Share and Voice: St. Olaf Newsletter

I get my church newsletter monthly via e-mail so I can stay up to date on the happenings of my church, St. Olaf in Austin while I am away at school. I signed up for this, just because I thought it was easier than getting a newsletter in the mail every month. Well, I got the April newsletter today and in it, was a nice little article about how they are now encouraging our church members to start receiving the newsletter by e-mail because it is cheaper and is better for our environment. They stated that it is about $.45 a newsletter to send out, that may not seem like a lot, but add it up and it comes out to about $589.50 a month in newsletters alone! Add that up and it comes out to $7,045 a year! Not only is that a high cost, but these newsletters are sometimes pretty thick, so it's a lot of trees! Right now, only about 20 members of the congregation are going green, and getting the newsletters online, and it's already saving my church around $9 a month! I thought it was cool to see this coming from my church and tying it into this class! I put in here the actual little article itself, in case you want to re-read everything I just said ;)

Going Green

As part of our “Going Green” efforts at St. Olaf, we
are giving our members the opportunity to receive the
monthly newsletter via e-mail. Not only is this option
environmentally friendly, it is extremely cost effective.
Currently, it costs St. Olaf Church about $.45 to
produce and mail one newsletter. This may not seem
like much, but when you add all households together,
we’re looking at $589.50 a month, and $7,074 a year!
Currently we have about 20 people signed up to
receive their monthly newsletter through e-mail.
That’s an estimated $9 a month savings. Just imagine
if we could double that amount…triple that amount! If
you have internet access, please consider signing up.
Just go to www.stolafchurch.org, scroll down until
you see the “Going Green” box and enter your e-mail
address. It’s that simple.
Samantha Vaith,
Administrative Assistant

I think its the little things like this that are going to start helping our environment :)

Advocacy Project: My Political Representatives

Here are my local political representatives!



President Barack Obama
Contact Information


US Senate Amy Klobuchar
Contact Information
302 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Main Line: 202-224-3244
Main Fax: 202-228-2186
Toll Free: 1-888-224-9043


US Representative James L. Oberstar
Contact Information 231 Federal Building
Duluth, MN 55802
(218) 727-7474


State Senate Yvonne Prettner Solon
Contact Information
75 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
Capitol Building, Room G-9
St. Paul, MN 55155-1606
(651) 296-4188

State Representative Thomas Huntley
Contact Information
585 State Office Building100
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
St. Paul, MN 55155
(651) 296-2228


Governor Tim Pawlenty
Contact Information

Office of the Governor
130 State Capitol75
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
St. Paul, MN 55155
(651) 296-3391


Mayor Don Ness
Contact Information Mayor's Office
dness@duluthmn.gov
Room 402, 411 West First Street
Duluth, MN 55802
Phone: (218) 730-5230
Fax: (218) 730-5904


County Board Dennis Fink
Contact Information
Room 208
100 N. 5th Avenue West
Duluth, MN 55802
(218) 726-2458

Share and Voice: Green Sex?

After I Read Sara's Let's Talk About Sex post, I got intrigued (because I am also in Peer Health Educators so constantly thinking and talking about these things) and wanted to do a little bit of research on if there's anything you can do in your sex life to be more environmentally friendly. I was pleased with my results! The first results I found we're about things that you can buy that are more eco-friendly that have to do with sex: "Even Sex Can Be Environmentally Friendly"

Eco-Friendly Sex Toys: I learned something new, sex toys are NOT friendly for our environment AT ALL! Most toys are made from PVC which releases toxins into our air. Pthalates are also used to soften the hard plastic, and pthalates are being tested for producing cancer right now. Because most toys have the warning "for novelty use only" on them, they aren't necessarily being made with the intent that one will use them with the body, because of this, the companies put whatever chemicals they want on them, SO for your bodies sake, use a condom.

Earth-Friendly Bed Sheets: As in one of my previous posts Help for Heather's Sneezes? This part talks about organic bed sheets and how they are so much better for not only the environment but ourselves!

Underwear is Fun to Wear if you Wear... Greenknickers?: Greenknickers are underwear, but they are made from a cotton and hemp blend, and not synthetic materials.



