Tree Hugging Family was a participant in last year’s Blog Action Day and we’re in again this year. Last year’s Blog Action Day Topic was the environment (hard for us here; I know). We went a little extreme.

This year the topic is poverty, and I’m not quite sure what we’ll pull together here, but we’re registered. Are you? Anyone with a blog, podcast, or so fourth can sign on to participate. All you have to do is register at Blog Action Day 2008, and then commit to blogging about poverty on October 15th.

Last year Blog Action Day was loads of fun. Tons of blogs participated and it was cool to see how everyone covered green issues from their blog’s unique perspective. Hopefully this year you’ll join us and commit to Blog Action Day. Let us know if you’re participating so we can come visit your post.

Click here to learn about all the current contests, themes, and green challenges going on at Tree Hugging Family in September 2008

[image via Blog Action Day]

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

• Simple Shoes Let Kids “Walk the Walk”
• Anthropomorphic Eco Adiri Bottles
• Eco-friendly & Economical Maternity Wear
• Hydrogen Toy Car: H-Racer
• 5 Eco Friendly Reasons to Choose Cloth Diapers
• INKE Recycled Vintage Wallpaper Kits
• Solar powered toy helicopter

Toys, clothing, shoes, diapers, tips and more; all lovely, and most with a green slant. If you’re an avid reader of the kid-minded posts here, you’ll love Inhabitots.

Just click the owl. You know you want to…

Click here to learn about all the current contests, themes, and green challenges going on at Tree Hugging Family in August 2008

[image via inhabitots]

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

The site, Do You Digg It, wrote a really kind review about Tree Hugging Family; a review that we hope our regulars agree with. Many thanks to this site for their nice words.

If you visit Do You Digg It, you can browse plenty of other blogs and read reviews. Sadly, we’re the only blog in the Environment category, although this site is new, so maybe soon the Environment section will fill in some. Other categories include things like Health, Technology, Outdoors, Blogging, and many more.

The only downside I see to this site is that there’s no way to search by review, such as, you can’t look at all the blogs that got a good review vs. a bad; or maybe this site just diggs on all blogs – I can’t tell because there’s no ‘About page’ – still, this site is worth a look. Even if you don’t agree with the reviews, you may find info on a blog you’d like to read.

Check them out.

Click here to learn about all the current contests, themes, and green challenges going on at Tree Hugging Family in June 2008

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The Celsias Show hails from Celsias.com, an international environmental blog, and the goal of the show is to add some edgy humor, fun, and interactive elements to some serious issues like global warming, carbon credits, and more.

The show will continue to air live each Tuesday evening with comedian / host Doug Snodgrass at the helm. Snodgrass, a green blogger himself, brings a “Jon Stewart” sort of feel to the show.

Celsias sent me a friendly email about some ongoing show perks, which include…

• “Each show will kick off with a short comedic monologue.
• Counterpoints from a climate change “skeptic,” comic book artist contributor Ande Parks.
• Interviews with environmental experts, institution directors, scientists, and other heavy hitters.
• Interactivity: Folks can listen or contribute directly by calling live and having questions broadcast on-air
• Slightly off-color humor”

The first Celsias Show aired last week and featured an interview with Janet Larsen, Research Director from the Earth Policy Institute. Tonight’s show should be killer; it’s all about carbon credits, and let’s face it, how many of us completely understand those? Even if you’re a carbon credit expert it’s worth it to tune in, maybe you’ll learn something new, or maybe you won’t agree with Snodgrass at all, and can tell him so.

If you’re a tree hugging manic or simply want to start learning about green issue, you should absolutely tune in to the Celsias Show tonight, (March 18th) at 8 pm PST.

If you check it out, come back and let me know what you think. If I get more over this darn bad cold that I’m harboring, I’ll be there watching too. If you can’t make it, they’ll air a fresh show next week and Celsias.com has plenty of green info, making it a site worth visiting anyhow.

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

Marye awarded it to ten people, so Peggy and I are supposed to spread the love to ten new people. We decided the best thing to do would be for Peggy to award 5 people and ditto for me. The post right before this was Peggy’s award post, and she gave out some love to some great green bloggers.

