As you read, try to imagine: a tomato which is picked before it is ripe somewhere in California and then thrown into a huge truck with about 40,000 pounds of other under ripe tomatoes; is then taken to a processing plant, put through a chlorine bath, waxed, gassed with ethylene (which speeds up the ripening process) and then sent in another truck across the country to some restaurant, is probably not going to taste so good. So you can see why buying organic and in-season fruits and vegetables makes the most sense.

What You Can Do
The best place to shop for produce is either at a local farmers market or you can join a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program, where you can buy your food directly from local organic farmers.

What Else Can You Tell Me, Food Man?
The FDA does not require food labels to disclose the genetically engineered ingredients which are used. According to Greenpeace of the acreage in North America, which is devoted to GE crops, 99% are planted with, cotton, canola, soy or corn. This means that over 60% of processed foods available in the US contain genetically modified ingredients.

The volcano Dabbahu, which is located at the northern end of the rift is responsible for creating it. When it first erupted, it pushed magma up through the middle and began cracking open the ground in both directions.

The African and Arabian tectonic plates meet in the remote Afar desert of Northern Ethiopia. They have been spreading apart at a speed of less than 1 inch per year, for the last 30 million years. It is this rifting which made the 186-mile Afar depression, as well as the Red Sea.

Scientists seem to believe that the Red Sea will eventually pour into this new sea in roughly another 1 million years. The new ocean would be connected to both the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, which is an arm of the Arabian Sea between Somalia in eastern Africa and Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula.

Given the global aloofness to environmental concern, oil will only disappear as a necessity for transportation fuel when someone replaces it with a power-packed, cheap, stored energy alternative, which is easy to handle and quick to refuel with. These, my friends, are the facts.

As far as energy cost goes, the one obvious choice for replacing diesel and gasoline is pure battery electricity. Electric vehicles can be recharged from the grid for much less than the cost of gasoline or diesel from the pump. However electric vehicles and their batteries ARE expensive.

Currently lithium-based rechargeable batteries are used. And they cost an arm and a leg. They are costly because of the combination of using a rare, expensive metal combined with an involved production process. So what’s the cost solution? How about, Rechargeable Zinc-Air batteries!

It has long been thought that zinc battery chemistries could not be electrochemically recharged. ReVolt Technologies of Norway, proudly denies this myth. They have developed zinc-air technology which is indeed rechargeable. They have developed a technology which may be used to power anything from cars to cellular phones. ReVolt claims that their zinc-air chemistry has twice the amount of stored energy than conventional Lithium-ion batteries.

ReVolt is trying to break into the U.S. electric vehicle market; they are opening up a U.S. headquarters in Portland, Oregon. Currently the company is applying for $30 million in grants from the US Department of Energy (DOE) under the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA), in order to speed up the commercialization process of its large format zinc-air batteries for energy storage and electric vehicle applications.

“You can have a really fuel-efficient, dirty vehicle and a really clean, not-so-fuel-efficient vehicle,” says Karl Simon, a director of compliance and innovation for the EPA’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality. “It really is pretty wide open from a technical perspective.”

So-called fuel economy indeed is linked to emissions; however it is not the only factor. The amount that a car causes pollution also has to do with what kind of fuel is used and the condition and age of the engine. So just because a car which is known to be a huge gas guzzler, this does not necessarily mean that it is the worst for the environment.
The most environmentally dangerous cars on the market feature a combined poor gas mileage with a high level of tailpipe and greenhouse gas emissions.

Recently the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency used air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions data to put together a list of the worst cars on the market for the environment. The cars are rated on a 1 to 10 scale. A car which scores a 10 would be the healthiest for the air.

Have a look:

Dodge Durango
Air Pollution Score: 6/10, Greenhouse Gas Score: 1/10
City MPG: 9, Highway MPG: 12
Transmission: Automatic 5-speed 4WD (ethanol fuel option)

Dodge Ram 1500
Air Pollution Score: 6/10, Greenhouse Gas Score: 1/10
City MPG: 9, Highway MPG: 12
Transmission: Automatic 5-speed 4WD (ethanol fuel option)

Chrysler Aspen
Air Pollution Score: 6/10, Greenhouse Gas Score: 1/10
City MPG: 9, Highway MPG: 12

