Run, Kids, the Carbon Monster is Coming!

How do you get adults to care about the environment? How about scaring their kids shitless with the specter of a ‘carbon monster’ in the sky that’s going to get them if their parents don’t act against global warming? That’s the tact the British government has chosen to take with an ad that seeks to change skeptics’ minds about climate change, but has only angered viewers who saw it during prime-time television broadcasts.

The intentions behind the ad are understandable. It’s a response to a recent survey in Britain showing that 52% of people don’t think they’ll be personally affected by climate change, but 74% would change their lifestyles if they knew that climate change would have a serious affect on the lives of their children.

From the Times Online:

Ministers sanctioned the campaign because of concern that scepticism about climate change was making it harder to introduce carbon-reducing policies such as higher energy bills.

The advertisement attempts to make adults feel guilty about their legacy to their children. It features a father telling his daughter a bedtime story of “a very very strange” world with “horrible consequences” for today’s children.

The storybook shows a British town deep under water, with people and animals drowning.

Carbon dioxide is depicted as rising in clouds of black soot from cars and homes, including from a woman’s hairdryer. The soot gathers into a jagged-toothed monster menacing the town.

Watch the ad over at the Times Online.

Predictably, global warming skeptics are having a field day with this one, calling it propaganda. People in Britain who saw it on TV were so angry about it that the ad has been pulled and is currently being investigated.

But one fumbled ad doesn’t mean that people should forget or ignore the harsh reality. Children will, indeed, be the victims of climate change if we don’t act – in fact, the Telegraph reports that 250,000 children could die due to climate change next year and that number could rise to more than 400,000 annually by 2030.

Climate change is a real and pressing problem, and far too many people across the world are covering their eyes and plugging up their ears so they don’t have to deal with it.

Link [Times Online]

British Robot Raps About Recycling

Nothing makes kids want to recycle like a rapping robot with a British accent. At least, that seems to be the thinking behind this weird and funny video of an educational presentation by The Housing Education Initiative – made just a little bit stranger by the robot’s sign-spinning backup dancer.

Hey, whatever works! Back in the dark ages when I was in school, recycling education consisted of falling asleep during a lecture. Robots make pretty much everything cooler.

Link [YouTube]

Public Schools to Get $6.4 Billion in Green Improvements

Public schools across America are in serious need of TLC. Pitifully low budgets mean some schools don’t even have clean drinking water, let alone up-to-date textbooks. But, Congress just passed a piece of legislation that might just save school districts enough money to get back on track. $6.4 billion has been earmarked for green projects in public schools, modernizing buildings so they’re more energy efficient.

From CNN, via The Good Human:

The measure passed 275-155 in a largely party-line vote, and will now move to the Senate for further review.

Among other things, the bill allocates substantial funds for improvements along the Gulf Coast, where many school districts are still struggling to repair buildings damaged by hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

The committee says the bill would require that 100 percent of the funds go toward green projects by 2015, which is the final year of funding under the bill.

“All students and teachers deserve safe and healthy learning environments, but too often, their schools are literally falling apart,” said Rep. George Miller, D-California, who is the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee and one of the bill’s sponsors.

“This legislation is a victory for students, workers and our planet. It will help improve educational opportunities and boost student achievement, it will help transition us toward a green economy by making our classrooms more environmentally friendly,” he said.

Of course, Republicans criticized the high cost, never able to look beyond today and see what tomorrow will bring. They also have a problem with the ‘increasing role of federal government’, claiming that the power to construct and renovate schools is a ‘fundamental right’ of state government.

It’s easy for old, rich white men whose grandchildren are more than likely enrolled in private schools to complain about such things while millions of school kids sit in public schools with sagging roofs, mold in the walls, peeling vinyl floors and other major problems. The American Society of Engineers says that one-third of America’s schools need extensive repair or replacement. This $6.4 billion is just a small fraction of the $112 billion the ASE says is needed to bring the nation’s public schools into an overall good condition.