Now I get to choose some worthy winners; and I think that I’m going to divert from greenies. Just for this post.

Let’s see now; who manages more often than not to make my day….

In no particular order:

Gayla from Supernanny Rules: Now, Gayla is a good friend to have, and an excellent blogger, but more importantly, she’s our kick %$@  Lifestyles Channel editor here at b5media. Which may lead you to believe that I’m a kiss up. But believe you me, I’ve had dozens of blog editors, and the bad ones make your life miserable day in and day out. The good ones make all my days easier. Since Gayla is one of the very best editors I’ve had, she’s getting an award.

Liberty aka the Snarkstress is getting an award because she always remembers to check in with me (even when I slack),she remembers the holidays, and little facts that matter. She’s one of those funny, real, always nice people that you’re lucky to get to know, so she’s getting one of my award slots.

MoCo Loco should get an award. I think that they have many bloggers, so I guess this award goes out to the blog in general. Mainly because I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bad post there. Every day I visit, it’s a great day. There’s a new house to drool over, some mod bookshelf/couch/plant stand I love, or just oodles of shiny artistic goodness.

Tracee from Blog Fabulous gets my next award. For mostly the same reason that I always mention her, she cracks me up – hard core. Not every day, some days she makes you think as well. I also think Tracee deserves the award because she shares. I’m a big blog sharer, I like to talk about my son, share pics, and info. Some bloggers shy away from sharing the more personal stuff, but Tracee always shares, and I really enjoy blogs like that.

Last but not least, miss Deb from various places, but maybe you know her from Simply Thrifty, gets an award. Deb may be the one blogger I talk to daily, and she’s always got something good to share. She sends me jobs, is an excellent cheerleader, and she pretty much gets where I’m coming from. She’s an all around great friend day in and day out so she obviously gets an award.

So, to everyone above, thanks for making my day – now it’s your turn to go and spread some award love.

Here are the original rules:

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

*Our restaurant server tonight thought it would be cute to give everyone animal crackers because they had no birthday cake at the famous BBQ joint. No, it’s not my birthday. It’s a friend’s birthday, and he chose the BBQ joint. And his plastic knife broke, thereby flinging baked beans all over his pants. See the evil that is plastic utensils?

So, here are the green posts I admired tonight:

Over at brave new leaf, there’s a post about stuff that falls off boats and ends up tooling around the ocean: Ocean Waves, Plastic Graves

Zem Joaquin at ecofabulous offers the post I love getting NUDE!

Linette at Mother Earth’s Garden wrote an intriguing and important post: What is bee colony disorder? How could it affect you?

Alison at Daily Tomorrow recently blogged about solar-powered toys for kids of all ages.

At Organic picks, I loved Cindy C’s post about Pottery Barn: A Green Room? I also have conflicting feelings about this company that sends me 200-page catalogs and makes it difficult to get off the mailing list. (Catalog Choice is supposed to be taking care of that for me right now.)

The animal crackers are gone now. Happy reading.

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

Oh, I know. It’s not entirely green but is is a tree. Not a tree house but a home built to look like the interior of a tree — very cool.  I posted it at Offbeat Homes but readers here might enjoy it.

The Mushroom House

I’ll be back though with my original thoughts later this evening — after I no longer feeling like blowing up Wordpress.

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

Here’s how we roll.

On Thursday and Friday, we will be at booth #309. Attendees of Blog World Expo can collect b5 chips throughout the conference in several ways:

• Be seen wearing a b5media T-shirt – $1000 chip
• Answer b5media trivia – $500 chip
• Tell us our secret password – $500 chip
• Awesome swag trade – (depends on how good the swag is)
• Drop business card in box – $250 chip
• Use your chips to play poker and win (or lose) even more!
• Beat b5media’s CEO – Jeremy Wright – DOUBLE your chances

Each day, b5 will have an auction in our booth (at 2:30 Thursday and Friday) and attendees can use their chips to bid on the prizes. As noted, we will be doing a secret password. You can find these passwords in various b5media blogs. (The first password is at the bottom of this post). Participants only need to approach someone in the b5media booth with the password and they will get a token.

