August 2019
GO GREEN
kids & parents
MAGAZINE
Go Green Kids & Parents Magazine
Publisher Ggk Media charlene3w2@gmail.com gogreenkidsandparents@gmail.com
Editor
Graphic Design
Charlene Alvarez
Aaron Steven
Contributor Writer
Kristini Verna
Regional Manager Louis Catalina
954-548-6513
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Contents Pg 4 Buying for a better world: Purchasing decisions that help the planet
Pg 8
Pg 20-24
You Need to Know This Month: Flower Fruit Animal Things to do for the Environment
Inclusive playgrounds: How play helps all Pg 24 children learn Private Sector Rescuing Flint from Government Pg 14 Failure
 
How Our Culture
Disempowers Teens
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Pg 28
Government Versus the Environment
BUYING FOR A BETTER WORLD: PURCHASING DECISIONS THAT HELP THE PLANET While research from The Shelton Group shows 90% of millennials choose to purchase from brands they trust for their social and environmental practices, carefully crafted marketing lingo and even bigger advertising budgets can make it difficult to know if their dollars are truly making a difference. That’s why, for one company, educating consumers on the impact of their food choices is at the heart of what they do. Meet PRANA, a vegan and 100% organic snacking company founded by MarieJosee Richer and Alon Farber that’s committed to putting the planet first. In 2017, to better understand its impact on the world, the company conducted an extensive life cycle analysis of their business and found something shocking. With the zero-waste lifestyle gaining a lot of traction, they found it is often what’s inside the bag that is most harmful to the planet. Their analysis revealed that although the company is organic and vegan, 81% of its impact was due to agriculture. (BPT) -
One of the biggest changes the company realized it had to make was in the sourcing of almonds from California, a major component in many of their snack products. Due to the state’s desert climate, agriculture
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requires a vast amount of artificial irrigation. Almonds grown in California use up to 8% of the water used for agriculture in the state — 53 billion cubic meters of water per year. In fact, it can take up to 12 liters of water to grow a single almond and agriculture utilizes 41% of the state’s available water, according to a 2018 report. California sources much of its water from the already strained Colorado River, which led the company to make the challenging decision to source their almonds from Spain. According to Richer, almonds are native to the Mediterranean and have been growing in Spain longer than in California, relying primarily on rainfall. While on the surface one may think buying agricultural products from California would still be better for the environment due to the cost of transporting the goods from Europe to North America, the company quickly found that wasn’t the case. "By switching to Spanish almonds, PRANA saved the equivalent of 715 Olympic pools of water within just one year," Richer explained. They also found that, contrary to expectations, transporting almonds by sea from Spain to their Montreal location produced lower greenhouse gas emissions than transportation by truck from California. So how can one really make a difference with their snack choices? Richer recommends considering the following before making purchase decisions. Disposal cost: This can begin with evaluating the product’s packaging. How much waste is created unwrapping the item? For example, while it’s easy to get caught up on if packaging is recyclable or not, consumers can look deeper. While many assume that the majority of a snack’s impact comes from how it’s disposed of, PRANA’s analysis suggests that production and the number of materials used have a greater impact on the planet.
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Limit food waste: In the United States, roughly 40% of our food is thrown out every year and the amount of waste produced is more than enough to feed the nearly one billion hungry people in the world. This waste ends up in landfills and eventually turns into a destructive greenhouse gas called methane. To help limit food waste, PRANA uses premium packaging that keeps products fresher, longer. Look at labels: Numerous agencies certify companies on various facets of their business. Consumers should seek to support socially responsible brands with certifications like Non-GMO verified and certified organic or that are certified by the Ecocert third party. In addition, reading labels can help you verify snacks that are full of good nutrients, which are more sustainable than a snack of empty calories. Benefit Corporations: This classification means a company has gone through a rigorous application process and analysis to demonstrate they are actively working toward reducing inequality, improving sustainability and using profits to make a positive impact on employees, the community and the environment. By purchasing from B-Corps, you are supporting businesses with these practices and encouraging other companies to do better. Look for Fair Trade Certified products: The Fair Trade Certified seal represents thousands of products, improving millions of lives, while protecting land and waterways in 45 countries and counting, according to the group's website. All of PRANA’s chocolate products in the U.S. are Fair Trade Certified, meaning they have gone through a lengthy process to earn this seal. It also means that the producers they work with adhere to strict labor, environmental and ethics standards that prohibit slavery and child labor and ensure cocoa growers receive a steady income. "People think they have no power, but the power becomes tenfold when we all vote with our dollars," said Richer. "With those small actions —
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being informed, reading labels, knowing where food comes from — you’re improving not just your health but the lives of growers, employees and the industry. Once you become a purchaser of a sustainable business, you become an agent of change, and can inspire others to follow suit. At PRANA we call that snacktivism.”
