Greenversations

La exposición al mercurio puede resultar del uso inapropiado o excesivo de productos que contienen mercuro. La limpieza y disposición de cosas tan pequeñas como un termómetro roto se tienen que hacer adecuadamente. Octubre es el Mes de Salud Infantil.

¿Cómo protege a los niños del mercurio?

Cada semana hacemos una pregunta relacionada al medio ambiente. Por favor comparta con nosotros sus pensamientos y comentarios. Siéntase en libertad de responder a comentarios anteriores o plantear nuevas ideas. Preguntas previas.

“Change the World, Start with ENERGY STAR” is a national campaign encouraging all Americans to take small, individual steps that make a big difference in the fight against global warming. Take the Energy Star pledge.

What have you done to meet your Energy Star pledge?

Each week we ask a question related to the environment. Please let us know your thoughts as comments. Feel free to respond to earlier comments or post new ideas. Previous questions.

“Para cambiar el mundo, comience con ENERGY STAR” es una campaña nacional que exhorta a todos los estadounidenses a tomar pequeños pasos individuales para hacar una gran diferencia en la lucha en contra del cambio climático. Haga la promesa Energy Star.

¿Qué ha hecho para cumplir con su promesa Energy Star?

Cada semana hacemos una pregunta relacionada al medio ambiente. Por favor comparta con nosotros sus pensamientos y comentarios. Siéntase en libertad de responder a comentarios anteriores o plantear nuevas ideas. Preguntas previas.

Are you interested in playing a role in setting priorities with EPA? Do you have an interest in the compliance and enforcement of environmental laws? I’d like to tell you about an exciting opportunity to share your feedback with EPA on the environmental problems that are most important to you.

EPA is in the process of selecting new priorities to focus our enforcement and compliance work in 2011-2013. As part of this process, we would like to collect a wide range of views from the public on the most important environmental problems that occur nationwide. It would also be helpful if you could share a little bit about the reasons why you think that a particular problem is significant from your perspective. For example, if you considered any particular pieces of information, such as news articles, or reports about environmental issues, please send us information about those sources of information as well.

Our decisions regarding future priorities will consider the following key questions:

• Is the environmental problem happening nationwide or only in an isolated area?
• Does the environmental problem offer an opportunity for EPA, rather than a state, to play a major role in environmental protection?
• Does the environmental problem happen frequently because the source emitting the pollution is not following the requirements of environmental laws and regulations?

Here’s how to get started:

• Learn more about EPA’s enforcement and compliance work, our existing 2008-2010 priorities, and how we selected these priorities as focus areas, and
• Visit our discussion forum to submit your feedback by September 30.

About the Author: Elizabeth Walsh joined the US Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, DC in 2001. She currently works on setting national priorities with EPA’s enforcement and compliance assurance program and analyzing environmental data to help EPA set long-term environmental goals.

Growing up, I used to spend my winters in Chicago sledding, building snowmen, making snow angels, and having snowball fights in the park near my house. A fresh coat of snow meant that my neighbors and I would all come out to play, bundled up with hats, gloves, and bulky coats, leaving lopsided trails of footprints behind us as we explored what might be adequately described as a “winter wonderland”.

As a summer intern for the EPA, I still maintain a passion for snow forts and snowball fights, and I have developed a greater appreciation for activities such as skiing and ice skating (which had never been much of an interest to my younger self due to an extraordinary lack of coordination). Unfortunately, as I’ve grown up, I’ve had less time to enjoy these recreational activities, not just because my schedule has gotten busier, but because snow doesn’t fall as often as it did 15 years ago. Ice cover isn’t as thick, and even when a snowfall does occur, the snow just doesn’t last as long. With only a few short weeks for winter break, I’m disappointed when my chances to enjoy the snow are limited.

Winters are getting warmer due to the earth’s changing climate. Temperatures are increasing, and precipitation will get more inconsistent—either too much or too little. Ice on lakes will be thinner, making them unsafe to use for things like skating and ice fishing. Humans have to take some of the blame for this phenomenon. Pollution from factories, cars, and homes traps heat inside the atmosphere, which leads to climate change. There are plenty of things that people, and especially teens, can do to address climate change. The Marian Koshland Science Museum, and the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) offer ways for teens to get involved in combating climate change. NWF even has a downloadable action guide with project ideas.

I enjoy warm weather as much as the next person-my summer days are full of soccer, Frisbee, and swimming. However, I will still do what I can and encourage others to combat climate change. Fortunately, this is not a problem that can only be addressed by business and government. Anybody, at any age, can contribute. It is my personal belief that everybody should do their part to slow climate change. The problem requires immediate action, and as today’s teens graduate, go to college, and enter the “real world”, we will be a very important part of the solution. We owe it ourselves, to the world, and to the thousands of children that enjoy frolicking in freshly fallen snow.

About the Author: Carmel Loch is an intern for the Air and Radiation Division working on Climate Change. She will be a junior at the University of Chicago.

Have you joined Pick 5 for the Environment, where you can choose 5 actions out of 10 and commit to them? We launched Pick 5 on Earth Day this year, and so far 2,300 people have taken the pledge.

Beyond signing up, though, we want to hear from you: what you’ve done, how you did it, etc.  We’re going to start working our way through the 10 actions.  Please share your stories as comments below.

Let’s start with Pick 5 Action #1: Use less water.

I’ve done several things around my home to achieve this goal: I placed a timer in the bathrooms to shorten showers and replaced my old toilet with water saving toilets.  I also make my laundry loads larger instead of doing several small loads. To use less hot water, which saves energy, I also cold water to wash laundry instead of hot water.  Finally, by placing barrels under my rain spouts, I’ve been able to use the recycled water to water my garden and outdoor plants.

