Green Livin Do You Need Nature Therapy?

Green Livin Get back to green basics

One of the best ways to groom your inner green is to reconnect with nature. Understanding the significance of living a green life becomes a lot more important when you realize that you're part of nature yourself. I'm a firm believer that when I'm in my biggest funk simply walking outside can help me snap out of it. It's a reminder that there is just so much more to life than the minute issue currently overwhelming my thoughts. Is this therapy? What's Nature Therapy?

I believe that a holistic path of healing includes a personal and intimate connection with the natural world.

There are tons of programs that encourage reconnecting with the wilderness. The intention is to restore balance, harmony, inspiration, and imagination by attuning to the energies and seasons of nature.Nurture your greener side with afternoon medicine walks. The non-strenuous walk can be in a group or in solitude.

Go alone into nature for an allotted period of time and go back to basics. Don't worry, you learn what you will need to know about equipment and using a backpack, safety procedures, wilderness ethics, and minimal impact camping.

I believe in ecopsychology, a practice that joins psychology and ecology to assist us in remembering we are part of a very big life process and that we are embedded in nature.
Don't fret because you can practice nature therapy at home or plan your own therapeutic trip:

Pick a Saturday and go on a nature walk. I didn't say hike for a reason because the point of the walk is not the intense workout that you get from climbing a mountain; but rather, quieting your mind. Or if possible, sign up for a guided nature walk in your area.

Plan a camping trip or go national park hopping and check out all the spectacular nature out there. From Yellowstone to the Grand Canyon, the United States has the largest national park system in the world all waiting to be explored.

Green Livin Where the Wild Things Are

Green Livin Why Children Still Need Nature

I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in Nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright.

~Henry David Thoreau

Green livin The creek was child territory, A communal green space.

As a child, I had a creek in my backyard. I lived at the creek. The minute perfection of a baby crawdad held in my palm elicited one of my earliest moments of wonder. My creek was an ever-changing constant. It could dry to a mere trickle in a dry summer or burst from its bank after a heavy spring rain with a current that begged attempts at rafting. It was a refuge, my chief source of entertainment, a place to play with like-minded adventurous friends, and a great source of snakes.





The creek was what anthropologists call a “magic circle of play”. A place both real and imagined; it was a world away from adults. Adults were rarely needed or wanted—unless we made an exceptionally interesting find. The imagined danger was delicious.

With surprising wisdom, the adults of my childhood left children to their own devices. They knew that children need the space, solitude and most importantly, unrushed time in nature. I knew neighbors were nearby if true need arose. In the many years of creek play, Luckily for me, my neighbors were familiar with children and childhood. The creek was child territory. A communal green space. At twilight, children crouched and flitted along its banks like moths. The creek was one of the first places I sought comfort in.

When my own sons were small, I looked forward to sharing the creek world with them and they were also thrilled with the creek’s offerings. We soon discovered, however, that the climate had changed. The fish and animals were thriving, but the banks had been groomed and planted up to the water’s edge. New neighbors worried about damage children might cause to the plantings and to themselves. One expressed fear that an injury in the creek might result in a lawsuit. The sidewalk that had connected the creek to several subdivisions was claimed as private property and made forbidden to the public. These actions speak not only to Americans’ growing litigiousness, but also of the pervasive paranoia, creeping isolationism, and culture of fear that is killing American neighborhoods and keeping our children indoors. Rather than agrue with neighbors, we departed the creek and mourned the loss.

Children have always been drawn to wild, natural spaces. Toddlers allowed to explore will seek out mud under a bush or explore the most unkempt area of a backyard. Children come equipped with a natural curiosity toward the wild. The author Valerie Andrews says in her book, A Passion for this Earth, “As a child, one has that magical capacity to move among the many eras of the earth; to see the land as an animal does; to experience the sky from the perspective of a flower or a bee; to feel the earth quiver and breathe beneath us; to know a hundred different smells of mud and listen unselfconsciously to the soughing of the trees.” In much of America, however, children have disappeared from the landscape.





