Image by dorena-wm / Creative Commons

Although summer won’t officially be here until mid June, many people are already planning their summer vacations. The kids will be out of school in a few weeks and if you haven’t already planned a cool family trip, now is the time. To help you with that, I’ve come up with a few ideas for environmentally-friendly summer excursions you are sure to enjoy. If done right they will all have a smaller impact on the environment than “traditional” summer activities.

1) Walking: No matter where you live or who you are, walking is an environmentally-friendly way to get around during the summer (or any season for that matter). When you walk, you are getting exercise and fresh air, not to mention you are close to nature and the world around you.

Image by Will Fuller / Creative Commons

2) Hiking: For those of you who would rather spend a little more time in nature, a hike could be just the excursion you need. Keep in mind that it is key, when hiking, to be fully prepared and to know how to leave no trace. Then all you need to do is find a local hiking trail and you are good to go.

Image by Ed Coyle / Creative Commons

3) Biking: If you’d rather hop on a bike than walk or hike, biking is a great way to travel much farther from home and to see more sights. Since May is National Bike Month, it is a great time for you and your family to hop on your bikes and go for a ride.

Did you know that currently work is underway towards the creation of the U.S. Bicycle Route System (UBSRS)? In fact, with the approval of two new U.S. Bike Routes on May 21st, and 40 different states taking steps towards its establishment, I would say a U.S. Bicycle Route System might be not too far off.

4) Day-Trip: I have two favorite day trips; one is to the ocean and the other is to the mountains, depending on the weather of course. As far as environmentally-friendly, I would recommend using public transportation to head out to your local beach or lake for a day trip. Pack a lunch, put on a natural or vegan sunscreen, hop on the train or bus (you can even bring your bike) and prepare to have a great day.

5) Camping Trip: Growing up, some of my favorite trips were those where we went camping. We went camping in Yosemite, on Catalina Island, at the beach, by the lake, in the mountains, and more. There is nothing quite like camping in the great outdoors. It is essential, however, to practice these 7 leave no trace principles when camping as well. You want to preserve and protect the beauty of your camping destination for the next people to enjoy, right?

Oooh, and before I forget, adventurous types can combine two activities, biking and camping, into one and opt for bike camping. Backpack, bike, a reusable water bottle, a GPS, and I’d say you’re good to go. Another recommendation is a solar charger. Since you are going to be riding and/or out in the sun most of the day, this Voltaic solar charger may be your best option. It can be attached to so many things and why not take advantage of the sun’s energy while you’ve got it.

Regardless of where you go or what you do this summer, take the time to see if you can make your adventure a little more environmentally-friendly. Even if it is just to get yourself a small dose of the wonders Mother Nature has to offer, I would say it is well worth it.

Image by doublej11

We’re talking about positive actions, we’re talking about doing something – something biofriendly, of course. This Sunday is 10/10/10 and broadly recognized as a “Global Day of Doing“.

People from all across the globe are joining together to show they are intent on making a difference. They are intent on reducing their carbon footprint, intent on lowering their emissions, intent on living a “greener” life…you get the idea.

Now, despite the release of a pretty disturbing viral video centered around “blowing people up for climate change”, the overall intention behind 10/10/10 is good. They want to make people aware of what they can do about climate change, educate them on how their daily actions affect the environment around them and then get them to make some changes. It’s all about doing something to make a difference.

I’m all for doing something about climate change. I’m not saying that Mother Nature and Planet Earth don’t have a mind of their own, but I do feel that what we do can make a difference – good or bad. So why not do something to contribute to the survival of the planet? I know I’d rather see more green spaces, less pollution and cleaner air. What about you?

So here are 10 biofriendly actions you can take in recognition of 10/10/10:

1 – Walk instead of drive. This Sunday, itself of driving where you need to go, try walking there. You cut down emissions and get some exercise. Besides, it’s always nice to get outdoors.

2 – Plant a garden. If you missed out on your Summer garden, don’t worry. Now is a great time to start getting prepared for winter. Apartment or not, try growing a few of your own herbs and vegetables. It’s fun and they taste great.

3 – Eat local. Go to your local Farmer’s Market and get some locally grown food. No reason to have food trucked across country when you can get wonderfully tasting, fresh food close to home.

4 – Unplug. Rather than spending the day online or plopped in front of the TV, why don’t you unplug for the day. Spend time with family, go out for a walk. Find something to do that doesn’t require you to be plugged in all day.

5 – Do some Spring Cleaning in the Fall. Many of us probably have a lot more “stuff” than we actually need. Try cleaning house a bit then donate the stuff you don’t use anymore.

6 – Recycle. If you haven’t started recycling, get yourself a recycling bin and start. Even a paper bag can be used to collect recyclables.