Another website that I found about going green for sex is Eco-Sex Guide. Here are some of their tips.

Turn off the lights: Obviously, this helps energy reduction.

Passion for fruit?: If you enjoy using fruit to start off your night, the article says to make sure that the fruit it was not genetically engineered, something that our class knows oh so much about now!

Last, But never least, this is my favorite, a website has come up with contraception that is eco-friendly!

Condoms: The new condoms are made out of sustainable sourced rubber from French Letter .For each pack of condoms that is sold part of the money goes to healthcare, and disadvantaged people. For vegans, these condoms do not contain milk- based proteins during production. These condoms have passed the UK safety testing.

DISCLOSER: So after speaking with Dori Decker (Health Educator from Health Services) we are not sure what the difference in the standards are between the UK and the USA. I did much googling to try to figure these differences out and could not find anything. The closest I got was the UK's Department of Health website on contraceptions. Although it does not straight up say "Here's our rules" it shows what the UK aims for and what they value important in sexual health. So, before you think about ordering the new condoms online, just read over the UK's thoughts. :)

So, next time you want to engage in sexual activities, please keep these tips in mind on how to help our earth while doing so :)

Reflection: Weeks 7 and 8

We are officially halfway through the semester! Yay! I feel like weeks 7 and 8 got way busy and kept me on my toes for sure! (Picture taken by Ashley Penrod)

Week 7

During week 7, we had a ton of stuff going on! The week started with Reading 16; III Winds: The Chemical Plant Next Door.This reading was more touching because it was told in a more lifelike manner. It talked about a girl from Buffalo, who lived down the street from Borden Chemical. This story gave me mixed feelings, as it was about a girl who lived in a small town who her family members were getting sick, and she suspected it was from the chemical plant. I did like this story because it kind of left the door open for discussion and for you to kind of decide yourself what you think the cause of the cancers were. It led to some great class discussion!

On Tuesday and Thursday of week 7, we watched a documentary entitled, Green by Laura Dunn. I absolutely loved this documentary and it was definitely my favorite thus far. This documentary talked about Cancer Alley, which is a 100 mile stretch in Louisiana in which 150 petrochemical plants lie. In this movie, Dunn interviewed a lot of people that live in the stretch, and they all think that the chemicals are creating a lot of health problems for the residents. It was so sad to see the kid's talk to the camera who all had health issues of their own, knowing that there is nothing that they can do about them.

Last, but not least for the week, we did an Eye Opener! This one was a really cool one I thought, we went to the website entitled Environmental Working Group. We then chose our favorite cosmetic item that we used, or cosmanic item according to Steve at Steve Goes Green, and typed it into the database. It then told us how healthy our item is for the environment, ourselves, etc... I chose to test out my favorite mascara and my results were pretty bad! I scored a 5 out of 10, and my results showed that my mascara led to cancer, allergies, toxicity, warnings, and plenty of other concerns. The thing that I noticed most in everyones results were that there are still a lot of companies testing on animals! I think that is horrible, as I'm sure there are better ways to test things.

Week 8

Week 8 started off by another reading, Privatizing Water. This reading also tied in with our documentary for the week, Thirst. The point of the reading and the documentary was to show us the fight for not giving the rights of water to a company. I don't think that anyone should be able to own our water, and charge us a high price. Companies are trying to make a profit on anything that they can get their hands on, and it's not right! I use so much water it's probably ridiculous! I should really start thinking of cutting back as much as possible. The movie stopped working on Thursday so we couldn't finish watching it to see what happened, but it led to a great class discussion! We talked about things that we feel passionate about to stand up for... and after much though, I have no idea what I would stand up for! I know that one thing would be comprehensive sexual education in all classrooms.

