Tree.com

In the pursuit of happiness, drop your iPhone
By Nick St Clair for Tree.com

      Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness one of the most famous phrases, not just in the Declaration of Independence, but in the whole of American history.

 

       This is every US citizen’s “inalienable right.” But what defines happiness? After all if you can’t define it, how can you pursue the indefinable?

      For many people, happiness means the acquisition of money and possessions. But if that were the case then surely Bill Gates would have a grin so wide that in order to get through a doorway he would have to enter a room sideways.

      It’s true, money does provide a degree of happiness. But all too often it is short lived. When we buy a new car we first spend weeks browsing through catalogs and admiring other cars. Then when we eventually buy it, we love our new car so much that we wash it every day. Heaven forbid anyone leave any trash in it! Then slowly, but surely, the novelty begins to wear off. Your once prized possession is washed just once a month. Trash begins to pile up.

      If not a new car, think of a pair of shoes, a new house, the latest model iPhone or whatever. To prove the point you only have to look at lottery winners who instantly win access to their material dreams. More often than not it all ends in tears. In fact, research has long since proven that once you are above the poverty line, there is no correlation between money and happiness whatsoever...

To read the rest of this article please go to:

http://www.tree.com/health/blog-blog/archive-2011-06-28-in-the-pursuit-of-happiness-drop-your-iphone.aspx

Hey! why can't I read the full text here?

Duplication of a site’s content has a negative effect on its popularity with Search Engines. So in the drive to provide my clients with unique, original (and entertaining) content, even though I wrote this I don't even reproduce it fully myself.

earthtimes.org

Seeds of hope for the world's rain forests

  
by Nick St Clair for earthtimes.org

Horror stories about the deforestation that is destroying the world's rainforests on a massive scale are sadly old news. Every year enormous tracts of land the size of Cuba are lost, and at the current rate it is estimated that the world's rainforests will have completely disappeared by the end of this century.

The madness is that this 'ecocide' not only poses a direct threat to millions of species of plants, animals and insects that inhabit the forests, but also the earth's fundamental ability to regulate rainfall and temperatures.

But despite this bleak outlook, there is a glimmer of hope...

To read the rest of this article please go to:

http://www.earthtimes.org/conservation/seeds-hope-worlds-rainforests/385/

Hey! why can't I read the full text here?

Duplication of a site’s content has a negative effect on its popularity with Search Engines. So in the drive to provide my clients with unique, original (and entertaining) content, even though I wrote this I don't even reproduce it fully myself.

tree.com

Shower Less and Save the Planet

Photo: Torli Roberts, Stock.Xchng

by Nick St Clair for tree.com

Wake up, kill the alarm, slide out of bed and hit the shower. For millions of people across the country showering is a daily ritual that is almost as important to our early morning preparations as getting dressed itself.

But is it really necessary? After all, do we really get that dirty when all we've done is sleep for 8 hours tucked up in a presumably clean bed? The truth is for most people it’s more of a ritual than a cleansing exercise, but as a direct result every day millions of gallons of fresh, clean water is flushed away. Water that billions of people across the world would happily drink. Or rather they would, if it wasn’t for the staggering amount of chemical pollutants that we unleash on ourselves every time we shower and bathe. Wash hair, condition hair, lather up with shower gel, then wash it all off using even greater quantities of water.

To add to this chemical arsenal, we then spray on deodorants, perfumes and aftershaves before walking out onto the street surrounded by our own personal cosmetic cloud. It will come as no surprise to learn that the international market for soaps and toiletries is worth billions of dollars every year. The industry spends a small fortune fueling our belief that if we don’t invest huge amounts of our hard earned money on its products - we are ugly and we smell...

To read the rest of this article please go to:

http://www.tree.com/health/blog-blog/archive-2011-04-05-shower-less-and-save-the-planet.aspx

Hey! why can't I read the full text here?

Duplication of a site’s content has a negative effect on its popularity with Search Engines. So in the drive to provide my clients with unique, original (and entertaining) content, even though I wrote this I don't even reproduce it fully myself.