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I N C L U S I V E P L AYG R O U N D S : H O W P L AY H E L P S A L L C H I L D R E N LEARN
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What do children learn through play? Play helps children grow and learn — how they move, how their muscles work, their tactile senses, vision and hearing, all develop as they play. And physical learning contributes to cognitive development, as children hone their motor skills and spatial perception. Swiss child psychologist Jean Piaget famously wrote, "Play is the work of childhood.” (BPT) -
Children also learn from interactions with each other, as seen on playgrounds every day. Playgrounds have evolved over the decades, becoming safer and more varied in design. But children with special needs were left out of traditional playground design. A movement began to ensure children of all abilities would be able to use playgrounds. But initial attempts often fell short. Accessibility, as defined by the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), simply meant being able to get to a playground. Children with physical disabilities, like those needing mobility devices, were unable to experience playgrounds using sand or wood chips for safety surfacing, while the needs of children with sensory processing disorders were often overlooked completely. One in seven U.S. children live with a disability — about 6.5 million school-aged children — and 6.4 million have cognitive disabilities. According to a recent study by the CDC, one in 45 children has autism. What do children with varying abilities need in a playground to help them play, learn and grow? The experts advising the playground designers at Landscape Structures Inc. re-imagine playgrounds to be not just inclusive, but inspiring and fun for kids of all abilities. Physical environment.
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Inclusive playgrounds for children with disabilities need to be designed not just for accessibility, but inclusivity. •
• •
• •
Unitary surfacing with one type of material, amenable to wheelchairs and other mobility devices, eliminates mobility barriers. Borders or fencing can help define and contain the activity area, providing a sense of comfort to children and their caregivers. Seating should be strategically located around the play area (preferably in shaded spaces) and must be usable for children and adults of differing abilities. Pathways and ramps must be extra-wide and accessible, for more than one child in a wheelchair to pass each other comfortably. On-deck transfer ability delivers equitable access and encourages interactive play among kids and adults of all abilities.
• Stimulating activities. Inclusive playgrounds provide activities to engage children on many levels, in terms of physical, cognitive, sensory and social development. Play areas reinforcing cognitive concepts with games, mazes, maps, tracing panels and more can be included in playground structures. Imaginary play, like using pretend houses, fire trucks or stores, allows children to experiment with rules and roles. Physical play structures invite children of differing abilities to take risks and challenge themselves, creating a sense of mastery and achievement. Thoughtfully designed areas such as those in Landscape Structures playgrounds are inclusive for all children. While not all children will be able to use all equipment, children can challenge themselves in ways that they can control and manage.
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• • •
•
•
Cardiovascular activity: free space for children to move and increase their heart rates. Balance and coordination: balance beams, rope bridges and more. Vestibular sense: using input from the inner ear, this sense is responsible for equilibrium and movement, experienced while rotating, swinging and rocking. Proprioception: this internal sense uses input from muscles and joints about body position, weight, pressure and movement to help develop muscle sense and coordination, affecting large motor skills and small motor activities such as handwriting. Climbing, hanging and overhead activities help children develop this sense, and can be experienced by children using their upper bodies to access equipment. Tactile, visual and auditory stimulation: children benefit from calming sensory activities using manipulative media like sand or water, visual stimulation like artwork, plus musical elements to help kids tune in to their auditory sense.
Quiet spaces. For children who need quiet time and limited social interaction, it is essential to include smaller, cozier spaces where children can experience calm. Social activities. Ideal playgrounds are designed for children to interact, with no child feeling excluded, and incorporate a variety of gathering spots within the playground structure — some that can accommodate several children, plus smaller, quiet spaces for just a few. These social spaces benefit everyone, including families and caregivers. To see inclusive playgrounds and how children use them, visit playlsi.com/inclusive-play/.
