Top 10 Ways to Green Your Office
July 28, 2008
There was a PDF file I got from IdealBite a long time ago that I saved, so I thought I’d share these tips with you guys! I’ll upload the PDF file as well; it’d be great if you could post this up on the bulletin board (or anywhere in the office, for that matter) so people can see this!
1. Kick the Bottled Water Habit.
Every year, 1.5 mil barrels of oil go to making plastic water bottles used in the United States, and less than a quarter of those bottles are recycled, so choose a reusable bottle instead.
2. Compute This.
Set computers to enter sleep mode after 5 min of idle time, and you’ll be saving energy during lunchtime and other outings. And shut them down at night – contrary to eco-myth, it’s better for the earth and your computer to shut them off before you head home.
3. Zap Your Phantom Energy Loads.
Plug your office electronics into a power strip so that you can easily turn them all off when you’re not using them - you’ll keep your devices from sapping “phantom” electricity loads when they’re off but plugged in. On average, 40% of the energy used in homes powers turned-off appliances.
4. Purify with Plants.
It doesn’t take a forest to clean the air in your office, only about one plant for every 10 square yards. Plants like philodendrons and peace lilies absorb airborne pollutants, keeping the air you breathe clean and clear.
5. Forgo Bad chems.
Standard keyboard cleaners contain toxins you definitely don’t want to inhale. Just one 10-oz can of chem duster has the same greenhouse gascreating effect as burning 100 gallons of gas. Take CTRL: Just turn your keyboard upside down, give it a little shake, and slide a piece of 2-sided adhesive tape between the keys.
6. Dodge the Drafts.
Printer drafts, that is. Unless you’re printing something superimportant, save ink and paper by tracking your changes in electronic documents. If you absolutely need to print something, print it double-sided. Who could conscientiously object to that?
7. Pay the Piper Online.
You probably already do it at home for convenience, but lessen your paper clutter at the office too by banking and paying bills online. Phone companies alone use 23,280 tons of paper per year just to bill U.S. residential customers for single lines of service.
8. Get Inked.
Ink cartridges can take up to 450 years to decompose. Recycle your old ones, and next time you buy, go with refilled cartridges, which work just like conventional ones and cost up to 75% less than new ones.
9. Safeguard Your Lunch.
Baggies are piling up in landfills quicker than you can say “ziplock,” and toxins in plastics are no picnic. Reduce waste by taking your lunch in reusable, safe containers. Some plastics, like PVC (#3), polystyrene (#6), and polycarbonate (#7) contain hormone disruptors or other nasty chemicals. Stay healthy with plastics #1, 2, 4 or 5.
10. Climb Your Way to Green.
A surefire way to avoid awkward elevator silences and save energy? Take the stairs instead. No surprises here: Climbing stairs burns up to 10 times more calories than standing in an elevator. And, depending on type, capacity, and usage, an elevator’s yearly energy usage can equal the energy used to power seven homes annually.
Posted in Environment at 12:49am
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Schwarzenegger wants to lower CA minimum wage to $6.55
July 26, 2008
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger just announced that he will sign an Executive Order on Monday slashing the wages of over 200,000 state employees to the bare minimum of $6.55 from $8. By doing so, he will make our budget crisis worse while delivering a serious blow to our struggling economy. As the recession deepens, gas prices skyrocket, stores close, and home foreclosures surge, the governor’s wage cuts will force many working families over the financial edge.Tell him:
Instead of slashing pay for state employees, you should be fixing California’s massive $15 billion budget deficit.
SIGN THE PETITION and TELL YOUR FRIENDS TOO
Posted in Petition, Politics, Worker Rights at 6:11pm
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Fighting homelessness
In a Hunger & Homelessness Awareness my club organized at my university a couple months ago, we invited someone from a non-profit organization that fights homelessness to speak at a seminar. Here is a recap of what she said. I haven’t posted on this in a while, and I really should. So here is something to think about –
Phyllis Sakahara, Program Director with BOSS (Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency (http://www.self-sufficienc
y.org) gave a great seminar today about homelessness in America. She talked about homelessness as an OUTCOME, not as the PROBLEM as most people view it. Our country takes on a reactionary approach rather than a proactive approach.
Here is a great quote she gave: “The state that has the authority to remove children from families has the responsibility to first do everything to support the family.”
She identified the different categories of difficulties that many homeless people face as: racism, education, health, and family.
Also, she made a point that housing is a human RIGHT. She used the analogy that with our policy on homelessness, we tend to “pick people out of the river” while neglecting to “help build the dam too.” What we SHOULD be doing is both.
For health from a policy standpoint, we must include mental health. Mentally ill people are usually the victims rather than those who are the threat, as portrayed by our media. Mental illnesses are biological, chemical, and predisposed.
BOSS has been fighting homelessness for 37 years — is that something to be proud of? What does this say about our country?
Saul Alisky, a community organizer in the 1960s, divided people into 3 groups: the Haves, Have-Nots, and Have-a-little-want-mores. We need to change the “have-a-little-want-mores”
With the War on Poverty during LBJ’s administration, we swung left on the pendulum and placated the leftists and Have-Nots for a while. The right got annoyed. So we swung back. But REAL change occurs from the top. We need that to shift. In order to do so, we must recognize the inherent connection between the economy and social change. Economics drives social change. Until then, we will be continuously influenced by the media.
