New Moon Risings

The true inspiration for the article Baby Steps to Going Green was my own mother! She is the person who says “I can’t be bothered doing that!”

But there has been a stunning development…She has declared that she will change her light bulbs to CFL’s! OK, not stunning to most of the world, but if you knew my mother, your jaw would be on the ground.

The reason for the change? My nagging and testing the CFL’s first in my own house and Baby Steps to Going Green!

A8’s first full issue is in the books and we decided to stick with a positive note to inaugurate the new format.

With spring in the air, two of our features revolve around gardening…Guerrilla Gardening which is just the coolest thing I’ve heard of all year and NWF’s Backyard Habitat Certification program, a program even apartment dwellers can participate in…we did, so can you! Guerrilla Gardening is such an inspiring concept that I just know I’ll be doing even more things in the near future to embarrass my long-suffering husband…like planting in public!

A big thank you to Wolfgang Puck for his recent decision to be socially conscious of where the food he uses in his restaurants comes from, how it is grown or how the animals are treated. Applause for a report on two recent victories made possible by the folks at Earth Justice. Please consider supporting EarthJustice, they are doing awesome work on behalf of everyone’s home.

Under Meaningful Media you’ll find a link to American Pie, an interactive online experience that lets you divide up the US Federal budget and shows you how they actually spend your tax dollars. I was shocked and more than a bit ticked off.

Mark Fiore’s latest animation related to the recent anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom gets nod for honesty with humor. Mark’s a bit to the left himself, so we’re sure he won’t mind being spotlighted on A8’s left-side menu.

Earth Day is April 22 and we’ve embarked on the Great Gas Challenge. The spirit of Earth Day should be present every day in every individual who espouses a “reverence for nature” but this day is set aside to remind us to tune in and most importantly, to do something.

Since going green can seem like a lot of effort and bother, I’ve written up Baby Steps to Going Green, 6 easy steps to insert greener choices into your life that you will not even notice and take minimal (and I mean minimal) effort.

Beginning April 1, Activ8 will be updated on the first of each month.
New articles, links and completely new features will grace each issue. Previous features will be moved to an archive section sorted by date of issue.

Shop Consciously links seem to be of greatest interest to readers and buying green is a great way to send the message that the Green Movement isn’t just a passing fad, so look for those links to be more efficiently categorized in the future.

Incidentally, the color scheme will revert to orange. Green is ecology but orange is action!

Our latest headline was both difficult and hopeful.

Hopeful in that I do sincerely thank DA Howard for seeking harsher pentalties in cases of animal abuse and in this case in particular. His actions and those who stop for 30 seconds to sign the peition may just influence the laws in other jurisdictions around the country.

Difficult in that I can’t begin to fathom the mental process that brought these two teenage boys to torture then bake a puppy to death. I hope that during their prison time, these two feel 100% of the pure terror and pain that that poor creature felt at their hands.

Does any of that sound harsh? I don’t care. Should I not judge their behaviour because “it is not my place to judge” Bullshit!

Ghandi said that a society can be judged by the way it treats its animals (paraphrasing). If that is the case, what does this incident say about the society and parents that raised these two monsters? That there needs to be more severe pentalties in the slim hope of preventing future incidents of animal cruelty says something to me about the mentality of people in this country, about those who commit the acts and those who sit quietly by and do nothing when they witness incidents of abuse.

After you sign the petition, and I do hope everyone who visits A8 does sign, check out the link on the left to The BioDaVersity Code, an entertaining take on the DaVinci Code that explores how interdependant nature really is.

Links have been added to A8’s Link Library. Eco-conscious brides and grooms might like to check out the three new links in Shop Consciously.

With the weather warming, I’ve been poking around in my garden, which inspired me to add a how to about Container Composting. Even those of us in apartments or with little space to spare can create our own deep, rich, organic compost that our gardens will just love!