AlternativesMagazine

By C-A Moss  In my quest to extend my vegan compassion to other areas of my consumerism, I’ve circled back to minimalism, which for many years, played a prominent role in my belief structure. Researching for this article, I found an abundance of blog entries and youtube videos of people identifying as minimalist in various forms. Ending excessive consumption. Rejecting capitalism. Life editing. Zero-waste lifestyle. Decluttering. Anti-materialism. Living deliberately. Spartanism. Deattachment. Thriving with less. Living within your needs. I’ve experienced many challenges and fails over these first eight months of the Ethical Closet Project [ http://thedreamyidealist.com/theethicalclosetproject /]. I’ve accepted that our culture sets us up to fail but I’m still determined to find a loophole in the system that doesn’t include voluntary poverty. Consuming even less, and only what is essential, may be the path to greatly reducing my participation in the exploitation tha

WALKING, WHAT A NOVEL IDEA . . . . A few major cities are making some surprising and unexpected shifts toward walkable urban development. Walkable neighborhoods are defined as those where everyday destinations such as home, work, school, stores and restaurants are concentrated and within walking distance. Planners and residents who once opposed dense urban spaces are shifting gears. Neighborhood groups mobilized around a major new development and demanded higher density "because they wanted great urbanism that their kids could walk to." Who's to blame for all this common sense? Kids! the Millennials … are driving this. And we thought all they did was sit around texting.  The average American household spends over $8,000 per year on owning and driving their cars, that's more than they spend on food. Furthermore traffic congestion wastes nearly 3 billion gallons of gas per year in the U.S. If there is anything that will get the attention of the oil ba

it's about prevention "Why is "diet and exercise" always part of the rehab procedure AFTER a diagnosis, or recovering from a major illness?"  "Why do most pharmaceutical drugs include the fine print disclaimer:  "if combined with a proper diet and exercise?"  (it usually appears right before the list of it's deadly side effects). ....... I f diet and exercise is so important AFTER being cut, poisoned or burned,  why not go there FIRST and eliminate the middle men? This is the message of BIKE SATURDAYS. Join us on the Whitefish Trail, Saturday June 21 CLOSING NOTE: This how naive we've become about the cause and effect of cancer and how corporate "pink washing" has taken over at the expense of women with breast cancer. KFC Chicken is a major sponsor of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure . Raising money in the name of breast cancer research, while engaged in a partnership with a corporation that ma

Safety is usually the biggest reason why more people don't bike. True, biking isn't all that dangerous compared to being a pedestrian, but it seems much more dangerous — especially to people who haven't ridden in traffic or been on a bike much since childhood. Research shows the lanes make new bikers feel safer about biking   Luckily, we have a cutting-edge technology that can solve this problem: protected bike lanes. Though some European cities began installing these bike lanes — which are physically separated from the street by a curb or barrier — during the 1970s and 80s , relatively few of them existed in the US until recently. Over the past few years, though, American cities have begun building them in record numbers. And if the goal of these lanes is to get more people biking, research shows they work. A new study of eight recently-installed protected bike lanes in Austin, Chicago, Portland, San Francisco, and Washington, DC shows they encouraged substant

September 14, 2014 is the date of the highly promoted Stand Up to Cancer Telethon.  The following is the warm and fuzzy intro to the event copied directly from their website.  As always, the cancer movement's message is that we are so close to a breakthrough . "Stand Up To Cancer aims to form an unstoppable movement against cancer. Through TV and the internet, particularly the USA-based telethon that occurs every year in September, famous names and the entertainment industry team up to drive home the message that together we can stop cancer. One in two men and one in three women will suffer from cancer in their lifetime (American Cancer Society). We can all be affected by the terrible disease, whether the person diagnosed is a friend, a parent, a child, a sibling or a partner. Stand Up To Cancer aim to form a united front against the disease, raising money and urging forward breakthrough research. Stand Up To Cancer Day works to heighten the profile of research in

by Dr. Mercola   Less than 10 percent of all breast cancer cases are thought to be related to genetic risk factors. The remainder—90 percent—appear to be triggered by environmental factors   According to recent research, you can reduce your risk of breast cancer by avoiding certain chemicals found in common, everyday products   An estimated 90 percent of Americans have flame-retardant chemicals in their bodies, and many studies have linked them to human health risks, including liver, kidney, testicular, and breast cancers   Previous studies have shown that all parabens have estrogenic activity in human breast cancer cells. In one study, 99 percent of cancerous tissue samples were found to contain parabens 16 cancer-causing chemical groups to avoid, and 22 other breast cancer prevention strategies are discussed. Read the complete story HERE >

People cycle as they visit the 2nd Croix Rousse tunnel reserved for pedestrians, bicycles and buses. France has started a six-month experiment with paying people to cycle to work, joining other European governments in trying to boost bicycle use to boost people's health, reduce air pollution and cut fossil fuel consumption. Several countries including the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Belgium and Britain have bike-to-work schemes, with different kinds of incentives such as tax breaks, payments per kilometer and financial support for buying bicycles. In France, some 20 companies and institutions employing a total of 10,000 people have signed up to pay their staff 25 euro cents (34 U.S. cents) per kilometer biked to work, the transport ministry said in a statement on Monday. French Transport Minister Frederic Cuvillier, noting that commuting using public transport and cars is already subsidized, said that if results of the test are promising, a second experiment on a larger