An Easy Way to Stop Junk Mail and Help the Environment

I just discovered the GreenDimes junk mail removal service. They offer a centralized way to get yourself off junk mailing lists. Reducing the number of catalogs sent out saves trees, fuel and transportation costs, etc., and therefore is a tremendous boost for the environment.

If you opt for GreenDimes’ free service (which includes either (A) getting a dollar from them or (B) having a tree planted or (C) getting a free issue of something), then you will have to do a lot of the legwork yourself, but they offer all the information you need.

They also offer two paid-for services ($20 and $36), which they somewhat misleadingly say only require one payment. What they really mean is that you pay once and they do what they can to get you off the junk mailing lists, which should reduce your junk mail for 3 to 5 years, but you may need to pay a half-price “refresh” fee if you move or your purchasing habits put you on new lists. Since many mailing lists are printed months ahead of time, they say to give the service a good three months to start showing results. You have up to a year to request a refund if you aren’t happy.

You do need to tell them what catalogs you receive that you want to stop receiving, but that is easily done. You will also need to sign and send some postcards, but they send you the postcards and even include postage. It couldn’t get much easier than this.

Oh—and they will plant five trees for you with the paid-for services as well. Since we all need to plant a lot of trees to make up for our carbon footprint in our lifetime, this is another painless way to help the environment.

I am already quite in love with this service. I signed up for their $20 service, and have already added over 20 catalogs to the list. I have been recycling all my junk mail, but it is a greater benefit to the environment to reduce it or stop it entirely.

Carbon Footprint? What is That?

Your carbon footprint is basically the quantity of carbon dioxide you cause to be created by using utilities, driving a car (or using buses, taxis, airplanes, etc.), using gas-powered lawn equipment, riding a motorcycle, and so on.

How much is your carbon footprint? Use this calculator to find out. It will also tell you how many trees you need to plant to absorb the carbon dioxide emissions you create. Since carbon dioxide is absorbed by trees, a very easy and common way to offset your carbon footprint is by planting trees, either on your own or by paying someone to do it (or, of course, both).

I am proud to say my household carbon footprint is much smaller than the national average. Having made the calculations, I find that between my gardens over the years and paying for trees to be planted, I have already planted almost enough trees (36) to make up for my carbon footprint (I need to plant a minimum of 43). Nice to know. However, I believe the national average, carbon-footprint-wise, is much higher, so if you don’t want to use the calculator, you can just go with the national average, which is that most people need to plant about 77 trees.

 

Not All Animal Rescue Societies Truly Rescue

I just took a look at this Web site—it has a nice, clean appearance, and reviews some really cool products for cats. Take a look, if only for the nifty cat swag.

But also, the author has written an article about Best Friends Animal Society and a recent rescue they have been working on. A case of institutionalized animal hoarding had been found, and Best Friends was brought in to help make things better

Animal hoarding is a weird aberration in which a person or institution (in this case, an institution named FLOCK), collect some type of animal, saying that they are only thinking of that animal. But instead of caring properly for them or trying to find good homes for them, the hoarder(s) maintain the animals in horrific conditions. The animals often die or end up completely frightened and confused—and that is just the tip of the iceberg. The conditions are truly, truly horrible, and the state in which the animals are when discovered requires a strong stomach.

To quote from the HARC (the Hoarding of Animals Research Consortium at Tufts University), “Animal hoarding is not about animal sheltering, rescue, or sanctuary, and should not be confused with these legitimate efforts to help animals. It IS about satisfying a human need to accumulate animals and control them, and this need supercedes the needs of the animals involved.”

In this case, the conditions were as horrific as they get.

The story brought tears to my eyes. I have such a hard time understanding how people can harm cats, and I really don’t get the cat hoarding mentality. Yet it is a problem. A few months ago, I read of a case of cat hoarding that took place in Petaluma a few years back. The woman who was doing it said she was “rational.” Ha!

Because of these kinds of people, animal rescuers can get a little leery of cat hoarding, to the point where they can suspect it in places where it isn’t. I told an animal rescuer recently that I had four cats and she clearly thought I was on my way down the loony path, that it was only a matter of time before the authorities would be knocking on my door. I was bemused by her reaction. I do understand the fear, but my four cats are quite happy and healthy, and I really am rational. (I plan to invite her to my house to alleviate her fears.)

Is there anything we can do to help this problem? Of course! There are some genuine groups who are doing genuinely good things for animals, including no-kill shelters. If you wish to help animals, you can’t go wrong donating to them, or helping them out in some other way. Or, if you want to get more involved, there is probably a local animal rescue group you could volunteer for. These societies always need help.

One more side note: I am reminded of an article I once read about a couple spending $20,000 on an operation for their $4.99 goldfish—and the goldfish died anyway. As my wonderful sister-in-law said, there are a lot more socially responsible ways to spend that kind of money than on a goldfish. Much as I love my goldfish, even if I had that kind of money to burn, I wouldn’t spend it on a risky operation that had only a so-so chance of succeeding. Instead, I’d donate that money to a no-kill shelter, and save the lives of a large number of animals.

But do the research first to make sure you are donating to something that is legitimate. For example, do not donate to PETA, which is another horror story in itself. “PETA is against the no kill movement and euthanizes the majority of animals that are given to them.”

