"You become responsible forever for what you have tamed."
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

I am not alone in being unable to enumerate the ways in which my life has been enriched by the pets that I have had the privilege of fostering.

Animals, of the pet persuasion, provide an awesome opportunity to build loving kindness and compassion in humanity. They become devoted to us on such a fundamental level and it is important to return that devotion with a healthy, clean environment and lots of loving care.

Here are some great ways to green up after and love your pet:

1. Whenever possible, support one of the many humane animal shelters across the country, by adopting a pet who really needs a home.  The Humane Society has a lot of useful information on pet adoption. Petfinder can also be a great online resource.
2. For the sake of your local environs it is so important to contain your cat or dog for their own safety. This also ensures that they do not have a negative impact on the well being of your neighbors, neighborhood and local wildlife. Protect birds and other wildlife from unattended roaming animals in your neighborhood.
3. Feed your pet a natural, healthy diet. This is so important in prolonging the life of any pet. As the saying goes "you are what you eat" and we have seen very recently the heartbreaking effects of bad food on pet longevity.
4. Buy Fluffy or Rover fewer and more high quality, environmentally friendly pet toys.
5. Think before hanging a poison collar on your pet, they can have devastating negative effects. Try an alternative pet pest control product.
6. Clean up after your dog and cat with biodegradable poop bags. This is especially important in protecting healthy water table viability.
7. We all like clean sheets and a healthy, clean living environment. Pets deserve and need the same thing, they are often sensitive and have allergies to airborne and contact pathogens. Keep your pet's living areas, bedding and toys clean, clean, clean!

Remember that pets provide wonderful support, emotionally and physically, and they even have their own social networking sites like dogster and catster. Love your pets, love yourself and have an ever so beautiful day!

(Photo credit:purplbutrfly on flickr)

Down with Styrofoam, Californians, even if that means—oh, no!—schlepping your designer tumbler to Jamba Juice for a fix.

Smoothie junkies in Palo Alto—and any other diner out-ers who would be caught alive with Styrofoam takeout containers—officially have until 2010 to ditch the featherweight toxin. We say why wait when you can kick Styrofoam ASAP and vow to never, ever use the squeaky spume again?

Oh, that's right—light green baby steps. I'm right there with you, but I'm thinking more along the lines of 16 frosty oz. of Light Matcha Green Tea Mist, hold the Styro boost.

Okay, let's come down from the blender buzz and get back on track ... In 2007, San Francisco became the first California city to put the legal squeeze on petroleum-based Polystyrene to-go boxes and cups. No surprise there. Dude, Whaa?! San Franciscans can't even put their (medical) weeeeed in it! Now, on the green heels of 22 other ocean-side Golden State municipalities, picturesque Palo Alto is the latest to follow suit. Your town could be next. This is beginning to sound like Soylent Green. For all we know, Styrofoam could be people.

So what's so damn environmentally damning about Dow Chemical's flammable foam funk? We lack the patience to list all 57 of the gnarly byproducts Styrofoam spews into our fragile atmosphere and lungs (nor can we buzz kill your Orange-gasmic Dream Machine in good conscience—may we have a sip?), but here goes:

• Styrofoam is the Devil!!! Well, not quite, but, chronic exposure the green-evil causes depression, headaches, fatigue, and weakened blood and kidney function. No Hellfire burns reported so far, (unofficially) according to the EPA.
• The airy hardened sludge is made from crude oil, a vanishing, non-sustainable, mas-polluting commodity.
• Neurotoxins, carcinogens and reproductive system warping chemicals dribble into our Styro-packed takeout grub. So that's what that aftertaste is!
• Styrofoam clogs more waterways and hogs more landfill space than paper. Worse, it constantly re-infests the environment.
• Animals easily choke on littered Styrofoam, and, no, they don't know the Heimlich nor snout-to-snout.
• Styrofoam recycling is ... is ... the Devil!!! Oh, we already used that one. Fine, Styrofoam recycling is ... is ... a myth. A really bad joke told relentlessly by its manufacturers. The excessively chemical Polystyrene (plastic #6) recycling process gobbles more water and energy than can be saved by recycling the goop in the first place.

