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Since the birth of our second boy in June, I have had quite a bit of diapering experience, with all kinds of “green” diapers. I did some research and ordered 6 different kinds of diapers to try out before I committed to one, making it a must do for my next article. First, here’s why the green guru poopoos using disposables. There are numerous health risks and environmental effects parents should know about.

•    Disposable diapers contain traces of dioxin, an extremely toxic by-product of the paper bleaching process. It is a carcinogenic chemical, listed by the EPA as the most toxic of all cancer-linked chemicals, and it’s banned in most countries, but not ours.

•    They also contain TBT, a toxic pollutant known to cause hormonal problems in humans and animals.

•    And they contain sodium polyacrylate, a type of super absorbent polymer, which becomes a gel-like substance when wet, studies have shown that with prolonged use of disposables baby boys scrotal temperature is increased and this effects the physiological testicular cooling mechanism important for normal spermatogenesis.

•    There are an estimated 27.4 billion disposable diapers consumed every year in the U.S. This makes roughly 3.4 million tons of waste in landfills per year.

•    Disposable diapers generate sixty times more solid waste than cloth diapers and use twenty times more raw materials, like crude oil and wood pulp.

•    The resource that the disposable diaper industry was arguing they saved was water, but in fact the manufacturing and use of disposable diapers requires 2.3 times more water than cloth diapers do even with all the extra laundry you do.

•    New biodegradable brands such as Seventh Generation, offer only slightly better options, they aren’t bleached in chlorine, a process used by the leading disposable-diaper companies that emits toxins into the air and water. But contrary to popular belief, no diaper — not even biodegradable ones — can break down in an airtight landfill.
Here are the options I encountered looking for the perfect diaper system:

•    The old-fashioned cloth diaper with a cover that your grand mother and mother both used. I bought cloth diapers made from organic unbleached cotton to use for burp cloths, and diapers, we use these for all kinds of things and they are invaluable. With a cover that is a good fit they are an inexpensive and easy solution to diapering without pins.

•    Cloth diapers with adjustable closures like KissALuvs and Under The Nile that can be used with or without a cover. The KissALuvs are my favorite without a cover for when I’m home with the baby and can change him often. They are soft and natural cotton, easy to fasten and a really good fit. For covers that will work with these diapers go to www.cottonbabies.com.  

•    All in Ones, cloth diaper in side with a leak-proof cover built in like BumGenius whose one size fits all or Imse Vimse that is made in Sweden with organic cotton. These are good options for an all night diaper because they are so thick, but a little pricey for your only diaper solution. I use them at night and for nap time. My only complaint was that they seem a little harder to get clean and used a not so natural material next to my baby’s skin that works well to keep them drier at night and prevent diaper rash. My favorite is the Imse Vimse all in one made with organic cotton.

•    The g-diaper is a perfect solution for those who really like the convenience of disposables but want to do something better for the earth. Available at www.gdiaper.com, these diapers are a fantastic and easy alternative to disposables. The inserts are completely flushable so nothing goes into a landfill and the cloth covers are easy to clean and make for great diaper covers for other cloth diapers as well.

Quote of the Month: “But now, says the Once-ler, Now that you´re here, the word of the Lorax seems perfectly clear. UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” -Dr Seuss

