Here you get a first look at an upcoming Habitat Footwear Model which is called the “Charter”.
The Charter is part of the “EARTHDAY PACK”, which perfectly underlines Habitats nature affinity.
“The Earthday” is a day designed to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth’s environment and is celebrated in the US on April 22.

Info: Habitat

¿Cuánto terreno y espacio marino es necesario para producir los recursos que utilizamos y para asimilar los residuos que generamos? Si todos los habitantes de la tierra tuvieran nuestro modo de vida, ¿cuántos planetas necesitaríamos? La huella ecológica es un indicador que nos permite evaluar el impacto que tiene nuestro estilo de vida sobre el planeta.Calcular la huella ecológica es complicado debido a la gran cantidad de variables que intervienen, pero existen diversos métodos para estimarla a partir del análisis de los recursos que una persona consume y de los residuos que produce.

En la página web www.earthday.net puedes calcular tu huella ecológica. Yo consumo 2 planetas (!!!), ¿y tú?

Join us (EarthRehab) at Coral Cove Park on Jupiter Island,

Ocean Conservancy cleanup flyer

September 19th, 2009 for the:

 Ocean Conservancy International Coastal Cleanup

For sale as a button… click here to see many, many more…

http://www.zazzle.com/gregvan/buttons

printed on a necktie...

http://www.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/1189686

rainbow squiralism

last April 22, 2009 – Earth Day, 3rdwhale.com launched this year’s Greenest Person on the Planet Contest.last yr (2008), my friend mr. matthias gelber won d gpop contest. 4more info pls watch d video bellow:

if u know of any green person who can b tis yr’s gpop…tell dem 2join d contest. see d video advertisement bellow:

Congratulations to Rochelle and Jayna for being our Earth Day Giveaway winners!

Here’s to a healthier you, home, and planet!

I hope everyone celebrated Earth Day in their own special way! I was at an Earth Day fair yesterday that was family focused. It was wonderful to see so many families enjoying the beautiful day and getting more educated on what they can do to help save our planet! Most of the booths had kid activities which I thought was phenomenal! The education process cannot start earlier enough. One booth recommended no matter how “green” your family already is what are 5 more things you can do to help do your part. I already recycle, use canvas totes when grocery shopping, drive a scooter, pay carbon offset when flying, and use green cleaning products. So my five are:

- buy more from local growers and support more local organic restaurants
- use canvas totes for all my other shopping too (keeping a small zipped up one in my purse)
- supporting companies that are conscientious about packaging 
-  buying more recycled paper products (toilet paper, buy less paper towel, etc)
- unplugging appliances when not using and overnight

What are you and your family doing already and what 5 more things can you do?

12 Volt Power station converts human fat into electricity

At Humboldt State University in Arcata California the Campus Center for Appropriate Technology has invented an electric power station that uses a standard exercise bicycle driving an automobile alternator.  A belt wraps around the wheel and the alternator. The electricity is stored in a standard auto battery for use later. more info at:

http://www.humboldt.edu/~ccat/

http://www.appropedia.org/Pedal_power_howto

The Pedal Power howto link above gives detailed construction instructions for building your own… including details of an inverter to power 110 v AC devices…

Biblical Illustration of the Wheel of FIRE as seen by the Prophet EZEKIEL.

The description in the Bible speaks of a four headed creature: Lion, OX, man and Eagle… more at:

http://www.zazzle.com/gregvan*

saltwater to freshwater solar powered distillery

This design uses the power of the sun to boil water creating steam (pure h2o) then uses the steam to drive an engine that pumps ocean water into the still. The steam can be collected when it condenses and be used for drinking, watering crops or washing. The remaining salt can be sold for a profit. This machine only works during sunlight hours so it automatically cleans itself at dusk. A typical installation could be used to turn desert countries into a fertile oasis. For example: If we built one in Saudi Arabia it could flood the empty quarter radically improving the ecology of the middle east. Imagine pumping thousands of gallons of freshwater into that desert…

An alternative design could use long black pipes centered at the focal point of a mirrored “half pipe” parabolic reflector.

more info at:

http://gregvanderlaan.com/solar.aspx

Sculpture by Hobart Brown in Eureka, CA

He also created the Kinetic Sculpture Race. A three day event using human powered art vehicles that travel on road, sand and water from Arcata to Ferndale. More info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_sculpture_race

bicycle powered gasoline car 120 mpg

This car is both bicycle powered and gasoline engine. Suitable for on road traffic it has an orange triangle on the back to allow it to be diven legally on highways. It goes slowly but is perfect for inner city travel. When you are on level ground just use the pedals to propell the machine… Uphill, start the engine and zoom zoom zoom… Since more than half of the time you are going downhill or level, the engine is off and you use no fuel at all.