Rachel Gutter of the U.S. Green Building Council emphasizes the benefits:

“The typical green school saves $100,000 a year on direct operating expenses. In school terms, that’s enough to hire two new teachers, purchase 200 new computers or 5,000 textbooks,” Gutter said.

“So these are major savings. And that’s just one year. The typical school lasts 40 years. And when you do the math, it starts to become some serious savings. … It pays for itself after a few years of operation.”

Link [CNN] via [The Good Human]
Photo credit: Flickr user woodleywonderworks

‘The Story of Stuff’ a Hit in Classrooms

The lifecycle of stuff – it’s something that most kids never even consider. Yet, a video that makes the journey of possessions from their creation to their disposal easy to understand for children has become a hit in classrooms across America.  The Story of Stuff by Annie Leonard doesn’t flinch from the harsh realities of how much Americans waste, and the message has hit home for many kids who have watched it.

From The New York Times:

…Riding in the car one day with his parents in Tacoma, Wash., Rafael de la Torre Batker, 9, was worried about whether it would be bad for the planet if he got a new set of Legos.

“When driving by a big-box store, you could see he was struggling with it,” his father, David Batker, said. But then Rafael said, “It’s O.K. if I have Legos because I’m going to keep them for a very long time,” Mr. Batker recalled.

Ms. Leonard put the video on the Internet in December 2007. Word quickly spread among teachers, who recommended it to one another as a brief, provocative way of drawing students into a dialogue about how buying a cellphone or jeans could contribute to environmental devastation.

It has also won support from independent groups that advise teachers on curriculum choices. Facing the Future, a curriculum developer for schools in all 50 states, is drafting lesson plans based on the video. And Ms. Leonard has a contract with Simon & Schuster to write a book based on the video.

Teachers are actually relying on The Story of Stuff to fill in the gaps in what textbooks say about the environment, and what science has revealed over the past few years. Educators want to teach children about global warming, but have been frustrated by a lack of coverage in traditional teaching materials.

While there have been a few complaints – like the parent in Montana who protested that the video is ‘anti-capitalist’ – all in all, the response has been amazing. Leonard, a former Greenpeace employee, attributes a good part of the video’s success to its simple, easy-to-follow black and white illustrations, but truly, it’s the content that makes it so powerful.

Of course, The Story of Stuff isn’t just for kids. If you haven’t seen it yet, take 20 minutes of your day to do so and you’ll instantly see every item you own in a different light.

Link [The New York Times] + [The Story of Stuff]

Youth Skip Green Products to Save Cash

It’s generally held as common knowledge that the youth of the world is far greener than the rest of us. College environmental activism is at an all-time high and “eco kids” are calling their parents out on environmental offenses. But, does that mean the “Millenial Generation”, defined as 13-to-29-year-olds, is willing to fork over extra cash for green products?

Nope, according to a new survey conducted by General Insight, which found that the younger members of this generation aren’t buying green despite being extremely educated in green issues. The reason? Mostly, they’re confused by marketing claims and unsure of whether buying green products makes a real difference.

From Environmental Leader:

The research found that while 76 percent of Millennials ages 13-29 feel it’s very important or important for brands to get involved in the green movement, 71 percent of teens (ages 13-17) surveyed say if they had to choose between a less expensive product or one that “gave back” to the environment, they would choose the less expensive product.

In contrast, the majority of older Millennials would choose the more expensive brand that gave back in a green way.

Interestingly, the majority of Millennials surveyed found it confusing as to why products that are better for the environment are more expensive. Generate Insight noted that the extra cost – without consistent explanation – discourages the majority of shoppers from embracing and contributing to the green movement.

The study also found several other deterrents to Millennials living greener lives. These include products that require too much effort, are too time consuming and are not convenient; products that are confusing and difficult to understand, and families that are not involved in, supportive of or knowledgeable about the green movement.

