Over 110 nations across the world recognize their citizen's right to live in a healthy environment. But not Canada.
The right to a healthy environment is the simple idea that all Canadians deserve to breathe fresh air, drink clean water, and eat healthy food.
David Suzuki, co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation, award-winning scientist, environmentalist and broadcaster, asks: "What's more important than the right to breathe fresh air, drink clean water and eat healthy food?"
This is why he launched the Blue Dot Tour, which to him, is the most important thing he has ever done.
According to the David Suzuki Foundation: Environmental hazards contribute to about 36,000 premature deaths in Canada a year, and half of us live in areas where we're exposed to unsafe air pollution levels. Pollution costs Canada about $100 billion a year, and many people suffer from illnesses like asthma and heart disease because of environmental contamination.
To me, and I'm pretty sure you too, those are some shocking facts.
Over half the countries across the world have environmental rights written into their constitutions making these issues top priority. So why doesn't Canada?
The goal of the Blue Dot Tour is to work with everyone across Canada, including YOU, to help bring about change to ensure all Canadians have access to clean water, fresh air and healthy food. The hope is to have the right to a healthy environment added to the Canadian Constitution's Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
It's a huge goal, but it can definitely be achieved. How? By coming together as individuals, neighbourhoods, provinces, and as a country, to show leaders that this is important to us and our children. By pulling together, we can all make huge changes.
To find out more about the Blue Dot Tour, watch this short video:
Want to get involved? Here are a few ways:
Want to learn how you can make some small and simple earth-friendly changes today? Here are 10 Ways To Throw and Eco-Friendly Birthday Party and if you aren't doing it already, here is Why You Need To Start Using Reusable Shopping Bags.
I am in the market for a new car and the sooner, the better. My current car has seen better days...it’s time. So for the past while I’ve been preparing myself by looking into all the factors I usually look at before committing to years of new car payments (*sob*). There are the standard things such as:
One new thing I’ve added to the list since my last purchase, things I want to learn more about, is what the different automakers are doing when it comes to the eco-friendliness factor.
So for the next little while I will be looking at different car makers to see what they are doing in this area—and lucky you! I’ve decided to take you along with me as I learn. Hopefully this will also help you with your next car buying mission.
Vehicle emissions are responsible for emitting gases that contribute to climate change. Nowadays, cars are more eco-friendly than they have ever been by design and by some conscious changes both by drivers and by automakers. Since there is a demand for greener vehicles, manufacturers have stepped up to the challenge by changing their manufacturing processes, the materials they use when making their cars, and by adding eco-features to appeal to a customer base who hold environmental friendliness high on their list of car-decision making-criteria.
I plan on looking at as many automakers as I can before making my decision. At this point, I am not leaning towards any car in particular, I'm totally open to anything.
My first stop was with Nissan. To help me out they lent me a 2014 Nissan JUKE SL, a sport crossover, to drive for a while which was a nice switch-up for me. The car I currently drive is a 2007 and it's very basic. It has been a while since I have driven something new, so this was a welcome change.
The JUKE SL carries the PUREDRIVE logo:
Many (if not all) new cars now carry some sort of "eco badge" which is a little bit of a marketing thing but it’s also a way to show their commitment to keeping up with what customers are asking for. Here is how Nissan describes what their PUREDRIVE badge means:
PUREDRIVE is a global concept and designation demonstrating Nissan’s commitment to creating eco-friendly, improved L/100km and lower CO2 emission vehicles that include innovations to help the vehicle meet or exceed the industry average.
The JUKE, as with other Nissan vehicles, offers an “ECO Driving Mode.”
As I said earlier, my current car is OLD which means no eco mode or any other types of fancy modes in my car. So I had some reading to do. Here is what happens when you switch over to ECO Mode in the JUKE:
When switched over to ECO Mode, ECO detunes throttle and climate control, while keeping the JUKE’s steering in its default setting. When the JUKE was first launched in 2010, not many vehicles had the three different driving modes. Now, many cars now have "eco" settings that detune the throttle for better fuel economy, but few actually reduce climate control settings as well.
In addition to coming up with new ways to make their vehicles more environmentally friendly, Nissan is also taking steps to make their manufacturing process better for the environment starting with the Nissan LEAF. The LEAF is one of the most environmentally friendly, mass-produced cars on the market today.
The LEAF is a no gas, 100% electric car that recently gained the distinction as being “The Greenest Car You Can Buy.” Approximately 25% of the materials that go into manufacturing a LEAF are recycled materials including steel, copper, aluminum, plastics and other materials.
So that, in a nutshell (kind of a nutshell?), is what I learned about Nissan. Lots of really good info to consider.
Stay tuned for future posts where I tell you what I learned about other automakers and what they are doing in this area.