In Wimberley there is a growing fondness for the beauty and sustenance of our local food as so many have discovered our Wimberley Farmers’ Market. Sharing meals with our friends and family and feeding our need for healthy and natural foods brings us closer to the earth and to our local farmers. Buying food at the Farmers’ Market and supporting all their hard work not only has immense environmental benefits for our area, it contributes to the healthy development of our local economy.
There are fewer than a million Americans now claiming farming as their primary occupation, this means farmers are a vanishing breed. When you buy from a grocery store, the farmer gets less than 10 cents of the retail food dollar. However, local farmers who are able to sell direct to the consumers cut out the middleman and stay on the farm, doing the work they love. When you buy direct from the farmer, you are re-establishing a time-honored connection that gives you insight into the seasons, the weather, and the miracle of raising food.
Did you know that most produce grown in the US is picked 4 to 7 days before being placed on supermarket shelves and is shipped an average of 1500 miles to get there? And that is just in the US, we also import food from Mexico, Asia, Canada, and South America. China now is sending us food! The green guru has to ask why is this so, when we have more than enough farms and farmers to produce what we need right here. Well, you can thank Wal-Mart for that, they have started the trend to get even cheaper food out of China, where there are few if any labor laws or food safety requirements.
These and other large-scale food operations and production line food processing are threatening the security of our food system, as demonstrated by outbreaks of diseases such as e-Coli and Mad Cow Disease, the contamination of crops and seed stocks with genetically modified strains and toxic chemicals, and this latest bee scare, in which some US bee farmers are reporting an 80% loss of their bee population. Some experts say the disappearance of bees may be linked to pesticides and herbicides used in non-organic farming practices and some say it may be linked to the use of GMO’s.
With the excessive use of petroleum for fertilizers and transportation, the toxic use of pesticides and the destructive use of antibiotics, hormones and GMO’s; the unsustainable agribusiness food systems are bound to fail in the long run. The green guru asks, are you going to wait until we’re forced by circumstance to abandon our destructive patterns of consumption? The Buy Local movement is quickly taking us beyond environmentally responsible farming that the organic movement delivered and is awakening us to the importance of additional aspects of our food economy such as freshness, community, seasonal variety, and the humane treatment of farm animals.
How can you begin a new pattern of shopping locally? Start now by buying locally grown food whenever possible and eat healthier. The Wimberley Farmers’ Market is held every Wednesday from 3 to 6 pm. You will find Davis Orchard Peaches, Ottmers’ Family Farm vegetables and eggs, 12 Gates goat cheese, our own Montesino Farms certified organic produce from Wimberley (inquire about their CSA program), Red Barn grass-fed, hormone free beef from Dripping Springs, plants and herbs, homemade breads and soaps and much more…. See you there!
Quote of the Month: “I believe that the great Creator has put ores and oil on this earth to give us a breathing spell. As we exhaust them, we must be prepared to fall back on our farms, which is God’s true storehouse and can never be exhausted. We can learn to synthesize material for every human need from things that grow.” — George Washington Carver

It’s about time that the green guru commends restaurants in town that are doing it right and doing it green. By supporting these locals we all benefit and even thrive as an ever more sustainable community.

•    The Whatever Café is a must for an organic breakfast and coffee. Don will fix you up with veggie fed eggs, bacon and sausage, an organic omelet made to order, gingerbread pancakes and more. And it’s charming to see all the personal coffee mugs stored on the shelf ready for their owners each morning. Thank you Whatever Café for serving Wimberley healthy food and bringing us the small town hangout we all crave!

•    Welcome The Leaning Pear, boy did we need this place! They serve local cheeses, local organic greens and a BBLT (bacon, brie, lettuce and tomato sandwich) that is to die for! You can’t miss the rainwater tank out front for their garden and other landscaping.

•    Linda’s Fine Food is going green, they have a garden as well, they compost their food scraps for it, and they encourage you to bring your own to go containers.

 
•    Now, Clifford’s Wine Bar is what the green guru calls a dark green on the green scale. Not only are they planning their seasonal menu to be 100% organic and local by this June, they are already halfway there! They use homemade bread, veggies and greens from our local organic Montesino Farms, one organic wine all the time, local Texas wines and Ruta Maya organic fair trade coffee. They have also started a vegetable garden in back, you can’t get more local than that!
In order to be truly green, a place of business needs to think of all the impacts it creates by being in business, not just its menu and Clifford’s has done this. They have minimized packaging by sending leftovers home on their plates to be returned, having individual cloth hand towels in the bathroom, and using green cleaning products. Thank you, Lisa, and all at Clifford’s for being here. To all the locals above: your green-ness is GREATNESS!

