1. United States (FY08 budget), $623 billion **
2. China (2004), $65 billion
3. Russia, $50 billion
4. France (2005), $45 billion
5. United Kingdom, $42.8 billion
6. Japan (2007), $41.75 billion
7. Germany (2003), $35.1 billion
8. Italy (2003), $28.2 billion
9. South Korea (2003), $21.1 billion
10. India (2005 est.), $19 billion

** Does not include billions in Iraq war spending.

Put another way:

U.S. – $623 billion
The next nine – $348 billion

Steve

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Living in an apartment does not mean you can’t do your part to save the planet, and save a few bucks while doing it. While setting up a compost, or growing your own garden might be difficult for most apartment dwellers, changing your light bulbs and lowering the thermostat aren’t. Here are a few things you can do this week, and how much they will save you and the planet.

	CO2 Saved (lbs/year)	$ Saved ($/year)
Lower water heater temperature to 120°F	214	$12.12
Lower thermostat in winter by 2°F	353	$19.04
Wash clothes in cold water	327	$18.58
Turn off unneeded lights	376	$21.04
Turn off home-office equipment	137	$7.68
Unplug extra fridge in garage	448	$25.04
Use energy-saving mode on appliances	769	$43.04
Increase AC thermostat by 3°F	339	$18.90
Air dry clothes during summer	779	$43.60
Programmable thermostat	1077	$58.10
Efficient showerheads	370	$21.01
Faucet aerators	110	$6.22
Replace 6 interior incandescents	566	$31.68
Replace 1 exterior incandescent	210	$11.76
Total	6075	$337.27

Thanks to the Rocky Mountain Institute for the above numbers. You can find their full report Here Steve

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Some things you can do for the earth are incredibly simple. We all go out to eat from time to time, and in most places, when you sit down the wait staff will place a glass of water down in front of you. If your not going to drink it, just say no. While living in South Florida a few years back they passed a law putting a stop to this wasteful practice. If you wanted water, you had to ask.

And I don’t think I need to mention that even if you are drinking water, say no to the bottled kind.

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On April 30, 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King eloquently broke his silence about the war in Vietnam in a sermon, “Why I am opposed to the War in Vietnam,” that is as relevant today as it was forty years ago. The “video” below is not really a video but an audio of the speech. In many ways, you could replace Vietnam with Iraq and you would believe the speech was made today.

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Steve

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Unfortunately many green lifestyle changes cost money, some a few pennies others thousands (that great hybrid car) But if you look hard you can find many that don’t cost a dime, and are not only good for the earth, but for you too.

Next time you think about getting into that elevator don’t. Pass it by and use the stairs. That elevator uses energy and producing that energy creates CO2 that we can do better off without. An added benefit is the pounds that you will shed. Living green and losing weight, the best of both worlds.

Steve

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They sit balled up and stuffed into the one that hangs from the pantry door, they line bathroom trash bins, they carry clothes to the gym, and they clutter landfills.. They flap from trees, float in the breeze, clog roadside drains, drift on the high seas and they fill sea turtle bellies. In fact, the plastic bag your groceries came in today will live on long after your gone. You can consider them your gift to future generations, or you can do something about it.

First, a few facts: ( Thanks to ReusableBags.com )

- Consumption

# Each year, an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide. That comes out to over one million per minute. Billions end up as litter each year.

# According to the EPA, over 380 billion plastic bags, sacks and wraps are consumed in the U.S. each year.

# According to The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. goes through 100 billion plastic shopping bags annually. (Estimated cost to retailers is $4 billion)

# According to the industry publication Modern Plastics, Taiwan consumes 20 billion bags a year—900 per person.

# According to Australia’s Department of Environment, Australians consume 6.9 billion plastic bags each year—326 per person. An estimated .7% or 49,600,000 end up as litter each year.

- Environmental Impact

# Hundreds of thousands of sea turtles, whales and other marine mammals die every year from eating discarded plastic bags mistaken for food.

# Plastic bags don’t biodegrade, they photodegrade—breaking down into smaller and smaller toxic bits contaminating soil and waterways and entering the food web when animals accidentally ingest.

# As part of Clean Up Australia Day, in one day nearly 500,000 plastic bags were collected.

# Windblown plastic bags are so prevalent in Africa that a cottage industry has sprung up harvesting bags and using them to weave hats, and even bags. According to the BBC, one group harvests 30,000 per month.

# According to David Barnes, a marine scientist with the British Antarctic Survey, plastic bags have gone “from being rare in the late 80s and early 90s to being almost everywhere from Spitsbergen 78° North [latitude] to Falklands 51° South [latitude].

# Plastic bags are among the 12 items of debris most often found in coastal cleanups, according to the nonprofit Center for Marine Conservation.

- Solutions

# In 2001, Ireland consumed 1.2 billion plastic bags, or 316 per person. An extremely successful plastic bag consumption tax, or PlasTax, introduced in 2002 reduced consumption by 90%. Approximately 18,000,000 liters of oil have been saved due to this reduced production. Governments around the world are considering implementing similar measures.

# Each high quality reusable shopping bag you use has the potential to eliminate hundreds, if not thousands, of plastic bags over its lifetime.

Click on the graphic (yup, I know it’s too small to read) and it will take you to a Washington Post article that compares the choice of paper or plastic. The cost to our planet for both make it obvious that we need a different choice. Even knowing the cost of the plastic bags, I was surprised over just how much damage they both do. Yes, paper bags are biodegradable, but the way our landfills are set up, it’s not going to happen. Plus the cost of producing them is doing major damage to our planet.