Hey, these kids grew up in an era of excess, convenience and “me, me, me”. It’s kind of amazing that so many of them are even remotely ‘green’ in the first place. But on another level – kids this age don’t have a lot of money to throw around and they’re much more conscious of responsible spending now that the recession has hit. How many 19-year-old college students do you know that can shop at Whole Foods? And I’m not talking about trustifarians.

What we really need this generation to understand is that they don’t have to spend a lot of money to be green. You can be extremely green on a very small budget, though of course the many companies that are trying to make money off what they see as the “green trend” would have everyone believe otherwise.

Link [Environmental Leader]

Daily Show Earth Day Video Clip: “You’re Killing SpongeBob!”

Most children are even more open to being green than adults – yet adults totally flub marketing Earth Day to kids. On The Daily Show, Louis Black goes through some incredibly ham-fisted efforts to foist greenness upon the younger generation by grown-ups that don’t follow their own advice, including Wilmer Valderrama. “So there’s your lesson, kids: YOU need to start pooping in a solar-powered bucket so Wilmer and I don’t have to give up our Escalades!”

So, how can we really get the message through to kids that they need to protect Mother Earth? Tell them they’re killing SpongeBob!

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M – Th 11p / 10c
Back in Black – Kids’ Earth Day
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

”Elmo: He’s like Glenn Beck for children!”

Link [The Daily Show] via [The Huffington Post]

Who’s Who in Green: Deirdre Imus

Why are so many of our kids so sick? That’s what Deirdre Imus – wife of shock jock Don Imus – wondered to herself after spending a day helping out at one of her husband’s annual radiothons for kids with cancer. It was then that she began to suspect a link between children’s health and environmental pollutants – and act on it.

Children’s health quickly became her passion, leading to her founding the Deirdre Imus Environmental Center for Pediatric Oncology. Imus is also a cofounder and codirector of the Imus Cattle Ranch for Kids with Cancer, and has authored several books including Green This! Greening Your Cleaning, Green This! Growing Up Green and The Essential Green You!: Easy Ways to Detox Your Diet, Your Body, and Your Life.

In an article for Newsweek about why it’s so important to provide nontoxic environments for kids, Deidre wrote,

In 2000, still not satisfied that I had done all that I could, I began investigating how toxins in the home and hospital environment affected our children’s health. I was concerned about the number of supposedly safe products used in our everyday living. We are exposed to more than 82,000 chemicals in our environment. Yet the EPA has reviewed fewer than 2 percent for their safety. Environmental hazards are not always obvious and yet they are real and affect us all…especially children. Regrettably, it is our children who are the most vulnerable to many environmental insults. In fact, studies have shown a 30 percent increase in various cancers in children result from exposure to toxins in our environment.

From the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat, numerous toxic substances from a variety of sources are bombarding our children each day. Not enough is known about how all of these toxins, interact with one another and our body chemistry. Taking any step to reduce or eliminate toxins in our environment is simple common sense and is often easy to do.

The Deirdre Imus Environmental Center for Pediatric Oncology is one of the first hospital-based programs to identify, control and prevent environmental factors that may cause adult and, especially, pediatric cancer and other health problems with our children. In addition to educating the public about environmental toxins, the Center developed the ‘Greening the Cleaning’ institutional program to help eliminate toxic cleaning agents and replace them with safer, non-toxic alternatives.

For her dedication, the Audubon Society rewarded Imus in 2007 with the Rachel Carson Award for Women in Conservation, calling her “a pioneer inspiring parents and schools to clean using non-toxic products… [convincing] more than 200 institutions nationwide to switch to green cleaning products and her work has led directly to three ‘Green Cleaning’ executive orders that will vastly improve the health of millions of children.” She has also been awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree by Pace University in recognition of her advocacy on behalf of children’s environmental health.

Deirdre Imus’ Green Score: 28,558

‘Speak Nicely’ T-Shirts Spread the Message of Goodwill

Our words have such a big impact on how we see the world and how we interact with each other. This is a key to treating the environment well also, and it’s an important message to impress upon children as eary as possible so they grow up to respect other people, themselves and the world at large.