Ironically except for in the case of same-sex marriage, it's been said as California goes, so goes the nation. Let's hope the saying rings true this time and that sticking it to Styrofoam catches on as fast as Jamba's (gag-alicious) wheat grass shots. They're not so harsh if you chase them with OJ, from your own reusable shot glass, of course.

Here, take a closer look at to-go containers, from best to worst, and, please, ditch the doggy bag habit.

(Photo credit:Ssmallfry, flickr)

... And you thought that airplane cabin air seemed a little dry and "stale." An undercover investigation by Swiss and German television networks found traces of toxic chemicals in the cabins of several popular commercial airlines. That's right: while the media flurries over rocket fuel in breast milk, baby formula and public drinking water and food supplies, we may be sucking jet oil fumes every time we ride in an airplane.

A Swiss and German television network collaborated to secretly swab the cabins of 31 airplanes from several popular airliners. Analysis at the University of British Columbia showed that 28 of the samples tested positive for high levels of a tricresyl phosphate (TCP), an ingredient in jet oil that has been linked to respiratory distress, drowsiness, headaches and other neurological problems in humans.

According to the Telegraph, toxins are forced into the cabin via the “bleed air” system used for ventilation. Air from the compression section of the engine is cooled and fed into the cabin, where it mixes with recirculated air that has passed through filters designed to remove bacteria and viruses. However, the filters do not remove engine fumes or vapors—so if any engine oil or hydraulic fuel has leaked inside the engine compartment, the toxic chemicals can contaminate the passengers' air supply.

If airplanes are flying through the sky, why can't we seem to get the fresh air inside to the passengers? While the problem has been whispered about in aviation circles for years now, until recently, the systems to bring in fresh air have been considered too expensive. Boeing's Dreamliner 787, anticipated to hit the runways next year, will be the first passenger jet since the 1950s to use air supplied from another source.

(Photo credit:The Consumerist, flickr)

Hospital patients may be having a tougher time getting well because of exposure to toxic chemicals in hospital cleaning products. A new study has uncovered potentially hazardous chemicals in cleaning products at several Massachusetts hospitals.

"Cleaning products may impact worker, and possibly patient, health through air and skin exposures," noted research lead Anilo Bello. "Because the severity of cleaning exposures is affected by both product formulation and cleaning technique, a combination of product evaluation and workplace exposure data is needed to develop strategies that protect people from cleaning hazards."

Rising numbers of respiratory problems among cleaning workers at hospitals in recent years sparked the research. The study looked at various cleaning tasks, including preparing cleaning solutions, floor cleaning, window cleaning, mirror cleaning, toilet bowl cleaning, sink cleaning and floor finishing (buffing, waxing and stripping). Researchers targeted ingredients including quaternary ammonium chlorides, which can cause skin and respiratory irritation; irritant glycol ethers that can be absorbed through the skin; and ethanolamine, another respiratory and dermatological irritant. They also discovered several alcohols, such as benzyl alcohol, ammonia and several phenols, "all of which can exert harmful effects on the body."

Ultimately, exposure to hazardous cleaning chemicals affects everyone in a hospital—patients, staff and visitors alike. We're glad to see someone taking the initiative so that hospitals can remain havens of healing rather than becoming toxic dens.

(Photo credit:Daquella manera, flickr)

Alaska's Mt. Redoubt continues to spew choking clouds of volcanic ash, wreaking breathing havoc and shutting down flights into and out of the state's largest airport in Anchorage. Despite the fact that it was earlier announced that winds would carry the ash cloud far away from more densely populated areas of the state, the recalcitrant volcano just keeps spewing and the ash just keeps a-coming, raining down on Nikiski, about 50 miles from Mt. Redoubt, and shutting the airport in Anchorage, about 100 miles away.

Volcanic ash (the cloud pictured is from a Patagonia eruption in Chile, but you get the idea) is pretty rough stuff: not only does it make breathing difficult, if not downright painful (it's very abrasive), and poses a threat especially to children and the elderly, but it also mucks up airplane engines and damages surfaces. (I'd hate to park my car under a cloud of ash!)

