bag: packed with a toothbrush, some zloty (cash), a walkman, a journal and pen, spare underwear and a couple of scribbled lesson plans (in case I wouldn’t get home before work the next day).

Zloty and a walkman. Jeez am I dating myself?

Living in Santiago, almost all of our friends remembered huge earthquakes that shook their families and left them scrambling out of their homes at all hours of the night when they were kids. So the fact that our apartment had a go bag filled with emergency supplies just meant we were like everyone else.

9/11, subsequent security threats and national disasters have brought the concept of Go Bags to a much larger population in the United States. I am guessing that I am not the only person in my apartment building with one. But I’m not sure.

So here’s my question: do you have a Go Bag? What’s in it?

If you’re curious about what other folks have in theirs, here are a few links:

New York City Office of Emergency Management -simple, small, easy to do

Kobenhavn Kinshasa - and Back

The American Red Cross - cause some folks might not feel like packing their own.

Doyle & MacDonald - this page actually has packing lists for 4 different kinds of Go Bags -first aid, wilderness rescue, urban bag and one for evacuation and deployment. As you can see, the author of this page is a former military officer and a current Nationally Registered Wilderness EMT-I.

And this site - OneBag.com - is absolutely fantastic for all of the bags you need to pack. Bookmark this one now.

(If you’re wondering what got me off on this little kick today, blame National Geographic’s Six Degrees Could Change the World being on TV this morning.)

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