We’ve all seen those rather disturbing kids’ message t-shirts and clothing emblazoned with rather, um, inappropriate words and phrases. It seems like they’re everywhere, and who wants their 8-year-old daughter running around with shorts that say ‘Juicy’ on the rear end? Not to mention all those onesies

A company called ‘Speak Nicely’, founded by the mother of four young children, seeks to remind us all of the power of our words and provide items for children and adults with uplifting messages. ‘Speak Nicely’ items are printed with sayings like ‘Honor People’, ‘Say Nice Things’ and ‘I Am the Future’.

Founder Audrey Weitz told MomTalk,

“In my own search for children’s clothes, I am amazed by how our culture invites us to use our children to inappropriately promote companies, or worse spread messages that can be hurtful to others. I developed this line to help build up our children. We need to give them the opportunity to use words to make their own little worlds, as well as a grander one, a more beautiful and peaceful place to live.”

Check out the website for girls’ tees, unisex tees, baby items, hoodies, ladies’ tees, backpacks and shoulder bags and friendship bands.

Link [Speak Nicely]

Essay Contest: Win a Hybrid Bus for Your School

How green is your school – and how well can you write about it? Kindergarten through 12th graders around the country are being offered a chance to win their school a hybrid school bus from Warrenville, Illinois-based IC Bus through an essay contest that encourages kids to write passionately about their schools’ green efforts.

From USA Today:

“We feel strongly about the fact that every school bus takes 36 cars off the road, about the billions of gallons of gas that it saves per year for every school bus we have on the road,” says IC Bus president John McKinney.

Christian Laskaros, a junior at Half Hollow Hills High School East in Dix Hills, N.Y., entered a few weeks ago. He described how small eco-friendly programs at his school, including a paper recycling program, fliers with energy-saving tips in classrooms and ceiling lights with timers, add up to make a big difference.

“I really hope (the judges) grasp the entire gist of the essay, how you can see nothing being eco-friendly one day, and the next day you’re looking at the bus you’re riding on in the city and how eco-friendly it actually is,” Laskaros says. “And you look at your water bottle, something so small, and realize how much damage it can do.”

The contest is open until April 30th. Students can enter their 500-word essays at AmericasGreenestSchool.com, a website that also offers tips for making their schools more eco-friendly. Ten finalists, chosen by IC Bus’s president and Terra Wellington, author of The Mom’s Guide to Growing Your Family Green: Saving the Earth Begins at Home, will be posted on the website May 11th-17th. The public will then choose the winner, who will receive a $5,000 scholarship as well as getting the hybrid bus for their school.

If you know a student who’s got the passion and the writing chops to tackle this contest, send them to AmericasGreenestSchool.com to learn more. It’s a great opportunity to not only give a deserving school a valuable gift but to excite students about going green.

Link [USA Today]

12-Year-Old Kid Makes Homeless Shelter from Plastic, Wire and Packing Peanuts

Who knew that a 12-year-old boy could design and create a modern, stylish shelter for homeless people from trash?  Max Wallack created the ‘Home Dome’ out of throwaway plastic, wire and packing peanuts for the PBS Kids Design Squad ‘Trash to Treasure’ contest.

From Idea Locker:

Max recalls: “When I was six, I won an invention contest that included a trip to Chicago. While there, I saw homeless people living on streets, and beneath highways and underpasses. I felt very sorry for these people, and ever since then, felt that my goal and obligation was to find a way to help them. My invention improves the living conditions for homeless people, refugees, or disaster victims by giving them easy-to-assemble shelter.”

Entirely made of Styrofoam peanuts stuffed into discarded plastic bags, “The Home Dome” is a round dome in the shape of a Mongolian yurt. It includes a built-in bed that anchors the dwelling down by the weight of the person inside. It helps the environment by using one of the most bulky and difficult-to-dispose types of trash that our society produces and transforms it into homes.

