Top 10 Tips for Making it Earth Hour, Every Hour

This Saturday, March 27, My Yoga Online is celebrating Earth Hour. At 8:30 pm local time, hundreds of millions of people all over the world will be turning out the lights for 60 minutes. Earth Hour started in 2007 in Sidney, Australia, when 2.2 million homes and businesses turned their lights off for one hour. Last year, just two years later, hundreds of millions of people took part; over 4000 cities in 88 countries committed to turning off their power. Earth hour is now the world’s largest global initiative for climate change.

The team at My Yoga Online will all be participating this year. We hope you do, too, and we compiled our favorite tips for making it Earth Hour, every hour, below.

Top 10 Tips

1. Replace an older furnace with a new, energy-efficient model. This can boost your home’s energy efficiency by 20-30%.

2. Calculate how much energy your business consumes using this online tool.

3. Buy green electronics.

4. Use EPEAT to help you evaluate and compare electronics, based on their environmental attributes, before you buy.

5. Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics ranks the 18 top manufacturers of personal computers, mobile phones, TV’s and game consoles, according to their policies on toxic chemicals, recycling and climate change.

6. Food portal CHOW has a feature to rate the kinds of packaging used for food, based on energy used to create it and decomposition.

7. Reconsider buying bottled water. Get the facts from the David Suzuki Foundation, including how much energy is used to create them.

8. Find tons of tips on greening your home and business.

9. Check the Energy Star Canada website regularly for updates on new energy-efficient lighting.

10. Queen’s University’s Live Building Project focuses on tips for commercial spaces, but these can be applied to your home, too.

For more information, please visit Earth Hour.

For more earth-friendly insight, check out all the Green Living articles on My Yoga Online.

Yoga For the Earth

My Yoga Online - This is a fantastic workshop - I really recommend it. Great info, looks at the issues we face from so many angles and and ties everything together so well. If you are in Vancouver, B.C. go check it out this weekend, definitely worth the time.

Yoga For Our Planet
A Risk We Should Not Be Taking
Saturday, September 27th, 1-4pm
At the Semperviva City Centre Yoga Studio
#100 - 1985 West Broadway, Vancouver, B.C.
Fee: $12 - Net Proceeds go to the David Suzuki Foundation

What is really going on with our environment? What do the scientists say is happening versus what the media and our politicians say? Is there a real problem or not? Should we be doing something about it or not? What kind of a world are we creating for our children? If we should be doing something for their sake, what should we do? Ancient Yoga traditions have many teaching on how we can live in balance with our environment. These traditions can be applied to the environmental challenge facing us today.

Come hear Bernie Clark present the current scientific understanding of Global Climate Change and hear how our Yoga practice can help us make a big difference in what is happening to our planet. Learn the 3 Big Easy things you can do to make this difference! This presentation will be of interest to anyone, yogi or not, who is living on our planet, so bring a friend (or two... or more!)

Bernie Clark, in addition to being a Yoga teacher, is also an Executive Vice-President of Canada's oldest and largest space company. He has a bachelor of science degree from the University of Waterloo and has decades of experience in the field of remote sensing, a discipline that monitors changes on the earth from air and space.

Yardwork and Air Pollution

With the days getting longer, many homeowners thoughts turn to the work that waits in their yards. Many people associate air pollution with cars, airplanes, energy-producing facilities, and other large fuel consumers. The small engines used in lawn mowers, hedge trimmers, chain saws, and leaf blowers, however, represent a significant source of air pollutants.

Indeed, most small engines emit high levels of carbon monoxide (CO), a colorless, odorless, poisonous gas. In addition to CO, small engines emit ozone-forming hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides. Ground-level ozone impairs lung function and contributes to smog formation. According to the Government of Canada, a gasoline-powered lawn mower emits about 48 kilograms of greenhouse gases in one season.

There are ways to help clean the air while maintaining your yard. Here are a few ideas to get you started.

Avoid Spills and Overfilling

· Spilling gas and overfilling the tank allow for gas to evaporate

· With evaporation, hydrocarbons are released into the atmosphere

Maintain Equipment

· Change oil and clean or replace air filters regularly

· Use the proper fuel/oil mixture in two-stroke equipment

· Keep blades sharp to improve fuel efficiency

Use Manual Tools:

READ MORE....

Eco_Friendly Pets

1. Clean up after them

Cat owners should avoid clumping clay litter at all costs. Not only is clay strip-mined, but the clay sediment is also permeated with carcinogenic silica dust that can coat your cat’s lungs. In addition, the sodium bentonite that acts as the clumping agent can poison your cat through chronic ingestion through their fastidious need to groom. Because sodium bentonite acts like expanding cement—it’s also used as a grouting, sealing, and plugging material—it can swell up to15 to18 times their dry size and clog up your cat’s insides. Eco-friendly cat litters avoid these problems; a happy cat is a cat that doesn’t claw your face off. Scoop up your doggie doo in biodegradable bags.

Greening Your Pets

September 22 Is World Car Free Day

Tomorrow is world car-free day. Every September 22, people from around the world get together in the streets, intersections and neighborhood blocks to remind the world that we don’t have to accept our car-dominated society. It’s a perfect day for us to imagine what our cities might look like, feel like and sound like without cars...

World Car Free Day...

Conserving Water

The availability of clean water is one of the central issues of our time, and we all need to do our part to use this resource wisely. Clean water is paramount to the eco-system of our planet. Here are some tips for saving water:

1) Turn off the water while brushing your teeth, washing your hands and washing dishes

2) Do only full loads of laundry and dishes: if your washing machine has a setting for the amount of clothing you’re washing (small-large) choose a low setting

3) If your dishwasher has an option to run a “full” or “short” cycle, choose the short cycle...

...More About Conserving Water...