More info at :

http://www.kineticsculpturelab.com/

Yahoo geocities was my first website…

I built it starting in 1997 using the free computers at the San Jose public library. To this day, it still has a great ability to let a person that knows how to write html the freedom to make it exactly like you want it.

Visit:

http://www.geocities.com/gregvan

or

http://www.geocities.com/momsaachico

I really liked using the free service to build a website for my AA group. People could write in my guestbook and I would read and respond. This was a key part of my recovery from alcoholism.

We also used it as a convenient place to store Literature that people could print out and take to meetings… One thing that seemed to happen a lot was that we would lose the printed words that every meeting started with… “How it works”, “More about alcoholism”  etc… So my lovely wife typed the words into this website so we could print out a fresh copy at any time… all we had to do was walk over to the school’s library and use their computers to print a fresh copy… Later I added maps and meeting schedules… I know for a fact that at least one person found our clubhouse and made it to a meeting by searching the internet, finding my geocities page and following the directions… They thanked my in the guestbook…

They were on tour with AA and were driving around the USA in a mobile home… every new town they visited they found a meeting…

I myself have visited other towns and gone to meetings… It’s a great way to get a locals insight into what’s fun to do…

Anyway…

Thanks for all the good times we had on

YAHOO GEOCITIES!

May the content live on!

I teetered on the edge of the flooded, scum topped, drainage ditch.  I stretched to reach the half full sport water bottle that was floating on it’s surface.  As I teetered, I heard my college boy mumble something about “nematodes”  and wondered if maybe this was a bad idea after all.  I didn’t want to have to explain the nematodes under my nails to the nail tech, the scum stains would be bad enough.

“Can’t you get cholera from dirty water?”  I heard the high school boy ask.  Ignoring him, I sighed, and stood up with my slimey, nematode and scum covered prize.  I dropped it into the half full garbage bag.  “Scaring me won’t work guys- we’re filling these bags. “  I said in reply. It was Earthday and we were doing our part, or ELSE. They must have gotten the message, because they bent to pick up a broken cooler and an empty vodka bottle from the weeds.

“Mommy!  Look!  I found garbage! I made a difference!”  Yelled my youngest, as he added a broken hub-cap to the garbage bag.  At least someone was enjoying this project.  He was living on the edge- (this was the closer to the road than he is normally allowed) and doing his part to care for our community. He could not have been happier. I on the other hand, was starting to feel overwhelmed and disgusted.  Everywhere I looked- there was more garbage, much of it not even within reach. It would still be there when we left.  To be honest- it would be hard to tell we’d ever been there, at all.  I felt a knot of tension tighten between my shoulders.  This was NOT what I’d had in mind.

“Why, exactly, do we have to clean up this mess, anyways? We didn’t MAKE it.”  I heard mumbled from one teenager to another.  I ignored them.  But, I have to admit- although it had been my idea to do this, I was starting to wonder the same thing. 

I walked across the road and bent to the edge of the ditch on the other side.  I reached out to pluck a soggy (but thankfully, empty) cup from it’s equally murky, depths.  I felt my foot slide on the muddy bank.  I tottered in slow motion and (thankfully) fell backwards onto my backside.  I had no desire to slurp nematode soup.

As I sat, mud soaking into my sweats, I caught my reflection in the scum topped and oil-slicked, ditch water.  I looked awful.  Not just dirty- but furious.  I was furious that this was making very little difference, and furious that the older boys attitudes were crummy.  (Not to mention my own.) I struggled to stand up without touching anything and I wondered how people do this everyday, for a living. “They get paid, to.”  Was the answer that came to mind.