How incredibly creative! For his design, Max won $10,000, a Dell laptop powered by Intel and a trip to Boston to see his design come to life. Very impressive – congratulations, Max!

Link [Design Blog] + [Idea Locker] via [Green Building Elements]

Grow: Plant the Seed of Environmental Responsibility in Kids

Here’s a cute gift for the little ones in your life: a book that “plants the seed of environmental responsibility in young children through a fun and interactive daily routine.” It’s called ‘Grow: An Environmentally Friendly Book’ and it’s full of playful graphics and typography that help build awareness of the environment, community, health and the child’s awareness of self in the larger world.

From Featherproof:

KJ Bradley and Alyson Beaton created Grow to take a child (2-5 years of age) through a typical day, implementing a “normal” routine that is environmentally and socially sound. The sharply designed book helps parents teach children very early on how easy it is to take steps for a cleaner earth. The text focuses on words like “share” and “grow” to instill basic social concepts that resound in larger impacts, and the images encourage the child to actively participate in the daily routine and timeline that follows along the bottom of the pages. The book was based on the developmental findings of Clotaire Rapaille, which say that as a child’s vocabulary develops he or she makes connections to specific items. For example, if a child associates the word “coffee” with “starbucks” the word “starbucks” will likely be an association for life. Grow hopes to instill brandless, positive routines that can benefit community, health, and an awareness of self that’s connected to the larger world.

This book meets two essential needs for kids in the modern world: implementing a routine, and helping to shield them from the constant barrage of advertising that is directed at them. It’s being published by Featherproof books and will be available in March (both the offset version and a limited edition letterpress version are available for pre-sale now!).  Both books are hand bound, printed using vegetable inks on 100% recycled paper using the greenest printing practices available.

Check out GrowBook.org for more info and to purchase.

Link [Featherproof Books]

Andira Rain Tees: Supporting Education and Fair Trade While Saving the Rainforest

Help save Central and South American rainforests, one t-shirt at a time, with Andira Rain Tees. For every Rain Tee sold, a child living in endangered tropical rainforest land is given a tree to plant. Each tee features the thoughts and illustrations of children living in these areas of Central and South America – illustrations that show a love for their natural environment and a sadness about the rainforest destruction that they witness every day.

The Andira Rain Tee collection uses sustainable and earth-friendly fabrics like bamboo and organic cotton and supports fair trade practices. Andira, founded by Beth Doane, also offers a “Rescue an Animal” program through the charity Merazonia, located deep in the Amazon jungle of Ecuador – learn more here.

Andira Rain Tee designs are beautiful and playful and provoke thought about how important it is to protect and preserve the rainforests of the world – not just for the children who live there but for the good of the entire planet. The Andira Rain Tee collection includes six women’s t-shirt designs, 4 children’s t-shirt designs and a Rain Tee story tote. Check it all out at RainTees.com.

Link [Rain Tees]

Norwegian Eco-Kids Keeping Their Parents in Check

Don’t mess with this kid! The Norwegian organization Miljøagentene, Eco Agents is educating kids about the environment and how to behave in an environmentally friendly manner.

According to their website,

Our aim is to stimulate children’s interest and love for nature, and to make them realize that the way we live our lives has influence on the environment. Eco-agents always focuses on possibilities, and our goal is to make the voices of the children heard.

Check out their first commercial:

Keep up the good work kids!

Fox News Belittles Animal Rights, Slams Kids Trying to Go Green

There’s not much that Fox News can do to surprise me. We can pretty well expect anything that comes from this so-called ‘news’ organization to be ignorant, narrow-minded and self-serving despite their ‘fair and balanced’ claims. Yet, a roomful of Fox talking heads eating KFC while insulting people who actually give a shit about things other than themselves seems so self-parodying I wonder why SNL didn’t think of it first. Watch it for yourself:

I can’t say it much better than Michael over at Ecorazzi did:

“The greatest thing about this story,” said Gutfeld commenting on two women in bikinis protesting outside a KFC, “is that they claim to be PETA members. I’m sure that if any of us went to an actual PETA meeting, we would not find anybody remotely attractive. They are a bunch of lowly people.”