Watch for more secret passwords scattered about b5media during the event. If you win let me know. I can’t go this year (much to my massive sadness) so I’ll be aching to hear your stories.

ALSO: This is note worthy. One of our very own; Deborah Ng from Simply Thrifty is up for a huge honor — a 2007 Weblog Award for Best Individual Blogger. You can vote once a day for her RIGHT HERE. How cool would it be if someone here at b5media won; especially someone as nice as Deb. Very cool I’d say. Be part of it all and vote now.

Lastly, if you’re going to the Expo – and you’d like to get a $500 chip to start with (so you can bid on our fabulous prizes), the first secret password is: “b5alicious.”

[Thanks to Gayla at Dating Dames -- for providing some of the text for this post.]

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

Well, I’m running late but have made it before Blog Action Day is over with the second installment of extreme green living ideas. For some of you the 15th is over — not me though. I’m a west coast girl! I’ve got an hour left.

I would have been back sooner but I had a lot of blogs playing green today and it’s been busy. That said, we should get going.

In the previous post I listed 4 extreme green living ideas. Here are some more. These tips are all centered around the same thing; waste.

5. Wear (and use) only organic natural fibers and shun anything that isn’t. Buy local-made whenever possible.

Why: Organic materials aren’t grown with pesticides obviously and many of the companies/individuals making these items practice cleaner production techniques.

Do I do it?: No, and here’s why.
A lot of green-minded friends have told me get rid of anything you own that’s not hemp, organic, etc. But where exactly should I put this stuff. I have skirts that aren’t organic but were thrift store finds from 10 years ago. Should I fill up landfills with stuff I had before I was a greener individual? And what about thrift stores. They don’t have a lot of locally made and organic items but they are in the business of recycling. That’s a good deal. I’m on the fence on this green living tip. I do buy hemp and organic now but shun old school thrift — I don’t know.

Here we go; number six is the biggie….

6. Create no waste by staying away from ALL packaging.

How: The how of creating zero packaging waste is a tough one. Here are some things you’d have to give up:

• Toilet paper
• Maxi-pads and tampons
• Ice cream in cartons
• Coffee
• Bought bread
• Toothpaste
• light bulbs

And a thousand other items that most homes use. Packaging is not eco-friendy it wastes energy, materials, and think about the factories who make packaging (yikes!).

Do I do it?: No; I’m not this extreme. Think no average family is this extreme; think again. There are plenty of families out there who have managed to live without packaging and not just rural-grow-their-own-food types either. Here’s a family trying in New York City.

Do I do any of it?: Yes, I am extreme on some packaging waste issues. Like…

Baked goods: You can buy the ingredients you need to make baked goods in bulk (using your own refillable containers) and make the items (bread, muffins, etc) at home. I do this a lot — not 100% but often enough.

Fancy Beauty Products: You can make your own sugar scrubs, face masques, soap, shampoo, lotion, toner and more. This I do all the time. BUT I also once in a while buy a product but I’d guess far less often than the average American. For items like toothbrushes I buy recyclable.

Reusable Maxi Pads and biodegradable organic tampons: I always use these. I can’t believe I’m blogging this — damn extreme day. Still consider this; thousands of plastic tampon applicators end up where they shouldn’t each year (like washing up on beaches). Think of all the months in a year and all the years in your reproductive years now think about the landfill size needed to hold all those used non-biodegradable pads and tampons.

There are other choices. For pads you can buy (or make) cloth ones. My sister is completely grossed out by this and so are other people I know but here’s the deal what’s grosser — a landfill full of millions of used pads or a drawer full of washed reusable pads? Hmmm. As for tampons if there’s one place you don’t want cotton pesticides it’s well, you know where. Buy organic and biodegradable.

Options:

• Glad Rags
• The Keeper
• Luna Pads
• The Diva Cup
• Chlorine Free Organic Cotton Tampons

Those are three ways we cut down at my house but we do buy some stuff in packaging. We try to make sure it’s all recyclable. If you were extreme you’d cut out all the packaging; there are ways.

