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Enjoy an eco-friendly, bike riding, organic eating summer!

There are some pros and cons of wind energy. Here are some pros and cons:

Pros:

Renewable resource

Plentiful

Reduces greenhouse gas emissions

Does not produce air pollution

Clean

Cons:

Kills almost 2,200 bats in two weeks on two onshore locations

Safety hazards

Cut trees

Not many users

Cost

Believe it or not, the Back Cove we know and love so much, is getting raw sewage dumped in it.  During storms, the water from the streets goes into the pipes, the same pipes that we use for our waste.  When the pipes over flow from so much water some of the raw sewage gets dumped in to the Back Cove.  It is a huge problem because if there is waste in the Back Cove no fish of sea creatures living there any more.  We would not be able to walk or jog around it any more.  It would become a underwater waste basket.

                                                                                                          When I talked to the mayor about the Cove he told me that the city council is spending 65 million dollars to put a new piping system in. The sewage will not get mixed with the waste and the pipes will not over flow and spill sewage in to the bay. 

Why does this affect you?  Because we will not enjoy the bay anymore.  The back Cove will turn into a huge pile of muck towering into the sky.

Twenty years ago, people just dumped their trash into the Back Cove.  That’s where all the sewage was dumped.  You could smell the stench from anywhere close enough.  That all changed though, they stopped dumping sewage in the bay and became conscious about what they had done.  They fixed it enough so the stench would go away but it is still dirty down there at the bottom of the bay.

          I am glad they are doing this 65 million dollar project, Portland needed it.  I just want to say a thank you to everyone that helped save our Back Cove.  Thanks!   - Patrick Sheils 

1.     Unplug all lights and appliances when you’re not using them.
Remember, even though the power is off, electricity is still running through
it. If the appliance has a power-save mode, use it. If you want to just take
care of a bunch of things all at once, turn off the power strip.

2.     Take a shorter shower. When you take a half-hour long shower, you are
wasting oil and money to heat the water you are using. You are also wasting
all that water. You can find a timer, like an ordinary kitchen timer, to
help you get out of the shower quickly. Set it to 5-7 minutes.

3.     Recycle and reuse. Papers drink bottles and cans, plastics, metals,
glass, and old light bulbs. Toys and clothes can be given to goodwill and
books can be donated to schools, libraries or used bookstores.  You could
also try to sell your things on Craig’s List (with your parent’s
permission).

4.     Walk, scooter, or ride your bike to school, instead of going on the
bus or having your parents drive you. If you absolutely need to use a car,
plan to carpool with your neighbors and friends.

5.     Eat less beef. It may be hard (especially if you’re a meat lover,
like me). But eating beef is totally inefficient. In general, you are
wasting food to feed the cow for its meat, and you are wasting the land and
your time to get that corn to feed the cows. A study by the National
Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science said that 2.2 pounds of beef
burns enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for 20 days.

Encourage Your Parents To:

6.     Plant trees. It can be a whole family thing. They make your yard look
good, give you shade, and eat carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas.
According to the American Forestry Association, if every American planted
one new tree, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere would be reduced by a
billion pounds a year.

7.     Start composting. I know it may sound like a whole lot of hard work,
especially for a kid, but trust me, it’ll feel good. Besides, it saves water
and electricity by reducing the use of garbage disposal. It conserves space
in landfills and helps you save fossil fuels and tax dollars. Don’t forget
that it makes the soil in your garden a whole lot richer.

8.     To buy and, more importantly BRING reusable bags when shopping.
Millions of plastic bags are found as litter each year and huge amounts of
oil are used to make them

9.       Buy local, fresh, and organic foods. Buying locally means using
less fuel to get your food. Around 17 times less fuel, to be exact.

10.      This may sound really silly, but give hints on hybrid cars to your
parents. Who knows, maybe they’ll figure it out and get one. The reason a
hybrid car is better than a car that runs fully on gas is, just that. A
hybrid car is a car that uses electricity AND gas.

11.      Check their tires every week. Flat tires make it harder for the car
to move, therefore making it use more fuel to move the same speed as a car
with full tires would.

12.      Buy energy efficient appliances. The average home spends about
$1,900 a year on energy costs for appliances. If your parents change to
energy efficient appliances, they may save a lot of money a year, while
helping the environment. Tell your parents to try to look for the Energy
Star in or on your appliance.

13.      Change light bulbs to energy efficient CFLs.  If every household in
the US just replaced ONE regular light bulb to an energy efficient CFL, it
would eliminate the equivalent of the emissions created by 1 million
cars.  Just
dispose of CFLs carefully, as they have a tiny bit of mercury in them.

14.      Support wind energy and solar energy. Maybe even talk about
installing solar panels (you don’t have to, seeing as they are really
expensive).

15.      Cancel junk mail. The junk mail received by Americans every day can
be used to produce enough energy to heat 250,000 homes.

