Keep Kitty Out of Houseplants

Our new kitten, Bill, has taken to using my houseplants as his litter box. I’ve taken various bits of advice: cover them with aluminum foil (waste of foil…and none too effective), add in some hot sauce around the edge where he stands (nope, has just decided he’s a spicy kinda kitty).
But…eureka! The answer was lying in a nearby woods.
Pinecones are the perfect deterrent. Uncomfortable to walk on, eco-friendly and aesthetically pleasing.
Thanks again Mother Nature!

And it’s intended to be over the top. To show that being hip and green can start as simply as choosing a more fuel-efficient car. So why the nervous tittering from me? Well…I’m more like the Green Police than I’d like to admit.

I’ve been known to retrieve recyclables out of the garbage and demand to know who put them there. I’ve occasionally interrogated my six-year-old about whether she composted her banana peel or threw it away. I lecture my children about the perils of climate change when they whine about riding bikes instead of driving to school. In short, I’m (occasionally) a vitriolic eco-shrew. My daughter put it best the other day when she asked why she couldn’t just not care “and be happy like everyone else.”

Point taken, if grudgingly  If my green policing is making us all miserable (and I suspect it is, including me), then perhaps it’s time to take a page out of Audi’s playbook and have some fun. I can still compost. And recycle. And ride my bike. But I don’t need to issue citations and deliver lectures at every transgression. Note to self: The world has enough hot air. What it needs is a cool head.

I asked my friend Helen, who is involved with border collie rescue, natural rearing and is a dedicated researcher of all things dog, to respond further. Here’s what she says:
Veterinary medicine was indeed developed for the protection of humans, not animals, and as rabies is the only deadly disease that both animals and humans can contract, rabies vaccination is mandatory by law. However, studies have shown that a single rabies vaccine provides immunity for life and repeated vaccinations do not increase immunity. Furthermore, animals who receive multiple rabies vaccines are at risk of developing not only potentially serious or even fatal health issues, they can develop dangerous behaviour problems as well. In other words, if animals (particularly dogs) receive multiple rabies shots they can in fact become more dangerous to humans, making the process of repeated vaccinations counterproductive.

Vets are noticing health and behaviour problems arising after the administration rabies vaccines at such an alarming rate that there is now a major research study going on at the University of Wisconsin veterinary school working toward proving that a single rabies vaccine will last at least 7 years (www.therabieschallengefund.org). The hope is to change the law and reduce the risk to our pets, and to ourselves, from over-vaccination. The study is just entering its third year, which is the limit of current laws. Fortunately many regions (including London) are accepting titers (blood tests that demonstrate the presence of anti-bodies) in lieu of vaccines while we wait for the law to be updated.

It can’t get much clearer that our present way of doing things – buying up mass quantities of cheap food and cheap stuff – isn’t making us happier or healthier. As Michael Pollan reported on Oprah, it used to be that health care costs were low and food costs were, relatively speaking, high. Now it’s the opposite. So while we don’t pay a lot upfront for food, we certainly pay down the road, in terms of treating illnesses like heart disease and diabetes, which have skyrocketed since the advent of cheap food.

I offer up an easy suggestion in The Virtuous Consumer. When you consider buying something, I proposed, ask yourself a few questions:
•what is the item made from?
•how was it made?
•who made it?
•how far was it transported to me?
•how long – and how often – will I use it?
•and what will I do with it when I’m done?

The answers aren’t readily apparent, but simply asking the questions will alter the way you shop…for the better.

So when I learned recently that Suki Kramer is equally smitten with The Virtuous Consumer…well…it made me giddy. According to Kramer, featured in the August 2009 issue of Body+Soul (incidentally one of my favorite reads), my book is on her bedside table, along with the Eco-Chick Guide to Life and The Green Beauty Guide, two equally awesome books.

I’m thrilled to be in such great company and sharing a vision of a greener future (in which my skin glows, courtesy of Suki’s lemongrass cleanser). Nirvana!

In the meantime, we’ve discussed vaccinations with our vet and opted out of vaccinating our 20-year-old cat, a decision our vet supports wholeheartedly. But with an eight-week-old puppy and a new kitten, we’ve got some serious thinking to do. For our older dogs, the answer seems clear.

Cadmium builds up for decades in the kidneys, making even small amounts potentially dangerous for growing bodies. It’s also a  known carcinogen. And certainly deserves no place in children’s products.

The products were sold at (surprise, surprise!) Wal-Mart, Claire’s and some dollar stores.

I can say with the utmost confidence that some in the media sphere are being hoodwinked by a well organized and well funded attempt to deny what amounts to basic science. If you look to the scientists, and their major associations, they ALL recognize the reality of climate change.

The greenhouse effect (and global warming) is caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and since the industrial revolution, that CO2 concentration has gone from about 260 parts per million to about 387 ppm today. To put that in perspective, scientists have cited 350 ppm as the safe limit of atmospheric CO2 to avoid major warming and possible runaway greenhouse effect – i.e. the planet Venus. This is scary stuff, I’m not going to lie.

Yes, there is plenty of uncertainty in all this – but that is generally about the results of climate change, not the causes. Yes, it is unclear how it will play out on a planetary scale, mainly because it’s complex and unprecedented. But it is not some well-orchestrated fiction created by international scientists, as many in the blogosphere are suggesting.

It’s important to recognize that no major world science organization denies anthropogenic global warming – they ALL recognize it fully – from world meteorological associations to Scientific American to NASA to the Royal Society.

But don’t take my word for it. If you want to decide for yourself, here are two important links:

This is for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is by definition an organization created to determine if there is scientific consensus (they don’t do primary science – they only assess all the science out there being done independently by scientists).

And this is just a really good synopsis of the science of climate change by the Union of Concerned Scientists, which is a non-profit put together by many prominent scientists around the world. They offer a good primer on their site, called Global Warming 101, which basically lays all the science behind the issue.

Fraser Los is the editor-in-chief of thegreenpages.ca