In the news again were some chilling findings that a slew of everyday bath products made for kids had dangerous levels of carcinogens. Like any Mother, my reaction is deep resentment and anger for these big companies that let things like this happen for years, and how lethal ingredients like formaldehyde and 1,4-dioxane is found in every day items we put on our bodies. Both substances are known to cause cancer, so when you think about it, it somewhat explains why so many people in the world today have the terrible disease.

What I find especially disturbing is that in the list are brands that most families like mine have trusted for years, believing they were safe for our children. Products like Johnson’s Baby Shampoo, which my husband still loves! The group who uncovered the dirty facts were non-profit Campaign For Safe Cosmetics, and here’s some of what they said:

” Despite marketing claims like “gentle” and “pure,” dozens of top-selling children’s bath products are contaminated with the cancer-causing chemicals formaldehyde and 1,4-dioxane, according to the March 2009 Campaign for Safe Cosmetics report, “No More Toxic Tub.”

This study is the first to document the widespread presence of both formaldehyde and 1,4-dioxane in bath products for children, including baby shampoos, bubble baths and baby lotions. Many products tested contained both chemicals.
The chemicals were not disclosed on product labels because they’re contaminants, not ingredients, and therefore are exempt from labeling laws.

Formaldehyde contaminates personal care products when common preservatives release formaldehyde over time in the container. Common ingredients likely to contaminate products with formaldehyde include quaternium-15, DMDM hydantoin, imidazolidinyl urea and diazolidinyl urea.

1,4-dioxane is a byproduct of a chemical processing technique called ethoxylation, in which cosmetic ingredients are processed with ethylene oxide. Manufacturers can easily remove the toxic byproduct, but are not required by law to do so. Common ingredients likely to be contaminated with 1,4-dioxane include PEG-100 stearate, sodium laureth sulfate, polyethylene and ceteareth-20.

The key bit there I think is: “Manufacturers can easily remove the toxic byproduct, but are not required by law to do so.” So when the group conducted the study, they found that there were still large amounts of the toxins which meant that the companies didn’t bother to remove the poisonous byproducts. WHY?

Around the world, several countries have already taken measures to ensure that their baby products are safe, like in China, where they are being removed from supermarket shelves and undergoing more testing. Japan and Sweden have already banned formaldehyde from personal care products.

Aside from 1,4-dioxane and formaldehyde, watch out for these baddies too:

peg-100 stearate, sodium laureth sulfate, polyethylene and ceteareth-20, quaternium-15, DMDM hydantoin, imidazolidinyl urea, diazolidinyl urea and sodium hydroxymethoylglycinate.

For the full list of tested products as well as more information, check out the article here.

With housing prices slumping all over the world, Gerd Niemoeller’s invention, The Universal World House, couldn’t have come at a better time. Primarily designed for refugees and migrants in the third world, the prototype costs just $5,000 for 36 sq.m, weighs a mere 800 kilos and can be set up virtually anywhere.

Gerd Niemöller said recently in Der Speigel:
” From the very beginning, our goal was to create practical, environmentally sustainable, and, most importantly, cheap living quarters for the slums of the Earth….Now, that is possible.”

So if it’s paper, will it blow away? And what exactly is it made of? Well, the answer is NO, it won’t blow away. It’s made of resin-soaked cellulose made from recycled materials – cardboard and newspapers. The material actually resembles a honeycomb and is extremely resilient to the weather when an air vacuum fills each of the units. Its being flexible also means it is virtually earthquake-proof!

Niemöller’s company who patented the house reported that thousands of orders have already been made, mostly from Africa, through organizations like World Vision. The paper house is a much better alternative to the tin and plywood shanties seen in many developing areas of the world, especially as it used recycled materials. According to an article in the London Times, it was built so that families can slaughter their dinner on the veranda, and conveniently hang the meat out to dry in the bathroom’s line:

“The house has eight built-in single and double beds and a veranda with a sealed-off area housing a shower and a lavatory. It has been designed together with the German development aid agency GTZ, and with the architect Dirk Donath, from the Bauhaus University in Weimar.

Apart from the sleeping area, there are shelves, a table and benches. It has been designed so that a family can slaughter an animal on the veranda, wash it in the shower and hang it, along with fish, on an integrated washing line. The whole wall of the kitchen can be tipped open to let air in and to blur the distinction between inside and outside. “

Effects Of Cell Phone Radiation With Green Planet Armour

For years, my spouse, an anti-technology dinosaur, has been preaching the danger of cellphones. He’s always owned one though (pre-paid), rather begrudgingly, never turning it on unless absolutely necessary, much to my annoyance. Well, the other day he told me it was time I did some research on the dangers of cellphones and do a post on it on YURTO as he reckoned most people use their cellphones at home even if it was invented for use outside of the home.

