As Summer approaches and green grass is escaping the slumbers of Winter, lawn mowing is definitely on the horizon for many people.  If you've thought about an electric lawn mower, but have an area that is just too big for a push mower to be practical, we may have an answer for your situation.  

Let us introduce you to the OX2 MP.  This unit can mow the lawn, throw snow, sweep the driveway, level a path, push, and tow, depending on what attachment it is hooked up to.  You can even power your other electric tools with the onboard AC inverter providing a 110/120V outlet.  Towing capacity for the Ox2 MP is rated at 7,000 pounds.  With 40 volts of energy at work, its power is similar to 20-25hp from a gas powered engine. On a full battery, the OX2 will run for 3-5 hours, too.  

Quiet.  Powerful.  Zero emissions.  Little maintenance.  Small operating cost.  This versatile unit will serve any property with ample yards, gardens, pathways, and driveway space quite well, we think.  Take a look at the video below and see for yourself.  You can find out more information at the Electric Tractor Corp. website.  

The only bad news we have for the OX2 is that is will not be publicly available until January of 2015.   

Have you ever given much thought to why we need trees?  We all know that trees soak up carbon dioxide and produce oxygen.  They can shade the house and lawn. too.  Trees add to the beauty of the yard and make the forest inviting.  Most of us know that they Protect our soil and more.  But, these are not the only reasons why we need trees.  Take a look at this exceptional video, and you will learn several more surprising reasons why trees are so important to our environment, our homes, our businesses, and more. 

The next time you think about doing something good for the environment, think trees! 

Detox your clothing?  Does this sound crazy?  Perhaps, but if you value your body and your environment, you may well wish to detox your clothing.  

When we look at today's clothing, we see a myriad of dazzling colors from glowing neons to a dizzying array of brilliant spots, stripes, and so on.  Does nature make these vivid colors in the plants we use for clothing?  No!  These colors are the product of soaking fabrics in vats of chemical cocktails.  When the dye job is done, where do the chemical mixtures go?  All too often, they go right out into the local waterways - waterways where people bathe, drink, and wash their own clothing. 

Some of these chemicals are highly toxic, leaving both waterways and people contaminated for Life.  So, the next time you choose your clothing, think of the chemical residuals you are about to put onto your skin.  Take a look at the video below to learn more.  You can also learn more at the Greenpeace International Detox page.  

The next time you choose your new clothes, choose natural materials dyed with natural, or at least non-toxic, dyes.  We suggest either organic, non-GMO cotton or hemp as your clothing material of choice. 

Earth Day celebrations are here again.  As usual, we will have several posts up with Earth-friendly items to share.  Today, we have put up a new page - "Repurpose It" - in our GRLC section of the website.  We have lots of ideas for you to help get your repurposing projects going, whether they are large or small.  We hope you enjoy it, and as always, if you have an idea to share, let us know and we'll be happy to add it to our page to inspire others! 

If you are thinking of buying land in the U.S., be sure you aren't buying a "split estate".  If you do - or have - you may find that you don't really own the land entirely yourself.  You may well be sharing your land with an oil and gas company, a timber company, or some other entity.  Read our article "Buying Land in the U.S. - The Perils of a Split Estate" to find out more on this subject.

Solar roadways.  Did the thought ever cross your mind?  For the founders of Solar Roadways, the entire project began as just a thought.  The more they thought about the idea, the more it made sense.  We think it might just make sense, too - good sense!  The Solar Roadways system works, as you might assume, by incorporating a solar component into roadways, or driveways, or parking lots, and so on.  However, this idea doesn't stop there.  With components in place to generate energy, there are also elements that melt the snow from roadways, warn of wildlife, and so on.  This is truly "out of the box" thinking, and it is very much refreshing and exciting! 

At this point, we are still learning about the Solar Roadway systems and weighing out the pros and cons.  The pro list is looking good.  On the con side, we have a few questions.  We are giving some thought to how the system holds up in a rural setting.  How long will the panels last?  How can they be recycled, particularly with the millions of years it takes for glass to break down?  We aren't sure we like the idea that a vehicle can be tracked through this system with GPS technology.  That leaves a lot of room for abuse and invasion into privacy in our opinion.  We have a lot of questions about Solar Roadways, but overall, we think it is great idea that may well be a true solution to the world's energy problems.  