There are more extreme green living tips obviously; quit your job, homeschool, toss the computer, downsize, turn off the electricity, and so much more — goals that are attainable for some but not for everyone.

Here’s the deal. Tomorrow; I’ll be back. Blog Action Day will be over and I won’t blog too extreme. I’ll go back to the small steps and mid-level green ideas. But that’s not a bad thing. We all need help in some areas of sustainable living.

I personally believe that living as extreme green as you can is a good thing. The world could use it. However, I also believe that each of our small steps can add up to one extreme. Although people do things differently and are on various levels of their green path the point is that they’re trying. There is no completely wrong way to try to be more eco-sensible.

The only wrong way is to not try at all.

I hope everyone had a great day and don’t forget to visit the other Blog Action Day b5 bloggers!

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

So, I decided that in honor of Blog Action Day the only place a normal green living blog could go is up. That means to the next shade of green — extreme.

I’m not so extreme here at Tree Hugging Family.

That’s because I’m afraid too many families and individuals underestimate how important just one small earth-saving contribution can be. I do believe that all the many small steps we do will add up to a whole lot of green-minded living. In addition I know families are busy and that going green can be hard to plain overwhelming. Here at Tree Hugging Family I’m trying to make that easier for families. It would go against the cause to post extreme green tactics.

However, today of all days is the day to blog about the environment so today for one day only extreme green will be taking center stage.

And now… How to be extreme green or in other terms leave a net zero impact upon the earth. I’ll also chart which things I myself do and don’t do (hint: I’m green but not extreme).

Just being born leaves an impact so you can’t get that back but here’s what you can do if you’re into extreme green.

1. Have no children

Why: Children, simply by being born use resources and leave a huge environmental impact on the planet. Not to mention that the world is overcrowded and not sharing the resources we already have all that well.

Do I do this?: Obviously no. I have a child and even maybe want more. To me this is more an emotional issue rather than an environmental issue. But at the core one baby is a problem as far as the environment goes.

2. Live off grid in a perfectly green home

How: This means you’d find land that won’t be harmed for your home. You’d need to build with all green and or recycled and renewable resources — this means you’d end up building the home mostly yourself as well because contractors and others create a bigger energy drain. You cannot hurt vegetation to build your home or you should at least move the vegetation to a new spot. Off grid means you only use power you can create yourself from natural renewable resources — solar, wind, water, etc.

Do I do this?: No; although I did build a passive solar home with the help of only maybe three-four others. It was hard. I do want to live off grid though. This is extreme to a point but not that extreme because it’s attainable for most people they just don’t realize it. I will live off grid one day.

3. Get rid of your car and only use transportation you power yourself

Why: We all know cars create massive issues with the environment — some of which we will never be able to repair. Cars are bad and public transportation creates energy waste and produces horrid toxins so that’s out. Get a bike or scooter or even skates!

Do I do this?: No, I have a car. Right now I don’t think I could manage without one either. I don’t live within walking distance of grocery stores and my life is too busy for public transportation which is sort of sketchy where I live.

4. Eat only organic and locally grown foods and drinks

Why : The why is simple enough; it takes energy to transport food and not just a little. If you consider a pineapple from an island we’re talking massive amounts of energy just to get it over the ocean. Not to mention all the ground transport. Organic is the way to go because our bodies don’t need harmful toxins and pesticides in them. This means most specialty and out of season foods are out.

Do I do this?: No, not to the extreme. In a word ‘coffee’. As far as I know they don’t grow coffee where I live so if I were extreme green coffee would be out. We do eat a lot of organic because it is better for you and I try to buy local when possible. But we aren’t perfect (extreme) and sometimes buy stuff like fruit snacks (bad) and non-organic dairy, not soy cheese (super, super, triple bad).

So. let these settle in your gut and I’ll be back later with more extreme green living tips. Believe me there’s harder than what’s above.

Don’t forget to visit the other Blog Action Day b5 bloggers!

Post from: Tree Hugging Family