Spread the word! Talk about global warming. Persuade your friends and family
to do something about it, or use the suggestions I have written here. The
best thing you can do is telling other people about what is happening to our Earth.

Thanks,
 Rachael Glover

CLYNK
  is the way to go if you like to recycle bottles and go to Hannafords.  You can store your money in an account.  You can get your money after 2:00 the next day.

CLYNK is one of the many ways in our city that you can recycle bottles and cans.  And I think that it is the best way.

So set up your account today!  Luca S.

Go to
www.clynk.com

Nathaniel Youngren

Endangered animals are not like a normal cat or dog.    An endangered animal is one that there is not many of, such as animals that are almost extinct.  If nothing is done there won’t be any of these animals left at all and that is bad.

But why do we care?  There is a kind of gorilla called a lowland gorilla and once there were a whole lot of gorillas.   Then the number of gorillas dropped by 56% due to poaching and habitat loss and disease. Poaching is done largely by poor and jobless people.  Habitat loss means people chopped all the trees down.   The deadly Ebola virus has been linked to the death of thousands of gorillas in Africa, bringing the species closer to extinction.

What can we do?  I’ll tell you.   We can reduce habitat loss by reducing our consumption of wood and paper products.  You can buy recycled paper, recycle at home or school, don’t litter, walk more rather than take a car.  Portland recycles anything that comes from trees, glass and plastic. At school we can recycle our paper and trays, milk cartons and plastic. So the next time you want to throw away paper recycle it and use less. Think about our animals.

Noah Youngren

Acid rain is a form of air pollution.   Acid is in all rain.   Acid rain is rain, snow, sleet, hail and fog that has a greater acidic content than normal.   It is caused by burning of oil, coal and natural gas.   When they are burned they emit sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides which undergo a chemical change when they rise into the atmosphere and are exposed to sunlight and moisture.   They dissolve into solutions of sulfuric and nitric acid and return to earth in rain and other forms of precipitation.

Acid rain is worse in the northeast because the prevailing western wind makes Maine the nation’s “tailpipe”.   Acid rain destroys lakes and streams and kills fish by raising the acid level in the water.   It destroys forests by causing defoliation and corrodes monuments and buildings.

A way to reduce air pollution is to use a car that does not run on fossil fuels or an efficient hybrid car that runs on electricity and fossil fuels.  Another way to reduce air pollution is to ride your bike to work (or school) or take public transportation.   Yet another way is to conserve energy where ever you go.

Kids contributing go to Reiche, Presumpscot, Lyseth, Clifford and Longfellow Schools and some of us are going to middle school in the fall of 2008.

Thanks for following along with Spotlight on Green and Green Kids.

ps we are working on hosting the magazine here so check back tomorrow

Let’s start with why corn is in meat shall we? It all starts back at the farm where the farmer wants to feed his 6,540 head of cattle or 10,572 chickens with something cheaper than wheat, hay, straw or grass from free-range grazing. Most cattle ranches have switched to corn, which (due to cheapness) caught on very quickly to the point where almost all cattle (also chickens, turkeys, pigs, etc.) are corn fed.

So now, let’s say you try natural soda, made with real sugar.  It tastes great. Now you try something like Sprite or Coca-Cola; that stuff is way sweeter! Guess what they use to make things of that sort so much sweeter than they could possibly be with real sugar; corn in the form that you have probably seen in ingredient lists before, high fructose corn syrup, which is not only much sweeter than sugar but way cheaper as well.

Corn is in more places than just meat and soda. Imagine you are eating a relatively large breakfast and can take the whole thing apart to expose all the corn you are eating. The eggs on your plate come from corn fed chickens. If you’re eating bacon than you are probably eating meat from a corn fed pig. The milk in your glass; those cows eat mostly corn. Plus, the jam on your toast has high fructose corn syrup (as the second largest ingredient, right after strawberries). If you like margarine on your toast instead of butter, well that is made from corn oil too.  There you go, a dissected breakfast. Enjoy your plate of corn…. I mean “food.”

It goes farther than that, salmon, which are carnivores, are being genetically modified to be able to eat corn. Plus, it’s not just food that is being derived from corn these days. Corn is also a part of much of the packaging that the food comes in such as plastic grocery and vegetable bags, cardboard boxes, and the glue that holds all those things together. Plus, as if that isn’t enough, now many of us are starting to put corn into the gas tanks of our cars in the form of ethanol.

So America is a nation that is increasingly more dependent on corn. Because of so much land being devoted to growing corn, all other food is becoming much more expensive. Now there is a world food shortage because farms aren’t growing food to be eaten, but instead growing corn to be made into all of the things I mentioned above. In my opinion, there should be less corn. We should be eating more organic and locally grown food.  We should also be looking for other energy sources other than ethanol and oil. Do you think we can continue to eat and live this way? Say no.  Please say no.