While passing around a bucket of KFC chicken, Gutfeld responded as to why PETA was protesting saying, “The weird thing about making fried chicken? Chickens die in the process. It’s really hard to keep them alive while you eat them.” Really, Greg? Is that the reason? That’s some fine balanced reporting.

Not content to take his dick out of his mouth just yet, Gutfeld then went on to slam kids that are going green and trying to educate their parents as well. “This makes me wish that I could have kids,” he said, “so I could punish them.”

As I’ve said before here on EarthFirst, I’m not the biggest fan of PETA’s tactics, simply because they sometimes do more harm than good and end up making all vegetarians and animal rights advocates look like kooks. But, PETA does a lot of important work on behalf of creatures in this world that can’t speak up for themselves, and the conditions at the factory farms where KFC get their chickens from really are appalling.

But, it’s really the part where they ridicule kids trying to be environmentally responsible that gets me. God forbid that there are children in America who care about important things instead of just toys and television.

Then there’s his comment about us crazy environmentalists who “think the environment is more important than humanity”. What Greg Gutfeld and the other smug assholes sitting around this table don’t seem to get is the fact that, without a healthy environment, there can be no humanity.

Link [Ecorazzi]

Second Graders Refuse to Take ‘No Recycling’ for an Answer

Recyclables may be losing value due to the economy, but that certainly doesn’t mean people are going to stop recycling. One second grade class in West Virginia decided to fight back after their county decided to put an end to their recycling program, starting a letter-writing campaign and continuing to gather recyclable materials.

The class had begun recycling for the first time ever as part of a special project just a few weeks before, and their teacher, Rachel Fisk, was surprised at how enthusiastic they became. It caught on throughout the school, with students in other grades dropping recyclables off in Fisk’s classroom. Then, parents began sending in their paper and plastic in huge shopping bags. So, you can imagine how disappointed they were when their city recycling program was cancelled.

From the West Virginia Gazette:

Last month, Norm Steenstra, director of the Kanawha County Solid Waste Authority, wrote to mayors across Kanawha County, saying that the agency would suspend collections of plastic, glass and cans for at least one month. Paper still will be collected.

Steenstra cited dramatic changes in the national and global markets for recyclables. He wrote that storage space is very limited at the Slack Street facility and “we are not able to market several items at this time.”

Last week, her students skipped recess one day and wrote letters to South Charleston Mayor Frank Mullens and Gov. Joe Manchin.

“In 30 years when we will only be 38 years old, what will the Earth be like if no one recycles?” one student wrote.

The New York Times’ ‘Green Inc.’ bloggers contacted Ms. Fisk to learn more about what her students were doing to get the recycling program started up again.

The children got down to business. They wrote letters to the mayor and governor, and wanted to make a television ad to inspire everyone to keep recycling.

Last week, just as the recycling was about to stop, the city found a way to save it. The paper, which the county still accepts, will be recycled locally, and “we’re going to take the rest to Ashland, Kentucky,” said Gerald Burghy, the public works director for the city of South Charleston.

Ms. Fisk said she is proud of her second-graders. “It goes above and beyond the fact that they wanted to continue to recycle,” she said. “They wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

How awesome that these kids were so motivated to keep on recycling. It warms my cold, dark heart to imagine the things that kids like this will be able to accomplish in the years to come. Cue that annoying Whitney Houston song…

Link [Green Inc.] + [West Virginia Gazette]

Handmade Toys to be Illegal Under New Consumer Safety Law

After being betrayed by large toy corporations that manufacture their products in Chinese factories with little regard for the health of the children that the toys will ultimately belong to, parents in America have turned to local toy makers who thoughtfully hand-craft items like dolls, train sets and blocks. But, now, because of a ham-fisted attempt by the U.S. government to belatedly control an industry that puts profits far ahead of people, those handmade toy artisans might lose their businesses.