So, what are we to do. Well, since we can’t stop shopping (well, that is another story) we can at least do so using a smaller footprint. Use reusable shopping bags. A simple search on the internet shows dozens (if not hundreds) of possible links. Here is a good first stop, or until you can get that great hemp bag, you can get bags at your local grocer. (mine has them for 99 cents)

The simple step of getting a couple of reusable shopping bags can go a long way toward saving the planet. While it might be a bit more difficult to start your own compost, or too expensive to get that new hybrid car, the cost of these bags are well within reach of everyone. And its very easy to keep the bags in the car where they will always be ready for you. So, go out today and change the world, buy a reusable shopping bag and feel good about saving the planet.

Steve

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I am always amazed when I look at web page stats that people are still using Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Lets face it, IE has been an over bloated system hog for since it first came out. Add this to the fact that it has so many holes in it that a mack truck could drive right through the code. Virus and Trojan writers love it, as it makes their job so much easier (along with Outlook express, another Microsoft “free” product). So what’s a surfer to do? Why download Firefox if you have not already done so. Firefox is a new type of software, or at least new to many on the internet. Thousands of programmers from around the world work together to create, and then fix if needed, the code for Firefox. While we might need to wait months (if not years) for MS to fix a hole in IE, you will see fixes to bugs or security problems to Firefox within days. Don’t get me wrong, both programs have their bugs, they both have their security problems. In this day and age no software can ever be considered perfect. But Firefox is a much better piece of software for the average or the advanced surfer.

And Firefox is customizable with hundreds of themes and extensions to it. You can change your font size with a single click or control your music player without ever leaving the program. There are so many possibilities that most people can find anything they want. My setup allows me to monitor the weather, see how many minutes I have left on my sprint account (other companies available too), click one button to open my normal morning sites, chat, clip articles for this blog, sync and backup my bookmarks with my computer at work or between my desktop and laptop, view a web site as if I were using IE, and even send a photo I find on the web to my cell phone. These are just a few of the extensions I have installed.

So what are you waiting for, download Firefox (and the email program Thunderbird while your at it) and give them a try. I promise you that not only will you enjoy it, you will never go back to using IE (or Outlook) Currently Firefox 2 is the latest version but Firefox 3 is set to soon be released.

Steve

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This sounds like a strange question, but to the tomato pickers in Immokalee Florida, it is sure to be something crossing their minds these days. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers, the CIW for short, has been working for about 15 years to improve their lives and the lives of their families. Wages for picking tomatoes have not really improved since 1978. At 45 cents for a 32 lb pound bucket, farm workers need to pick and haul over 2 ½ tons just to make minimum wage for a typical 10 hour day. That 99 cent whopper Jr is equal to about 75lbs alone and we are not even counting the fries and coke. The fact is that on their wages, they won’t be eating with the king often.

But this is a story about hate. The kind of hate that makes the king do some very things that may someday cost him his head. So when the surfs (the CIW) rise up, the kings knights (thats the PR guys) ride up to protect him. Farm workers make substantial more than minimum wage, some as high as $12.46 an hour they say. The truth is the labor department says differently reporting a yearly average income of about $10,000. There is no slavery in the fields they cry. The CIW has worked with the Department of Justice on 5 slavery cases since 1997 involving more than 1000 workers. And yet again, slavery in the fields of south Florida has just made headlines around the state and the country. “They can come work for us!” uh yeah right, that one just defied any reasonable clear thought. And so we come to their latest and greatest scam (and they should be hanging from the castle walls for this one) Not happy that YUM! Brands (Taco Bell and company) and McDonalds have worked out agreements with the CIW to pay pickers a penny more a pound, the king has ordered his minions to pick the pockets of farm workers and take that penny away. They are working with right wing storm troopers from the tomato growers and claiming that these companies paying this extra penny per lb are breaking the law. And here is the really great part, they are breaking the law because they are paying the workers directly and not trusting the good hearted bosses to do so. You see they simply can’t stand by and allow the farm workers receive fair pay for picking these tomatoes because they are the bosses and need to keep farm workers in poverty to ensure a willing, needful workforce. After all, where else can you find a job that will pay you that retro 1978 pay? If you’re not outraged by now you may just be reading the wrong blog. But if you’re standing up and calling for justice I got a couple of ideas for ya.

1. Make every day a Day without a whopper. BK did a PR stunt called Whopper Freak-out where they told customers that they discontinued the whopper. Let’s do a Tomato Freak-out where we don’t eat at BK until they serve fair food. You can do it for social justice and a slimmer waste line. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but grab a burrito at Taco Bell or a Big Mac at Ronald’s place. They are both now working with the CIW and raising living standards for farm workers.

2. Write the king yourself and let him know that farm workers are people too and deserve to be treated better than serfs in the fields.

3. Organize! Get some friends together, make some signs, and visit your local burger king. Have fun, and let the king know you intend to have him dethroned.

4. Get more information and work with other on the fair food campaign. CIW, SFA and Alliance for Fair Food web site.

I know of no king who has left his throne without some sort of revolution. Let’s show the self appointed king of burgers to the Fair Food guillotine and force him to do what is right, pay a fair wage for a hard day’s work in the Fields, stop using slave labor to make a profit, and talk directly to farm workers by negotiating with the CIW.

Steve

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