Bringing in the New Year is a powerful time to reset your clock and make time for the things you feel are most important to you. Think of it as a fresh start for an existing soul. A marker of time we can use to compare what was in the previous 12 months to what we had wanted, had hoped for and worked for in that time period. Sometimes the things we strive for are immediately apparent while others take a long time to come into fruition.

It’s easy to brush things off but not so easy to lie to your self year after year. If there are things running through your mind and are bugging you. Try to make a commitment to address them little by little so you can make changes that put your self at ease.

As usual our health, waistline, pocketbook and wellbeing are on the top of our list. But, try making a pledge to go out in your neighbor-hood or beyond and do little acts of kindness or try to create a way to share your wealth, knowledge and expertise with others less fortunate.

If we all do our part, IT WILL MAKE A DIIFERENCE. TOGETHER!            

Greeenfest Philly will be holding their annual Greenfest this Sunday, September 7th, 11am-6pm, 2nd & South Street. In 2006 Urban Green Partnership started to bring people together to become more connected and aware of the environmental issues facing the city and Delaware valley. 6,500 people & 40 vendors took part in the day long festival. In 2007 they decided to repeat their efforts and the festival grew to 14,000 people, 130 vendors. This time the focus was on joining with the Delaware Valley Building Council to accentuate the need for Philadelphia to build and be greener. The festival then became part of the Green Plan Philadelphia.

All I can say is: What a way to create community! What a way to turn people on to becoming, embracing or supporting the Green Movement!

What is Green & Why is it important?

Green is a way of living, thinking & acting. Recycling & re-using everything you can, conserving all resources, making more green decisions, refusing to use products & services that are not green & supporting greener ones instead! Once you raise your awareness you will want to make changes by consuming in a more conscious way.

Detoxification of the planet is essential for all species health and continued longevity. Can’t you sense the planetary shifts and see the toxic materials building in our supplies of natural resources? What will we do & where will we turn for natural, clean essentials if we pollute all our Earth?

“There is a very common mind-set right now which holds that all that we’re going to need to do to avert the large-scale planetary catastrophes upon us is make slightly different shopping decisions,” said Alex Steffen, the executive editor of Worldchanging.com, a Web site devoted to sustainability issues. “The genuine solution, he and other critics say, is to significantly reduce one’s consumption of goods and resources. “

I found a website, http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Vines/4990/index.html, that gives some startling statistics, suggestions & information on going green : 

• The amount of wood and paper we throw away each year is enough to heat 50 million homes for 20 years.

• 99.5 percent of all fresh water on Earth is in icecaps and glaciers.

• Each gallon of gas used by a car contributes about 19 pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere. For a single car driving 1,000 miles a month, that adds up to 120 tons of CO2 a year.

• A single polystyrene (Styrofoam) cup contains one billion billion molecules of CFCs–that’s 1,000,000,000,000,000,000.                                                      

• Once a CFC atom reaches the ozone layer, it can take over 100 years before it breaks up and becomes harmless.

• About 110 million Americans live in areas with levels of air pollutants the federal government considers to be harmful.

• Americans dump 16 tons of sewage into their waters–every minute of every day.

• Although water covers two-thirds of the surface of the Earth, all the fresh water in lakes, streams, and rivers represents only one-hundredth of the Earth’s total water.

• Each year, 1 million sea birds, 100,000 marine mammals, and 50,000 fur seals are killed as the result of eating or being strangled in plastic.

• A plant called the rosy periwinkle, which grows in the rainforests of Madagascar, has been used to make a drug that can cure some kinds of cancer.

• Americans throw away 25 billion Styrofoam coffee cups every year, and 2.5 million plastic beverage bottles every hour.

• Americans throw away enough glass bottles and jars to fill the 1,350-foot twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center every two weeks.

• Americans throw away about 40 billion soft drink cans and bottles every year. Placed end to end, they would reach to the moon and back nearly 20 times.

• Eighty-four percent of a typical household’s waste–including food scraps, yard waste, paper, cardboard, cans, and bottles–can be recycled.

• Using recycled paper for one print run of the Sunday edition of the New York Times would save 75,000 trees.

• If every American recycled just one-tenth of their newspapers, we would save about 25 million trees a year.

• Each year, 40 million acres of tropical rainforests–an area larger than the state of California–are destroyed through logging or burning.

• Only 10 percent of the 35,000 pesticides introduced since 1945 have been tested for their effects on people.

• It takes only one-twentieth as much raw materials to grow grains, fruits, and vegetables as it does to raise animals for meat.

• The typical American home uses about 300 gallons of water a day.

• A 1/32″ leak in a faucet can waste up to 6,000 gallons of water a month, or 72,000 gallons a year.

• America’s refrigerators use about 7 percent of the nation’s total electricity consumption–the output of about 25 large power plants.

• By turning the heat down, Americans could save more than 500,000 barrels of oil each day–that’s over 21,000,000 gallons.

• A single quart of motor oil, if disposed of improperly, can contaminate up to two million gallons of fresh water.

• By the year 2000, U.S. businesses will need the equivalent of all the office space in Pittsburgh, PA, to store the paper it uses in just one year.

• Driving an average of 1,000 miles a month produces about 120 tons of carbon dioxide a year.

• If all the cars on U.S. roads had properly inflated tires, it would save nearly 2 billion gallons of gasoline a year.

We can no longer wait until tomorrow to embrace this challenge! We need everyone’s commitment! Hopefully, we’ll see you there &/or inspire you to Get Greener everyday!