It seems like every week we hear about another popular toy that’s being taken off the shelves (after many have already been sold) due to high levels of lead, unsafe parts and other safety problems. So, stricter regulations are certainly welcome. But, in passing the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) in August, Congress failed to exclude safe handmade toys made in the U.S., Canada and Europe.

From the Handmade Toy Alliance:

Among other things, the CPSIA bans lead and phthalates in toys, mandates third-party testing and certification for all toys and requires toy makers to permanently label each toy with a date and batch number.

All of these changes will be fairly easy for large, multinational toy manufacturers to comply with. Large manufacturers who make thousands of units of each toy have very little incremental cost to pay for testing and update their molds to include batch labels.

For small American, Canadian, and European toymakers, however, the costs of mandatroy testing will likely drive them out of business.

• A toymaker, for example, who makes wooden cars in his garage in Maine to supplement his income cannot afford the $4,000 fee per toy that testing labs are charging to assure compliance with the CPSIA.
• A work at home mom in Minnesota who makes dolls to sell at craft fairs must choose either to violate the law or cease operations.
• A small toy retailer in Vermont who imports wooden toys from Europe, which has long had stringent toy safety standards, must now pay for testing on every toy they import.
• And even the handful of larger toy makers who still employ workers in the United States face increased costs to comply with the CPSIA, even though American-made toys had nothing to do with the toy safety problems of 2007.

What this means is, unless the law is modified, handmade toys will be illegal to sell in the United States. Some European toy makers have already announced that they will no longer be selling their products in the U.S. come February, meaning parents have fewer safe products to choose from.

As the Handmade Toy Alliance put it, “If this law had been applied to the food industry, every farmers market in the country would be forced to close while Kraft and Dole prospered.” That doesn’t make any sense at all.

Here’s how you can help: write to your United States congressman or congresswoman and your senator to request changes to the CPSIA that would protect handmade toys. You can use this sample letter, provided by the Handmade Toy Alliance. We’ve got to protect the local artisans who make a living off providing our kids with safe, natural alternatives to the plastic junk made in China.

Link [Handmade Toy Alliance]
Photo credit: Etsy seller Petit Flaneur

One in Three Toys on Store Shelves is Toxic

This Christmas, when you’re shopping for the little ones in your life, don’t just thoughtlessly grab toys off the store shelves. An environmental group found that a mind-boggling 1 in 3 toys tested was found to contain toxic chemicals like lead, flame retardants and arsenic.  The Ecology Center tested more than 1,500 popular toys for contaminants and found that one-third of them contain “medium” or “high” levels of chemicals of concern.

From CNN:

Researchers bought the toys at chain stores including Target, Kmart, Toys R Us, Babies R Us, TJ Maxx, and Wal-Mart, as well as drug stores, dollar stores, on-line retailers and independent toy stores, according to the HealthyToys.org Web site, where the report was posted.

The toys were purchased at stores in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti, Mich.; Oakland, Calif.; and Albany, N.Y.

The group’s Web site said that the sampling was not random or intended to be representative of all toys on the market. The toys were tested using a handheld X-ray fluorescence (XRF) device that uses x-ray fluorescence spectrometry to detect chemicals like lead, cadmium, chlorine, arsenic, mercury, tin, and antimony.

The study found lead in 20% of the toys tested. In 3.5% of the toys, or 54 items, levels of lead exceeded the federal recall level for paint, 600 parts-per-million.

Also according to the study, children’s jewelry is 5 times more likely to contain lead above the toxic 600 ppm-level than other toys. In particular, the report mentioned that several Hannah Montana brand jewelry items tested high for lead.