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How Our Culture Disempowers Teens 

FOUNDATION for FEEECONOMIC EDUCATION
Rather than criticizing teenagers as lazy and in need of more control and structure, we should recognize the ways our culture infantilizes its teens.
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The Impact of Low Expectations
These are remarkable people for sure, but teenagers are able to accomplish remarkable things when given freedom and opportunity. Instead, our culture systematically underestimates teenagers, coddling them like toddlers, confining them to ever more schooling, and disconnecting them from the adult world they will soon enter. Our low expectations of teenagers create a vicious circle. We think teenagers are lazy, unmotivated, and incapable of directing their own lives, so we restrict their freedom and micromanage them. This process leads teenagers to believe that they are, in fact, lazy, unmotivated, and in need of micromanagement. According to Peter Berg, author of The Tao of Teenagers and a teacher who has worked with teenagers for over 25 years, this circle emerges because many of us were treated this way as teenagers. We may have a hard time trusting teens because we ourselves were not trusted. Berg tells me: We Know that many people in our society unfortunately don’t understand teenagers, don’t relate to them well, and actually, in my experience, have a fear of teenagers. In part, I believe this is because they struggled themselves as teenagers and were not treated well by adults. Coming from the mindset, it’s easy to underestimate teenagers and easy to view everything teenagers do through a lens that confirms that we should underestimate them.
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Teens Crave Connection and Purposeful Action When teenagers are trusted and treated well, they are incredibly enthusiastic and competent. I spent this week in Austin, Texas, with 14- to 17-year-olds attending one of FEE’s summer leadership seminars for teens. Far from being lazy and unmotivated, these young people were engaged and curious— even when confronting meaty material like Economics in One Lesson. In fact, I saw more adults dozing off during lectures than teens! Sure, teens like their smartphones and social media—but so do many of us adults. As Berg says: What irks me the most is the myth of the lazy, always-on-socialmedia, disengaged teen. Teenagers are engaged and are far from lazy. Most teens today have schedules that many adults couldn't navigate. Teenagers do care—maybe not always about things that adults think they should care about—but they do care about little things, big things, and everyday things. Teens want what adults want: to be respected, taken seriously, cared about, and treated fairly. On the edge of adulthood, teenagers need and crave authentic connection to real, daily life, but they are increasingly cut off from this experience. Even as states like Oregon push to lower the voting age to 16, arguing that teens are fully capable of democratic decision-making, they raise the compulsory schooling age to 18. Be free to vote, but you must remain locked (literally) in coercive schooling.
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Teens now spend more time in school and less time in work than at any other time in our history—even in the summertime. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 42 percent of teens were enrolled in school in July 2016 compared to only 10 percent in July 1985. Overall, teen labor force participation has plummeted from a high of 57.9 percent in 1979 to just 34.1 percent in 2011. Part of this decline is related to more emphasis on academics, extracurricular activities, and other structured programming for adolescents. But public policy may also be to blame.
The Minimum Wage's Impact on Teens Raising the minimum wage, as many states have aggressively done, has a disproportionate impact on young workers who do not yet have the skills and experience to justify an employer paying them a higher wage. As a result, these neophytes don’t get hired and thus don’t gain the necessary experience to ultimately warrant higher pay. It is widely understood that minimum wage laws lead to higher unemployment, particularly for young and lowskilled workers who are then prevented from gaining important entry-level career skills. According to a July report by the Congressional Budget Office regarding a proposed $15 federal minimum wage,
The $15 option would alter employment more for some groups than for others. Almost 50 percent of the newly jobless workers in a given week—600,000 of 1.3 million—would be teenagers.
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Writing for PBS, economist Diana Furchtgott-Roth reported the same thing in 2016: Young people would be harmed the most by increasing the minimum wage. Almost half of minimum wage workers are under 25, and 19 percent are teens. Only 1.8 percent of US workers were paid at or below the federal minimum wage in 2015, so it’s a small segment of the overall population at this pay level but a large percentage of young people.
