Producing food and bringing it from the land to our plates is the source of about 1/4 of our planet’s total greenhouse gas emissions. More than half of those emissions are contributed by the livestock industry. And the biggest whopper in that industry is beef and lamb (Poore & Nemecek (2018), Science). It’s Not just…
Nature Care Challenge | May 2019: Bag the Plastic
Plastic bags are stupid: They fly around looking ugly, tear into shreds and hang in trees, leach toxins into the environment, and turtles & Co. choke on them because they mistake them for jellyfish. I kid you not, I once watched a cow throw up a plastic bag in the streets of India. And although…
Earth Day 2019
Its time for celebration! Celebration of your planet, our home, our marvelous space ship! The first Earth Day was a huge peoples movement in 1970 and it has since become the widest spread non-religious day celebrated world wide. Every year on April 22nd, we celebrate our planet by doing things that benefit our planet, and…
Nature Care Challenge | April 2019: Dip Your Clothes in Sun
If there is one home appliance we don’t need, its a laundry dryer. An average dryer used by an average European household emits 210kg of CO2 per year. But why though?? Just hang dry your washing! The sun is giving us her energy for free and even if the sun is not shining, hanging inside…
Nature Care Challenge | March 2019: Sustainable Drinking on the Go
This month, I challenge you to do something that you possibly already do: Use a keep cup. Keep cups are replacements for the single-use to-go cups made from waxed paper or plastic. Keep cups have become more and more fashionable lately and you can get them made from bio plastic (not recommended for any beverage…
Bee Friendly
It’s springtime! The first flowers are popping up in the garden spreading happiness and in me a prehistoric feeling of hope and reawakening. Our garden has erupted into a delicate firework of white snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis), purple crocuses (Crocus vernus sp.) and yellow winter aconite (Eranthis hyemalis). It is even warm enough for the first…
Everything I Know About Containering
Containering, also referred to as dumpster diving or skip diving, is an activity in which people go, well, dumpster diving in the dumpsters of supermarkets, cafés and delis to find food that is still perfectly edible and was simply thrown away because it was not pretty enough, or had passed its sell-by-date. In the extremely…
Lovely Lichens – Disguised Superheros
It is still winter here, it snowed a bit more, and as I was watching a crow rolling around in the snow on my neighbour’s roof, I wondered about all the animals having tho search for food in the snow. While many species ignore the topic completely by hibernating, that is not an option for…
Nature Care Challenge | February 2019: Wearing Clothes Better
If you live in the Northern hemisphere, I challenge you to turn your heating down by at least two degrees Celsius (or 3.6°F) and instead wear a sweater (a real one). At night, turn the heating all the way down. I promise you, you will sleep better in a cool room. Lowering the temperature in…
DIY Toothpaste
I have yet to find store-bought toothpaste that is not packaged using plastic in some way. So my simple solution: make your own and package in glass jars. Makes a weird but lovely gift too. What you need Well, there are so many options, depending on your wants and needs. I will give you an…