Here at Myakka we are always looking at ways in which we can help lessen our environmental impact, with that in mind we are supporting Liftshare Week which is running from the 4^th  – 8^th October 2010. This is a great opportunity to cut your carbon footprint and ease the morning congestion by sharing a lift to and from work.  Not only does it help the environment it can also help reduce stress levels and make your journeys more fun.  Here at Myakka we car share whenever possible and have a regular pair of car sharers who share their journey to and from work everyday.

Lift sharing is an easy way of making a big difference to our environment by reducing your carbon footprint and easing congestion. It is also a great opportunity to meet people from your local community as well as a great opportunity to swap local knowledge about events and services.

If you would like more information on how you can find a car share partner, work out how much money you can save as well as the reduction of your carbon footprint simply visit www.liftshare.com for more information.  

Myakka is an active member of Ethical Junction, learn more

EXCLUSIVE – 4 for 3 deal on Yes to Carrots and Yes to Tomatoes. No Parabens, no phthalates and no animal ingredients. Vegetable inspired body and skin care. 4 for the price of 3 until 7th November

FREE FABRIC SOFTENER – Buy a 5: Ecover Laundry Liquid bet a 1L Fabric Softener absolutely free. Click ECOVER for details.

3 for 2 BODY LOTION – Until the end of November exclusively at BigGreenSmile we are offering 3 natural body lotions from Jason for the price of 2. Click Jason for details.

25% off FAITH IN NATURE – until the 11th November get 25% off selected Faith in Nature products.

This plus lots of exciting new products available at BigGreenSmile.com

Big Green Smile is an active member of Ethical Junction, learn more

Christmas is a favourite time of year for home baking.  The smell of hot mince pies, fruit cakes baking and mulled wine spices warming helps bring festivity into your home.

You can find all your essential fairtrade and organic festive ingredients at your fingertips at www.ethicallyessential.coop.  Essential has a wide range of larder staples for Christmas recipes and you can trust its natural, freshly packaged foods will deliver on flavour.  During the giving season, it’s good know that by buying sustainable, fairly traded ingredients, you’ll ensure fair pay is given to food producers across the world at Christmas.

Chocoholics!

Add Essential Organic Chocolate Drops to your baking – they are made without vegetable fat and retain their shape throughout cooking.  Essential’s fairtrade, organic Chocolate Spread Range made with fairtrade cocoa beans from Ghana is perfect for Christmas time.  The vegan Dark Chocolate Spread is delicious as a filling for Yule Log and an icing on fairy cakes.  The Hazelnut Milk Chocolate spread is a classic for tea time toast.  And for an even sweeter treat, try the Duo Swirl Chocolate Spread – hazelnut spread swirled with white chocolate spread…

Bake Me a Cake

Essential has plenty of dried fruit and nuts for your Christmas cake and mince pies including organic Flaked Almonds from Spain, Pecan Nuts from South Africa and a delicious Gourmet Nut Mix.  The Apple Juice infused Cranberries are a revelation: the apple juice takes away the sourness of these beautiful bright gem berries but still leaves a lively flavour to perk up cakes, bakes and pies.  Essential also has a Super Fruit Mix comprising just the right balance of organic sultanas, raisins, currants, cranberries, apple pieces and blueberries ready mixed for you to make cakes, biscuits, muffins and, of course, mince pies!

Winter Spice

Christmas isn’t complete without warm winter spices in baking and mulled wine.  Essential has a range of spices including organic and Fair Trade Ground Cinnamon and Cloves plus a lively Ground Ginger. 

You can find these Essential festive ingredients at www.ethicallyessential.coop and selected independent health food stores.

Festive Essential Food prices

Organic Chocolate Drops, 125g, £2.26; Organic, fairtrade Chocolate Spread, 400g, £2.39; Organic flaked almonds, 125g £1.75; Organic Pecan Nuts – 100g, £2.33

Gourmet Nut Mix – 250g, £2.70; Apple Infused Cranberries – 125g, £2.77;

Super Fruit Mix – 125g, £2.70; Spices – 25g, 99p.

