During Our Green Year, my wife and I have worked hard to make sure that the animal life around the ranch is protected and safe. Sadly, sometimes we see an animal die and it is not a pretty thing to see. Nothing can ruin your day more than when you are sitting in the living room, reading a book, and you hear that loud bang of a bird smacking into the window. Sometimes those birds live and fly away after a few minutes, other times they die, and other times they succumb to a cat who happens to be outside at that time.

Therefore, as part of our daily effort to go green every day for a year, we have chosen to protect birds from our windows. This is easier than you think and I remember my grandmother putting up strips of cloth to keep birds from flying into the windows. We don't want cloth strips hanging from our windows because it will only be a matter of time before a cat takes it down. Plus, we want our windows to look good.

The solution we have come up with is decorative items that hang from, or attach to the window. These can be crystals, copper pieces and more. We chose a delightful wheel that reflects sunlight and looks great in the window. Since we did this, the birds have been avoiding the window and staying safe.

Many people do not realize just what a serious problem this is. It is estimated that each year, 1,000,000,000 birds die from hitting windows, including windows on houses and skyscrapers. Typically, the bird will die from a broken neck or crushed skull, and sometimes they will go straight through the window, causing damage to the house.

All of this can be avoided by simply putting up some decorations that will keep the birds from flying into the windows. When the bird flies and sees the reflection of the item in the window, or just sees the item (like a bird silhouette) on the window, they will change their course and avoid the window. The bird is happy, you are happy and your window is happy. Everyone wins.

During this month, you will have an opportunity to jump start the changes you want to make for yourself in the new year. Maybe you want to lose weight, eat healthier, organize your home or office, or be more active with your children. These are all accomplishable goals, and the best part about them is you can turn them into green living resolutions too. If you have not already joined the green movement, now is a better time than any. So catch up to the others this year and show that you care about this beautiful planet we live on.

Weight Loss

Losing weight is no easy task. If you are going to see results, it takes sacrifice and dedication. While some people enjoy going to the gym, it’s not always the best way to workout. You have to make time to go to the gym and you might be unsure of what exercises are best for you. Instead, you can workout your entire body by bicycling or rollerblading when you have to go to work, school or to run errands. Even if you have to drive part of the way to get yourself within a couple miles of the location, you are still going to be able to burn off calories and reduce your pollution in half.

If you are like most people, the past year offered some unusual weather patterns. The problem is that the reality has not fit with conventional views of what climate change will bring. For a start, if the planet is experiencing global warming why so much cold weather?

Like many North American cities, Vancouver has been gripped by icy Arctic air and almost unprecedented snow accumulation. Not so strange if you live in Montreal or Denver, but here on the west coast, it makes for plenty of conversation. And there is lots of time too, with cars trapped for days under snow along impassable side roads. Forced out of vehicles, people are taking the bus - when it comes - and plodding on foot. Minor inconveniences really, but perhaps the last few weeks serve as a reminder about future changes.

Just in case you wondered what was in store for 2009, the UK’s Met Office

Jatropha, a wild shrub growing on uncultivated lands has for long being endemic to India and parts of Africa. Its significance as a bio-fuel also has been touted for long. Now in a first, oil derived from Jatropha has been used to fly an Air New Zealand Boeing 747. This is good news for an industry (and a world) which has been buffeted by stratospheric fuel prices over the last year.

The landmark flight took place on December 30th when an Air New Zealand Boeing 747 took flight for two hours with one of its four engines supplied by a 50-50 mixture of jet fuel and jatropha oil. This marked the first time ever for a commercial aviation test flight running on jatropha as a bio-fuel (Virgin Atlantic had tried out a bio-jet fuel blend made from babassu and coconut oils in a commercial flight in February). More pleasing was that the fuel mixture gave satisfactory results for all the tests performed during the flight.

Solar panels are becoming a popular energy staple among the eco-friendly community. From sun roof solar panels to solar-homes, panels are praised for their ability to turn basic solar heat into usable energy, but few know the delicate process behind creating a solar panel, and the way in which this delicate nature has, until recently, limited solar panel development. 
There are two main types of panels, the first are crystalline solar panels. Here silicon- the main component in all solar panels- is sliced into thin wafers and polished to remove imperfections. A layer of phosphorous is then used to coat the wafer and are then heated. The phosphorous is diffused into the silicone and then the wafer is covered with a thin conductive grid. To complete the panel the wafers are then bonded with a thin layer of protective glass and sealed to its supports by using thermally conductive cement. The entire process involves the heavy use of precision automated tools and vacuums to ensure the wafers are to exact specifications and without flaws that would inhibit their ability to generate electricity. 