Quote of the Month: “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing one obsolete.” - Buckminster Fuller

I recently saw Daryl Hannah standing proudly in front of her bio-diesel El Camino, on the cover of a vegetarian magazine. In the article, the “green goddess” lists 10 things everyone should do to be more green and earth conscious. One was to make choices as a consumer that are true to oneself and ones belief system, and another was to get off of petroleum products. And for that the green guru has to say….THANK YOU, GREEN GODDESS! What we consume, what we buy everyday, is what we support. Every dollar we spend is a vote we are casting out into the universe, saying this is the direction in which I want the world to go! If you buy breakfast at the Whatever Café, you are supporting them and their organic food choices. The same is true for stock in companies, if you buy shares in a company that has invested a lot of effort and resources in renewable methods for producing their product, then you are sending a signal to other companies that they should do the same.

According to the Participant-Directed Retirement Plan Data Collection Project, there are currently over 6.6 million active 401k accounts holding nearly $246 billion in assets. The largest share of this money is invested in equity funds or stocks. Look at how much investment power and potential just 401k accounts have in our future and the future of our planet. Marc and I recently discovered that we could go beyond the 5 funds offered by his retirement account and pick and choose funds that were more “green”. All we had to do was ask for a self-directed retirement account and do a little research. Do you want just anybody to decide for you where your dollars or votes for the future should be cast? Take control of your investments and tell your employer that you will do some homework to find mutual funds that are socially and environmentally responsible. For more information on how to do this, take a look at the Green Investing 101 article right below this one.

Quote of the Month: “I think the hardest thing about my job is the way Whole Foods Market views itself philosophically and that is we are a business dedicated to meeting all the various stakeholders of the company’s best interests. And by stakeholders we mean customers, team members, stockholders, community, and the environment.” -John Mackey

To make sure your hard earned retirement dollars are invested in ethically and environmentally sound areas, here is the simple method:

First, if you are an employee, call the benefits manager at your place of employment and tell them that you want to begin to self-manage your retirement account. The procedures vary a bit with each employer, but generally speaking, it involves filling out a simple form or two, and a couple of signatures. Within a month, you will be in control of your retirement dollars.

Next, you want to allocate your money safely, in investments that will hopefully outperform the market, or at least keep pace with it. If you are so inclined, that might mean researching a basket of potential investments, including stocks, mutual funds and exchange traded funds. For most folks, that is just too hard to keep up with, so here is how we allocated our retirement money safely and ethically:

We placed 2/3 of our holdings in an exchange traded fund called PowerShares WilderHill Clean Energy Index “PBW,” a portfolio that holds 40 U.S.-listed companies specializing in the production of clean energy, such as wind, solar, and hydrogen-fuel cells. The fund invests at least 80 percent of its total assets in common stocks of clean energy and conservation companies. No matter who your broker is, they ought to be able to place your money in this “clean energy fund,” since it can be bought and sold like any stock.

In addition to the ETF (Exchange Traded Fund) allocation, we also invested a smaller amount of money in a couple of solar energy stocks that are highly regarded. One of these companies made our solar panels, so they are dear to our heart; however, we are mindful that investing should not be sentimental, and we would not have bought their stock had they not been well regarded by investment analysts.

Another avenue for investment that is open to some of you is the new arena of ethically and environmentally oriented mutual funds. Some of these are outstanding both in terms of there highly progressive, stringently applied investing criteria, but also for their very competitive returns. One of these, and perhaps the best ethical and green investment vehicle in the world right now is called, “The New Alternatives Fund.” Some of you will have your retirement funds held with a broker that allows access to this remarkable mutual fund, but our broker, Charles Schwab does not at this time. If they did, we would have invested in it. I recommend you read about it, and marvel at what will undoubtedly become one of the hottest, highest yield funds in the future, as more folks demand ethical avenues for their retirement funds.

