We had a little fun this week getting settled into our new Green Divas HQ. In this video, we talk about Green Diva Lisa’s travels, having a relatively eco-friendly move and why I’m celebrating having bats in the belfry!

Here is an excerpt from my recent post about bats:

Important Things You Should Know About Bats

Bats & Agriculture

Bats are key pollinators in many parts of the world – over 75% of the world’s crops rely on animals and bats are an important pollinator.

Bat-dependent plants include: Bananas, plantain, breadfruit, peaches, mangos, dates, figs, and cashews. Bats also provide a wonderful source of natural fertilizer for cave ecosystems and agricultural systems as well. In some countries, bat guano has become a major business.

A single mouse-eared bat, which is widespread in North America can capture 1,000 or more mosquito-sized insects in JUST ONE HOUR!

Busting Bat Myths

Bats seldom spread disease – less than 1/2 of 1% of wild bats have rabies.

Bats do NOT want to get tangled in your hair! They have extremely good radar and will not encounter a human by choice.

Vampire bats are rare and NONE live in the US.

for the full post, please click here!

Until I interviewed the Dark Ranger (aka Kevin Poe), I hadn’t thought much about the seeming disappearance of the stars in the sky. I knew my suburban existence had something to do with not seeing as many stars as I remember as a kid, but I also figured I had romanticized that magical sparkly starry sky of my summer-camp days in the Berkshire mountains of Western Massachusetts. The other time I remember a fabulously star-filled sky was during a honeymoon trip to a pretty remote island – the tiki torches didn’t seem to diminish the twinkling of that night sky much at all.

Light Pollution’s Harmful Effects on Wildlife

Ecomii’s Eco-Ideas for the Outdoors

Kevin (who I kept calling Ken during our first interview – Sorry Ken, I mean Kevin! Public apology #2), is a park ranger in Mt. Zion National Park and has made it somewhat of a life’s mission to help illuminate (cute, right?) us about why we need to start paying attention to light pollution.

Sometimes terms like sky glow, glare, light trespass, light clutter and over-illumination are used to describe excessive night light’s intrusion on a naturally dark sky. Here’s the International Dark Sky Association’s glossary of relevant terms about light pollution page. Also, if you want to see where light clusters around cities and towns are and what they look like from the sky, here’s a great interactive Google ‘night lights’ map that you can search for your own area and see how it looks from the night sky.

Save Money Room-by-Room by Greening your Home

Learn More about Daylighting and how it can Help you Conserve Energy

Good reasons to be concerned about light pollution:

Waste of Energy – Let’s face it, there is probably a lot of over-illuminating going on, especially here in the US, where we have an obsession with keeping the lights on all night. According to the International Dark Sky Association, we burn up a whopping 22,000 gigawatt-hours of useless light that is pointed up towards the sky! Their math has this at an estimated cost (in terms of money) of $2.2 billion a year. In terms of carbon footprint?

3.6 million tons of coal or 12.9 million barrels of oil is used
to generated this type of lost light

Ecosystems & Wildlife – While light pollution can disrupt elements of the ecosystem in subtle ways that may ultimately have lasting effects, it has a definite and negative impact on nocturnal animals. In general all animals (including humans) have a biological code that follows a circadian rhythm, which is just a inherent natural clock.
…read more of 8 Ways to Reduce Light Pollution & Keep the Stars Twinkling here

Love turtles? Want to see sea turtles in their natural habitat?

Check out SEE Turtles, a nonprofit turtle conservation tourism project that allows people to have a hand in helping sea turtles thrive.  I spoke with co-founder Brad Nahill at Denver Green Fest earlier this month about the project and the big question: why turtles?

Nahill and fellow co-founder, Dr. Wallace Nichols, had been working with sea turtle conservation programs in developing countries in which the locals would poach the turtles to eat, as well as use their shells. At the same time, those communities would express a desire to help the turtles, but they just didn’t know where to start or how to help. …read more of The SEE Turtle Project here