7 – Attend a already planned 10:10 event.

8 – Register your own event for 10/10/10. Nothing says you can’t start your own event and you should!

9 – Educate your kids/family about the different steps they can take to curb their negative impact on the environment. But more importantly, educate them on what they can do to help better the environment around them.

10 – Simply clean up. Go to your local park, beach or even just walk around your neighborhood and clean up. It’s a simple action that will not only make an immediate improvement, but will remind others to clean up too.

There are so many things each of us can do. For a few more biofriendly ideas, take a look at this video and see what other people are doing on 10/10/10. I’d love to hear what your ideas are for 10/10/10 too – what are you doing?

10:10:10 A GLOBAL DAY OF DOING from 10:10 on Vimeo.

Image by las – initially

There are so many awesome green articles and blogs out there, that I decided I’d like to share just a few of the ones I found useful, creative and/or informative. Therefore I’m doing a ‘weekly greens’ post for you in the hopes that you might read something new, find a creative way to be greener than you already are or maybe just connect you up with another green, environmentally-friendly person.

Onto the ‘weekly greens’:

1 – Are your pets ready for Summer?:  This is a key question. With temperatures soaring, making sure your pets are taken care of is essential. So take a few minutes and remind yourself of some of the things you’ll need to ensure your pets are ready for Summer.

Image by Alt-Ctrl-Tom

2 - New Canadian Development Pushes the Limits of Sustainable Design: This post I found particularly interesting as it really shows how much can be accomplished when someone sets their mind to it. The article had me at ”…that sewage treatment plant masked itself as a meandering creek and reduced residents’ utility expenses to almost zero…”.

3 – Travel Green: Bed and Breakfasts in Oregon: Now while you may not necessarily be traveling to Oregon this Summer, this post is a simple reminder that when you are traveling, you should look for green accommodations.

Don’t forget Summer is a great time to grab some friends, maybe head up to Oregon or even book a flight to Orlando and stay in one of their nice B&Bs. Just say hi to Mickey for me if you do!

Image by Travel Salem

4 – Safe and Simple Alternatives to Household Cleaning Chemicals: I don’t know about you, but I can’t stand the smell of most cleaning chemicals. The chemicals are way too strong for my nose and if they are bothering my nose that much, what are they doing to the rest of my body? I like this post because it includes some simple ideas for making cleaning your home not such a toxic activity.

5 - The Minimalist Guide to Saving Money: One of the simplest ways (in my opinion) to cut down on waste is to cut down on spending. This is a list gives good things to remember when you are trying to cut down and save money.

Image by las – initially

6 – Micro Organism Technology – The Only Real Solution: In relation to the BP oil spill, I thought this was an interesting viewpoint and idea on how to use microbes to help get the oil cleaned up. We look to Mother Nature for so many creative and positive examples for anything from architecture to medical solutions, maybe she has more to teach us.

I’ll wrap up this first ‘weekly greens’ with 10 Green Ways to Combat Stress. In today’s world things can sometimes get a little hectic and if you are starting to feel stressed, I urge you to sit down and try one (or more) of these ways to combat stress. I’m pretty sure you’ll be glad you did.

For more links to green and environmental articles, please follow me on twitter.

Also if you have a blog post or article you think I might enjoy reading or sharing, feel free to email me at tara@biofriendly.com so I can take a look. I look forward to hearing from you and who knows, maybe you’ll see it in one of my ‘weekly greens’ posts.

Image by KaCey97007 via Flickr

Well, Earth Day 2010 has come and gone. If you’re like many people you made some kind of change that day to show your support for Mother Earth. But, what did you take away from Earth Day? Did you take away a new viewpoint on “going green”? Are you planning on making any green changes today, tomorrow or the next day?

If you look at it, Earth Day and the Earth Day Climate Rally were set up to educate, enlighten and join people together to make our world a better, more sustainable place to live. Now, that doesn’t mean everyone needs to immediately start living a 100% “green” life. It also doesn’t necessarily mean that if you do live a 100% green life, everything is going to be coming up roses.

But, in my opinion, green signifies life. Look around…when trees and flowers bloom in the Spring, what is one common color you see? Green.

Grass growing in a field is green. Green vegetables are recommended for good health.

And even though the Earth is often referred to as a “Blue Marble” or the “Pale Blue Dot“, if you look at pictures of the Earth or even some globes, the land we live on is shown as green. What would our lives be without the green?

(Flower image by Robert S. Donovan and field image by Richard0 via Flickr)

Well, that’s a matter of opinion. How do you want your future to look? It’s common knowledge that this planet we live on is pretty much guaranteed to last a lot longer than you or I will. Take a look at this photo, for example…even though the building is abandoned, the green life of nature continues to grow.