Naturally, the toy industry is refuting the report, calling it ‘misleading’ and saying that toys are a “highly regulated industry that has been subject to intense scrutiny”. But, the thing is, toy manufacturers only meet very low minimum standards set by the government.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission is putting new regulations in place for toy safety – but not in time for the Christmas buying season. That means that although, come February, many of the toys currently on the shelves will become illegal due to high levels of dangerous contaminants, thousands of those toys will already be in homes across the country.

Shop safe for your kids this holiday season – check out HealthyToys.org, the consumer guide to toxic chemicals in toys.  It has toy rankings including best toys and worst toys – and you can search by brand.

And, The Daily Green has a list of toys that have recently been recalled due to lead.

Link [CNN Money] + [Healthy Toys]

Brad Pitt’s Make it Right Foundation Builds Eco-Friendly Playground in New Orleans

Kids in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans now have a safe and healthy place to play thanks to a collaboration between Brad Pitt’s Make it Right Foundation and the Play Green Initiative. On Wednesday, Make it Right’s 1-year anniversary, the playground was dedicated to the children of the neighborhood. Since Hurricane Katrina caused catastrophic damage to the Lower Ninth Ward in 2005, not a single playground had been built. This new, $500,000 eco-friendly playground was made possible thanks largely to donations of equipment, landscaping and labor.

From Market Watch:

BNIM, a national leader in sustainable design and also one of 12 design firms for the Make it Right Project, designed the overall site, and JWA, a New Orleans architectural firm, served as a local collaborator. Both the equipment and the site are designed using sustainable methods and materials that minimize the impact on the environment while providing exceptional play value and a quality community gathering place. The play space will be constructed in an environmentally sustainable way, using local suppliers, native plantings, and natural means to control water flow, thereby reducing pollution, runoff, and other problems associated with asphalt and more traditional playground design. The playground equipment is constructed using sustainable methods including the use of non-toxic, recyclable and environmentally friendly materials. Solar energy will also be used to power the electronic components on the new equipment.

Thanks to this project, the Lower Ninth Ward is now home to the greenest, most technologically advanced playground in the country – in fact, it’s the first of its kind in North America. Considering all they’ve been through, the families of the Lower Ninth Ward really deserve this.

The Make it Right Foundation’s efforts in New Orleans are really remarkable. It makes so much sense to rebuild in a green way after a natural disaster, and the things they’re doing in the city are worthy of all the praise they get. Check out the rest of their efforts at Make it Right New Orleans.

Link [Market Watch] + [Make it Right]

Pint-Size Eco Police: The New Generation of Greenies

These days, adults are hardly the only ones thinking about how they can conserve more water, use less energy or recycle that widget when they’re done with it. Kids are being brought up in an increasingly more environmentally responsible environment, and many of them are taking their family’s efforts to go green very seriously.  So seriously, in fact, that they’re berating their parents for driving non-hybrid cars and forgetting to bring reusable bags to the grocery store.  The New York Times reports on the growing trend of ‘pint-size eco police’, kids for whom Earth Day is practically a religious holiday.

From The New York Times:

Ms. Ross’s children are part of what experts say is a growing army of “eco-kids” — steeped in environmentalism at school, in houses of worship, through scouting and even via popular culture — who try to hold their parents accountable at home. Amid their pride in their children’s zeal for all things green, the grown-ups sometimes end up feeling like scofflaws under the watchful eye of the pint-size eco-police, whose demands grow ever greater, and more expensive.

They pore over garbage bins in search of errant recyclables. They lobby for solar panels. And, in a generational about-face, they turn off the lights after their parents leave empty rooms.

“Kids have really turned into the little conscience sitting in the back seat,” said Julia Bovey, a spokeswoman for the Natural Resources Defense Council, a leading environmental group that recently worked with Nickelodeon on a series of public service announcements and other programming called “Big Green Help.”

Though this seems a bit Orwellian – one might wonder if we should be frightened that these little Spies are going to report us to the Party for thoughtcrime – at least it’s for a good cause, right? It should make us feel better that the younger generations are so dedicated. Stop looking at me like that, kid, I’m doing the best I can, I swear!

Link [NY Times]

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