“I don’t.” said a small quiet voice, the one I recognize in my heart as either the voice of God or truth… For a moment, I though I’d lost it. Maybe it was contaminated ditch water fumes, or the nematodes, but I argued with the quiet voice:  “I don’t recall a bible story about you picking up trash on Earthday.”  I snarked. “I do it everyday, it’s called grace.”  The voice countered.

I stopped snarking and felt my fury melt away.  I hadn’t thought about it like that before.

Grace, is God getting ditch level and cleaning up disgusting messes that He did not make. When he extends grace- he somehow does it with love and forgiveness, not with disgust or frustration.    Daily cleans up messes like my sin, which would fill ditch after ditch with worse things than soggy cups and nematodes.   As the reality of His grace sunk in, I stood up and looked around. 

“Thank you” I whispered, and finished filling the trash bags with tears in my eyes.

Lamentations 3:22-26

 ²² Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed,
       for his compassions never fail.

 ²³ They are new every morning;
       great is your faithfulness.

 ²⁴ I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion;
       therefore I will wait for him.”

 ²⁵ The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him,
       to the one who seeks him;

 ²⁶ it is good to wait quietly
       for the salvation of the LORD.

yesterday (in d middle of d dry season) it rained cats & dogs (heavy downpour) b4 lunchtime….der wer flash floods in diff. areas in metro manila….itz usually a slack time 2travel fr quezon city 2manila b4 & after lunch….at around 11am, it started 2rain hard… can’t remember wen was d last time it rained tis hard during earthday (april 22). d areas dat i traversed yesterday noon datz flooded are d ff: banawe area in q.c., b4 mabuhay rotonda along quezon ave., d infamous (flood prone area) espana quezon ave. stretch, road after d nagtahan bridge en route 2quirino hi-way, some parts of quirino hi-way, & buendia ave going 2taft ave/roxas blvd……it took me more dan 2hours 2 travel fr novaliches to buendia, makati….

weird weather……

So, besides planting trees last Saturday, I also checked out that Earthday Fair/Event I told you guys about. It was AWESOME. I got to see the launch of the veggie bus, listen to some rad music, drink a smoothie that came from a blender powered by a bike, and check out the cool booths. I also got to see what Normandie Avenue Elementary School looks like. There are some sweet things going on at that school.

Community Services Unlimited Inc. is the group that organized the Earthday Fair. They also do a lot of work with Normandie Avenue Elementary School. One of the things they do is teach the kids how to grow fruits and veggies. You can check out the sweet photos of their raised bed gardening area. I don’t know if you can tell or not, but this area is huge. Puts my raised beds to shame.

I also saw some kids painting a mural which was neat-o.

I got some flyers with more info about Community Services Unlimited. I found out that they do CSA boxes for my area. In case you don’t know, CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. You can sign up and each week receive a bag filled with organic seasonal fruits, vegetables and dried herbs.

Check out more about it here.

http://www.good.is/post/transparency-how-much-water-do-you-use/

I know it hasn’t been that long since they stopped showing this on tv. But I think it is appropriate since the bucs completed the sweep of the Marlins today.  Pirates are moving in to uncharted territory at 3 games over .500.  Maybe the tide is finally commnig in.  Have the Pirates finally weathered the storm?  All aboard the bucco bandwagon.  Anchors away!

I could not do much for earthday this year. Pity it happened to be  a weekday. But I thought I must get out of the house and spend some time outside.  So grabbed my tennis racket and played tennis for a couple hours.  I just  had a salad bowl for my dinner as an earthday special. I still feel  guilty for not doing anything special today. S0 I found an activity network Earth Day Network and signed up as a volunteer.  I told myself today is just the beginning of another wonderful year ahead. So there is so much I can do. Earthday is designed to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth’s environment. So here I am set out to inspire who ever is reading this blog.

I do not really blame you if you do not have passion for our environment. But our world is so beautiful that you do not really have to try very hard to make connection with our environment.  Think about this, would not you like a nice summer day that you can go out spend time without having to worry UV rays. Would not you like an year without hurricanes, unseasonal snow, floods?. If your answers to any of the above question is yes, then you have do have a passion for our environment but you just lost the connection with the world outside. Once you restore that connection, you can, on your own, think of a million ways to lend a help hand to make our world a better place. So I do not want to go on writing about how you can help our planet or should say help ourselves. It is as simple as getting out of the four walls that you live in and spend some time under the sky.