Take a virtual tour of the VCU Rice Center

If you weren't able to take the VCU Rice Center Tour this past Friday during VCU's Day of Sustainability, you can still see this LEED Platinum building through this great video tour.

Do Good While You Walk Your Dog

There is a huge abandoned/feral pet population in Richmond, many of which have no shelter during the cold winter months, have little food to eat, and are at the mercy of illness and wild animal attacks. Saturday March 20th you have a chance to change all this at the 8th annual Dog Jog and 5K run, hosted by the Richmond SPCA. Last year's event raised $108,000 to help orphaned pets housed by this no-kill facility. You can run, jog or walk the 5K, walk with your dog in the 1-mile Dog Jog, buy a raffle ticket, or just show up to attend the vendor fair from 9am to 1pm. Participants may register individually or as part of a team, and have the option of raising donations to benefit the SPCA. As an added bonus, the SPCA will be offering a walk-up microchip clinic for $20 the day of the event, where you can have a small microchip placed under the skin between your pets shoulder blades. The insertion is nearly painless, and as most vets and animal shelters now carry microchip scanners, this can help identify and return your pet to you if they ever become lost.

In addition to keeping animals off the street, the SPCA offers free spaying/neutering for owned cats and dogs for students and low income families in the Richmond area. They also have Pet Pantry and a Wellness Clinic, to provide pet food and medical care to pets from low income families, and a Feral Clinic, where they fix feral cats for free, through the trap-neuter-release program. As socially conscious individuals we owe it to our animal friends to take responsibility for their welfare. Please consider participating in this event, or making a donation. And get your pet spayed or neutered, because the best solution to prevent animal homelessness is to prevent unwanted litters.

Seeds of Suicide

Disturbing exposé on the plight of cotton farmers in India: Seeds of Suicide. Many farmers are persuaded to buy genetically modified (GMO*) seeds, which haven't been properly tested for ease of growing and crop production. These GMO seeds can cost more than five times the amount of traditional cotton seeds, and require costly pesticides, fertilizers, and more water than non-GMOs. GMO seeds are patented, and are not allowed to be saved by farmers for next season's planting. Most farmers are forced to borrow money to buy GMO seeds, pesticides, and fertilizers. When crops fail and the moneylenders come knocking, some farmers are shamed and desperate enough to look for a way out: suicide by drinking their own pesticides.

Some are now turning to organic cotton. Organic methods produce lower yields, but much less risk to the farmer, because they often don't need to borrow money to start their crop, and can save seeds to plant for the next season. For more information and background, go to Frontline.

*Genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, are plants or animals that have had genes (heritable material) permanently added to them to produce desirable traits, like disease resistance, drought tolerance, or increased size of fruit. GMOs are akin to gene therapy, introducing genes into living human cells to cure disease, in which there can be great benefit, but also risk if not carefully planned out and monitored. Watch my blog for an upcoming post with a more in-depth description of GMOs, and possible risks and benefits.

Black Gold

Here's a useful youtube video on how to make your own black gold - compost! Compost can be used as a mulch to keep down weeds, and as a natural fertilizer to help enrich your soil for growing vegetables, flowers, or grass. I think I may follow the tips in this video to make myself another compost bin. I bought a compost bin August 2008 that you could use for anything, including meat (which you can normally never put in compost). It has worked well but is now completely full, and never had enough room for all of my yard waste.

Potatoe Loco

This year I will trying to grow potatoes. I don't know why, but they just seem more intimidating to grow than other vegetables...so I did my homework. As usual, the first place I went was gardenguides.com, and I wasn't disappointed. They had a great article to get me started, plus some instructional videos, with two slightly different methods...

Build Your Own Rain Barrel

Here is a YouTube video by Lowes that helped my husband and I build our rain barrels. We didn't end up using the exact parts they did, but it was useful none the less. We combined the ideas from the Lowes video and this website to come up with the cheapest, most effective design for our needs. There is also a video that shows how to make one using the parts on that website.



You may also find this video helpful:

Green Police

I nearly died laughing when I saw this commercial...Honestly, sometimes I want to go out and bust people's asses for not recycling like the green police! But when I read the comments on youtube I did a double-take. People are FREAKING out about this video. Why is it so controversial? I guess many people are sick of every company putting the 'green' label on their products to increase sales (never mind that many of the sustainability claims they're making are not backed up by fact, and there is often no regulatory body overseeing these claims). Or I guess maybe people think that this could actually happen in the foreseeable future. But honestly, people, asking you to be more sustainable is not an infringement on your rights. It will save you money, and cause less shortfall in the long-term of renewable resources. What's the point of owning a gas guzzling car if there will be no gas to make it run in 20 years?

There has been resistance to many movements, like sustainability, that are ultimately for people's own good. Smoking bans in public places, seatbelt enforcement, and health care reform, to name a few. Yes, change is scary. But comparing the 'green movement' to Nazi Germany is a little over the top, don't you think?