Check out the gallery and see how green can be done in style.

You can read more background on this project here.

Gillian Parrillo
SacWomen

Posted by Gillian Parrillo at 8:58 AM | Permalink | Can you digg it? | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

From the Dallas Morning News today:

Work on Arizona border fence resumes

Construction resumed this week on fencing and barriers on the Arizona-Mexico border after Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff waived environmental laws.

Gillian Parrillo
SacWomen

Posted by Gillian Parrillo at 7:21 AM | Permalink | Can you digg it? | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Consumers Union, the non-profit publisher of Consumer Reports, is asking consumers to sign a petition to Congress as part of its Not In My Cart campaign. In part the petition reads:

It's time to pass legislation to hold manufacturers, importers and retailers to a higher standard and effectively enforce that standard.

Companies don't always know if products manufactured overseas are safe--unless they inspect them first. Companies must hire independent, government certified inspectors to ensure that imports meet U.S. safety standards. Products should be tested in the foreign factories and at our ports--before they wind up on U.S. shelves. And retailers must be required to remove all recalled products from shelves promptly, post prominent recall notices, and spot check products for safety. The retailer is the last stop before a product goes in my cart and must play a role in assuring my family's safety.

U.S. imports from foreign countries nearly doubled since 2000, while the funding for food and product inspection agencies went down or stayed the same. Compared to when it opened its doors in 1973, today's Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is half its original size in both staff and resources. Today's FDA manages to inspect only one percent of all food imports! With so little enforcement, companies that want to risk importing shoddy, unsafe products know they may well get away with it. We can do better.

Please help restore my confidence in the safety of the items in my cart.

If you are interested in signing the petition, visit the Consumers Union website.

Gillian Parrillo
SacWomen

Posted by Gillian Parrillo at 3:13 AM | Permalink | Can you digg it? | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today I decided to place an order for my aunt's husband's Christmas present. Every year she tells me he wants the same thing - a selection of jams. For all I know, he would like a gift certificate for a strip club, but how would I know. She tells me what he wants and then every year, after Christmas, she tells me he loved what I sent.

So, there I was on the Harry and David website ordering the same old selection of jams. And how convenient - there he was, address and all, same old greeting, same old seleciton of jams. And I was just about to push the purchase button and then I remembered how we are supposed to be buying locally to reduce our carbon footprint.

"OK," I thought. Let me just go and check on jams made in Maryland - where he lives. And sure enough I found a website that swears all of its jams are made locally.

So this year, my aunt's husband, who incidentally is really called Larry Craig, will be getting the same old selection of jams, but without all of the negative impact of shipping from miles away.

Now I am off to look for something local for relatives in Boise, Idaho. Potato chips?

Gillian Parrillo
SacWomen

Posted by Gillian Parrillo at 7:37 AM | Permalink | Can you digg it? | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Dear Al Gore:
As America's reputation plummets around the world due to our leaders' bone-headed policies, we are so thankful for what you have done and continue to do to show that America can indeed still be a respected leader on important global issues.

Now I worry what comes next. Oh, not about those ever-dwindling detractors - those who still believe that global warming is just a normal phenomenon. They stand with those who still believe that Saddam Hussein was directly responsible for 9/11 and will soon be held in the same public regard as those who continued to believe the world was flat when the overwhelming evidence proved otherwise.

No, I am worried about whom we elect for President in 2008. There is a lot of evidence that despite a close relationship early on, the Clintons' and the Gores' relationship cooled considerably during their 8 years of US leadership. So how is Hillary going to react to Nobel Prize winner, respected around the world, Al Gore continuing his save the world from global warming mission?

If she were wise, she would give him her complete trust and blessing (and funding) to continue what he is doing. But somehow I just don't see that happening.

Gillian Parrillo
SacWomen

Posted by Gillian Parrillo at 8:59 AM | Permalink | Can you digg it? | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Per June Zeitlin executive director of the New York-based Women's Environment and Development Organisation (WEDO):

"Women and children are 14 times more likely to die than men are during a disaster."

In the 2004 Asian Tsunami, 70 to 80 percent of overall deaths were women. And in the 1991 cyclone disasters that killed 140,000 in Bangladesh, 90 percent of victims were women. And even in industrialized nations, the same results exist, e.g.,during the 2003 European heat wave.

Ms Zeitlin argues: that women make up the majority of the world's poor, and in particular the world's rural poor, and are largely responsible for securing food, water and energy for cooking and heating.

Women and children bear the highest degree of effect from disasters caused by climate change. But, they also have the least ability to effect decision-making power in the greater public sphere.

This must change. Empowering women will result in fewer deaths. And as climate change continues with the effect of more and more bizarre weather, the time is now.

Gillian Parrillo
SacWomen

From Red Jenny

Posted by Gillian Parrillo at 1:51 PM | Permalink | Can you digg it? | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)