Greenversations

About the author: Kay Morrison joined EPA’s Office of Public Affairs in January.

I moved to DC in January without a really good idea of what it would be like to live in an urban setting, but one thing I knew was that a city like this doesn’t play nice with bikes. So much for what I know - I’ve learned that my neighbors can ride bikes through Rock Creek Park all the way down town … I could do it too if I had a bike. From reading the answers to the May 12 question of the week, “Why are you or aren’t you biking to work,” I have learned that a surprising number of our readers do bike to work, all over the country.

The question really hit a nerve for our readers. Back when we “only” had 704 comments we counted them up (thanks to our intern, Dominic) to see who does, and who doesn’t, bike to work, and why. I assumed that far fewer people would bike to work than those who don’t, but it turns out to be really close. 345 commentors said they do bike, 359 said they don’t. Some of you combine biking with public transportation, some bike part of the time, some can’t bike to work but you use your bike when you can.

Of those who do bike to work, you do it to be green (saving carbon emissions not to mention $$ on gasoline and parking), or for the exercise, or for the pleasure it brings to be out in the air with critters and birds.

Those of you who do not bike to work were concerned for your safety - it’s clear that there aren’t enough safe biking routes, bike trails, or driver awareness of bicyclists. You also live pretty darn far from where you work.

What have you or your bike club or town planning commission done to make your community more bike friendly? How did you get your employer to support biking to work? Share your success stories and current projects. What steps can we, as citizens and bike to workers, take to make our communities and work places more bike friendly?

Thanks so much for all your interesting and thoughtful comments on this topic. I’ve learned a lot about biking from reading them – one of these days you may see me biking to work too!

About the author: Lina Younes has been working for EPA since 2002 and chairs EPA’s Multilingual Communications Task Force. Prior to joining EPA, she was the Washington bureau chief for two Puerto Rican newspapers and she has worked for several government agencies.

Lea la versión en español a continuación de esta entrada en inglés.
Some links exit EPA or have Spanish content.

As the school year comes to an end, many parents are in the predicament of finding activities to keep the kids entertained during the summer months. As a parent of a six year old, I want to find educational activities for her to do while I’m at work and on weekends.

Personally, I think this season is a golden opportunity to get the children interested in science AND, above all, in protecting the environment. The best part is that you can make it fun without letting them know that you are “teaching” them something. When talking about the environment any location can be your classroom—be it indoors or outdoors.

For example, while planting vegetables for the summer, you can teach the children about greenscaping. Playing outside or going to the beach are opportunities to talk to kids about protecting themselves from the sun’s powerful rays. And if there are any creepy crawlers in the home you want to get rid of now, visit an interactive Website in English and Spanish, Help! It’s a roach!

For parents of young children, I highly recommend some of EPA’s materials, in English and Spanish on the Planet Protectors Club. These are a series of workbooks and educational materials for young children designed in conjunction with teachers that basically focus on the three R’s reduce, reuse, and recycling of waste management.

Our Office of Solid Waste has other materials geared for middle school and high school students which have many applications.
Furthermore, two new publications, Working Together for a Healthy Environment and Teach English, Teach About the Environment help multilingual individuals and community groups learn more about recycling. Plus, there are numerous community service projects that enable students to apply the lessons learned in the classroom to real-life experiences.

OK. I’m getting off subject now. Let me go back to young children.

I must confess that as the mother of a six year old (and of three college students) I have also become aware of how much children learn from our example and daily comings and goings. Recycling has become second nature to them and I was very impressed by the little one reminding me not to get out of the house without sun block! Glad to know that I must be doing something right.

Que el mundo entero sea su salón de clase

Sobre la autor: Lina M. F. Younes ha trabajado en la EPA desde el 2002 y está a cargo del Grupo de Trabajo sobre Comunicaciones Multilingües. Como periodista, dirigió la oficina en Washington de dos periódicos puertorriqueños y ha laborado en varias agencias gubernamentales.

Mientras se avecina el fin del año escolar, muchos padres están en el proceso de encontrar actividades para mantener a sus niños ocupados durante los meses de verano. Como madre de una niña de seis años, quiero encontrar actividades educativas para que ella se entretenga mientras estoy trabajando y durante los fines de semana.