Want more on eco-friendly vehicles? Learn 10 simple things you can start doing today to make your car more eco-friendly and did you know you could buy eco-friendly tires for your vehicle?
You know me as YMC’s 50 Shades of Green blogger, but what you may not know is that I also work behind the scenes as YMC’s Sponsored Content Manager. A part of my job is working with the team to make sure all of our sponsored blog posts are optimized for the search engines.
So what are some easy SEO tips that you, as a blogger, can implement to make sure your posts will be found by Google and other search engines?
You don’t have to be a tech wizard, a search engine expert, or a SEO guru to optimize your blog posts for search engines. A simple search will tell you TONS of things you can do to make sure your posts get picked up by the search engines, and how to get people will click on them. Rather than filtering through the sea of articles on this subject, here are the 6 easy SEO tips for bloggers to start doing today before hitting publish on that next post.
The title of your post is one of the most important pieces of the puzzle for 2 reasons:
#1: To make your blog post stand out to the search engine.
#2: To make your blog post stand out to readers. More clicks, the higher your post will rise in the search results.
When naming your post, include keywords about your post subject in the title and subtitle, also keeping in mind that it should be interesting so readers will want to click. Remember that there is an ocean of other blog posts on the internet; you want yours to be the one that gets clicked.
Not good: SEO For Bloggers
Good: 6 Easy SEO Tips Bloggers Need To Start Using Now
Which title above would you be more likely to click on? #2, right?
The bolded words in title #2 are my keywords, and I’ve written the title in a way that is intriguing to someone searching for easy SEO tips they can use on their blog posts.
Before uploading any images to your post, it’s so important to give them a descriptive name—a name that describes what the picture is about. The reason why you want to give your picture a name is because it gives the search engines another way to find you. Make sure the name is descriptive and that it includes a few keywords.
Use dashes (-) to separate the words in the title, never use spaces.
Not Good: IMG05394956490
Not Good: easy seo tips for bloggers
Not Good: seo
Have you ever sat around waiting for a web page to load and where an image should appear, you see text? That is the alt tag.
Search engines cannot read images, so the search engine sees those spaces as white space, so we need to help it. The alt tag will tell the search engine that an image is going to sit in this spot and what the image is all about. Alt tags also serve as a way to give a description of the image if a text reader is being used by someone who is visually impaired.
Again, use descriptive words that will tell the search engine something about the image using keywords. This will also help it rank when someone does an image search.
The area to enter the alt tag for images is different for all blogging platforms, but you should be able to find it in the same general area where you upload your image.
Use keywords in your title, subtitle, and throughout your post. Try to get them as close to the beginning of your post as you can. If possible, try to also scatter a few throughout the rest of the post, as well. A good tip is to write the post as you normally would, then go back and see where you could add some keywords in a natural way. Don’t force keywords or it will be obvious to your readers and it will take away from your post.
Linking to other posts on your website has two purposes:
#1: To increase page views so readers stay on your website longer.
#2: To improve your website's search engine rankings.
Whenever you have the chance, link to any page on your site that is relevant to the post you are writing. Don’t go overboard and don’t throw in random internal links "just to do it," it has to make sense. When adding an internal link, phrase it so your link will be descriptive. Never say “click here” and hyperlink the word “here”—make your link descriptive and then hyperlink.
Not good: Click here to learn how to clean your glass top stove using two natural kitchen ingredients.
Good: Click here to learn how to clean your glass top stove using two natural kitchen ingredients.
Another tip for internal linking is to go back and update older content with links to your newer content.
When writing a post, I sometimes decide what the title will be after I am finished writing the post. I put in a placeholder for the post name (usually "Enter Title Here"), so sometimes my initial URL will look like this:
After I decide what the title should be, I go back and rename the post and the URL/permalink so it clearly says what the post is about.
Whatever your blogging platform is, you have an option to edit your URLs/permalinks. Some blogging platforms will truncate your url, if it does, always be sure that you edit so it is optimized.
You can either use the exact title you used for your post title or you can remove all the stop words. Either way, all of your keywords will be included and this is good for search engines.
Not Good: yummymummyclub.ca/blogs/gwen-leron-50-shades-of-green/20140801/enter-title-here
Not Good: yummymummyclub.ca/blogs/gwen-leron-50-shades-of-green/20140801/tips-bloggers
Make it easy for readers to share your content! Add social buttons to your website—the easier it is for readers to share your content, the more inclined they will be to do it. The more times your post is shared, the more clicks you get to your site, which, of course, will help your search engine rankings.
For more articles, tips, and tricks to help you get organized and make the most of your blog and business visit our BlissDom Canada 2014: How Do You Find Your Bliss? page.
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