Richard Louv in his book, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder, writes that a lack of exposure to nature leads to not only a decrease in a child’s sense of wonder, but also an actual loss of senses. Nature is restorative. A recent study from the University of Illinois shows what parents have long known anecdotally: that children suffering from ADHD who are exposed to green spaces show marked improvement. Nature therapy is becoming a popular recommendation among child psychologists. Yet fewer and fewer American children are playing outdoors.




I hope that we can reawaken within ourselves and in our children the love of green places. I hope we can remember that aesthetics should not take precedence over sharing the natural world with children. We need to reclaim the creeks and other magic circles for our children. If we fail in reconnecting with nature, We will have yet another generation of children who collectively echo the fourth grader in Louv’s book who announced, “I like to play indoors better ‘cause that’s where all the electrical outlets are”; a message truly worthy of our fear.

Green Livin Toyota Projects Gas Prices To Hit $5.00 By Middle Of Next Decade

Green Livin Toyota Projects Gas Prices To Hit $5.00 By Middle Of Next Decade, We Think They're Being Optimistic

Toyota is basing its production plans on projections that US gas prices could rise as high as $5.00 a gallon as soon as 2015. The Japanese automaker also believes the full-size truck market will experience a significant recovery in the near future. Despite demand for its fuel-efficient Prius hybrid reaching an all-time high, it is unable to increase production of the vehicle until the 2011 model year. But gas hit $4.00 a gallon earlier this year: It seems unlikely that it'll take seven years for it to rise another dollar, so is Toyota being too optimistic with its projections?

Bob Carter, general manager for Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A., made the projections in remarks to reporters at and industry conference yesterday. Going on to say that while he expects total full-size truck sales to drop to 1.45 million in 2008, from 2.14 million in 2007, he expects those sales to rebound.

"We are absolutely confident that the recovery will take place, it's just arguable when," Carter said. "We've reduced production. It's our intention to build to the market. But when that market comes back, the core buyer who uses the truck for employment, who uses it for work, whether it's the landscaping company or the contractor, can't substitute a Corolla or a Yaris."
But they could use a smaller, more fuel-efficient truck. Carter does expect to see a significant reduction in demand amongst recreational truck buyers — the kind of people who buy big trucks because they want them, not because they need them for work.

A new 2011 Toyota Prius is in the works, as is a new plant in Mississippi that will be capable of producing a significantly higher number of the hybrids. But until then, Carter says, "In the short term after having that kind of increase last year and a big increase the year before that we're restricted on capacity and components." But with a new Honda hybrid on the way, maybe priced as low as $18,000, and the Chevy Volt scheduled to arrive as early as 2010, that may not be enough — especially if fuel prices hit the $5-per-gallon figure earlier than Toyota is projecting.

[Automotive News, Sub. Req.]

(Photo: jalopnik )

Green Livin Coinstar Calls Cashing In Change 'Recycling'

Green Livin Is Coin Star Really Recycling?

"Coinstar wants you to 'recycle' your coins in their machines, and save the environment! Minus their 8.9% fee of course." They even have a little wizard on their website that estimates how many parts of the environment—water, energy consumption, and geological waste—you save by putting those coins back into circulation, instead of hoarding them like the polar bear murderer you are. They don't provide any source for these estimates, though, and we're not convinced you're doing anything "green" other than lining Coinstar's pockets.

From Coinstar's website:

"Think of it as a new form of recycling—when you reuse your change instead of letting it sit idle in your coin jar, fewer coins are produced. And that translates into environmental savings by reducing hte need for limited natural resources used to create new coin.
We're deeply skeptical of any one-to-one benefit statement like this, not least because it ignores the total cost of running the Coinstar company, which is a key component of any coin recycling "movement."

If you're going to cash in your spare change, look for a Commerce Bank branch nearby first. Their change machines are free and you don't have to be a Commerce customer to use them.