Image Credit: The Wizards Wireless

The Compassionate Shopping Guide

I have recently purchased The Compassionate Shopping Guide and posted my progress so far on my main blog, In The Pink. I have however decided that recording my progress with changing products and suppliers may be better off posted here. Here are the posts I have written so far:

The Compassionate Shopping Guide

Over the past few years I have been trying to buy personal care and house hold cleaning products that are environmentally friendly and are not tested on animals. I use Ecover household products and have, for the most, purchased personal products from The Body Shop. Even Mr Dancin has been a willing convert to The Body Shop.

However he returned from town last week saying that he had seen a notice on a stall calling for a boycott of The Body Shop. He was a little reluctant to tell me as The Body Shop is my favourite shop and I love going there to treat myself.

Anyway I looked it up online. The Body Shop was sold to L'Oreal in 2006 and at the time I checked with The Body Shop to ensure that their animal friendly status still stood to be assured it did however it has been speculated that the profits from the organisation are not ring fenced and are used to suppliment L'Oreal who do not maintain an animal friendly status as of yet. There is a lot more to is that this and I recommend if you are interested you have a read of available information, of which there is much online.

For myself it has raised a dliema which has lead to me purchasing a copy of The Compassionate Shopping Guide from Naturewatch which is a difinitive guide to cruelty free, eco-friendly personal care and household cleaning products.

The guide has a wealth of information which I am currently working my way through. If this is an issue close to your heart I recommend you buy a copy of this very reasonably priced book however I will also detail my findings and purchases here as I go.

I am loathed to leave The Body Shop but at the same time I really cannot justify the testing of what are non essential cosmetic products on animals, and believe that we know enough now about household products to cease animal testing.

The Compassionate Shopping Guide - Post 2

Well that was the best thing I have read in ages! So I am afraid it is goodbye to The Body Shop, goodbye to Ecover and goodbye to Dove, another old favourite, but I feel better for making the decision. Obviously the issues do not only relate to animal experimentation but to detrimental practices in order to obtain some ingredients which damage and reduce valuable wildlife habitat.

There is a wealth of knowledge in this book which will help me promote wildlife habitat, reduce harmful bi-products and actively support the abolition of animal experimentation. I am excited to be making a change!

As suggested in the Guide I will be writing to the companies I will nolonger be using explaining my decision and urging them to bring about the changes necessary to gain the Naturewatch Approved Status.

Image Credits: Naturewatch

Blog Action Day

See my Blog Action Day Post HERE

Blog Action Day 15th October 2010

Well Blog Action Day is almost here again and this years topic is Water. I am starting to research my post and have chosen my particular topic which is going to be the oceans. The Blog Action Day website has lots or interesting information including suggestions for posts, banners to put on your blog, a registration page so that you can register your blog for participation, information on fund-raising, and a petition which indicates your support of the UN's efforts to improve water and sanitation for billions of people around the world. You can also sign the petition by clicking on the banner at the top left of my blog and it only takes a few seconds to complete.

I usually post the Blog Action Day You Tube clip to help promote the day here but frankly this years clip has some annoying music as an accompaniment (sorry guys but it really does) and so instead I thought I would post this, a splendid song written and performed by the folk musician Benji Kirkpatrick. The song is called Wallbreaker and is all about water. It is very thought provoking.

Tiger Update

Check out the update on Kamrita the Sumatran Tiger HERE.

Could You Give Up Your Mobile Phone?

Further to my last post which revealed the possibility that mobile phones may be contributing to the decline of Bees in recent years I have been thinking about all of our modern day gadgets and whether I would be willing to give them up.

Mobile phones for example have been around for what is still a relatively short period of time. I am 38 years old and can easily remember a time in my personal and working life where mobile phones were not common place, and barely in existence.

Today mobile phones are a huge part of our lives and valuable to us for a multitude of reasons.

Children have them to keep in touch with friends and even as a safety aspect.

This can be for parents who want to know where their children are, therefore able to contact them at any time, so long as they answer the phone!

It can also provide them with a method of emergency communication if needed. Similarly many adults have them solely for emergency use to provide that instant method of communication with their loved ones, signal permitting!