What I found was basically that cellphones emitted radiation, which when given in large doses, is indeed dangerous. In fact, I read this very disturbing article in the UK Telegraph, wherein a noted brain specialist says that “mobile phones are more dangerous than smoking” and was the reason for the rise in brain tumors.

Mobile phones could kill far more people than smoking or asbestos, a study by an award-winning cancer expert has concluded. He says people should avoid using them wherever possible and that governments and the mobile phone industry must take “immediate steps” to reduce exposure to their radiation.

The study, by Dr Vini Khurana, is the most devastating indictment yet published of the health risks.

It draws on growing evidence – exclusively reported in the IoS in October – that using handsets for 10 years or more can double the risk of brain cancer. Cancers take at least a decade to develop, invalidating official safety assurances based on earlier studies which included few, if any, people who had used the phones for that long.

Obviously, the mobile phone people has dismissed the professor’s claims as baloney, and a large study in the UK has shown little evidence, BUT it also said:

Professor Challis, emeritus professor of physics at the University of Nottingham, said: “It all sounds pretty reassuring and that is good. But we cannot rule out the possibility that cancer could appear in a few years. The epidemiological evidence is not good enough and most cancers take longer than 10 years to develop.

So I am inclined to agree with hubby, but am not quite prepared to give up my phone (what if there was an emergency with the kids while I was out?). Luckily, there is a company addressing this, and their product is something we should all get, short of giving up your portable.

Green Planet Armour is a nifty little product you can easily connect to your electronic device which uses nano technology to combat the ill effects of radiation. Check out their website today.

Global warming or climate change means that the Earth is being affected by the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere largely because of man, industry and globalization. Think of the carbon like a thick wooly blanket that keeps the hot air in, making the Earth hotter than it has been in 650,000 years, resulting in shocking images we’ve all been suddenly exposed to – like polar bears clinging onto tiny patches of ice because so much has melted. And have you noticed that there seem to be an awful lot of tropical storms around the world, more violent and more widespread than you remember growing up?

Do you find the picture above as disturbing as I do?

Here are some of the shocking facts, according to the National Geographic:

• Average temperatures have climbed 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.8 degree Celsius) around the world since 1880, much of this in recent decades, according to NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

• The rate of warming is increasing. The 20th century’s last two decades were the hottest in 400 years and possibly the warmest for several millennia, according to a number of climate studies. And the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports that 11 of the past 12 years are among the dozen warmest since 1850.

• The Arctic is feeling the effects the most. Average temperatures in Alaska, western Canada, and eastern Russia have risen at twice the global average, according to the multinational Arctic Climate Impact Assessment report compiled between 2000 and 2004.

• Arctic ice is rapidly disappearing, and the region may have its first completely ice-free summer by 2040 or earlier. Polar bears and indigenous cultures are already suffering from the sea-ice loss.

• Glaciers and mountain snows are rapidly melting—for example, Montana’s Glacier National Park now has only 27 glaciers, versus 150 in 1910. In the Northern Hemisphere, thaws also come a week earlier in spring and freezes begin a week later.

• Coral reefs, which are highly sensitive to small changes in water temperature, suffered the worst bleaching—or die-off in response to stress—ever recorded in 1998, with some areas seeing bleach rates of 70 percent. Experts expect these sorts of events to increase in frequency and intensity in the next 50 years as sea temperatures rise.

• An upsurge in the amount of extreme weather events, such as wildfires and strong tropical storms, is also attributed in part to climate change by some experts.

To become more active and do your bit to stop this, visit Stop Global Warming.

Enter “Eco Balls”, amazing little balls which, when thrown into your wash, do all the work your regular soap does (and claim to kill bacteria too) without any chemicals, detergents and the like. When you work out what you save on soap, the savings are enormous, with something like 6 cents a load with the balls, to approx. 80 cents with detergent, more depending on what brand you buy. You can buy kits which come with refills, stain remover (it doesn’t do that great with heavy stains) as well as dryer balls for “fabric softer” role.

So does it really work? While I wait for my order to arrive, I found a good review worth checking out. The verdict? Some liked it, others were disappointed with its cleaning power. There was also one complaint about how the ball came apart and broke her washing machine. Either way, its a product I think worth trying out for yourself -because I think eliminating detergents would be a great thing.

The sisters at the Holy Wisdom Monastery would prove our perceptions wrong, though. Their priority is to live a green life. Indeed, they consider green living a spiritual calling!