Rather than criticizing teenagers as lazy and in need of more control and structure, we should recognize the ways our culture infantilizes its teens. We confine them in coercive schools and school-like activities for most of their adolescence, limit their autonomy, and prevent them from working in jobs and gaining valuable career skills. Is it really any wonder that they may retreat into their cell phones when they get the chance? It might be the only moment of their day when they are actually in control and connected to the wider world. From rising compulsory schooling ages to rising minimum wages, we treat teens like toddlers and separate them from the genuine adult world they will soon join. As Berg says: For many teens, their days consist of an expectation to live a story or script that others have created for them. Maybe we should give teenagers the freedom and opportunity to create their own scripts and witness the remarkable things they will do. Kerry McDonald is a Senior Education Fellow at FEE and author of Unschooled: Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom (Chicago Review Press, 2019). Kerry has a B.A. in economics from Bowdoin College and an M.Ed. in education policy from Harvard University. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts with her husband and four children. You can sign up for her weekly newsletter on parenting and education here.
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FLOWER OF AUGUST — GLADIOLUS
GLADIOLUS !e flower of August or known as #e “gladiolus” flower, is represen&d by Roman Gladia'rs, and #en was adop&d in #e West by A(icans Gladioli.) — !e gladiolus flower is also a symbol of s+eng#, honor, and fai#,lness)
!
Gladiolus flowers were used as a medica-on for people in Britain and Medi&rranean. Gladioli come in different sizes and heights, colors, and shades. Many people use gladiolus flowers ' display #eir mul-tude of colors in #eir garden. !ere is seven different /pes of species and #ey are mostly popula&d in Sou# A(ica.
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Kristini Verna
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FRUIT
Mango
You Need To Know
This Month
Did You Know… Mangoes contain high level of vitamin C, fibre and pectin making it a perfect fruit that helps in controlling high cholesterol level. Another benefit of eating mangoes is that it cleanses your skin from deep inside your body. It treats pores and gives a glow to your skin. Hence, eat mango’s to get a flawless skin glow.
Health Benefits: Prevents Cancer
Lowers Cholesterol
Improves Eye Health
Alkalizes the Whole Body
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GREEN Things “You” can do…
You Need To Know
This Month
AUGUST 12 -
Saturday, September 21, 2019 www.oceanconservancy.org
September 16 International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer
Held annually during the third weekend of September
U.N. International Day of Peace September 21
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ANIMAL 

You Need To Know
This Month
DANGER OF EXTINCTION
Amur Leopard
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Gorilla
Sea Turtle
Orangutan
Sumatran Elephant
PRIVATE SECTOR
Private Sector Rescuing Flint from Government Failure The ghastly tragedy of the water supply in Flint, Michigan, is everyone’s nightmare. The local government bore the responsibility of getting clean water to its citizens, consistent with long municipal tradition. But instead of clean water, testing in October 2015 proved that it was actually toxic, containing dangerous levels of lead. A stimulus project gone wrong, and the resulting failure of the local bureaucrats and politicians to coordinate their water contracts, led to a terrible mistake: poisonous brown water, pulled from the contaminated Flint River, pumped into homes, schools, and businesses, with effects that could last a lifetime. You might think that the government failure would be obvious here. Yet somehow, pundits managed to blame the “austerity economics” of a Republican governor, further hinting that racism against the majority black population of Flint is the root cause
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There has been no shortage of controversy about how the city continued to charge for water even though it was poison — and, nudge, there you have claim that the market system is at fault. Talk about diversion from the real issue! The core problem is municipal provision itself. It works so long as bureaucrats are scrupulous, attentive, and hard working, but there is no structural and institutional reason for them to behave this way, particularly in poorer communities without political power. With something so important as clean water, trusting the competence and good will of city managers is not always a good bet. How has government responded? Well, there have been denunciations, speeches, press releases, and declarations of states of emergency at the state and federal level — none of which have done anything to address the problem. The state itself has coughed up tax dollars to deliver 176,118 cases of water and 93,048 water filters, which is nice but punishes all residents of Michigan for the government's failures. But here’s the good news: the private sector has come to the rescue! Walmart, Coke, Pepsi, and Nestle have announced they will deliver 6.5 million bottles of water to the city. They’ve promised to do this through the end of 2016. It’s enough for the 10,000 residents immediately affected. It’s more than the state has done, and the private suppliers are not forcing anyone else to pay for it. This is only the latest example of what has become common practice: in states of emergency, the private sector has increasingly made up for the obvious failures of the public sector. It happens in every flood, hurricane, tornado, or drought. Walmart and others step up and help people in need, while government blusters, passes resolutions, waves guns around, plays the blame