Image by Jorge Franganillo via Flickr

Of course there are things we can do that help Mother Nature do her thing while making our lives here more enjoyable and sustainable. That’s where all the “green” activities people talk about come into play.

If you want to have trees, flowers, gardens, parks, national landscapes, rivers, streams for you, your family and the rest of the world to admire and enjoy, then you need to do something to help preserve them. If you think less pollution, lower emissions and clean air are important, then doing something about it is important as well.

In the name of advancement, over the past 40 years I have seen a lot more housing complexes, shopping centers, buildings, cars, highways, pollution, etc. come into existence than I have seen areas being preserved. Even solar farms and wind farms have sometimes encroached on nature to bring us green, alternative energy sources.

So are we actually making strides towards a cleaner, greener future? Take a look at what Walter Cronkite had to say after the first Earth Day forty years ago and decide for yourself how far we’ve come and how far we have to go.

Please remember though….going green has nothing to do with what’s popular, what’s in style or what’s the latest green gadget to buy, it has to do with how you are going to live your life.

So whether you do something for personal benefits (saving money, having your own fresh vegetables, living healthier, etc) or for everyone’s benefit (less pollution, less waste, more natural resources, cleaner environment, etc.), do something constructive. I mean, what is life without the green, right?

No matter what your viewpoints are on the environment relating to climate change or global warming, the fact of the matter is we live on a planet that is over 4 billion years old. A planet that has a core temperature estimated to be between 4000 and 7000 degrees Celsius (approx. 7000-12500 degrees Fahrenheit). A planet that had surface temperatures ranging from minus 128.6 degrees F (Antarctica on July 21, 1983) to 136 degrees F (Libya on Sept 13, 1922).

Of course those are extreme temperatures, but there have been many environmental extremes over the years. Let’s take a look at a few of them.

First, did you know the United States experienced 96 weather-related disasters within the last 30 years – each of which caused over $1 billion in damages? The estimated total for these disasters exceeded $700 billion.

The majority of those disasters were caused by tropical storms or hurricanes. Other types of disasters included severe weather, heat waves, non-tropical floods, fires, blizzards, etc.

As far as which states were hit worst; Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and North Carolina all experienced between 31-35 weather-related disasters each.

WARMEST PLACE ON EARTH: Dallol, Ethiopia is generally referred to as the warmest place on Earth. Yearly temperatures average around 93 degrees F. Some of Dallol’s best known features include Dallol Mountain, its hot springs, salt canyons and salt pillars.

COLDEST INHABITED CITY ON EARTH: While most people consider the Antarctic to be the coldest place on Earth (as it does have the coldest recorded temperature on earth), the coldest year-round inhabited city on Earth is commonly regarded as Oymyakon, Siberia.

The Siberian winters in Oykyakon have gotten as low as -96 degrees F with an average winter temperature of -45 degrees F. While most people can’t even imagine living in temperatures that cold, people in Oykyakon are used to it. Schools don’t even close unless the temperature has reached at least -52 degrees F.

Take a look at this video and see what you think about living in the coldest inhabited place on Earth:

DRIEST PLACE ON EARTH: The Atacama Desert is easily considered the driest place on Earth. With an average rainfall of just 0.04 inches per year, rain is a scarce commodity. Some areas of the desert haven’t reported any rain since 1570!

Not only is the Atacama Desert dry, it is also large. So large (46,000 square miles) that it can be seen from outer space with the naked eye.

This image of Solar Evaporation Ponds in the Atacama Desert was taken by the Expedition 19 crew, back in May 2009, while they were aboard the International Space Station.

WETTEST PLACE ON EARTH: On the other extreme, we have the wettest place on Earth. Many people will tell you it’s Lloro, Columbia with 523.6 inches per year. However, according to the NCDC (National Climatic Data Center), that measurement was only an estimate and the actual wettest place on Earth is pretty close between Mawsynram, India and Mt. Waialeale in Kauai, Hawaii.

Mawsynram is a village in North-Eastern India. Its altitude is about 4600 feet and its highest average precipitation was about 467 inches. Mt. Waialeale on Kauai has an altitude of about 5200 feet with an average yearly precipitation of 444 inches. Its highest, according to the NCDC was 460 inches.

Now I know there are many environmental extremes I could bring up, including the devastating earthquakes in Haiti. the cold extremes being felt across New England and in other places around the world (despite the last decade being the warmest on record) and more. But the real key to remember is the world is constantly changing and while we can’t necessarily take on Mother Nature, we can each do our part to take care of the Earth. What actions are you taking to care for the Earth?