Now it’s your turn:  what do you do to use less water?

Note: to ward off advertisers using our blog as a platform, we don’t allow specific product endorsements.  But feel free to suggest Web sites that review products, suggest types of products, and share your experiences using them!

About the author: Denise Owens has worked at EPA for over twenty years. She is currently working in the Office of Public Affairs in Washington, DC.

In less than two weeks I will send my daughter, Hannah, to her first year of school – kindergarten, where the children will be assigned, I am told, actual homework – and I will experience a milestone day of parental reckoning. But after touring the school, meeting the teachers, and commiserating with the other parents, I am almost as excited as Hannah to experience her first day and let her begin to explore and fulfill her potential.

As someone who has worked on school environmental health since 1996, I know that indoor air quality (IAQ) issues will play a role in my daughter’s ability to do just that—live out her full potential. More and more research shows just how much IAQ in school buildings affects both student and teacher health and performance.

One might think that my knowledge of how poor IAQ can affect children’s health would add to my anxiety about Hannah going to school. But while my position has made me very familiar with the problems associated with poor IAQ, it’s also made me keenly aware of the solutions. I’ve walked a mile in school stakeholders’ shoes, and seen IAQ management from each individual’s perspective. I can personally attest to how passionate people in schools are about protecting children’s health, and how a community effort around these issues can create change.

And a big part of that community effort involves parents. I’d like all the moms and dads interested in advocating for healthy school IAQ to know that they, too, can make a difference at their children’s schools.

Become knowledgeable about the issues and the solutions. Open a dialogue with the school principal about how you could be a partner in their efforts. Offer to be the “parent liaison” for IAQ and share your knowledge with other parents; give a short presentation at a PTA meeting; give the principal an IAQ “fact of the week” to publish in the school newsletter. Better yet, encourage them to get involved in the IAQ Tools for Schools National Awards Program so they are rewarded for their efforts and progress in creating healthy environments. If you become partners with your children’s schools, you will accomplish more than you ever thought possible.

If you remember only one thing from this blog, I hope it is this: IAQ management, much like parenting, is a lifestyle—not a diet. You have to live it.

About the author: Jennifer Lemon has been working on indoor air quality issues in schools since 1996. She works in the U.S. EPA’s Indoor Environments Division.

As member of the EPA’s Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics outreach team (the part that focuses on lead poisoning prevention), I was faced with the task of trying to identify new forms of communication to reach the general public about Lead Poisoning Prevention. My solution: Launch a Video Contest!

Sounds easy? You be the judge! Here are some of my lessons learned when launching a video contest.

• Ensure you have web-know-how support. Without my two fantastic interns; Mary and Micheal, I would have never be able to navigate YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
• When filming a video on the National Mall remember — wind, sun, and happy tourist conversation can all affect video quality (see video below!!).
• Be prepared to be called at the last minute to appear on camera regardless of your experience. Being a biologist, like myself, does not prepare you in any way to read a script, look at a camera and talk slowly. (Trust me, I tried and I realized I am no Lisa Ling).
• Government outreach — or any outreach — is no longer just about conferences, documents, and presentations. Think of new ideas and you never know how many people you may reach and what you might accomplish.

Mary, Mike and I hope that this contest will help EPA motivate those who are interested in furthering the message about Lead Poisoning Prevention. We look forward to your entries and are eager to see whose names will be on the winners’ checks in October!

About the author: Christina Wadlington joined EPA’s Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics in July 2008 and works on Lead and Mercury outreach and policy. After calling many places home from traveling with the Marine Corps, she settled in the Washington, DC area while attending Georgetown University, where she studied the learning behaviors of Monarch butterflies.

Gosh, where did the summer go? It’s hard to believe that the kids are back in school and summer is almost gone. The warm weather and trips to the shore will soon be a thing of the past. I guess that’s one side of the coin. The other side is that cooler weather and snow could be just around the corner. There has been a lot of discussion about protecting ourselves from the sun, water quality, and other summer time subjects, but let’s not forget to prepare ourselves for the winter time too!

Sun protection should still be a priority (especially in areas with lots of snow to reflect the sun’s rays), but the next several weeks would be a great time to focus on making some changes around your home to prepare for “Old Man Winter”. Do you have a drafty window or two, maybe water pipes in a crawl space that could use some extra insulation, or how about that maintenance to the furnace or heat pump to get ready for those cold winter nights? These are just a couple of the things I’ve had to do to make my home more comfortable in the past year or two. The weeks between the end of summer and the beginning of winter are a perfect time to make these changes.

Being proactive to prevent problems from arising instead of having to react when a problem occurs could save you not only time and money, but energy too! If you are a do-it-yourselfer, the climate is much more cooperative for doing this kind of work. If you rely on others for taking care of these kind of repairs, I’d venture to say you could probably get a better price and a scheduled appointment rather than having to wait for someone to “squeeze you in” and then pay premium prices to get that warm air flowing through your home again.

Check out some of EPA’s Energy Star resources to learn about sealing and insulating and get some answers to questions you might have about other Energy Star topics to prepare your home for the winter months. What improvements have you made that have really made a difference in your home?  Oh, and by the way, button up, this may be a cold one!!

About the author: Kelly Chick has worked for the EPA for many years.  She currently works in the Office of Public Affairs at EPA Headquarters, and manages the EPA blog, Greenversations.

Summer is the time for flowers, fruits, and garden vegetables. Share ways you garden that reduce environmental effects…  more compost, less chemicals, more rain water, less irrigation, and others.

How does your garden grow?

Each week we ask a question related to the environment. Please let us know your thoughts as comments. Feel free to respond to earlier comments or post new ideas. Previous questions.