Connecticut Green Living

Tomorrow, June 21, join the environmentally friendly Make Music Day starting at 9 a.m. Eastern to participate in the international Fête de la Musique , taking place in over 1,000 cities across 120 countries. This Make Music Day, Bash the Trash Environmental Arts is raising awareness about trash pollution by building fun instruments from found objects. The organization has promoted, as it says on its website, building, performing & educating with musical instruments made from trash since 1991 . "These amazing instruments tackle issues of waste and offer us an opportunity to look at 'trash' in a new way," according to a statement. The daylong, musical free-for-all celebrates music in all its forms, encouraging people to band together and play in free public concerts. Over 85 U.S. cities and the entire states of Vermont, Connecticut , Hawaii and Wisconsin are participating in this year’s celebration, which will be virtual due to COVID-19 . Participants can joi...

Yesterday I realized what my county needs - free masks, widely distributed. Why isn't this being done? I boarded a bus to get to Milford to my doctor's appointment yesterday, an event so traumatizing that I had a nightmare the night before. The issue is not with the driver or how the bus companies have smartly set things up - rides are free because one cannot venture farther than a roped-off portion at the front - but dealing with other passengers. There are a few types: 1. The individual who is casual about his or her mask and just slowly puts it on when he or she has already boarded the bus; 2. The individual who is already wearing a mask and behaving in a civilized manner; 3. The individual who, for some inexplicable reason, is using the mask as an excuse to loud-talk with the driver, therefore spewing droplets as he/she speaks; 4. The person who is unaware of everything going on around them, perhaps for reasons of mental illness, including the requirement to wear a mask; ...

As I write this, Connecticut is suffering from a 2-3 percent reported infection rate of COVID-19 . The statistics are impossible to know exactly because not everyone who wants to be tested has been; others have not been tested for other reasons. In some cases the tests have been inaccurate. Despite the high rate of infection, many in our state refuse to wear masks as they are supposed to do when entering stores or when closer than six feet to another individual outside their home. A concern, too, is that people have misinformation about masks, that they are the be-all and end-all so if one is wearing so much as a homemade cloth mask or store-bought surgical mask, she can stand and chat at close range for several minutes with a friend or stranger at CVS. This is wrong. Surgical masks are only about 50 percent effective, according to Jill Crittenden, a research scientist with Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who spoke on May 28 as part of a new series addressing COVID-19; this was ...

For good reason, I have feared going out into the world over the past three and a half months. Yesterday I took three bus rides and on the second, I could have had my life put in jeopardy. I will only know if I come down with COVID-19 symptoms or get tested to find out. Here is what happened: I was on the Coastal Link bus here in Connecticut, gazing out the window, when an unstable and quite vocal disheveled character wandered aboard in front of Stop 'n Shop. He sat down and then got up and started to sing (badly) out the window. This immediately rattled me so I mentioned it to the driver, who called out but then ignored him. As I gazed out the window trying to calm my nerves, I suddenly heard something and turned to my left. He was at my side, crazed One-Flew-Over-The-Cuckoo's-Nest-like, cackling and writhing just inches from where my nostrils could absorb someone's viral droplets. "AAAAHHHH!!!! GET AWAY! GET AWAY FROM ME!" I shrieked. He toppled backward, as if...

Have you noticed anything unusual in the news lately? Or more accurately, noticed anything missing? Yes, it's been a long time since the last U.S. mass shooting. That was the February 26 Milwaukee brewery shooting, in which six people sadly lost their lives. To my European, Asian and African readers, this may sound like a dramatic bit of news that occurred not that long ago. Americans know a different story. In 2019 there were 417 mass shoootings, which include those where no one was killed or just a few people, according to Gunviolence.org; and while their records indicate that shootings are still occurring, the rate is clearly falling. According to Wikipedia records, there were 32 deaths from gun violence in mass shootings by this time last year; there have been 11 such deaths this year. Mass shootings in this sense means large enough to have made the mainstream news. While the landscape has shifted in terms of gun violence, undoubtedly domestic violence is surging with so many f...

Due to Covid-19, this Earth Day, the 50th, is sad and challenging but it is also a perfect time to reflect upon ways to protect and honor nature. And while every Earth Day means 102 press releases in my email inbox, on everything from clean make-up to rainforest protection, I was particularly attracted to the birds and the bees this year. Being sequestered in my home for weeks on end - what week is it? what day? - is only counterbalanced by the walks I take here in Branford. Blooming cherry blossoms interspersed with hydrangea, dogwoods and yellow loosestrife explode with color. Dizzy from the beauty, it is easy to forget that we're living in Plague times. Take a look around - from a safe distance. It's gorgeous. What all this floral beauty means is that the bees are in hog heaven. In normal years I'd be getting ready to pad down to the local farmers' markets for some homespun honey. It is delicious, but I didn't know too much about it until I decided to explore ...

A strange phenomenon has crept into our daily lives here in Connecticut - the resurgence of the plastic bag. I understand that we are in a health crisis. I understand that there is concern about cashiers touching reusable bags. But why the rush to revert to plastic bags? What happened to paper? Another scourge: the plastic glove. I went to People's bank here in Branford and tucked into the envelope cubby were two gloves - one blue, one yellow, wadded like chewing gum. Guess what: someone has to remove those. And then these plastic gloves end up in the same waterways as our plastic bags. Remember the campaign against plastic? Remember climate change? Let me connect the dots. Climate change was already threatening our lives when Covid-19 hit. However, because it's a slower killer there was no 'shelter-in-place' command for climate change . If we had a president who believed in science, perhaps there would have been. Now climate change is rearing its pissed off head in...