Personalmente creo que esta época realmente se presta como una gran oportunidad para interesar a los niños en las ciencias y especialmente en la protección ambiental. Lo mejor de todo es encontrar algo divertido sin que ellos se den cuenta de que se le está “enseñando algo”. Cuando se habla del medio ambiente, cualquier lugar puede ser un aula escolar-sea en entornos interiores como exteriores. Por ejemplo, mientras esté sembrando legumbres y flores para el verano, puede enseñar a los niños sobre la jardinería ecológica. Mientras está afuera o en la playa también puede aprovechar para hablar a los hijos de cómo protegerse de los poderosos rayos solares. Y si ve algunos insectos indeseables invadiendo su hogar y quiere enseñar a los hijos sobre cómo eliminarlos, visite el sitio interactivo en inglés y español, ¡Socorro, una cucaracha!

A los padres de niños pequeños, le recomiendo alguno de los materiales educativos de EPA en ingles y español del Club de Protectores del Planeta. Son una serie de folletos y materiales educativos para niños diseñados en conjunto con maestros y se centran básicamente en las tres R’s de la gestión de desperdicios-el reducir, reutilizar y reciclar.

Nuestra Oficina de Residuos Sólidos tiene otros materiales para estudiantes de intermedia y de escuela superior. Además hay dos nuevas publicaciones, Trabajando juntos por un ambiente saludable y Aprenda inglés, aprenda sobre el medio ambiente que ayudará a individuos y comunidades multilingües a aprender más sobre reciclaje. Además hay numerosos proyectos de servicio comunitario que ayudan a los estudiantes aplicar las lecciones aprendidas en el salón de clase a experiencias de la vida real.

Bueno, estoy divagando. Regresemos a los niños.

Debo confesar que como madre de una niña de seis años (y otras tres universitarias) he cobrado consciencia sobre el hecho de que nuestros hijos aprenden mucho de nuestro ejemplo y acciones cotidianas. El reciclaje ya es un buen hábito que han internalizado y me impresiona el hecho de que mi pequeña es la que me recuerda antes de salir de la casa que tenemos que usar la crema de protección solar! Después de todo parece que estoy haciendo algo correctamente.

About the author: Kelly Leovic has been with EPA since 1987, doing indoor air research and then exposure research before beginning her dream job of educational outreach in 2003.

I loaded the lung capacity kit, Watts meter, and brochures into my car and couldn’t believe that I was getting paid to do this! Today was my 3rd year staffing our EPA Booth at the Durham Bulls Education Day - same team as Bull Durham movie, just a new ballpark.

At 9:30 a.m., over 3,000 students, 1st grade through high school, and their chaperones and teachers descended upon the Ballpark. Instantly, our table was surrounded by students anxious to measure how many cups of air they had in their lungs or to compare the wattage of a CFL with a traditional bulb.

Lung capacity is always the most popular activity at our booth, so the next 3 hours went something like this:

A class of 3rd graders surrounds our table curious about the big bucket of water with a tube.

Kelly: Today we are going to do an experiment to measure how many cups of air you have in your lungs.

Kid #1: Is it free?

Kelly: Sure is! Now take a clean straw, and put it into the end of the tube attached to the bucket. Take a deep breath and blow all the air out of your lungs into the tube. Then we’ll measure how many cups of water you emptied. Only take one breath. (We can’t use the term “water displacement” with 3rd graders!)

Kid #1 begins to blow, and we all cheer words of lung-emptying encouragement. I play judge, making sure no one sneaks in an extra breath.

Kelly: Nice job. Now, let’s measure how many cups of air you had. Wow…8 cups! (Most kids measure between 4 and 16 cups of air.)

Finally, we then talk about why some kids might have more capacity than others and how exercise can improve lung capacity.

I repeat this, smiling and saying “nice job,” approximately 172 times that day. In the spirit of exercise and health, my favorite part is talking to the students about their sports. I especially enjoy when they play basketball or tennis, run track, or swim because those are sports that my kids do. I also love their “competitive” spirit in trying to outdo their classmates.

Education Day was a great way to celebrate National Air Quality Awareness Week and Asthma Awareness Month. Oh, and did I mention that, to top it off, the Durham Bulls won, 2-0?!

About the author: Viccy Salazar joined EPA in 1995. She works in our Seattle office on waste reduction, resource conservation and stewardship issues.

I’m back. What did you think about over the last week? Did you come up with any rules for yourself? Here are a couple more that I thought about over the week. Practicing the rules last week made me realize that it isn’t easy. But it IS doable. I just have to make it a priority. Here are a couple more rules to consider.

