First misconception to dispel: Hemp is closely related to Marijuana, but it does not get you high.

So, why is the US the only develop country that has a ban on growing Hemp? It probably has more to do with the big lumber and cotton corporations, than with the DEA.

Hemp is a miracle plant that you can make almost anything out of, including cooking oil, paper, clothes, concrete and biodegrade plastic! In fact, Hemp seeds have one of the highest amounts of protein of any food.

There is no downside to this amazing product of mother nature.

You can do something to lift this draconian ban and help the American Farmer, American Economy and the Worldwide environment. Check out Vote Hemp for more information and contact your elected officials.

1. Recycle
   Thats a no brainer. Its takes much less energy and resources to recycle a material, than to create a brand new one. You can freecycle your old stuff, like mattresses, that can’t really be recycled.
2. Compost
   You would be surprised at how much food waste you produce when you start composting. Its not as gross as it sounds and as long as you add in enough leaves, grass clipping and baking soda, there won’t be any bad smell. We use this Exaco 3 stage composter thats really space efficient and can handle a lot.
3. Eat Organic and Local
   To put it bluntly, eating organic foods is much cheaper than cancer. Its really sad that the US government allows corporations to sell us food thats so unsafe, its not allowed in almost all other developed countries. We now corn that produces its own pesticide, which means that you’re eating something thats toxic. This TED Talks by Robyn O’brien really sums it up well. At the very least, buy Organic Milk and Cheese.
4. Vegetarian or Vegan
   There’a a lot more people becoming vegetarian or vegan, then vice-versa, because once you stop eating animal flesh for a while, it becomes really gross to have it again. There are a lot of strong scientifically proven links between cancer and consuming animal protein. And don’t worry about getting enough protein, you will get more than enough from even a good vegan diet. What the documentary Forks Over Knives for a compelling case to eat Vegetarian or Vegan.
5. Watch Less TV
   Mainstream TV is all about advertising and consumerism. Watching News networks will make you very cynical, even though most people are good. Instead, we like to watch documentaries, especially the educational ones about animals, other cultures and the universe. 
   
6. Buy Carefully and Don’t be Cheap
   Shopping at big box stores, like Wal-Mart or Target, is basically saying “I don’t care about quality, I will just throw this cheap made-in-China thing out in a couple of years.” Spend a little more and make an investment that will last for decades.
7. Drive Less – Bike More
   Crude Oil and its derivatives are horrible in so many ways. From pollution to the funding of terrorism, there is nothing good about it. The sooner that we can kick our addiction to oil, the sooner that the world will improve in so many different ways. You can move to an area which has embraced biking and try to commute by bike at least a couple of days a week. It can be challenging at first, but there is a lot of gear out there that will help you live a biking lifestyle.

from the heart of Dmitriy Zasyatkin

Did you know that Bees are responsible for most of the fruits and nuts that you eat?

Without bees, the fruits would not pollinate.

Colony, a documentary about beekeepers and Colony Collapse Disorder, is as poignant as it is informative.

Basically, the insecticides were dousing our farms with is toxic to the bees and they are dying in huge numbers.

Insecticides = Poison, but the big corporations are insisting that its safe. Thats why Organic food is so much better for the world.

Watch the documentary and learn for yourself.

There a hundreds of thousands of people all across America that are dying from water and air polluted by hydraulic fracturing, which is becoming the main way that gas companies are extracting natural gas here. Fracking  pumps tons of chemically filled water deep underground, which contaminates the surrounding land and water, the same drinking water that people rely on for their way of life.

The only reason that this is allowed by the US gov is because of whats called the “Cheney Loop Hole” in the 2005 Energy Act. Whats really appalling about this, is the huge conflict of interests; Cheney was CEO of Halliburton right before he was elected as vice-Pres, and the technology used in fracking is owned by Halliburton.

If you haven’t seen the documentary Gasland yet, please watch it, but prepare yourself to be shocked at how badly our environment is being polluted and how our government is so corrupt that it openly supports the oil and gas companies.

Did you know that Japan is trapping and slaughtering wild dolphins by the hundreds? You probably didn’t unless you watched the documentary, The Cove, where a committed group of people risked serious jail time in order to secretly film footage of one of these killing sprees.

Once you see whats going on there and you realize how flagrant Japan is in its attempts to destroy the dolphin and whale populations, you will want to boycot Japanese imports until they change their policies. But boycotting will only hurt the Japanese people who are unaware of this large scale slaughter, because their government and media are covering it up.

Whats worse, the Japanese people are the ones who are suffering from this, because a lot of the dolphin meat is sold under the label of whale meat. (Dolphins are actually whales, look it up.) Dolphins are at the top of the food chain, and thanks to industrial pollution, this means that they have the highest levels of mercury.

Mercury is equivalent to Plutonium in its toxicity.  So, if you ate dolphin meat regularly, your nervous system would start to shut down, until you finally died. We don’t know how many people have really died from Mercury poisoning in Japan because their government is trying to cover it up, just like their real murder rate (read or watch Freakonomics).

You can do something about this, that doesn’t involve traveling to Japan and protesting. A dead dolphin is worth only about $500 in meat, but a live bottlenose dolphin can be sold for as much as up to $150,000. Everytime that you go to one of those “swim with the dolphins” or a Seaworld type of attraction, you are helping to support the slaughter and captivity of dolphins. If we boycott and protest these f-ing animal-prisons near us, then we can bring enough attention to it and make it un-worthwhile for the fisherman to trap and kill dolphins anymore.

So next time that you hear about someone talking about their trip to some animal prison (aka Seaworld), let them know that they are helping to support the slaughter and captivity of one of another being who is self-aware like us.