Run by three Benedictine sisters, the monastery aims to establish the most eco-friendly and sustainable building in the United States – no small feat! According to Sister Mary David Walgenbach, “People who know us see it as falling out of our mission. They see it as something they would expect from us. People who don’t know us, who come into the building, are surprised by its elegance and simplicity. And they ask the same question: ‘Why would a small community of women do such a thing?’” But when we talk to them about who we are and why we think it’s important to do this, and, in our day and age, why it’s even more important that our religious people think about caring of the Earth, then they’re very open to that.”

Their building is up and running and holds the distinction of getting 63 out of 69 points from the U.S. Green Building Council. I think heaven’s on their side!

This is what’s wrong, according to famed journalist Steve Lopez:

The U2 guitarist is lining up political muscle and environmentalist star power to support constructing his eco-friendly castles on a pristine ridge near Malibu. What’s greener? Not building at all.

And I can’t keep a straight face when I tell you that the five eco-friendly castles Mr. Edge wants to carve into the top of a pristine ridge near Malibu already have names. There’s “Clouds Rest” and “Panorama,” “Shell House” and “Blue Clouds.” And my personal favorite, “Leaves in the Wind.”

I think that the phrase “pristine ridge” says it all. As much as I love U2 – as much as I admire The Edge – I cannot find an argument convincing enough that would support tearing down that prime piece of untouched nature. Not even eco-friendly houses. It just seems extremely excessive to me. Why would his family need FIVE houses? Sure, he has the money to go all out; but that money could go somewhere else without having to tear down something that cannot be replaced, don’t you think?

We ask all blog publishers to help bring awareness to the world today on the dire situation with climate change and the need for action!

Why Climate Change?

Climate change affects us all and it threatens more than the environment. It threatens to cause famine, flooding, war, and millions of refugees.

Given the urgency of the issue of climate change and the upcoming international climate negotiations in Copenhagen this December, we think the blogosphere has the unique opportunity to mobilize millions of people around expressing support for finding a sustainable solution to the climate crisis.

Suggested Posts

We encourage you to write about climate change in the context of how it relates to the topic of your blog. To help you start thinking, here are a few ideas about how you might connect climate change to things that you might already write about:

* A Technology or Business blog might write about emerging clean tech and how innovative companies might be able to help address the problem of climate change.

* A Health or Lifestyle blog might write about how climate change will affect our children’s health and daily living.

* A Nonprofit or Political blog might write about how climate change is deeply connected to many other issues – such as poverty and conflict.

* A Design blog might write about new trends in eco-friendly or sustainable design.

* A Travel blog might write about the places you want to see now before climate change makes them difficult to access or, well, under the sea.

Please join the 7,037 blogs in 135 countries and 11,211,921 readers in uniting over this urgent issue!

Those people should sit up and pay attention now. Have you heard about what happened in the Philippines? They received immense amounts of rain, thanks to tropical typhoon Ondoy (International name Ketsana). Overnight, the city roads became rivers. Their actual rivers overflowed, dumping water into the communities. Even today, countless people are struggling to regain a semblance of the life that they once had. Just take a look at the major news web sites and you will see with your own eyes the havoc that this typhoon brought upon the country.

Some say it’s because of the dams that were opened. Others say that it was simply the rain. I think that it can be a combination of both, that global warming is starting to make its effects felt in a more radical way. Oh, we’ve felt the effects of the degradation of the environment for many years now. The climate change all over the world can hardly be ignored. But when lives start being messed around with, I think more people are going to notice.

What do you think? Is global warming a myth or has it cost you anything yet?

If you’re looking to help the victims of typhoon Ondoy in the Philippines, here is a link to the PayPal account of the Philippine National Red Cross. They would surely appreciate your help.

So which schools are the coolest? (Drum roll, please!)

1. University of Colorado at Boulder (Boulder, Colorado)
2. University of Washington at Seattle (Seattle, Washington)
3. Middlebury College (Middlebury, Vermont)
4. University of Vermont (Burlington, Vermont)
5. College of the Atlantic (Bal Harbor, Maine)
6. Evergreen State College (Olympia, Washington)
7. University of California at Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz, California)
8. University of California at Berkeley (Berkeley, California)
9. University of California at Los Angeles (Los Angeles, California)
10. Oberlin College (Oberlin, Ohio)
11. Harvard University (Cambridge, Massachusetts)
12. University of New Hampshire (Durham, New Hampshire)
13. Arizona State University at Tempe (Tempe, Arizona)
14. Yale University (New Haven, Connecticut)
15. University of Florida at Gainesville (Gainesville, Florida)
16. Bates College (Lewiston, Maine)
17. Willamette University (Salem, Oregon)
18. Warren Wilson College (Asheville, North Carolina)
19. Dickinson College (Carlisle, Pennsylvania)
20. New York University (New York, New York)

If your school is in that list, good for you! If not, you may want to start an initiative that will get your school to do its part in the fight for conserving and preserving the only home that we all have.