Essential Trading Co-operative Ltd is an active member of Ethical Junction, learn more

People can disagree on many things and often heatedly. However one thing that surely cannot be disputed is a fact, i.e. knowledge or information based on something real. However it seems that the ‘fact’ or thought based on reason may be going out of fashion. Once common held beliefs based on scientific research and simply pure observation in general are being discredited. Everything from the harmful effects of DDT pesticides, to the effects of tobacco smoke, the negative health impacts of carbon monoxide to of course climate change is all being attacked by groups of media savvy lobbyists and agenda driven journalists. Silva Tree as a green investment company has also felt the impact of this.

Earlier this year a book was released that examines this movement in detail, how it works and how it is educating vast swathes of the public to disregard fact. The book is called Merchants of Doubt. It discusses how something like the DDT pesticide which killed millions of birds and animals had been banned in the US, and was accepted as harmful. Then later (i.e. now) a bunch of radical activists came along to discredit the ban of DDT saying that the ban was the cause of death for countless numbers of humans from malaria (mosquitoes had actually built up defences against DDT), and that the person who uncovered the truth about DDT was worse than the worst dictators of the 20^th century, and then claiming that DDT is our friend. The book argues in general that the far right in the US is hell bent on destroying the cause of environmentalism and public health activism. The authors claim that the ‘monstering’ of reputations of those involved in the environmental movement is an act of deliberate misinformation, and that this has become a hallmark tactic of a group of activists, lobbyists and certain journalists, who also state that climate change and carbon credits are scams aimed at setting us all on a slippery slope to communism.

The Guardian newspaper described the tactic as follows: “In these campaigns, a common strategy is evident: discredit the science, spread confusion and promote doubt, tactics that were introduced in the 70s to combat plans to limit smoking– whose links to cancer were by then becoming unambiguous – and which have been refined and used in battles to combat acid rain, ozone-layer depletion and greenhouse gas emissions. Real science is dismissed as ‘junk’ while misinterpretations are offered in its place”.

The person who uncovered the harmful effects of DDT, Rachel Carson is having her reputation destroyed on the Internet. Unfortunately she has passed away and is not here to defend herself. However the same is happening regarding climate change, carbon credits and green energy. The problem with all this is that firstly it unfairly demonises people, secondly if these people get their way the environment suffers, and finally it confuses people who then don’t know what to believe and then develops a mistrust of facts and science.

As mentioned above Silva Tree has also felt the impact of these campaigns particularly around the areas of offsetting carbon credits and climate change. Carbon credits of course were designed to allow governments, corporations and individuals to reduce their carbon footprints, but also designed to help developing countries develop sustainable and clean energy sources such as biomass.

On October 30^th the US comedian Jon Stewart holds a rally in Washington DC titled “Rally to Restore Sanity”, the aim of which is to bring back reason. Some of the placards at the event will be “I disagree with you, but I’m pretty sure you’re not Hitler”, or “I’m not afraid of Muslims, Tea Partiers, Socialists, Immigrants, Gun Owners or Gays … but I am scared of spiders.” And “9/11 was an outside job”. Let’s hope he succeeds for all our sakes!

Sources: www.guardian.co.uk, www.cnn.com, ‘Merchants of Doubt’ by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, www.silvatree.com

Silva Tree is an active member of Ethical Junction, learn more

To mark 10:10:10 wewow will be printing 10 eco-friendly CD WowWallets in 10 minutes for 10 bands, who are the lucky winners of wewow’s one-off competition.  The aim is to demonstrate the benefits, and in particular the potential carbon-savings of eco-friendly, card based packaging over traditional plastic packaging solutions.

With research earlier this year demonstrating that wewow’s WowWallet product reduces the carbon emissions of a CD release by over 13% (when compared with the jewel case), the increased uptake of eco-friendly CD packaging by record labels and recording artists would put the industry well on its way to reducing their collective carbon emissions by 10% this year alone.

The life cycle assessment, carried out on behalf of wewow, demonstrated that a huge 2803KG of CO2e would be saved if just 10% of the CDs sold annually in the UK were packaged in the WowWallet.  It will be difficult for the industry to ignore such significant findings and with wewow now offering cost-effective, eco-friendly packaging on short-runs, low-carbon packaging solutions are now available for limited-edition releases right through to popular, worldwide releases.

Independent bands and musicians are being given the chance to participate in wewow’s 10:10:10 event by submitting their artwork via wewow’s packaging website, weEco.co.uk.  10 bands will be selected and will have their 100% recycled CD wallets printed in the space of just 10 minutes on 10^th October!

wewow Ltd is an active member of Ethical Junction, learn more