Swine flu may or may not be the pandemic that cable newscasters are proclaiming—but why take chances? This most recent health scare is yet another reminder that eating local, organic food—preferably raised by a source you know and trust—is just a smart thing to do. 

On Sunday, The Department of Health and Human Services issued a nationwide public health emergency in response to the recent cases of swine influenza A (swine flu) discovered in the United States. When the PHE was issued, there had been 20 confirmed cases of swine flu in the United States; as of today, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported 64 confirmed cases in five states, including New York, California, Texas and Kansas. 

According to the CDC, swine flu is a respiratory disease caused by type A influenza virus. It usually occurs in pigs, but the virus can mutate—especially when exposed to other viruses such as avian and human influenza—and infect more than just one species. Grist magazine reports that the outbreak might be traced to a Smithfield Farms hog farm in Mexico. Smithfield Farms has denied that. 

Swine flu most often occurs in people who have close contact with pigs. Photo By Vicky TGAW/Courtesy Flickr 

The CDC says that swine flu cannot be transmitted through pork products—as long as the pork is cooked to an internal temperature of 160 degrees Fahrenheit—and most often occurs within people who have close contact with pigs. Human-to-human transmission can also occur, and is thought to spread in the same way as seasonal flu: a person touching something with the virus on it, then touching his or her mouth or nose. For more information about swine flu, check out the CDC’s Swine Flu Key Facts.

While it’s good news that swine flu can’t be transmitted through fully cooked pork, this outbreak reminds us that our eating habits matter. The ways in which animals (not just pigs) are treated on factory farms (known also as concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs) has a lot to do with this outbreak, as well as many others. Animals often live in cramped quarters where diseases spread very quickly. To combat this, the animals are frequently treated even before an outbreak occurs, leading to the concern about antibiotic-resistant strains of dangerous diseases. 

These are great reasons to buy and consume local, organic or wild meat. Local operations are often smaller, allowing them to be more attentive to their livestock. The animals are generally not treated with hormones or (unnecessary) antibiotics and have better living conditions, with less of a chance of contracting or spreading dangerous diseases (either to other animals or to humans.) 

Another lesson we can learn from this outbreak is that going vegetarian—or at least drastically decreasing our meat consumption—is a better idea than ever. Replacing meat with other forms of protein, such as tofu and legumes, is a cost-effective and healthy diet decision. Natural Home features many articles about making healthier food decisions as well as creative and delicious recipes, both with and without meat. 

Whether or not you’re worried about swine flu, your family will be the better for it.

Maybe you’re not in the market to make major home improvements right now. If you still want to do everything you can to make your home healthy—for your family and the planet—take a look at how you clean. Like it or not, we have to clean our homes on a regular basis. Natural Home offers lots of great ideas for making your own healthy, natural cleaning solutions—or look to some of the great green solutions now available at your grocery store. 

Method Products recently received Cradle to Cradle certification for different varieties of 3 products.

Method Products recently received Cradle to Cradle certification for 20 of its environmentally friendly products, including its hand and liquid dish soap. Photo Courtesy Method

To receive C2C certification, a company must:

• use environmentally safe and healthy materials
• design recyclable or compostable products
• efficiently use renewable energy and water
• institute corporate practices that promote social responsibility 

MDBC (McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry), offers four levels of C2C certification: basic, silver, gold and platinum.  Method received silver certification for its liquid dish soap, hand wash and foaming hand wash, each of which comes in at least four natural scents. The company is also working to certify 20 more of its products. 

Method, launched in 2000, says the C2C design philosophy is at the core of its business. Its products use 100 percent natural ingredients that are safe for people and the environment as well as sustainable manufacturing practices. Method employees minimize their water use and offset the carbon used in their office and in employee travel. 

For more great green cleaning products, check out our resource listings.

I’ll admit, I have something of a “Target Problem” (my definition: I buy too much stuff there). I just love the retail giant’s affordable home fashions—especially now that the company’s made great strides in its green offerings (including Natural Home kitchenware).

So it’s great to see Target move into environmentally friendly clothing. Scott Mackinlay Hahn and Rogan Gregory, Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) award winning designer, debuted their eco-friendly clothing line, Loomstate, on April 19 at select Target stores and online at Target.com. Loomstate’s pelican logo assures that the clothes are made from 100 percent certified organic cotton, produced in a socially and environmentally responsible way. 

This Loomstate for Target T-Shirt Dress is $29.99. Photo Courtesy Target.

Mackinlay Hahn and Gregory used nature-inspired graphics and patterns, printed on soft-washed fabrics, for a line that features 20 looks for women and men—at prices ranging from $14.99 to $44.99. Now, that’s dressing for success.