We use them in the work place exhaustively. I have a mobile phone for work and now accept that if someone wants to speak to me for a non urgent issue they will call me on my mobile. They may have called the office or have received an automatic email from my work computer telling them that I am working on site and will return to the office the following day however, they will call my mobile, and if I do not respond will continue to call it until they reach me thinking nothing of the effort or intrusion. In turn I think nothing of the intrusion or their persistent efforts, being use to instant access to people myself.

Mobile phones also provide an instant mode of contact with loved ones simply for the purpose of expressing our affection. A small text to convey the message 'thinking of you' can mean so much and is something we treasure being able to do.

Furthermore with IPhones and such devices extending the use of the mobile for a huge variety of applications we are becoming more dependant on them and used to their benefits.

So what if we were asked to give them up for the betterment of the world we live in, would you be willing to do this?

To use Bees as an example, were the research proved conclusive, Bees have the following benefits:

Bee Facts Text Credit:
Wiki Answers
BNET UK

One mouthful in three of the foods you eat directly or indirectly depends on pollination by honey bees. Crops from nuts to vegetables and as diverse as alfalfa, apple, cantaloupe, cranberry, pumpkin, and sunflower all require pollinating by honey bees. In fact most food crops are pollinated by bees, and if the bees disappeared the crops would fail.

But the bees' importance goes far beyond agriculture. They also pollinate more than 16 percent of the flowering plant species, ensuring that we'll have blooms in our gardens.

I have posted a poll at the top of this page on the right hand side and would be most grateful if you could give this topic your consideration and then cast your vote. I will be reviewing the results and posting my findings at the beginning of July 2010.

Please be honest, I am not here to judge anyone and greatly appreciate your opinion.

If you wish to leave a comment regarding your vote, this post or this blog I would be very interested in hearing your thoughts. Thank you for your time.

Image Credit:
Urban Bee Gardens
Deakin University

The Price of Technology?

I came across this article on the Daily Telegraph website and thought it was worth spreading around. Do we really have a full grasp of how our life style affects our environment? And given the immense and rapid technological advances that are being made can we afford to ignore these possibilities?

The growing use of mobile telephones is behind the disappearance of honey bees and the collapse of their hives, scientists have claimed.

Dean Nelson in New Delhi
Published: 8:00AM BST 29 May 2010

Britain has seen a 15 per cent decline in its bee population in the last two years.

Their disappearance has caused alarm throughout Europe and North America where campaigners have blamed agricultural pesticides, climate change and the advent of genetically modified crops for what is now known as 'colony collapse disorder.' Britain has seen a 15 per cent decline in its bee population in the last two years and shrinking numbers has led to a rise in thefts of hives.

Now researchers from Chandigarh's Punjab University claim they have found the cause which could be the first step in reversing the decline: They have established that radiation from mobile telephones is a key factor in the phenomenon and say that it probably interfering with the bee's navigation senses.

They set up a controlled experiment in Punjab earlier this year comparing the behaviour and productivity of bees in two hives – one fitted with two mobile telephones which were powered on for two fifteen minute sessions per day for three months. The other had dummy models installed.

After three months the researchers recorded a dramatic decline in the size of the hive fitted with the mobile phone, a significant reduction in the number of eggs laid by the queen bee. The bees also stopped producing honey.

The queen bee in the "mobile" hive produced fewer than half of those created by her counterpart in the normal hive.

They also found a dramatic decline in the number of worker bees returning to the hive after collecting pollen. Because of this the amount of nectar produced in the hive also shrank.

Ved Prakash Sharma and Neelima Kumar, the authors of the report in the journal Current Science, wrote: "Increase in the usage of electronic gadgets has led to electropollution of the environment. Honeybee behaviour and biology has been affected by electrosmog since these insects have magnetite in their bodies which helps them in navigation.

"There are reports of sudden disappearance of bee populations from honeybee colonies. The reason is still not clear. We have compared the performance of honeybees in cellphone radiation exposed and unexposed colonies."

"A significant decline in colony strength and in the egg laying rate of the queen was observed. The behaviour of exposed foragers was negatively influenced by the exposure, there was neither honey nor pollen in the colony at the end of the experiment."

Tim Lovett, of the British Beekeepers Association, said that hives have been successful in London where there was high mobile phone use.

"Previous work in this area has indicated this [mobile phone use] is not a real factor," he said. "If new data comes along we will look at it."

He said: "At the moment we think is more likely to be a combination of factors including disease, pesticides and habitat loss."