Renovations are going to be starting in the spring at our ranch to help make it more environmentally-sustainable. Recently we made the decision to go green by using bamboo flooring and crushed glass counters, but then we began to wonder just how green is bamboo? As with anything, there are plenty of good points but there are a few bad points as well.

First, bamboo flooring is a green solution because it is a renewable resource that grows very quickly. The reason it grows so quickly is that it is essentially grass, and while it takes an oak tree 120 years to mature, bamboo can be harvested in only three years. Even under LEED, bamboo is recognized as a green material. Due to how quickly it grows and regenerates, it is the go-to material for building an environmentally-sustainable home. Sadly, there is a flip side to it.

First, not all bamboo is managed properly so that it can be sustainable. One factor behind this is the tendency to clear forests so that bamboo can grow. As well, fertilizers are not needed for bamboo, but some companies are using them, which means they are not that green considering the chemicals going into the air from some organization's practices. In China, it has become a common practice to clear out trees, shrubs and more to put up bamboo fields.

This clear cutting has also resulted in an increase of erosion in hilly areas that cause problems for even more trees to be lost. Other companies employ chemical weeding and tilling of the land to clear undergrowth. This also causes an increase in erosion and the creation of plantations that have a single species of plant, thereby disrupting the eco-system.

Factor in the use of pesticides and fertilizers, and you have something that may not be as green as we once thought. This is why it is very important that when you get bamboo flooring, you make sure you find out exactly where it comes from and what the practices of the company that farms it is. That way, you can get something that is sustainable by nature, and made sustainable by the practices of the company.

Hi Everyone, first of all we wanted to wish you and your family a warm and happy New Year. It's been quiet here at AboutMyPlanet for the past couple of weeks and there is a good reason for that. We've been working hard on a new project and we are ready to reveal it today!

Without further delay, we're happy to announce the launch of "Green QuestionVille"

What is Green QuestionVille?

QuestionVille is a community section of our site where any member can quickly ask any green question they may have. Other members can provide answers, comments, and vote for answers they believe to be the best fit.

How does it work?

Questions:

The world uses almost 100 million tonnes of plastic materials every year, and according to WasteOnline.org, this is 20 times more plastic than we consumed 50 years ago. So much of the items we take for granted are made up of plastic such as grocery store bags, food containers, bottles, organizing bins, trash cans, pet toys, packaging for toys and clothes, etc. Plastic is a versatile material, but when it’s not disposed of properly, it causes a major flaw in our goal to achieve efficient waste management.

There are 50 groups of plastics with different varieties, and they are all recyclable. However, you will probably have to do some extra legwork to find recycling centers that accept the less common ones. The following are the most common types of plastic with their standard marking code for recycling: 1. Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) - drink bottles; 2. High-density polyethylene (HDPE) – body wash containers; 3. Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) – shampoo bottles; 4. Low density polyethylene (LDPE) – carrier bags; 5. Polypropylene (PP) – microwavable meal trays; 6. Polystyrene (PS) – egg cartons; and OTHER are any other plastics that do not fall into the above categories such as melamine, which is used to make plastic dinnerware. The American Society of Plastics Industry has tried to make the recycling of plastics easier by designating marking codes for each plastic. These codes can usually be found on the bottom of plastic products, and the number is inside a recycling triangle.

Strange times call for even stranger solutions. Have you ever given any thought to the fate of your hair? Depending on personal grooming habits, a haircut may see large amounts of discarded hair end up on the floor. Subsequently swept away and dumped, one person can generate quite a lot of excess hair.

Hair is made up of keratin, a protein that also forms the basis of skin cells, fingernails, toenails, and tooth enamel. There are several forms of keratin - the type in skin cells is softer and more easily broken down, while the hard keratin in hair is water- and enzyme-resistant. The sulphurous amino acid cysteine provides the necessary chemical bonds to make hair fibres durable and difficult to degrade. Normal hair is composed of carbon (45%), oxygen (28%), nitrogen (15%), hydrogen (7%), and sulphur (5%).

A study in HortTechnology looks at another possible use for unwanted human hair. Composted wastes - ranging from manure, sewage sludge, and

It is a doomsday scenario in itself. Even the aftermath of a small nuclear war would release 700 million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. A new paper in the journal Energy & Environmental Science says that even a small restrained nuclear exchange using just one-thousandth of the weaponry of an all-out nuclear war, would result in 690m tonnes of CO2 entering the atmosphere – that’s more than UK's annual total.

So if you think that the best rhetoric on an enemy country is a push of the nuclear button then take this fact into account. Oh yes, after the mushroom cloud settles down, there will be the soot to deal with – 313 million tonnes of it. That’s enough to envelope the region in a perpetual shroud. Drawing on the analogy of a volcano eruption, scientists say that the crock would stop the sunlight and lower temperatures but soon the CO2 would come through and cause warming.