Other alternatives for green, clean and ethically oriented investing abound. Do a google search using the terms “exchange traded fund” and “green,” and or “ethical.” You can read about potential investment vehicles and become comfortable with the allocation of resources in these investment vehicles. See the Greenguru’s Favorite Websites page for links to articles and websites that illuminate these new and exciting opportunities in green investing.

As we learn more about these exciting opportunities and trends in investing, we will keep you updated. Please send us your own experiences, so we can all advance this cause as quickly as possible; this is not just about our retirement wealth, it’s about having a healthy planet for us to retire on. Our dollars are powerful, let’s put them to work!

Continuing on from last month’s Getting Off the Grid: Part 1, here are a couple more systems that are crucial in figuring out the electrical requirements for your home.

•    With AC, we in Texas have several options. Many have gone with geothermal, which can be expensive to install, but its lower power requirements make it a good choice for off the grid living; and it takes care of your heat too. A great new alternative to geothermal is a system made by Allied Energy Systems. Looking much like a conventional heat pump, but saving at least 30% on your energy demands for air conditioning. Work with your solar guy to figure out the best solution for you, it may be more cost effective to get a super efficient conventional AC and just a few more solar panels, than to do geothermal into solid rock.

•    Your refrigerator is another watt guzzler, but if you choose one carefully you can save hundreds of dollars a year in energy costs and lower your solar needs dramatically. We chose a Conserv (available at www.goodcommonsense.net ), a  gorgeous stainless steel model that only uses 60 watts when it cycles on!

After you have calculated all of the loads your family requires, and reduced them as much as possible by replacing old watt guzzling appliances, now it’s time for the second step, calling your solar or wind company of choice and have them come out to take a look at your home. You can then decide whether or not you will go off the grid all at once or like many do, start with a grid tie system and gradually add to your solar and/or wind system until you have enough to cut yourself loose of electric bills forever! There are many ways to do it, if your dream is to get off the grid, it is more possible than you think, it’s not a just a “dream” anymore, it’s your future. For more success stories of how others have gotten off the grid go to www.greenguru.org .

Quote of the Month: “The nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased, and not impaired in value.”
- Theodore Roosevelt

During this last ice storm, some in Wimberley were without power for more than 24 hours. I have since had many questions from friends and acquaintances about how to get more self-sufficient or off the grid. Now is the time to start! And here is how:

The first step to getting off the grid is replacing old, watt guzzling appliances, for energy star or better ones. The most important thing to remember when doing this, is to consider which appliances use electricity to heat or cool something: a hot water heater, an electric range, an electric clothes dryer, heater, heat pump AC units, and your refrigerator. These are the biggest loads your house will have and they need to be chosen very carefully. If most of you were to take your house now and calculate how many solar panels you would need to support all these kind of appliances the cost would most likely be prohibitive, however if you start with changing the appliances first, even if it takes you longer, you will save thousands of dollars on solar panels and in the meantime you will be saving hundreds on your electric bills.

•    Think about using solar hot water heaters or on demand gas hot water heaters.

•    Did you know that you can prevent over a ton of coal from being burned for your electricity just by changing your light bulbs to compact fluorescents?

•    Electric ranges are huge electricity consumers; use gas instead. To be totally independent, you can use a wood burning oven or a methane gas stove, and produce your own methane on your property.

•    Use a clothesline when the weather’s nice and for backup get a gas dryer.

•    Use a wood burning stove for your heat, and/or as we are planning, radiant floor heating using solar hot water heaters.

When it comes to home improvement, there is nothing better for the planet or your wallet that becoming more sustainable, soon the most valuable homes will be the ones that work all by themselves.

Quote of the Month: “In the long term, economic sustainability depends on ecological sustainability.” -“America’s Living Oceans”  [Pew Oceans Report, 2003]