Hard to believe it’s been nearly 40 years since 20 million people worldwide celebrated the first Earth Day. How far we’ve come. 

Celebrate Earth Day today and every day.  Photo By AussieGall/Courtesy Flickr  

Whether or not you choose to participate in local events, Earth Day is a great opportunity to spread environmental awareness and to appreciate your natural surroundings. If you’re looking to celebrate but want to keep it simple, invite a few friends over for an Earth Day dinner. 

If you need help planning your Earth Day meal, visit Organic Valley Family of Farms’ new website, The Earth Dinner, filled with tips to help you set a beautiful table and prepare a tasty, conscious meal. 

Ideally, your Earth Day meal will include in-season, local and organic produce and meats (which is deliciously easy this time of year). The Earth Dinner lists eight recipes that incorporate organic meat, ranging from chicken chop suey and hot pot Italian sausage to vegetables and scalloped potatoes with smoked turkey and horseradish-breadcrumb crust.

This Earth Day, your meal isn’t the only thing that should be green; you can keep your decorations and invitations eco-friendly, too. Let nature guide your decorations, or if weather permits, try an outdoor setting for your celebration. For invitations, eliminate paper by sending electronic cards or emails. 

Enjoy!

At Natural Home, we’ve been singing the praises of hemp as a durable, antimicrobial fiber for use in home textiles for a decade. We love this “weed” because it requires no pesticides or fertilizers to grow; it’s a readily renewable resource. Judging from your response to our call to legalize cultivation of hemp—currently banned in the United States because the miracle plant is a distant cousin to marijuana—we see that many of you agree.

Hemp is a readily renewable resource that requires no pesticides or fertilizers to grow.  Photo By Edward the Bonobo/Courtesy Flickr  

Now, researchers at the University of Bath in the United Kingdom have found yet another use for hemp—as a building block for zero-carbon homes. The university’s BRE Centre for Innovative Construction Materials is developing ways to use hemp-lime materials to construct homes.

According to the university’s website, hemp-lime is a lightweight material composed of hemp fibers that are fastened together with a lime-based adhesive. Professor Pete Walker, director of the BRE Centre for Innovative Construction Materials, says this new composite material could replace conventional building materials, providing strength and durability and improving the overall energy efficiency of homes. “Using renewable crops to make building materials makes real sense—it only takes an area the size of a rugby pitch four months to grow enough hemp to build a typical three-bedroom house,” Walker says. “Growing crops such as hemp can also provide economic and social benefits to rural economies through new agricultural markets for farmers and associated industries.”

Last year we reported on similar work being done by Stemergy, a global supplier of renewable biofiber products in Ontario, Canada (where growing hemp is legal). This company is combining hemp and flax fiber with materials such as wood, concrete and plastics to make new composite substances that can be used in compression-molded panels for doors, cabinets, furniture, wall partitions and decking. “Hemp is high in performance and low in cost,” explains Stemergy president Geof Kime.

These innovations are promising; hemp could be a huge boon to both green building and our struggling economy. And, sadly, all this innovation is happening outside the United States because cultivating hemp is still illegal here. Let your congressional representatives know you’d like to see the United States reap the benefits of hemp in home construction and interiors. Hemp’s time has come. Let’s not get left behind.

It’s tax day. And while some Americans have already filed and perhaps even collected their refunds, a good number of us will be burning the midnight CFLs to finalize those returns. 

The good news is that the federal stimulus plan, an effort to jumpstart the economy signed by President Obama in February, offers tax credits worth up to 30 percent of the total cost of green home improvements and eco-friendly cars. The plan includes incentives in four categories: home-shell (insulation upgrades, installing double-pane windows, sealing gaps or cracks); heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC); renewable energy (biomass, wind energy, photovoltaic cells, hydropower and geothermal energy) and green cars (hybrid and diesel). 

To take advantage of the tax credits by greening your home, you can make home-shell and HVAC improvements until December 31, 2010. You have until December 31, 2016, to make the renewable-energy upgrades. 

If you have invested in renewable energy in 2008 and want to receive tax credits for 2009, Alliance to Save Energy president Kateri Callahan recommends you fill out IRS Form 5695.

As economic turmoil peaks and a staggering number of Americans file for unemployment, Ogden Publications, publisher of Natural Home magazine, is connecting job seekers and green employers through its website Great Green Careers. The website's official launch is on Earth Day, April 22. 

Great Green Careers filters through top green job sites and independent posts to offer a promising selection and range of jobs. The website offers a comprehensive search of the green job market, from energy (biomass, tidal, geothermal, wind and solar) and skilled trades (plumbing, electrical, heating and cooling and building automation) to transportation and the environment (ecology, abatement, health and safety and parks). 

