Start Good Blog

Note: My previous post was part of ProBlogger.net’s Group Writing Contest which had bloggers write a top 5 post and then post it to their site to share. Almost 900 bloggers participated creating a huge buzz of people visiting new blogs and sharing their thoughts and love with other bloggers.

Honestly, I did not know what I was getting into. Would people like my site? Will this really get people to visit? Do people even care or want to know about the things I blog? Sharing what I find and learn throughout my experience really is why I love to do what I do here. Getting that many eyes on that one article makes me feel great and hearing all the positive feedback is even more encouraging. However even bigger than that is, did anyone take action or will they in the future? The story of my blogging really is about changing people’s lives and the world for the better. I hope everyone that visits will take something away that they can share with others and also put into action in their life.

In general, the blogosphere has so much to give and the impacts of it will be seen for many years to come. Look at how much content was derived from one project from one website! It is simply amazing. I am enjoying being part of this and I hope everyone continues to blog and share with others. Although my blog is called Start Good, it seems like everyone is doing it someway or somehow already in theirs and that is a sign of great things to come.

Greening my life pretty much has consumed much of my personal growth goals the past year or so. Mostly it all comprises constantly refining my life bit by bit, becoming less wasteful and more resourceful with each step. Last year I made shelves out of some DVD cases I was going to toss, I started using CD spindle covers to hold random cables that my gadgets need and I have made good on a promise not to buy any new clothes. Despite my continual efforts to audit my own waste, some obvious things never crossed my mind until I learned about them and some of the things I was doing, actually were not doing any good! With this in mind here is my list of the top 5 things I never realized until I really tried to go green.

1. Cutting Shower Water: I knew that short showers were the best showers, but I never thought of soaping up without wasting water until reading about “Navy Showers” at Tree Hugger. Now I stick to a quick spray, shutting the water off and then soaping up. Not only are my showers faster, but I am saving a lot of water by not leaving the shower running. The TreeHugger articles says:
   

   [A] typical shower takes as much as 230 L (60 US gallons) of water, while taking a navy shower can use as little 11 L (3 US gallons); one person can save 56,000 L (15,000 US gallons) per year!

   It is a bit tough to give up enjoying a constant flow of hot water but my green angel on my shoulder tells me I am doing the right thing and that feels great.

2. Disposable containers: I see people with coffee cups everyday and it makes me cringe. Read the rest of this entry »
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When I think of donations many things come to mind. Donation jars at grocery stores to help pay for various treatments, writing checks to support organizations, and even giving money to a homeless person on the street. These methods all have their strengths and weaknesses but share some common flaws. What if someone really wants to have an impact but doesn’t know if they can afford to give much money or can not volunteer? One solution is loaning money, however how much trust and reliability is there in getting money back? It might be easy to get money back from a local family or a friend, but what if you want to help someone struggling states, countries or continents away?

Microfinance has risen as a new way to help people but, at the same time, allow people to secure their own finances. Read the rest of this entry »

Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.
-Buddha

Photo credit: lakerae

Reducing the Earth to 100 people to explain facts about world population is not a new idea, but I have never seen it as effective as is shown on The Minature Earth. A flash short movie, it is eye opening and helps you grasp numbers that often are incomprehensible for our minds to scale. Not the happiest movie, but I thought it was worth sharing, if to only open your mind up a hair more for the day. Enjoy!

Direct link to movie.

Hopefully by now, people know that CFL bulbs, the twisty ones, are great for the environment. It typically is the first green step that people take if they are trying to save energy and become more friendly to the planet. However, in almost every case where you need to replace or upgrade something, you can be green. For example, right now I have a big and loud desktop computer. It is so loud that I don’t want to use it and instead use my laptop since it is quiet and saves electricity. On the flip side though, I love watching movies using a computer and browsing the internet from a large TV screen is nice every now and then, so I would love to use my desktop as a multimedia unit. However because of the noise factor it is not the best thing to have running when I am watching a movie.

With this in mind I have looked into upgrading the case and power supply to eliminate noisy fans. So what does this have to do with being green?

Read the rest of this entry »

How many ways are there to do good? More than anybody could ever name and more ways are coming up as people and technology become more innovative. With this premise I hope to educate people on different ways to do good by declaring my first (hopefully) ongoing article called “Learn Good”. Basically, I want discuss new and old ways of spreading good that almost anyone can participate in, or if it is just really interesting, I will share it too. This holds tight with the purpose of my site, which is promoting action and so I hope that people will try out some of the ideas featured in the articles and talk about them with friends and family. I only have a handful ideas so far, but I really want to make this a regular thing. Leave me a comment if you have any ideas you would like me to feature. My first article is in the works so look out for it.

You ever believe something silly as a kid or have an older sibling tell you something that you believed for the longest time? For some reason, as a kid things just make sense and in a strange way things do make sense. I ran into two golden sources of these stories and they are so genuine that they can either be really funny or really inspiring and many times they are both.

The first is I Used to Believe, a site that collects stories from users and displays them for the world to see. Here’s some of the best ones:

My brother and I thought that Grandma lived at the airport because that’s where we always went to get her. Then when we were tired of her, we took her back.

As a 3 year old, I always believed that the little “no right turn” signs on traffic islands meant “no boomerangs”. Being from Australia, this seemed perfectly logical until I was about five or six and my dad explained what they really meant.

The other source of childhood goodness is from This American Life and their program on Kid Logic. The tagline is “Stories of kids using perfectly logical arguments, and arriving at perfectly wrong conclusions.” This American Life already is amazing and is by far my favorite program on NPR and podcast already, but this episode really surpasses them all.

Take some time out of your day and just have some fun reading and listening to the stories. Try remember what it is like to be a kid, how to think like one. It might just teach you something you forgot you already knew.

The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman has been the book to define the current American society in which the realities of globalization, terrorism and the slow fall of the US have arisen. Packed with insight, realism and fragile hopefulness, it has given a name, problem and solution to the things the US faces as a nation.

Because of the power behind his words and impeccable instinct, I am excited about his new direction: Green. This New York Times piece of his has been making rounds and hints at things to come from Friedman. It is long and has a lot of information, but all of it is important and he writes in a manner that I believe everyone can enjoy and appreciate. Bookmark this, because we will be reading this in the future, either in happiness or sadness at the accuracy of Friedman’s vision.

Tip: Don’t want to register? Use BugMeNot.com

Via EcoGeek

Have any of you started something good or know someone who has? An organization, club, event or anything? I’d love to hear about the experience and what you learned. If you’re interested in an interview or to write something up, get in touch with me and we’ll work something out.

I got a few ideas for posts, so I hopefully have more unique content soon. Lastly, feel free to share any comments/criticism/ideas with me too. Thanks to everyone for checking us out!