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game, and pours out tax money like leadlaced water. Isn't it obvious what's happening here? The private sector has become the service provider of last resort. It’s the sector with the resources, intelligence, and — dare I say it? — compassion to get the job done. Meanwhile, governments at all levels have proven themselves to be flops at performing the tasks they have been historically designated to provide. This reality challenges everything we think we know about the tasks assigned to the public vs. the private sector. The government is supposed to be public spirited, helpful, and generous. The private sector is supposed to be selfish, indifferent, and focused on the wealthy. As it turns out, you can flip those characterizations and be more accurate. It’s the private sector that responds to public needs, and the public sector that seems much more about private interests. Time to update the civics textbooks: the future of public service is private enterprise. And the future of the public sector will be much like its past: failure, flailing, and finger-pointing. Jeffrey A. Tucker Jeffrey Tucker is a former Director of Content for the Foundation for Economic Education. He is the Editorial Director at the American Institute for Economic Research, a managing partner of Vellum Capital, the founder of Liberty.me, Distinguished Honorary Member of Mises Brazil, economics adviser to FreeSociety.com, research fellow at the Acton Institute, policy adviser of the Heartland Institute, founder of the CryptoCurrency Conference, member of the editorial board of the Molinari Review, an advisor to the blockchain application builder Factom, and author of five books.
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Government Versus the Environment
Government Causes More Harm to the Environment Than Businesses or Individual
When the subject is the environment, the public perception is that a resource of such importance can only be adequately safeguarded by the benevolent, all-encompassing hands of the government. Whether that protection comes in the guise of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Forest Service, the Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, or any of their variations at the federal, state, and local levels, many citizens fear that leaving environmental (that is, property) stewardship in the hands of “big business” or “selfish” individuals would result in wholesale destruction of our land, water, and air. The zeal with which our legal system handles alleged enemies of the environment grows ever stronger. Individuals are imprisoned for dumping dirt on their own land. Entrepreneurs-even with local and state permits in hand-are brought to trial for violating the decrees of the Army Corps of Engineers by creating new lakes
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and wildlife preserves. Private forestland is declared offlimits to individuals seeking to retire to and build on their own property; selling their own trees will land them in jail. In their efforts to protect the ecology, government agents prohibit development along certain seashores, seek to limit usage of private property that is home to endangered species, to forbid lumber harvesting on “public” lands harboring spotted owls, and to bring more and more wilderness under the protective wing of our dedicated public servants. Yet, as in many other areas of our society, government reveals its contradictions by doing things that harm our environment far more than anything attributable to business or individual citizens. Amazingly, though, the ecological headaches engendered by these darker policies do not dim the luster of governmental activism. Indeed, as is typical of the harm engendered by the state’s ignorance, ineptitude, and intolerance, the resultant problems lead to even more strident calls for further intervention. This seemingly endless cycle only increases the costs we all pay for such bad programs, not only monetarily but in diminished personal freedom and erosion of respect for our legal and governing system. Helping a Few, Harming Many Most of the damage the state does to our environment comes when it seeks to help a particular segment of the population at the expense of the rest. With concentrated benefits and diffused costs masquerading under the mask of “the public good,” these efforts have created many of the most egregious examples of abuse.
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•Water usage has proven to be a favorite excuse offered for state intervention. Farmers benefit from subsidies designed to lower their costs for irrigating their crops. As a result, areas of marginal agricultural potential (especially in the west) are brought under production. Fragile lands are exploited that might otherwise lie fallow. Not only does the resultant overproduction of some commodities lower the prices farmers get for them, but the increased acreage put into crops leads to an acceleration of soil erosion. Subsidized crop insurance further exacerbates the situation. •
Nonfarm citizens also have their water costs subsidized by people in other parts of the country. Dam construction and artificial waterways designed to transport that water enable people to populate such arid regions as Arizona and southern California. Not only does that lead to an explosion in population in those and other areas, natural lands are flooded for reservoirs, water tables are lowered to quench the thirst of newcomers, and water shortages occur during times of lowered rainfall. Rather than letting supply and demand determine the proper usage of water, the government decides how this resource will be distributed. Those dams also provide hydroelectricity below cost, again encouraging settlement of these areas at a higher level than would otherwise occur.