Anywhose... These past two weeks have been fun. We had some great Eye Openers, and watched 1 (and a half?!) really great documentaries. I'm realizing that I need to make some major changes in my habits in order to really help out :)

Share and Voice: Red and Green Team

As probably no one knows in this classroom... I love HGTV. This is probably the first channel that I turn on every time I t urn my television on! The other day I was looking for something that I had seen on their website, when I found.... Red hot and Green, a show on eco-friendly housing and decorating. All of the ideas that the show contains are earth friendly, which is really neat! Not only can you watch full episodes and quick tips from the show, they frequently have little quizzes to see how eco-friendly you are in your house.They have everything from kitchens to garages to bedrooms to bathrooms, so it's a really inside and outside show! The picture shown is an example of a before and after of a cluttered living room that they have. Next time you're thinking about making some changes to your house, check out this website and get some friendly environmental tips and ideas!

Share and Voice: ENVIROcool award

Hey Everyone!
I recently was awarded the EnviroCool Blog Award from Katie for my post about TerraCycle and SPAM! I was really excited, because I was really excited about that post! Now it is my turn to pass on this award to Abbey for her Share andVoice post on Everyones doing IT! This post made me laugh, and had some really cool products! Actually, I love reading all of Abbey's posts, because they are all unique and sound like her! Make sure you check out this Share&Voice. Great Job!!

All you have to do is pass this award along to other! Congratulations!! Great Job on your bog! Instructions are below...

Award Instructions

1. Leave a comment below so that I know you "picked up" the award.

2. Create a Share and Voice post that says you've received the award and indicate who the award is from (be sure to hyperlink).

3. Also indicate to whom you are going to pass on the award and why. Be sure to hyperlink the blogger(use main blog URL) and the blog title ( use specific URL for that blog post).

4. Copy and Paste these instructions at the bottom of your post.

5. Publish the post.

6. Visit each blogger you've awarded and leave a comment telling them they've won.

7. Continue the process..

Share and Voice: One Hundred Months

With all the talk about what's happening with the climate, I found this website that I thought was so really! It was called One Hundred Months. It is one of the simplest websites I have seen in a long time, although it has a lot of impact. All that the website is doing, is ticking down the time that we have until the effects of global warming are irreversible. There is a report on carbon dioxide that you can read, and this tells how they got this information. You can sign up for monthly actions, send the information to your friends, and even print off banners to put places that you want. Something that I thought was cool, were the many links that were partners to this website. They all have something to do with the environment or global warming or going green, so I thought they were pretty neat! When I checked out the website, the picture up above shows how many months, days, hours, and seconds we had until we run out of time. How much time will be left when you go to it?

Eye Opener: Environmental Working Group

So, for this eye opener, we had to choose a cosmetic product that we use, put it into Environmental Working Group's Skin Deep Cosmetic Safety Database and get our results to see how healthy and environmentally friendly it was! I chose to test out my Maybelline Define-a Lash Mascara in brownish-black. My results were petrifying to me! These are the results that I got from my mascara.

Ingredients in this product are linked to:
	Cancer
	Developmental/reproductive toxicity
	Violations, restrictions & warnings
	Allergies/immunotoxicity
	Other concerns for ingredients used in this product: Neurotoxicity, Endocrine disruption, Persistence and bioaccumulation, Organ system toxicity (non-reproductive), Multiple, additive exposure sources, Irritation (skin, eyes, or lungs), Contamination concerns, Occupational hazards, Biochemical or cellular level changes

This manufacturer::
	Compact for Safe Cosmetics signer
	Conducts animal testing

SCORE

5

moderate hazard (out of 10)

My Thoughts

Being that this is my favorite product in like the whole wide world, I was sad that this product did so bad. However, what concerned me even more was the fact that Maybelline didn't sign the Compact for Safe Cosmetics! What that means, is they didn't sign a contract stating that they would try to use safe ingredients and ingredients that were known not to cause health problems. I was also not happy with the fact that they use animal testing... who does that these days?! I suppose it's hard to make make-up that is all healthy, but come on! The score of 5 made me feel a little bit better, because it's not the worse that it can be! Even after learning this, I can honestly say that I will not stop using this... because it is my favorite although it did bother me that they test on animals. I found myself grabbing my makeup bag and shower things to see what all of them had in it! Some really shocked me and I may stop using them! I found this Gorgeously Green Community Board that talked about some mascara's that we're environmentally friendly :) Check it out!