We have found that the folks at Solar Roadways are very quick and friendly in responding to questions.  We encourage each of you to take a good look at the Solar Roadways system.  We are sure they will welcome your questions and comments.  You can find out more about them here.  The founders (and staff) of Solar Roadways deserve a "well done" and "thank you" for thinking about the future of our world, how we will hand it over to our children, and putting the common welfare of us all above the skepticism of others!

Video Credit: Solar Roadways

Video Credit: YouTube User "YERTians" at http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Ep4L18zOEYI

You can watch the full-length "YERT" film, 
including this short clip on Solar Roadways, here.  

Earthships and Living Buildings are two great, green building design concepts.  Earthships are tried and true, inspirational in the way we can re-use and reduce in our building efforts while achieving off-the-grid sustainable homes.  They are unique and beautiful.

Living Buildings are a much more new concept in design.  These  buildings are innovative and inspirational almost beyond belief.  A Living Building is a beautiful way of achieving a "net-zero" energy building that lives and breathes in Harmony with Nature. We think they are truly a new standard in green building, and as such are the way of the future for construction.

You can find out more about Earthships and Living Buildings on their pages we've dedicated to them in our "Articles, Featured Favorites, and Other Things" section.  You can also just click on the names above.

In winding down our Earth Day celebrations, we have an update to our "Making a Difference" page.  For those of you who have enjoyed it already, you will be happy to find quite a few additions to this page.  For those of you who haven't taken a peak at it yet, "Making a Difference" is a page where we offer all sorts of useful tips for making a difference in your environment through daily living and the choices you make as a consumer.  We hope you enjoy them, and feel Free to share your ideas with us to include in a future update! 

For those of you who have enjoyed the "Did You Know" area of our Green Living Resource Center, we are happy to say that we've updated it!  We've also added a new page for "Plants, Animals, and Other Things".  For those of you who may not have experienced these pages yet, you are in for some interesting and thought provoking facts about how we humans interact with and impact our environment.  You can find these pages here.

If you're wondering just what your carbon footprint is, or would like to evaluate the living changes you've made in the last year, here are a few links to carbon footprint calculators to use:

The Nature Conservancy - This is a thorough calculator.

TerraPass - This calculator is somewhat shorter.  

If you'd rather use the same one we had up last year, you can find that here.  

We also had a carbon dioxide emissions calculator up last year.  You can find that here.

It's a good practice to find out just how the changes you make in every day living add up when it comes to our environment! 

If you've ever been involved with a construction project, you well know how much waste can be created.  If the project involves a demolition, even just with a restoration, the amount of beautiful, usable wood that is thrown away can be Heart breaking.  With so many of the world's forests endangered or already gone, it is a true environmental travesty to throw away wood that could be upcycled and put to a new use.

Juliet Arnott of Christchurch,New Zealand is working to do just this.  She is the creator of 'Rekindle', a social enterprise that rescues discarded wood from construction and demolition projects and turns them into usable furniture.  As a social enterprise, 'Rekindle' is a for-profit business, but uses its profits to further its mission - rescuing reusable woods and shielding the world's forests from unnecessary harvesting.  The world would be a much better place if more businesses were social enterprises! 

Thanks and congratulations to Juliet and all the folks who work with 'Rekindle'! 

Can you imagine a world without water?  No water to drink.  No water to cook with.  No water to bathe in.  No water to wash your clothes.  No water for crops or animals.  Everything would perish, slowly, painfully.  Could this really happen?  It already is.  Is it too late to stop it?  Are you willing to help save this most precious and critical sustenance of Life?  

For those of you who think a world without water is not possible wherever you live, you might want to think again.  The atmosphere is heating up.  Weather patterns are changing.  Less water is stored in the mountains of the world as snow to gently feed water to the thirsty land beneath the peaks.  Rains come in greater quantities now as the warming atmosphere evaporates surface waters more quickly, creating superstorms and massive flooding.  The days of gentle, nourishing rain showers are lessening.  Flooding and drought reach every country in the world.  Aquifers are running dry worldwide, and many of those remaining are contaminated through the activities associated with the global thirst for petroleum resources.  When will your water be gone?  When will it no longer be fit for consumption?  How much time do you have before your world is one without water?

