Helpful Tips and Tricks to Composting

Here is a list of materials to compost:

Materials to Compost
Browns = High Carbon	Greens = High Nitrogen
Ashes, wood Bark Cardboard, shredded Corn stalks Fruit waste Leaves Newspaper, shredded Peanut shells Peat moss Pine needles Sawdust Stems and twigs, shredded Straw Vegetable stalks	Alfalfa Algae Clover Coffee grounds Food waste Garden waste Grass clippings Hay Hedge clippings Hops, used Manures Seaweed Vegetable scraps Weeds*
*Avoid weeds that have gone to seed, as seeds may survive all but the hottest compost piles.

Here is a list of what NOT to compost:

Coal Ash, Colored Paper, Diseased Plants, Inorganic Materials, Meat, Bones, Fish, Fats, Dairy, Pet Droppings, Synthetic Chemicals 

How to speed up the process of your compost pile:

Compost decomposes fastest between 120 and 160˚F, so anything that will increase the heat will “cook” your compost faster. Here are five tips for fast composting:

1.) Chop and shred larger items, which makes it easier for the bacteria to break them down. For example, one easy way is to slice and dice garden waste is to run your lawn mower over leaves and other garden waste. Take scissors to newsprint or cardboard.

2.) Turn, turn, turn. Keep turning your pile whenever you add materials to your pile. It helps add oxygen throughout the pile and it keeps materials from clumping together. 

3.) Give your compost heap a “big meal” versus small snacks. Collect all your organic waste over a couple of days and then add it in one big bunch. The more you add at one time, the more your compost will heat up.

4.) Keep your compost pile in the sun. The heat will speed up the process.

5. A compost activator contributes either high nitrogen, microorganisms, or both, and provides a quick boost to the decomposition process. Consider throwing some algae, seaweed or lake weed into the pile. Just be sure to rinse off any salt water before adding. You can also “jump start” your compost by adding alfalfa meal, cottonseed meal, blood meal or compost starter.

How to Start Composting

Composting has many uses and people create them for different reasons. For one, it helps reduce the amount of landfill that is sent out with the rest of our garbage. Others use it for fertilizer in their gardens because they help plants grow strong and healthy by enriching the soil they grow in. By using compost as a fertilizer, we can reduce the use of chemical fertilizers. 

You will want to start your compost pile on bare earth, so that worms and other organisms can reach it. Before you lay out your compost materials, a layer of straw or twigs that is a few inches deep should be laid down first to help drain your pile. Then, you should lay your compost materials in layers of moist materials(food scraps, tea bags, coffee grinds, seaweed) and dry materials (straw, leaves, sawdust, and even wood ashes). Materials that tend to clump together, like ash and sawdust, should be in thinner layers. If you mow your lawn, you can even add your grass clippings, or any green “manure” (clover, buckwheat, wheatgrass, any nitrogen source). These will activate your compost pile. If it rains in your area, you won’t have to keep your pile moist, but if you live in a dry area, you should add some water to your pile, even if its used water. However, the compost pile shouldn’t get too wet, so you might have to cover it. A tarp would even work. Once you have a compost pile started, every few weeks you should turn and mix your pile to work in oxygen and other compost materials. 

A good compost pile should have more carbon materials than nitrogen materials. Carbon materials include branches, dried leaves, peels, wood, bark dust, brown paper bags, corn stalks, coffee filters, egg shells, straw, and many more. Nitrogen materials include manures, food scraps, green lawn clippings and green leaves. A good mix includes about one part green materials (nitrogen) and two parts brown materials (carbon). Having more carbon is better than having more nitrogen, however this is a wonderful spot to use both. 

Happy Composting!

For More Information Visit:
http://eartheasy.com/grow_compost.html

Make a Change - For Yourself and Our World!

Global warming is everywhere; on the news, in political discussions, and even in the already shifting local weather patterns. It can seem daunting for any one person to feel that they can make a significant difference, but the great news is that any one of us right now CAN! Our actions in aggregate - be it driving cars, using electricity for our homes, or producing material waste - has had the far reaching effects to cause global warming, which in turn holds the answer: if we are causing global warming, then we can also reverse it. Together, our individual actions can champion the cause to fight global warming and conquer it. There is no need to wait for politicians or business leaders; it is our planet and we can start today.

Check out this first link, which goes to an interactive website showing a basic summary of your individual carbon footprint, and how many trees need to be planted to offset that footprint. Put in your numbers: it takes less than a minute and you can see your current footprint on a global scale!

http://www.carbonify.com/carbon-calculator.htm

This second link is for a more in-depth look of not only your carbon footprint, but also of changes you can make that would reduce your foot print at home and on the road. It also compares your carbon with the national average. Check it out and see how you can be more green!

http://www3.epa.gov/carbon-footprint-calculator/

After going through the first two links, we see how much carbon we produce every month and year, as well as how to reduce it by using alternative options in our lifestyles. However, even if we drive a hybrid and use solar electricity for our homes we still produce some carbon, so the final step is to plant carbon soakers - aka, trees! There are many ways to support this carbon offsetting cause, whether to physically volunteer and physically plant trees, or - for those of us less into physically connecting with Mother Earth - you can donate money to these organizations, or share information about them with family and friends. Offset that carbon and get involved. It is easy, improves the quality of your life, and helps the Earth that contains all of our loved ones and future generations to come.

For planting trees in Portland: http://www.friendsoftrees.org

For planting trees in major cities in the U.S.: http://actrees.org

Why wait? Be your own Superman and start saving the world today!