The FIRST STEP to changing is universal healthcare. We need single-payer, universal healthcare, not the healthcare that involves the insurance companies.
Secondly, housing must be a human right. Phyllis passed out post cards that said: “From Regan to Bush for 25 years, a spirit of Abandon: starting in 1979 our federal government began slashing billions from the public housing budget. That money has never been replaced. In 2003 over 1.3 million children in America experienced homelessness. America has abandoned its spirit of human rights.” The campaign website for this is: http://wraphome.org
I thought that Phyllis gave a really interesting and different view on homelessness and what we should do to begin and approach this issue.
Posted in Politics, Poverty at 8:01am
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Home Tissue Products: What You DON’T Know!
February 26, 2008
Did you know that: If every household in the United States replaced just one box of virgin fiber facial tissues (175 sheets) with 100% recycled ones, we could save 163,000 trees????
Here are some facts about facial tissues we use every day…
Forests are being destroyed to make toilet paper, facial tissues, paper towels and other disposable paper products. You can help stop this destruction by pressing manufacturers to use recycled content and clean manufacturing processes (click here to send a message to paper giant Kimberly-Clark), and by making smart shopping decisions.
Kleenex and Puffs are 0% recyclable and also 0% post-consumer.
Here are some alternatives… Fluff Out, Seventh Generation, Marcal, Hankies.
If you want the full list (as well as the list for toilet paper, paper towels, etc.) then please visit the source here.
Posted in Environment at 1:10am
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Homelessness in San Francisco - Article
February 19, 2008
Here’s a really interesting article that’s in the San Francisco Bay Guardian article. If you have a spare moment, go and read it!
Article
Here are some excerpts I thought were worth mentioning from the article..if you don’t have time to read the article (it is quite long), skim this…
Here’s what I learned: San Francisco has a cumbersome crazy quilt of programs, stitched together with waiting lists and lines. Policies that are written on paper and espoused in City Hall are often missing in shelters. Some rules don’t seem to exist until they’ve been broken. Others apply to some people, but not all…
And once you’re in, it’s sort of like sitting in a McDonald’s for too long. Years ago a friend told me the interiors of fast food restaurants are deliberately designed to make you feel a little uncomfortable. They don’t want you to get too cozy; they want you to eat and leave, making way for the next hungry mouth they can feed.
In other words, shelters are designed to make people not want to use them…Every year the federal government spends almost twice as much on a single attack submarine as the Department of Housing and Urban Development spends on homeless assistance. State and local governments have been left to pick up the hefty price tag.
San Francisco spends more than $200 million on homelessness, through services, financial aid, supportive housing, emergency care, and shelter beds. There are 13 city-funded shelters, four resource centers, and three reservation stations in San Francisco. The Human Services Agency spends $12.5 million per year on shelters through contracts with nonprofit managers. The Department of Public Health also manages two contracts, for a battered women’s shelter and a 24-hour drop-in center.
But it’s not enough: the nonprofits supplement operating expenses with grants and private donations and recently relied on a special allocation of $300,000 to purchase basic supplies like soap, towels, hand sanitizer, sheets, pillows, and blankets…
“Out of all the cities I’ve been in, this is the only city where you have to go and make a reservation for a bed at the rescue mission all the way across the city in order to come back to the place you started,” he says…
But the Guardian found that even if you are willing and waiting for a bed in a place where someone can presumably connect you with one, it often doesn’t happen…
According to the 2007 Homeless Count, there are 6,377 homeless people in San Francisco. The nine year-round single-adult shelters have enough beds to accommodate one-third of that population. Other emergency facilities shelter some of the overflow on a seasonal basis. The remaining homeless sleep in jails and hospitals, respite and sobering centers, parks and sidewalks…
It took Guardian writer Bryan Cohen five nights to find a spot at a shelter. He spent Jan. 20 and 21 at Buster’s waiting to see if a bed would open up. None did. According to the shelter vacancy report for those two nights, there were 108 and 164 beds set aside for men that went unfilled. On an average night this January, a month marked by cold weather and flooding rain, 196 beds were empty…
I notice that unlike at other shelters where I’ve stayed, none of the women here have bothered to change into pajamas. Some haven’t even removed their shoes. I follow suit, tucking my jacket under my head for a pillow and pulling the blanket around me.
When the lights come back on at 5:45 a.m., I understand why no one changed: there’s no time to get dressed. Shelter monitors enter the room, rousting sleepers with catcalls to get up and get moving…Tracy tells me she sent her daughter to private school and considers herself a victim of the dot-bomb era and an illegal eviction that landed them at the Hamilton Family Center. “We were given one blanket. It was filthy. It had poo on it, and, I’m not kidding, there were even pubic hairs,” she says..
