Suggested Reading: Extinction of the Pipistrelle

As you may already know, I have a soft spot for bats. A really big soft spot, actually. I’ve been a bat advocate since I was kid, I managed to become a finalist for a big scholarship at my college with an essay about bats, and Viridorari’s first animal of the month was the golden-capped fruit bat.

            Most people see bats as a symbol of Halloween and creepy things, but many don’t know what an important roll they play in our global ecosystem, and in particular, our agriculture. Insect-eating bats are crucial for controlling pest populations that would otherwise demolish our fields. Fruit-eating bats are essential for pollinating fruit plants, much like bees. 

            I was very saddened to learn that recently, the Pipistrelle bat went extinct. They used to live on Australia’s Christmas Island, but now these tiny, adorable bats with the coolest name ever are gone for good. The Australian government failed to offer aid to scientists and the dying species until it was too late. The loss of any species is a terrible thing, especially when the cause of their death was caused by human related activities. Why is it that we think it’s okay to do as we please on this planet, without any regard to the other life forms that live here?

Activism Spotlight & Suggested Reading: Food Waste

 Activism Spotlight

Recently, a headline caught my attention, and I thought the story that accompanied it would be perfect for this week’s focus on food waste. If you’ll recall from this week’s harsh facts, while many American’s waste horrendous amounts of food, others rely on food stamps for survival:

“The average American wastes 209-254 pounds of edible food each year, while 17.2 million American households in 2010 were deemed “food insecure,” meaning it was difficult to provide food for everyone in the family. About 46 million Americans, or one in every seven people, relied on food stamps that same year.”

Source: http://www.facethefactsusa.org/facts/supersized-hunger-pangs-supersized-waste-infographic/

The headline was: SNAP Food Challenge: 1 family, $16 per day.

A family of four living in Massachusetts, including Peter and Nova Biro and their 9-year-old twin daughters, Sophie and Lily, decided to take on the SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) Food Challenge for one week earlier in March. They tackled this challenge to raise awareness about hunger and poverty and supplement Nova Biro’s work with LeadBoston.

Picture courtesy of http://shine.yahoo.com/healthy-living/snap-food-challenge--1-family---16-per-day-152819355.html

Recycling Projects: Plastic Bottle Bird Feeder

Plastic Bottle Bird Feeder

Supplies Needed:

• 2 liter plastic bottle with cap
• String or wire
• Scissors, knife, hole punch, wire cutters
• Wood dowel or chopsticks (used or unused)
• Super glue or hot glue gun
• Ruler
• Spray paint and/or acrylic paint and paintbrushes (optional)
• Bird feed

 This project was adapted from a more decorative, intricate project I found online, which you can find here: http://www.favecrafts.com/Green-Crafting/Plastic-Bottle-Birdfeeder#
My version is more simplified. Mine is also less aesthetic, but don't let that discourage you from using your plastic bottle bird feeder. You can customize your bird feeder in any way you like to make it look, well, less like a plastic bottle. The bird feeder made from favecrafts.com is beautiful! So, if you're feeling crafty, check out the link above.

 This project involves some cutting, so please supervise your children or do the cutting for them to make sure they don't get hurt. I'm going to make my own plastic bottle bird feeder as I write this post, and add pictures of my progress as I go!

Ecofriendly Economics & Harsh Facts: Food Waste

Thank you for your understanding and patience about Monday's postponement. Again, please excuse the inconsistent formatting... I have sent a complaint to Blogger about that. 

Harsh Facts of the Week

These harsh facts will be part of a theme I have decided to focus on this week: food waste. I thought the topic of food waste would go along nicely with this week's Green Challenge, which takes some of your food waste and recycles it into rich, healthy soil. I pulled some of the facts from a web page entitled: "Americans go hungry in a land of massive food waste," which is starkly and sadly true. Stay tuned for Friday's "Suggested Reading" post, which will actually feature a video instead of a book: a TED Talk by Tristram Stuart on the topic of food waste. Stuart is mentioned in today's Harsh Facts.

Roughly one-third of the edible parts of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted globally, which amounts to about 1.3 billion tons per year.

  

The average American wastes 209-254 pounds of edible food each year, while 17.2 million American households in 2010 were deemed “food insecure,” meaning it was difficult to provide food for everyone in the family. About 46 million Americans, or one in every seven people, relied on food stamps that same year. 

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimated that the consumer level food waste in industrialized countries is almost as high as the total net food production of Sub-Saharan Africa (222 million tons of food waste as compared to 230 million tons of net food production, respectively).

Tristram Stuart visited British farms to understand how quality standards affect food waste, including M.H. Poskitt Carrots. In total, 25-30% of all carrots handled by M.H. Poskitt Carrots were out-graded. About half of these were rejected due to aesthetic defects (i.e., wrong shape or size, not orange enough, broken, having a cleft or blemish).

Activism Spotlight: Bat Conservation International

Due to the length of the post, the "Suggested Reading" section featuring Viridorari's first guest writer will be published as a separate post from "Activism Spotlight." Normally, the two sections would be posted together.

Activism Spotlight

To go along with this month's chosen animal, the Giant Golden-Crowned Flying Fox,  this first Activism Spotlight will shine on an organization called Bat Conservation International (BCI). Founded in 1982 by Dr. Merlin Tuttle, and based out of Austin, Texas, the mission statement of BCI is to conserve the world's bats and their ecosystems to ensure a healthy planet. BCI recognizes that bats are vital to the world's ecosystems, but are unfortunately among the mos misunderstood and endangered species in the world. BCI conducts and supports global science-based conservation efforts. Their innovative programs combine research, education, and direct conservation to ensure bats will be around to maintain their ecosystems and sustain human economies for a long time. 

Harsh Facts, Ecofriendly Economics & March's Animal

            I hope that including harsh facts about the state of our environment on Viridorari will give people the jolt that they need to start taking action to incorporate greener habits into their lives. This week's facts are geared toward Americans, and these facts did not surprise me. I love being a United States citizen, but the one thing about my country that I’m most ashamed of is our staggering amount of inherent wastefulness. Waste is something all of us, not just Americans, but especially Americans, need to work on. Brace yourselves!

The United States has 5% of the world's population and 30% of the waste, and the United States industry admits to 4 billion pounds of toxic pollution released each year. They key word in that sentence is "admits." We generate 4.6 pounds of trash per person per day on average int he United States, an amount doubled from thirty years ago, and the most in the world. If we put all the solid waste collected in the U.S. (I'm assuming annually) in a line of average garbage trucks, that line of trucks would cross the country, from NYC to L.A., more than 100 times. Finally, 99% of the things we buy are not in use after 6 months. 

            

One website also offered up a very moving quote:

"Our enormously productive economy... demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into ritual, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption... we need things produced, burned up, replaced, and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate."
-Retailing analyst Victor LeBeau just after World War II.