The UK Government has set aside £10 million for research into the decline of pollinators like bees, but the BBKA claim much more money is needed for research into the problem, including studies on pesticides, disease and new technology like mobile phones.

According to the University of Durham, England's bees are vanishing faster than anywhere else in Europe, with more than half of hives dying out over the last 20 years. The most recent statistics from last winter show that the decline in honey bees in Britain is slowing, with just one in six hives lost.

This is still above the natural rate of ten per cent losses, but a vast improvement on previous years.


Image Credit: Adkins

The Year of the Tiger

I created this video to highlight the plight of the wild Tiger. 12 years ago Nick Harper released this song, one of the lyrics being 'There's Only 5,000 Tigers Left', today it is estimated there are as few as 3,200 in the wild.



Here are some facts as provided by the WWF, an organisation fighting to protect animals in danger worldwide such as the Tiger.

There are six living sub-species of tiger; the Amur (Siberian), Bengal (Indian), Indo-Chinese, Malayan, Sumatran and South China.Three other sub-species, the Bali, Caspian and Javan, are now extinct.

Location:From India to south-eastern China and from the Russian Far East to Sumatra, Indonesia

Habitat:Wide ranging - from evergreen and monsoon forests, to mixed coniferous-deciduous woodlands, and mangrove swamps

Wild population:As few as 3,200

The threats to tigers:

• Poaching for skins and body parts used in traditional Asian medicines

• Habitat loss due to farming, forest clearance for the timber trade and human development

• Decline in natural prey numbers

• Conflict with humans

The Chinese Year of the Tiger started on 14 February, and we're doing our bit this year to help save this magnificent cat. Our long-term aim is to double the wild tiger population by the next Year of the Tiger in 2022.

Our plans for saving the tiger include equipping and training more anti-poaching patrols and working with governments to ensure stronger laws against the illegal wildlife trade. We also want to double the protection of wild tiger habitat in 13 areas by 2020.

For a very small financial contribution you really can make such a difference. Can you imagine the day they announce that there are no Tigers left in the wild? I do not want to. Adopt an animal today or join the WWF here and show your support. Thank you for your time.

15th October Blog Action Day 2009 - Calling all Revolutionaries

I have thought long and hard about this post. I have put different Blog Action Day posts on all of my blogs in an attempt to reflect their purpose. This is my blog for straight talking, hard truths, strong beliefs and shared solutions.

On my other blogs I have tried to provide a means of action for people that are realistic and beneficial to the cause however I believe that stronger and more direct action is required.

Whatever forecasts can be made about our planet, the effects of our presence, man made climatic changes, conflict between nations, natural climatic changes aggravated by our actions, or a combination of them all, I believe that our planet will ultimately survive in some form, I do not believe that mankind will.

I believe there is a inevitability to our own self destruction. We are capable of change however seem to need a stronger reason than currently exists to globally unite. I believe that necessity is the mother of invention and we do not seem to feel that action is necessary enough on mass.

We simply do not have the inclination to bring about the change I feel is required in the time required.

It is not a pleasant thought....the question is what are we going to do to prove me wrong?

Image Credit: Mirza

To see other Blog Action Day posts on Climate Change click here.

Blog Action Day 2009 - 15th October, Climate Change

The 15th October 2009 is Blog Action Day, powered by Change.org. In their words:

‘Blog Action Day is an annual event that unites the world's bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day on their own blogs with the aim of sparking discussion around an issue of global importance. Blog Action Day 2009 will be the largest-ever social change event on the web. One day. One issue. Thousands of voices.’

I have taken part in Blog Action Day for a couple of years now along with my Sister and Mum and it really is an amazing event. This year’s topic is climate change.

I have begun to notice over the past few years while attending seminars and courses that we can be very good at getting together, uniting to a cause and planning action however a period of time elapses, nothing happens and then before you know it we are all sitting there again discussing the same issues and noticing that we didn’t actually take any action.

This day to me is a day of communicating the wish for change on mass across the blogosphere, but it must be followed up by action.

Please take the time to register you blog for this important day, make a post for the 15th that discusses an aspect of climate change that concerns you, and then take a moment to follow the other links and help bring about the change we need, TODAY!

Register Your Blog Here


Promote Blog Action Day on Twitter, Facebook or by Grabbing a Badge for your Blog Here


Take Action Beyond Blogging Here