Water.  A necessity of Life.  A right of Life.  It's everywhere, yet the fresh water to drink it is nearly gone.  What will come next?  What is happening now?  Find out more in this outstanding documentary on the state of the world's water crisis....

The Green Living Resource Center has teamed up with Sacred Earth Organics and Sacred Earth Gardens in a new Facebook page!  We see so many great ideas on Facebook, that we felt it was waste to not share them with all of you.  So, we created a page just for sharing "green ideas"!  The new page is called "Grow Green, Eat Green, Live Green with The New Gaea Foundation.  You can connect with it here, as well as on the sitemap, under the "Blog Log", and under the sitemap area here on this page.  We hope you enjoy it!  See you there!

As we watch the images of our Mother Earth (Sister Gaea) and a number of our neighbors in this beautiful video, we are called to remember that every choice we make impacts Life for us all.  Every choice we make impacts Sister Gaea and every other being who shares Life with us here.  

We live in a time of choices, from the foods we eat to the vehicle we drive to the source of energy we use to heat, cool, and power our homes.  From the cloths used in our clothing to how we take out the garbage and read the newspaper, we have a choice.  Each choice we make counts.  Each choice we make is a tally mark for survival, extinction, conservation, or depletion for someone, something, someplace, or somewhere.  It is time for each of us to make our choices in conscious awareness of the consequences of our actions – positive or negative.   Our choices DO matter.  We must make then with care and thought, and remember that our choices not only serve today, but all the tomorrows to come for generations.  Choose wisely.

Free energy is a reality, nanotechnology is the answer.  This technology is brilliant, inspiring, and exactly what we need to move beyond our fossil fuel dependency. 

You can find out more about the technologies spoken about here.

Are compact fluorescent light bulbs a good choice to replace your incandescent bulbs with?  Absolutely NOT!  Why?  While it is true that CFL bulbs use less energy, they also emit mercury and other carcinogenic chemical vapors - for months.  If a CFL bulb breaks, a hazardous waste cleanup is in order due to the mercury that is released.  When it is time to dispose of a CFL, it cannot be tossed into the garbage.  Again, due to the mercury content in the bulbs, they must be treated as a biohazard and disposed of through the proper procedures.  Additionally, recent studies have concluded that the coating on the inside of CFL bulbs routinely cracks causing them to emit UVA radiation.  In short, the skin is exposed to this radiation at "higher than safe levels" every time it is exposed to the light from these bulbs.  Remember that heavy metals, such as mercury, radiation, and other contaminants are cumulative in the body.  So while exposure to these bulbs may not effect your 

So, what's the alternative to incandescents and CFLs?  We recommend LED bulbs.  They use less energy.  They are cooler to the touch.  Best of all, they contain no mercury or other carcinogens! 

If you'd like to read more about this latest find in the hazards of using compact fluorescent light bulbs, here is a very informative article shared by our friends at the Natural Society.  

We've talked a lot about electric vehicles, but if you really want to go green with transportation, think air power! The technology is here, and there could not be a better solution to the energy crisis than simple air for an energy source.  Take a look at these videos to learn more.  We Understand that MDI will be making their air powered cars available to the public in India this year.  We also Understand that the bodies of these cars will be (or could be) made of hemp!  Now, that's the best of both worlds! Our hats are off to both these inventors! 

You can find out more about MDI Enterprises here.
You can find out more about the Di Pietro Motor here. 

Absolutely!  Here are a few reasons why....

From building cars and building homes to making clothes and shoes, hemp is a great natural, renewable resource that benefits the environment and the consumer alike.  Great Britain has already returned industrial hemp to its rightful legalized status.  The U.S. should follow suit.  What are we waiting for?  Let's go green with hemp! 

Hydraulic fracturing is happening in 34 states in the U.S., and as you can see, all around the world.  It destroys the water, the air, and causes earthquakes.  Some of these earthquakes are in areas that are fragile to begin with, such as in the New Madrid fault zone.  Fracking may be a way to capture more natural gas to ease our energy needs, but the environmental price we pay for that gas is far too high.  We can live without gas and oil, but we cannot live without clean water! 

Fracking doesn't just contaminate the water.  It also contaminates the air.  Warning: This video contains graphic images! 

This is the PBS interview with Josh Fox from March of 2010 on his movie, Gasland, and on the subject of fracking.