Employers can quickly post jobs and search the extensive resume database. If companies don’t have time to search for qualifying resumes, they can set up a resume agent that will pull resumes that match specific criteria. 

Job seekers have a growing job database at their fingertips. Searching for a career or location is easy with the advanced-search, browse-by-location or browse-by-keyword options. Great Green Careers is like an extra pair of eyes searching for the right job. You can post your resume and allow job seekers to find you. Applying for a job is free, and job hunters can apply to as many jobs as they desire. 

If you’re looking for a green job or want to take a new career path, try these tips: 

• Familiarize yourself with the environmental movement. Learn the effects it has on the economy and businesses.

• Start networking. Searching for jobs is only one aspect to landing a job; the second part is letting people know you’re looking for a job in a certain field. Use your relationships and networks as additional eyes in your job hunt.

• Volunteer; you never know who you might meet and what valuable skills you’ll learn.

We all know that carbon dioxide emissions are a major cause of global warming. Now, we can pinpoint exactly where the problem is concentrated. Google Earth recently launched Vulcan, a map of U.S. CO2 emissions. The program, funded by NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy, indicates fossil fuel pollution pockets throughout the country as well as individual states’ emissions.

Google Earth allows you to look at different geographic locations across the globe. Now, Google Earth tracks carbon dioxide emissions.  Photo By Moontan/Courtesy Flickr.

Purdue University scientists developed Vulcan, which highlights CO2 caused by fossil fuels in a color spectrum key, from red (highest) to dark blue (little to no CO2 emissions). Dr. Kevin Gurney, who led the Purdue research team, says the project is essential because the United States accounts for about 25 percent of CO2 emissions.

“We'll keep adding more information to enrich” Vulcan, Gurney says. “We hope to eventually get feedback from the public about energy use and activity that allows us to include even more detailed information.” Vulcan retrieves data from three sources and compiles it into the system; images are taken by NASA’s Landsat 5 satellite, CO2 levels are from the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy and population records are from the Census Bureau. Currently the Vulcan projects 2002 data, but Gurney plans to cover current years and fill in information from 1985 to show how U.S. CO2 emissions have grown.

Gurney’s team will expand the program to Mexico and Canada, and eventually more countries.

America—the throwaway society—is changing its tune. 

Every year in American 2 million tons of tech trash and 100 million cell phones wind up in landfills; 7 million tons of clothing and footwear are discarded and 254 million tons of trash are thrown away. But the current recession, which has affected everything from housing to retail sales, is also taking its toll on landfills. As Americans make do with what they already have, less stuff is going into landfills. Since late 2007, trash volume has decreased by 20 and even 30 percent in some places. Some landfills have had to lay off workers. 

Landfills have seen a 20 to 30 percent decrease in trash since the start of the recession. As people reuse and repair their old things, less trash is being sent to landfills. Photo By D’Arcy Norman/Courtesy Flickr  

It’s all part of a cycle. Tighter budgets mean fewer new purchases, which in turn leads to less packing material and other waste. People are reusing and repairing their old things instead of sending them to landfills. Repair businesses and thrift stores have seen consistent or rising sales, although Goodwill donations are down. 

People are taking on the mantra of reduce, reuse, recycle and repair. Instead of buying new clothes, they’re shopping at Goodwill or revamping the ones they have. Instead of buying new electronics, they’re buying new batteries. And instead of buying a new computer, they’re replacing the broken parts. 

It’s an environmentalist’s dream.

The current economy has everyone on edge, but there’s always a silver lining. 

A recent American Institute of Architects (AIA) Home Design Trends Survey found that demand for luxury products is waning. In contrast, manufacturers are seeing an increased emphasis on both accessibility/universal design and renewable materials. Essentially, homeowners are shying away from expensive (and usually unnecessary) products that add little actual value to their home, concentrating instead on features that promote energy efficiency and sustainability. 

Homeowners are less interested in building computer areas and wine refrigerators and more interested in installing LED lighting and recycling centers. Their interest in water-saving toilets and renewable countertop materials remains strong. 

Recycle glass shards into countertop material to add character to your kitchen.  Photo By minntc/Courtesy Flickr.  

“Because of concerns over affordability and re-sale value, it’s not surprising that there has been a sharp decline in demand for high-end kitchen and bath products,” says AIA chief economist Kermit Baker. “However, some products and features remain in high demand. Despite the difficult economic conditions, homeowners are extremely interested in renewable flooring and countertops, energy-efficient and water saving products, as well as having a dedicated recycling center.” 

Durable, renewable products and materials offer the best of all worlds, adding beauty and value to your home and saving you money. And that just makes good economic sense.