But Anchorage peeps can soon breathe easier—scientists think the volcano is quieting now and just blowing hot air. Cleanup of Anchorage's airport is underway, with crews spreading snow over the volcanic grit to remove it from runways. Experts expect full operation to resume by Tuesday.

If the volcano cooperates.

Fallout farther away doesn't seem yet to be an issue, although the eruptions have caused flooding and mud flows into the Drift River valley, where a large Chevron-owned terminal storing 6.2 million gallons of oil is located. We may not yet have heard the last of Mt. Redoubt for awhile, and it still remains to be seen just exactly what environmental damage will be the result of this latest round of eruptions.

(Photo credit:NASA via Wikimedia Commons)

Die-hard, weekend and thinking-about-trying-it smokers, one and all: would you still smoke (and risk throat, lung cancer and death) if you had to light your butt from a life-sized blackened lung lighter?

No? Well, thousands of smokers in India would and actually do every day thanks to a grizzly new crop of anti-smoking campaign sponsored “Light Up Your Lungs” lighters. The burning coil, progressively blackening in-your-face reminders of the serious health risks smokers inhale are rearing their charred air sacs at cigarette stands throughout the country.

Think 3-D Surgeon General's warning meets cadaver lab meets 9th-grade biology dissection gross-out. Now picture leaning directly into all of that to spark up a killer drag. It’s enough to make people gag, except for in India apparently, where smoking cuts the average man’s life short by 10 years, and an estimated one million people die from smoking related diseases each year.

I suspect this latest anti-smoking shock prop would only be a mildly effective deterrent in the media-gore-numbed U.S. Lung lighters seem too forced, even a bit trite. Their stark, morbid imagery alone can't snuff out a multi-billion-dollar industry nor mass-scale clinical nicotine addiction, but they're a start, a freaky one.

So the question lingers (like second hand smoke and its carcinogenic particulate matter): If you puff, would sparking up with a blackened lung lighter guilt you into smoking your tobacco addiction once and for all? Probably not? How about a hacking, wailing-in-pain lung ashtray? No? Or the UK's ghoulishly named DEATH brand ciggies?

If not, remember, smoking butts is one bad habit that literally dies hard, right down to your fingertips, taste buds, sense of smell and, ultimately, your breath (in more ways than one). Just ask the 5.4 million families worldwide whose loved ones die at the hands of Joe Camel and his poisonous pals each year.

(Photo credit:Courage India)

Ahhh, home again—time to curl up in a nice, cozy chemical soup. Pretty much everybody's gotten the message by now that common household products can be full of toxic chemicals. In fact, when we read Care2.com's new list of 10 cancer-causers to remove from your home, we dutifully began picking and worrying at each product, chemical by chemical. Which ones seem to be the most dangerous? Which ones have been proven to be carcinogens? Which ones are dangerous only at certain levels? Has anyone determined what those levels are?

In a world where everyone wants to point the finger and place the blame, we may be missing the forest for the trees. Maybe the reason we can't pin health problems on chemicals we know (or even suspect) to be toxic is because it's not simply one or several chemicals at fault—it's the staggering mix of chemicals surrounding us 24 hours a day.

Continue reading Chemical soup: toxic cocktails for every home ›

(Photo credit:cinezi, stock.xchng)

Vick’s VapoRub—a crude-oily sludge of camphor, menthol and turpentine—was my mom’s cure-all. When I had so much as a sniffle, she greased me in the smelly goop from the chest up, plugging my nostrils with it for good measure. She must’ve missed the glaring “Do not use in the mouth or nostrils” warning on the label, like so many other parents who, decades later, still don’t realize how damaging the mentholated salve can be to the lungs of young children.