•
Where there is too much water the government again intervenes. Swamps have been drained (in Florida, for example) to encourage development. Now those same areas suffer a dearth of water, endangering the habitat of alligators and various species of birds. Even while prohibiting the cutting of trees in some forests, the government subsidizes the construction of access roads
•
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into other so-called public lands. This leads to an increase in the harvesting of lumber from areas many environmentalists would like to preserve. Wildlife habitat is also threatened. •In a similar vein, state-owned rangelands are overgrazed by cattlemen enjoying lower-thanmarket rates to rent the land. In another example of the “tragedy of the commons” (the overuse of a resource because of the denial of individual ownership), overgrazing also strains local water supplies and contributes to environmental degradation. •While the government is lauded by some and condemned by others for reintroducing wolves into the west, few mention that it was government bounties on these predators (as well as others) that contributed to their decline in the first place. •
•
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Though it prohibits development of some “sensitive” rivers, seashores, and islands, the government encourages building in other such places. On flood plains and along coastlines, homeowners proliferate despite the dangers of recurrent flooding or storm damage. Why? Either they purchase below-market flood insurance or have their property losses covered by a “compassionate” government’s disaster relief that diminishes the cost of choosing to settle in such risky environments. Many of these homeowners rebuild repeatedly, all at the expense of their fellow citizens. Zoning and land-use regulations designed to preserve wetlands and other wildlife habitat diminish the incentive of landowners to convert portions of their property to such uses. Rather than lose control of their property to stifling
edicts, many citizens will choose instead to “sterilize” their land and not convert it to recreational or conservational use. •
Highway construction paid for by the government places roads through woodlands and other habitat regardless of the wishes of the property owners (who are confronted by the use of eminent domain) and regardless of whether it makes economic sense. By also paying for infrastructure costs, the state encourages development in places where it might not otherwise occur. In Brazil, tax incentives and statesubsidized road construction have contributed to the very rain forest destruction so many environmentalists decry– even as they call for more governmental controls.
•
Subsidized freeways contribute to overuse that leads to massive traffic jams and more car exhaust in the atmosphere as autos creep along toward their destinations.
•
Through excessive regulation and the prohibition of such technology as breeder reactors, the government has effectively killed new nuclear-power plant construction in this country, although nuclear power is safer and pollutes less than many traditional power sources, including coal and natural gas.
•
By reducing the wealth of its citizens through taxation, inflation, and regulation, the government makes it more difficult to deal with the legitimate environmental problems we do face. Wealthier societies have the resources to handle such difficulties while poorer ones do not.
Ultimately, it is the state’s violation of property rights that leads to many of the environmental ills laid at the feet of private citizens and businesses. The greatest ecological disasters in the world
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have occurred in those countries where property rights did not exist. (In the former Soviet Union and East Germany, for example, the devastation reached horrific heights.) Through subsidies, regulations, zoning, and eminent domain, the state encourages behavior that increases pressures on the environment. There is nothing inherently wrong with settling in Arizona, with building one’s home on a seashore, or with constructing highways. But it is wrong to force others to share the costs of doing so. A person’s right to his property is inviolable. Whenever the government encourages and sanctions policies that steal that property–whether directly or indirectly–it acts immorally. In terms of environmental protection, the state is not exempt from the law of unintended consequences. Even when acting from good intentions, the government will cause problems where none existed or permit the continuation of problems that adherence to property rights would end. In reality, the issue is not “the government versus the environment” but rather the government versus individuals and their rights. Only destruction can result from failing to understand that. Russell Madden https://fee.org/people/russell-madden/
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“The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.� ~Nelson Henderson
www.veolianorthamerica.com
At Veolia, we provide our customers with innovative solutions that directly support their business operations and goals. We’re uniquely positioned to provide solutions in water, waste and energy that promote sustainability and the circular economy.