Take only what you need. Remember when we used to fill our plates to overflowing with our favorites foods but really were not hungry enough to eat it all? That is what I feel like we are doing to our lives with stuff. The environmental benefit of not buying something in the first place is huge. You don’t have to extract the resource, you don’t have to transport it, you don’t have to market or sell it and you don’t have to dispose of it when you are done. Always think before you buy and ask yourself if you really need it.

Do unto others. For me, this is the most important of the lessons. When I think about my everyday environmental choices, this is the lesson that hits home. I struggle every day with the balance of my ‘wants’ with what I think is right for the ‘others’ – other species, other people and most significantly, other generations. I feel I owe it to them to leave them what was left for me. To do this, I recycle, compost, take the bus, buy energy efficient appliances and all the basics and still don’t feel like I am really leaving the world as good as I got it.

So, I’ve decided “Do unto Others” is my Earth Day goal for 2008. I want to go beyond the basics and really reach for something extra to reduce my environmental impact. Some ideas I have for myself are travel less, eat more sustainable foods, use less energy and water at home, recycle more, buy less and actually track what I am doing. I know I won’t get it all right (or even all done), but I am going to try. Wish me luck and I’ll let you know how I am doing.

What have you decided to do?

Here are some ideas.

About the author: Maria T. Vargas joined EPA in 1986 and is EPA’s ENERGY STAR® communications and brand manager.

Having worked at EPA for over 20 years, it’s exciting to see that Earth Day still commands attention as people come together to learn how to better protect the environment. This year, on Earth Day we encouraged all Americans to do more to help fight global warming this year by pledging to make changes in their home at the new Change the World, start with the ENERGY STAR website. I think people often forget that each of us can make a difference in protecting our environment and helping reduce greenhouse gases is no exception!

I try to bring the energy-saving practices that I’ve learned at EPA into my own home as much as possible. We’ve changed all our bulbs to ENERGY STAR qualified compact fluorescent bulbs, and we’ve installed a programmable thermostat to automatically set back the heat and air conditioning when we are not at home. Since heating and air conditioning can account for as much as half of the energy used in a home, we’ve upgraded our system to a high efficiency HVAC model and keep the filters clean and the ducts sealed to make sure it is running at peak efficiency.

My kids are great about remembering to turn off the lights in their room when they leave (OK – most of the time!), shutting off the TV when we are not watching it and turning off the water while they are brushing their teeth. And my hi-tech husband is a good sport, too — he agreed to wait for the new, more stringent ENERGY STAR television specification before he bought the wide-screen LCD TV that he had his eye on.

To see what you can do in your home, take the ENERGY STAR Pledge now and see how you can save energy, save money on your utility bill, and help fight global warming. It is a great way to make every day Earth Day.

About the author: Viccy Salazar joined EPA in 1995. She works in our Seattle office on waste reduction, resource conservation and stewardship issues.

Everyday, I try to teach my kids not to waste, to share, to do unto others, to pick up after themselves, to take only what they really need… you get the picture. The great thing about kids is that they really want to do those things and they want to be nice and fair about how they interact with their friends. As I was thinking on Earth Day, I was thinking how these are the exact same lessons that we need for environmental protection. We can protect the earth if we just obey the basic rules we all learned when we were 3 years old. Here are the rules as I see them:

Share. We need to share the resources and not hoard for ourselves. The resources available to us need to be allocated among many communities and species. I think, in particular, of water and food distribution where some have so much and others have so little. We don’t have a choice but to share the earth so we must learn to share the earth’s resources so all of us can survive together.

Don’t waste. Don’t waste means to make the best use of the resources we have. It obviously relates to things like recycling and turning off lights but was I was thinking about it, I realized it also means don’t use resources if you don’t have to. Take a bus, buy a smaller house, have a high gas mileage car, don’t buy things you don’t need, borrow instead of buy. I find I need to remind myself of this lesson a lot.

Pick up after yourself. To me this mean don’t pollute. When we pollute, we are leaving our mess for someone else. Our environmental laws like RCRA, the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act are all basically trying to say, if you make the mess, clean it up or only make a little mess. Then I think, but if all of us make just a little mess, it turns into a really big mess which isn’t sustainable. So, we are looking into new solutions like Product Stewardship. Product Stewardship requires companies taking responsibility for the end-of-life management of the products they make and sell. The same lesson we teach our children, you are responsible for your own messes. Don’t put it on anyone else. We still have a long way to go.

I know there are a few more rules but I need to go and practice the rules at home. I’ll check back next week. While I’m gone, let’s all think about how the rules apply to us and our daily activities.

I invite you to leave a comment with your own rules and share them with others in your life to spread the environmental word.