A recent study suggests that the best-selling ointment actually clogs young lungs, rather than clearing them. Wake Forest University researchers found that Vick’s VapoRub can trigger respiratory distress in infants, toddlers and small children by stimulating—not repressing, as advertised—mucus production, which can severely restrict their breathing. The findings were published in this month’s CHEST, the journal of the American College of Chest Physicians. Researchers exposed Vick’s VapoRub to lab ferrets. The subjects whose airways were previously swollen generated eight percent more mucus after merely sniffing the gunk. Sniffing? Never mind having it crammed deep in their nasal cavities.

Continue reading Study: Vick's VapoRub harmful to children's lungs ›

(Photo credit:jbcurio, Flickr)

Ah, the afternoon catnap, or "siesta." Growing up in Mexico City, siestas were a way of life. The school days were interrupted for children to come home for their big meal and take a nap. Work hours, where possible, were similarly arranged. A recent study has found what so many cultures have long known. Siestas are good for you.

Mexicans have known this for centuries but it wasn't until researchers started studying them that they received an image makeover and were seen as more than a luxury. Now they are "power naps." "The power nap is more sexy, more snappy," said Dr. Jose S. Laredo, who was born in Mexico and now heads the Sleep Medicine Center at University of California San Diego. "The purpose is different. It's not just to have leisure time, it's to recover yourself so you can keep on working. That's why it's looked at in our society, which is go-go-go, as better."

Researchers have found that a siesta can curb irritability, sharpen memory and increase productivity. Studies conducted for the commercial airline industry on pilots showed a substantial boost in performance after short naps in the cockpits (while the other pilots took over, I'm happy to report!). NASA researchers had the same results, as did  Union Pacific Railroad, and anecdotally, many companies have had the same findings. Some offices have "relaxation rooms" with day beds or tents with sleeping bags, eye shades and alarm clocks. Let's face it - a rested brain is a creative brain.

Since I work at home, and in my pajamas a good amount of the time, it should be fairly easy for me to do my part to boost my performance. After all, I do strive to do my best at work. So if my employers are ever looking for me, I can just tell them I'm increasing my productivity so that I can keep working hard for them. Voy a tomar una siesta. Buenas noches! 

(Photo credit:AssistingSounds.com)

Some 14,400 pollution-belching trucks chug past my children’s school each day, including my own. No, I'm not kidding. Our city has some of the worst air quality in the country; 15 percent of kids here have asthma. It’s easier to point the finger at the freeways and 18-wheelers hemorrhaging in and out of our backyard—the second busiest port in the U.S.—than at my own eco-idleness. But I’d be lying if I said I’m not guilty of adding to the toxic air my kids breathe near their school.

Where am I going with this? Straight to the carbon monoxide confessional apparently. My sin? Illegally double-parking outside my boys’ school at pick-up and drop-off times, my minivan engine idling all the while. That's 20 to 30 wasteful minutes spewing exhaust fumes dangerously close to their developing lungs—and everyone else’s—twice each day. I might as well drive one of those port porkers I loathe.

Wouldn’t I be just as damned if I stalked the block for the perfect parking spot? Sure, Al Gore will get right back to you on that. While you're waiting, consider these low-effort, low- to no-cost ways corner-cutting mamas like me can reduce the impact of our idle ways:

1. Kill the engine. Obviously. Shutting it off cuts down on global warming, wasted gasoline and potential damage to your engine. Leaving your vehicle on in park actually guzzles more gas than shutting it off and turning it back on.

2. Hoof it. If you live close enough, walk or ride a bike to your child’s school. Invest in a tandem family bike with the green you'll save on gas, and don’t forget the helmets. Teachers dig helmets. So do brains.

3. Hitch a ride or give one. Carpooling is my favorite (and easiest) form of mom-bartering. If you’re like me, you owe more than a few moms a favor or five. Pay them back by schlepping theirs, and maybe they’ll schlep yours. You’ll both get a break at the pump, and from those tedious pick-up/drop-off waiting lines.

4. Spread the word, not smog. Tell the whole minivan mafia about the hazards of idling in school zones. The school newsletter is a good start.  And I hear moms are pretty good at spreading rumors … but you didn’t hear that from me.

(Photo credit:Gaetan Lee, Flickr)