Mercedes-Benz S600
Air Pollution Score: 6/10, Greenhouse Gas Score: 0/10
City MPG: 11, Highway MPG: 17
Transmission: Automatic 5-speed 2WD

Chevrolet Trailblazer
Air Pollution Score: 6/10, Greenhouse Gas Score: 0/10
City MPG: 12, Highway MPG: 16
Transmission: Automatic 4-speed 4WD

BMW M6 Sedan/Convertible
Air Pollution Score: 6/10, Greenhouse Gas Score: 0/10
City MPG: 11, Highway MPG: 17
Transmission: Manual 6-speed 2WD, select 7-speed 2WD

Jeep Grand Cherokee
Air Pollution Score: 3/10, Greenhouse Gas Score: 1/10
City MPG: 9, Highway MPG: 13
Transmission: Automatic 5-speed 2WD (with ethanol fuel)

The outbreak is still sweeping the land and has killed, so far, more than 1,000 people in the United States. On April 26, the administration declared swine flu a public health emergency. They immediately accepted the shipment of roughly 12 million doses of flu-fighting medications from a federal stockpile to states across the country. At the time, there were 20 confirmed cases in the U.S. of people recovering quickly and easily. There was no vaccine against swine flu, but the CDC had taken the initial step necessary for producing one.

Obama wrote last Friday in his new declaration:

“As a nation, we have prepared at all levels of government, and as individuals and communities, taking unprecedented steps to counter the emerging pandemic.”

As of last Wednesday only 11 million doses of vaccine had been shipped to health departments, doctor’s offices and other providers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, however according to new government goals, there should be about 50 million doses of swine flu vaccine out by mid-November and 150 million in December.

Those who think that the Swine Flu has flown are living in a dangerous bubble. It is more rampant now than ever. Almost 100 American children have died from H1N1 and 46 U.S. states have “widespread” flu activity.

The swine influenza, which is grown in chicken eggs, is indeed a worldwide epidemic. Globally more than 5,000 lives have been claimed by the nasty disease so far.

First of all, they just about always contain little to no vitamins or other essential nutrients known in a healthy diet. And the caffeine, carbonation, simple sugars, sugar substitutes and other additives and preservatives which they do contain, can in fact do damage to one’s health.

In fact, tooth decay, heart disease, type-2 diabetes, nutritional depletion and obesity in young children is often caused by an unhealthy diet, consisting of a soft drink overdose.

Also, if you were thinking that diet or sugar-free soda is a better health choice, think again. While the sugar overdose risk is cut in half with diet drinks, the sugar substitutes used in them is equally unhealthy. For instance, saccharin has been found to be a carcinogenic.

Aspartame, or nutrasweet, tricks the brain into thinking that it is sweet. It breaks down into acpartic acid, or phenylalanine and methanol at 86 degrees. This is bad because your tummy is usually about 98 degrees.

Breaking it down:
Sugar: The USDA recommendation for sugar consumption is about 2,000 calories per day. Most soft drinks contain more than this.

Dr Mao says:

“When you drink sodas that are packed with simple sugars, the pancreas is called upon to produce and release insulin, a hormone that empties the sugar in your blood stream into all the tissues and cells for usage. The result of overindulging in simple sugar is raised insulin levels. Raised blood insulin levels beyond the norm can lead to depression of the immune system, which in turn weakens your ability to fight disease.”

Too much sugar also results in weight gain and increases the risk of heart disease and cancer.

Carbonation:
Carbonated beverages contain phosphoric acid, which depletes the blood calcium level. This is bad for the bones and can eventually cause osteoporosis.
As for the risks incurred with overdosing on caffeine, well, you can probably make a nice educated guess.

Given this statistic, perhaps insurance companies have less to worry about than was once expected. Drew Altman, the president of the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation last week:

“The public option is a significant issue, but its place in the debate is completely out of proportion to its actual importance to consumers. It has sucked all the oxygen out of the room and diverted attention from bread-and-butter consumer issues, such as affordable coverage and comprehensive benefits.”

In order to prevent the government-run option from piling more onto the federal deficit, most uninsured people will have to wait until 2013 for federal help. And even then, some will have to pay a significant share of their own health care costs.

The Congressional Budget Office the nonpartisan economic analyst for lawmakers, said that the scaled back government plan in the House bill would not actually overtake private health insurance, even conceptually. And in fact it might even help insurance companies.