President Obama's Clean Power Plant Plan

 

President Obama has recently made some headlines in the news by introducing a controversial environmental and energy plan.  The plan is basically an executive order to force coal fired power plants to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 32 percent from 2005 levels by 2030.  This is the biggest stance the president has taken to fight climate change.  These said power plants account for about 40 percent of the United States’ greenhouse gas emissions.  They are also one of the largest suppliers of powering electricity in the United States.  The plan estimates that will, prevent 3,600 premature deaths, prevent 1,700 non-fatal heart attacks, prevent 90,000 asthma attack on children and prevent 300,000 missed workdays and schooldays.  In addition it will also save the average american family nearly 85 dollars a year on their energy bills, save enough energy to power 30 million homes and save consumers 155 billion dollars from the years 2020-2030.  It will also boost the American economy by creating tens of thousands of jobs, continuing to lower the costs of renewable energy and leads to 30 percent more renewable energy generation.  These are all estimates of what life will be like in the year 2030.  

Now, there are negatives with this plan, such as immediately it will be very costly to put in place.  The proposal would also force the energy industry to deal wit the cost of decommissioning or retrofitting existing, functional power delivery systems and replacing them.  This is a very costly affair.  In addition, the Chamber of Commerce states that the plan places unrealistic demands on states, which results in more burden on individuals and businesses.  The chamber believes that the level of CO2 emissions reductions is unachievable for the power plants.  

However, even though this plan is far from perfect, it is a step in the right direction in terms of fighting climate change.  The leaders of our country need to realize that climate change is a serious problem that needs to be address sooner rather than later.  There is extreme weather happening due to the high levels of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.  The united Sates alone lost 65 billion dollars on super storm Sandy and 2.3 billion dollars on Hurricane Isaac.  President Obama realizes that climate change is a serious issue and is stepping in the right direction to combat it with this plan.  

For more information here are some links:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/climate-change

http://www2.epa.gov/cleanpowerplan

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2014/06/02/Pros-and-Cons-Obama-s-New-Carbon-Rule

                                                                       

Not So Crazy Ideas On How to Combat Climate Change

Often times when talking about climate change, the same ideas are floated around.  And while most of these ideas are great, it is effective to think outside the box and think of ways that might seem a little crazy at first, but could do wonders to combat climate change.  

Here are 8 crazy sounding but not so crazy ideas to fight climate change:

1. Put reflective blankets on Greenland.  

Climate change has made Greenland’s ice sheets and glaciers melt at an alarming rate.  This means, among other things, that Earth is losing one of its most powerful reflective surfaces.  This is a very dangerous thing.  The melting rate has led glaciologist Jason Box to suggest that covering the country of Greenland in white blankets would help slow down climate change by keeping Greenland one of Earth’s most powerful reflective surfaces.  

2. Force-feed plankton blooms.

Plankton are some of the best organisms when it comes to absorbing carbon dioxide, and producing oxygen for the World.  Because of this, some scientists suggest that by placing big wave-powered pumps in the Pacific Ocean that would force the nutrient rich water in the colder regions to mix with the warmer regions and basically act like a feedlot for the large plankton blooms there.  

3. Drop Tree Bombs

This idea has some credibility because it successfully regenerated mangrove forests after Hurricanes Katrine and Rita.  Some geo-engineers think that we can generate almost instant forests by dropping these bombs that produce seedlings as soon as they hit the ground.  

4. ‘Plant” fake trees that absorb carbon. 

This proportions was proposed by Global Research Technologies.  These are artificial trees that act like real trees in which they remove carbon dioxide from the air.  The proportions stated that they would be planted on heavily congested highways.  Interesting enough, the proportion states that the trapped carbon dioxide is sold sold to soda makers for their uses of carbonation.  

5. Create man made volcanoes

This very controversial idea was first proposed by the book SuperFreakonomics.  It proposes that we mimic the ash spewing atmospheric cooling effects that a massive volcanic eruptions have.  We could do this by attaching several miles of garden hose to a helium balloon and pumping sulfer dioxide into the upper atmosphere.  This would block some sunlight and therefore cool off the planet.  

6. Giant orbital sun shield

Some scientists have thought of shooting huge mirrors into space to reflect the sun’s rays.  The mirrors could potentially be as large as the country of Greenland and would basically act as a shield blocking about 2 percent of the sun’s light.  However, there has yet to be proposed idea on how to get these giant mirrors into space.  

7. Cloud making ships.

Research has shown that puffy white low hanging clouds reflect quite a bit of sunlight.  This finding caused scientist to want to make more of these clouds.  The best way to do that would be to spray seawater high into the sky using special ships.  John Latham, one of the leading people of this concept states that it will take about 1,500 ships to do the job correctly.  

8. Raise garlic eating cattle

Cows and other livestock produce millions of tons of methane into the atmosphere each year.  Because methane is such a deadly greenhouse gas, some scientist have proposed to feed these livestock a bunch of garlic.  This is because garlic is able to kill the methane producing stomach bacteria which makes cow flatulence so deadly.  

These ideas are all very much works in progress and some of them are more crazy than others.  However, if people keep ignoring climate change and the problems with the environment, we might not have much of a choice but the put some of these ideas into action.  

For the full article click here:

http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/climate-weather/photos/9-not-so-crazy-ideas-to-combat-climate-change/junk-science-or-s

By:Garrett Sanders