A while ago, I initiated a “Save the Ocean” group-writing project on my personal blog, and to make things easier for all participants, as well as to avoid similar topics, I prepared a list of 31 points on how each and everyone of us could save our oceans. More than half of the points outlined were taken up by bloggers who are concerned of the state of our oceans, and who would like to take the opportunity to share with their blog readers the ways that we could all make a difference to our oceans.

Image credit: Kevin.

The group-writing project will kick off here at The Giving Hands tomorrow, January 1st, 2008, and will last for a month. Throughout the month, you will be informed of the fun things that we could all do to save our oceans, from going to the beach or a whale-watching trip, to raising funds for an ocean-related organization, to car-pooling, to voting for those who protect our coasts. Heh.

I am listing the topics for the group-writing project here for your benefit:

1. Go to the beach
2. Dive responsibly
3. Keep your home aquarium ocean-friendly
4. Talk about the ocean in your place of worship
5. Get married on a wild beach
6. Go on a whale-watching trip
7. Take the kids surfing, or have them take you
8. Walk on whatever beach you want
9. Eat organic and vegetarian food
10. Grow a natural yard or garden
11. Conserve energy to help the seas
12. Save the sea turtles
13. Opt out of the throw-away culture
14. Raise funds for an ocean-related organization
15. Use less plastic
16. Be a marine sanctuary volunteer
17. Conserve water
18. Eat seafood that’s healthy and sustainable
19. Drive a fuel-efficient car, car pool or use public transport
20. Sail on an ocean-friendly cruise ship
21. Join a coastal cleanup
22. Keep your household refuse non-toxic
23. Learn your local maritime history
24. Live a reasonable distance from the beach
25. Volunteer at a Marine Mammal Rescue Center
26. Don’t feed the sharks
27. Keep oil off our shore
28. Don’t exploit sea creatures for vanity’s sake
29. Visit an aquarium
30. Support your local wetlands
31. Vote for those who protect the coasts

Subscribe to The Giving Hands so that you don’t miss any of the above eye-opening topics! :D

You see, I’m not very much a cook, despite being a latch-key kid when I was in my teens and I had to so-called cook lunch for my sister and I when we got home from school. But that was merely re-heating the (already cooked) rice and pot of soup and probably fry some vegetables, that was all. And when I came to the university, not surprisingly, I ended up dining out most of the time.

Now, this is to make myself feel better: Suppose I can walk into a food stall/restaurant, can I assume that the way a restaurant cooks is almost more efficient and thus more green? Or are restaurants almost always more wasteful overall? Perhaps because they don’t use local ingredients (who knows?), they keep their stoves on, they use and wash too many dishes, they keep all the lights switched on, etc.?

Take, for example, a loaf of bread. Is it greener to bake your own bread or to buy it from a bakery? To me the answer is quite obvious since a bakery bakes many dough at once. I also think that if a bakery can predict roughly the demand on its bread, it will generate much less waste.

Image credit: Beachy.

Consider this scenario:

There are 50 people in a restaurant, and all of them turn out all their lights when they leave home, that’s many houses that won’t be using electricity, and one restaurant that will be, even if there is an enormous amount of lighting, I doubt it will be more then those homes. A green restaurant that focuses on efficiency would be much greener than eating at home simply because of economies of scale and concentrating the means at one point.

Now the food, they buy in bulk, which means less packaging. The ovens and stoves are always on, but they’re cooking multiple meals with them at all time, whereas at home you would only be cooking for yourself (or perhaps for your family of 4 or 5 persons), and they’re using more energy because it is an industrial stove, but they’re cooking for dozens of people at the same time. So it possibly could be greener from an energy standpoint.

There is also the “green” side of it with chemicals, if you eat at home you choose what goes into your food, if you eat out, you are going to eat whatever they put into the food — chemicals and all. There are also the chemicals they use for cleaning, de-greasing, etc. In restaurants, almost everything is cleaned in bleach solution, which kills all the bacteria — and some people think this is creating strains of super germs that are resistant to such methods of cleaning.

However, you also have to consider the energy it takes to get to the restaurant though. Your traveling for one meal, as opposed to if you were buying groceries for many meals. Plus, it also has a lot to do with what restaurant you are going to and the amount of energy in the food itself.

So, what do you think? Is dining out greener than cooking at home?

Photo credit: Project HOPE/Egypt.

In many poverty-stricken countries, those who are sick often travel for days to reach the nearest clinic, then wait hours for a brief consultation with a medical worker. The crisis is at its worst in Africa, in places like Kenya, where there is 1 nurse for every 27,000 people or Lesotho, where there are only 89 doctors in the entire country.

Did you know that:

• In 57 countries worldwide, a severe health worker shortage directly impacts treatment for deadly diseases like HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria?
• Each year, 1,400 women will die in pregnancy or childbirth because they lack access to professional care?
• In coming years, Africa is likely to lose 20% of its health workers to AIDS?

Over the past year, Global Impact charities, including U.S. Fund for UNICEF, Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres, African Medical & Research Foundation and Project HOPE, have provided the experience and resources necessary to train health workers at all levels: doctors, nurses, midwives, even traditional village healers.

A year-end gift to Global Impact will ensure that these and other member charities continue to cultivate a new generation of caregivers in Africa and across the globe.

Your gift of $100 can fund a team of specialists to fly to a rural hospital to treat patients and train local staff.

Global Impact is dedicated to helping the poorest people on Earth. Representing more than 50 of the most respected U.S.-based international charities in giving campaigns across the nation, Global Impact touches more than 400 million lives worldwide through disaster relief, education, health training and economic programs that promote self-sufficiency.