The 2% of Americans under 65 who would actually sign up for the government option makes up 6 million out of 282 million Americans in the wide age group.

The fact is that the majority of the population would remain in private health insurance plans sponsored by employers; and low-income people, would be covered through an expanded Medicaid program.

Actually most people would not have access to the new public plan. Under the House bill, it the government option would be open only to those who buy coverage on their own or work for small companies. Still, even within that pool of 30 million people, only 1-in-5 would take the public option.

Economist Karen Davis, president of the Commonwealth Fund, said;

“The concern was that the public option would destabilize the bulk of private insurance, but in fact what Congress has fashioned is very targeted. It’s not going to be taking away the insurance industry’s core business.”

Later this week the full House will vote on the bill, whose full cost still goes undisclosed. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. Proudly declared on the steps of the Capitol, that the bill “covers 96% of all Americans and it puts affordable coverage in reach for millions of uninsured and under insured families, lowering health care costs for all of us.”

As predicted, Republicans were quick with their negative reactions. Republican House Representative John Boehner of Ohio said, “It will raise the cost of Americans’ health insurance premiums; it will kill jobs with tax hikes and new mandates, and it will cut seniors’ Medicare benefits.”
The question remains, will the Republicans be able to block the bill’s approval in a House which is made up of 256 Democratic seats, where 218 makes a majority?

The bill will provide an expansion of Medicaid, which is a state/federal run health program for the poor. Individuals making up to $16,245 and a family of four making up to $33,075 would be covered. This would add 15 million to Medicaid.

As far as private insurers, one of the bill’s features is a new national insurance market. Therein private companies may sell policies that meet federally mandated benefit levels. The government would offer competing coverage and therefore individuals may shop around for their best option.

Also, doctors, hospitals and other private providers would be able to negotiate rates with the Department of Health and Human Services (for services provided under the government insurance option).

Here’s a way to squeeze a few extra bucks out of Uncle Sam, while being a true blue green machine:

The economic stimulus package passed by Congress last February included a full federal tax credit – that is not just a deduction – on 30% of the cost on all energy saving items. This includes a cap of $1,500 per house, if installed before the end of 2010. Within this new stimulus package consumers have the double benefit of slashing their utility bills while increasing their house’s long-term value. Now keeping it green is a double entendre – haha!

If you don’t really need to upgrade the whole entire house, you may at least benefit from one to two new changes. Qualified products must meet standards established in 2009 by the International Energy Conservation Code.

Here are a few ideas:

-Formaldehyde-free fiberglass batts and cellulose-based spray foam, which fills various nooks and crannies are a couple of ideas.
-Insulation jobs paired with sealing air leaks is a major bang-for-the-buck efficiency measure.
-In Australia, which is suffering a major drought, a company called Caroma has created a Profile toilet with special water conserving features. You can recognize it as the toilet with the faucet on top of the tank. After you flush, water pours out of the faucet and into a recessed drain until it refills the tank.
-A new product from Velux, The Skylight Turn-Key Collector Kit, is also a hot item. It enables you to get hot water for free, from anywhere which you can mount a skylight. The kit comes equipped with an electronically controlled pump, two water collectors encased in the Weather Tight frames and a 60-gallon hot-water storage tank.

In a Memorandum of Understanding the DOE and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) who jointly manage Energy Star, agreed to increased product testing and quicker updates.

Still according to Consumer Reports, consumers are better off buying Energy Product stars than any other similar company. Their track record does include years of energy-saving products.

Starting this year, the EPA will take the lead on all Energy Star specifications. Currently there are more than 60 product categories which may earn Energy Star. So it goes without saying that there is a lot of work that needs to be done.

The Yahoo Daily Green News Blog reports:

If Energy Star has 90% market share, then the maximum level of efficiency that is “technically feasible and economically justified” (where federal standards must be set by DOE) is at least this high. If the market share is low, then incentives or education might be needed to encourage folks to invest in more efficient equipment.

Here’s a list of product categories which will most likely need revision in order to meet redefined Energy Star standards:

- Audio/DVD has 35% market share. 44% of these products meet with Energy Star.
- Residential Boilers have market shares over 50%. They must be 85% efficient to meet with Energy Star standards.
- 49% of all laptops meet with Energy Star.
- Copiers and scanners with Energy Star have market shares of around 90%.
- 80% of televisions meet with Energy Service.