While the ability to charge a cell phone seems relatively minor, its ramifications can be huge. The first time James Leonard met with his case manager at Next Door shelter, he knew exactly what he needed to get back on his feet: bus fare to get to and from three job interviews he’d already scheduled, a clothing voucher so he’d have something nice to wear when he got there, and a couple of dollars for the laundry facilities at the shelter. He also needed to charge his cell phone to confirm the interviews. He said he was denied all four things.
POLICY:
The standards of care, if passed, could improve access to those basic provisions, but some in the Mayor’s Office have balked at the estimated $1 million to $2 million price tag. The budget analyst’s final report is scheduled for release Feb. 14, in time for a Feb. 20 hearing at the Budget and Finance Committee.
“You can argue about whether we should or shouldn’t have shelters, but there are no city, state, or federal regulations for them. There are tons of regulations for the army, for public schools and colleges, but we put people in shelters and there’s none,” she said. To her, San Francisco is on the cutting edge of care with this legislation. “I can’t wait until we do this on a state level,” she said.
Kayhan said he and the mayor support the spirit of the legislation and have no problems with most of the no-cost items, but the price tag for staffing, training, and enforcement is a concern. “I think when you’re looking at how much money you’re going to spend on homelessness overall,” he told us, “I would rather allocate additional resources to create another unit of housing for someone as opposed to enhancing the service model of the shelters.”
The city’s 10-Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness, released in 2004, recommended 3,000 units of supportive housing to get the chronically homeless off the streets. Kayhan confirms the Mayor’s Office of Housing is on track to meet that goal through master-leasing SROs and building or renovating new affordable units, where occupants will get supportive services.
I try to imagine what people like Windspirit would do if there weren’t shelters. But the Ten Year Council also recommended a phasing out of shelters within four to six years, to be replaced by 24-hour crisis clinics and sobering centers.There are 364 fewer shelter beds in San Francisco than when Newsom became mayor. This year more may go. The city is currently requesting proposals to develop 150 Otis, which serves as a temporary shelter and storage space for homeless people, into permanent supportive housing for very-low-income seniors. About 60 shelter beds will be lost.
The HSA confirmed there are currently no plans to open any more shelters in San Francisco. The last plan for a new shelter — St. Boniface — fell through, and the money that was set aside for the project still languishes in an HSA bank account. Midyear budget cuts proposed by the mayor put that money on the chopping block.
Buster’s Place is also on the list of cuts. By April 15, the only place where someone can get out of the elements at any time, day or night, could be closed for good.
Posted in News Articles, Poverty at 1:22pm
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Call on China to Take Action About the Genocide in Darfur
February 17, 2008
All nations share the responsibility to help bring an end to the genocide in Darfur but China has a special obligation to respond. China, more than any other government except Khartoum itself, has the ability to help bring peace to the people of Sudan.
The Save Darfur Coalition, ENOUGH Project, STAND: A Student Anti-Genocide Coalition, Genocide Intervention Network, and Dream for Darfur released a joint position paper outlining the essential steps China needs to take to help end genocide in Darfur.
Click here to read the joint statement and fill out the petition to join activists around the world in calling on China to live up to the ideals of the Olympic Games and help end genocide in Darfur.
From SaveDarfur.org
Join others and call on China to take action!!
Posted in Darfur, Petition, Politics at 9:50am
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Fight Climate Change Every Monday
February 12, 2008
Below are some examples of what people across the U.S. — and maybe even the world — will be doing each Monday:
- You could join USCEC director Mike Tidwell and myself in an every-Monday fast.
- You could skip one meal each Monday.
- You could bicycle to work.
- If you eat meat, you could forego it on this day.
- You could spend some time each Monday volunteering for your local climate group.
- You could call your local, state and federal elected officials to prod them to take action.
- You could call five of your friends to talk with them about this campaign and encourage them to join it.
- You could pledge to make a donation each week to a group working on climate issues.
- You could join with others in your area and organize a “Clean Energy Now” vigil at a busy intersection in your town or city.
From ClimateEmergency.org
Posted in Environment at 4:33pm
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Defy Bush, Fund Public Broadcasting
February 10, 2008
This week brought the news that once again, President Bush has proposed deep budget cuts for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which supports public stations across the country. In previous years, Congress has heard overwhelmingly from their constituents and restored this funding.
From CREDO Action
Take action and tell Congress — reject Bush’s cuts to public broadcasting.
Posted in Petition, Politics at 9:25pm
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Discrimination in the Workplace!
February 8, 2008
Many people with diabetes and other chronic diseases are no longer protected against discrimination from their employers.
Employers have been saying a person with diabetes is “too disabled” to do the job, but not “disabled enough” to be protected by the laws. The stakes are huge: If a person with diabetes isn’t covered by anti-disability discrimination law then it’s perfectly legal to fire or refuse to hire that person explicitly because of his or her diabetes.
From Care2.com
Posted in Petition, Worker Rights at 11:29am
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Voting Information
February 4, 2008
Tomorrow (Tuesday) is the primaries for 20+ states! So, if you live in one of them, I again urge you to VOTE. If you don’t know where or how, here are some links with information:
Where to vote: You can find your polling location by online lookup (works for most counties):http://www.smartvoter.org
Phone info for all counties: http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/elections_ppl.htm
Posted in Politics at 4:58pm
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