Since you may find conflicting reports about any given place, or you may have different ideas about what constitutes loving care (some places, for example, advocate not letting your animals outside unless they are in an enclosure, and you may not agree with that), you will have to listen to your heart to decide whether a place is doing more good than harm.

A Turkey Visitor Provides Food for Thought

On March 27th, I was up early working at my computer with my balcony door open (which is pretty usual—I like lots of fresh air). I kept hearing what sounded like a turkey gobbling coming from down the street, but told myself it couldn’t be so, could it? It could have been a very weird dog.

The gobbling got closer and closer until it was coming from right in front of my house, at which point I had to get up to go check it out, because now it sounded unmistakably like a turkey. Sure enough, there in my front lawn was a young-looking turkey, strutting around. As soon as I stepped onto the balcony, though, it whisked around the corner into my side yard. I never realized that the land speed of a turkey was so fast.

I grabbed my camera and ran downstairs, then snuck quietly out the back door. It tried to come into my back yard but was foiled by the iron gate. When I came out, it turned around and headed for the northwest corner of my yard. I got a few pictures, one that isn’t very clear at all, one under the redwoods (taken through the iron gate), and a couple that I took by swinging wide and around the redwoods after it flew to the back fence. Then it spread its wings and flew away, rather gracefully and effortlessly for such a large bird.

I believe that, if we are alert and pay attention, information flows to us (and from us, but that’s not the topic today) all the time. This information can be in the way of messages to warn us, guide us, or otherwise inform us. These messages came come in any form, such as billboards that catch our eye, a stranger making a comment that catches out attention, and so on.

Especially, I believe that when we see animals, those animals bring messages of some sort. (Even animals who are in our lives every day, such as cats and dogs and even goldfish.) So my normal reaction when seeing an animal is to reflect upon what the message is that is being brought to me. I always get something interesting.

Somehow I failed that process this time, at least in as far as reflecting on it immediately. That might be in part because I just don’t know what to make of the turkey as a messenger. The usual animals I see, I tend to know their messages (hawks, hummingbirds, crows, and deer appear to me often, for example). But a turkey—? I was clueless.

This morning, however, I awoke thinking about it, and decided it was time to complete the process. After some Googling and reading, I found this Web site that seems to summarize most succinctly the turkey’s meanings (it also plays a nice little sound file of a turkey’s gobble).

After reading the various pages, I turned inward and asked my inner self what the meaning was for me. I got something related to the posted meanings, but personal for me, which is exactly perfect—to be meaningful, a message must be personally tailored to the individual it is meant for. Cookie-cutter symbolism, where a dog is said to mean the exact same thing to everyone, just doesn’t go far enough. It is a start, and that is all; it is up to the recipient of the message to get the gist of the message as it was meant for him or her.

The point of this post is not just to share my own experience, but also to encourage others to be alert to messages from the world coming their way. Being open to such messages enriches life immensely, and can help each of us make better, more informed choices in our lives.

About Bees…and the Environment

I just discovered that bees are slaves. I never knew that. In the years in which I kept bees, starting with the very gentle swarm that I captured without incident or loss of life back in the late 1970s, and kept for several years without incident, I always thought that it was a cooperative enterprise. Mind you, I didn’t practice any of the things that many beekeepers do–I never killed a queen; never killed any of the bees; never medicated them; collected only the surplus honey, not the honey they needed to overwinter with, nor the pollen, propolis, royal jelly, etc.; and so on. Essentially, I respected the bees as partners, and thought kindly of them, and did everything I knew how (which was mostly just leaving them alone and providng them with new supers as needed) to make sure they were healthy and happy. In my entire time managing that hive, I was never stung. (I later had a different hive of bees in Arizona, and that was a nasty-tempered bunch. With that hive, I did get stung.)

I am being sarcastic here about the bees-as-slaves idea. The person who wrote that bees are slaves has many valid points about how we, as a society, are mismanaging honeybees, and I agree with most of them. Many years ago, Rudolph Steiner predicted that our beekeeping practices would weaken honeybees, to the point that we would have the exact problems we are having today with colony collapse disorder (CCD).

CCD is just one result of the carelessness with which humanity as a whole has been treating the world. Though some like to point fingers at the United States, the truth is that people around the world, in all levels of society, are abusing the environment out of ignorance, greed, shortsightedness, and general contempt for any lives other than their own.

The thing is, it is so easy to reduce one’s impact, to respect the planet, to live kindly and lovingly on this earth. It may mean some “sacrifices” for some people (do we women really need to wear makeup everyday? Or even any day, for that matter?), but the end result will be happier people and a healthier planet, I am quite sure of it. You can start by checking out some of my recommendations on this page.

There is a lot of information available on the Internet on the many different things you can do to help the environment; many of them will save you time and money, too, making it a win-win situation for all.

If you decide to make a difference, don’t overwhelm yourself and give yourself goals that are hard to reach. Start small. Pick even one change that you are willing to make, then stick to that one change for a while. Do the research, though. Some groups, such as PETA, who sound like they are wonderful are sometimes doing the opposite of what they say they are about.