Welcome to Bluedot San Diego! Every other Sunday, we share stories about local changemakers, sustainable homes and yards, and the nature all around us, along with planet-friendly recipes and advice from Dear
Dot. Together, we can make a difference for the blue dot we call home.
– Nicki and Jim Miller
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If you purchase anything via one of our links, including from Amazon, we may earn a small commission.
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SIMPLE / SMART / SUSTAINABLE / STORIES
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SIMPLE / SMART / SUSTAINABLE / STORIES
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Get Paid to Plant Trees
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Spring … time for hope and renewal. We Southern Californians are used to friends and family from elsewhere dismissing our seasonal variations, saying, “I could never live there. I’d miss the seasons!” But of course we have seasons. They’re just a little more subtle. (It’s not our fault if they can’t appreciate subtlety.) With the heavy rains this year, it’s feeling particularly verdant out there. So head outside to a favorite place, maybe beneath a tree, and breathe in the season of rebirth! It’s also time to do some gardening. Our garden guru, Laura McLean, writes about a great program that will pay you to plant trees. Cha-CHING!
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Quick Links
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Skip scrolling! Here's what you'll find in today's Bluedot San Diego Newsletter:
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Change is hard. But changing the old ways is necessary to building a greener future. So we’re featuring a pair of stories from co-editor Jim Miller about companies making changes for the better. First, the Salton
Sea has come upon hard times, ecologically and economically, but in a huge win-win, money is pouring into the region to make both clean energy and lithium needed for high-tech batteries. Then, the
Port of San Diego is trying to clean up its act, and the newest member of the fleet is a powerful, cutting-edge electric tugboat.
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Dear Dot: What Are Your Favorite Eco-Cleaning and Beauty Products?
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– Illustration by Elissa Turnbull
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Dear Dot,
I would love to find great, gentle, and good-smelling cleaning and beauty products that are also high-concentration and low-volume, but I’m totally overwhelmed by the vast amount of marketing from many different companies telling me why their product is so great and so much better than everyone else’s. Do you have any fave cleaning products or bar shampoo recommendations?
– Jennifer
Dear Jennifer,
You can assemble a DIY cleaning kit using good old white vinegar, lemons, baking soda, and a bit of castile soap. Since you love scents, add in your favorite essential oils (lavender is a popular one, or anything citrus-y). You’ll not only have all you need to get your home sparkling but you’ll save yourself a small fortune, too. The internet is chock-a-block with do-it-yourself cleaning recipes so get Googling and pick your favorite.
Dot’s favorite? A surface scrub of baking soda and enough water to create a paste. Add a few drops of dish soap. You can make what you need or store extra. If it hardens, just add a bit more water to turn it back into a paste. …
Read the rest of Dot’s answer.
Got a question for Dot? Write her at deardot@bluedotliving.com.
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Paid Advertisement
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BUY LESS/BUY BETTER: Spring Cleaning
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If you purchase anything via one of our links, including from Amazon, we may earn a small commission.
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It’s time for the annual burst of cleaning energy, and our advice is to keep it simple. Baking soda, white vinegar, this 100-year-old scouring product (all on Amazon), and lemons will help you tackle many of your spring cleaning projects. The items below should come in handy for the rest of your list.
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Refillable Cleaners
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Blueland’s effective cleaning concentrates work just like Alka-Seltzer: You just pop in a tab and you’re good to go. You can buy their sets with bottles, or use your own bottles and get refills only.
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Buy now or
read our review.
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Our Fave Paper Towels
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Sometimes you really do want paper towels to pat down a chicken or clean up a hairball. Who Gives a Crap makes great toilet paper and paper towels and donates 50% of profits to charity.
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Buy now
or
read our review.
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We live in a hurried world, but Rick Barr says the secret to getting great nature pics is fighting the urge to rush. “Adopt the pace of nature. Her secret is patience.” Even though Rick counts 70% of his outings as “duds,” he never regrets the time
outside. “When it doesn’t happen, there’s no anger and regret. It’s always good to be out in nature.” And even just a trip to the local pocket park or even your backyard can yield great images.
Do you have a special San Diego nature photo or story to share?
Email sdeditor@bluedotliving.com.
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BLUEDOT KITCHEN: Springtime in France
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It may seem odd for a green website to be pushing pâté, but we’re not talking about cruel fois gras, we’re talking about using a super-nutrient-dense and underutilized part of the yard bird that is also delicious when made right. Chicken livers are generally pretty inexpensive, too. And for some spring veggies, Pascale Beale says, “Every season has its own stars, I believe it’s worth waiting for them.” This is her homage to springtime.
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Lake Tahoe is a California icon, with its dazzling blue waters, and emphasis on outdoor recreation, especially skiing. But as with many outdoor meccas, there’s a fine balance to be
struck between enjoying and protecting the resources that make a place special. The League to Save Lake Tahoe has been fighting to “Keep Tahoe Blue” since 1957, and it’s a fascinating story of an up-and-down
battle, with a lot of messy subplots. Cheers to these protectors of the blue!
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Also, we have other tips to make your lawn “green,” including mowing very little or not mowing at all!
For more Bluedot Climate Quick Tips, click here.
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The Pale Blue Dot
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NASA launched Voyager 1 in 1977, with a planned lifespan of five years, long enough to cruise by Jupiter (about 500 million miles away) and Saturn (about a billion miles distant). But Voyager kept operating and sending back data, and NASA kept extending the mission. Sadly, NASA recently announced that since November 2023 Voyager 1, now 15 billion miles away, is no longer sending back any usable data. NASA is optimistic they can fix the bug on a computer that’s 47 years old and moving at 38,000 miles per hour, with the added complication that it takes over 22 hours for a radio signal to reach the craft.
Of all the tremendous gifts Voyager has given us, the best may be a photo it snapped of Earth on Valentine’s Day 1990 from six billion miles away. Our planet is tiny in the photo, less than a pixel against the vastness of space, appearing slightly blue. Carl Sagan, who worked on the Voyager program, was so moved by the photo, he wrote a whole book inspired by it.
“From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every ‘superstar,’ every ‘supreme leader,’ every saint and sinner in the history of our
species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”
We take our name, Bluedot Living, from that photo and Carl Sagan. So we say, “Long Live Voyager 1!”
We’ll see you in two weeks.
– Nicki and Jim Miller
Editors, Bluedot Living San Diego
sdeditor@bluedotliving.com
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We live in San Diego and love the opportunity to be on the water and in the mountains in one day. Nicki, a writer and editor, and Jim, a writer and environmental economist, are excited
to combine skills as the editors of Bluedot Living San Diego. Since we’re avid cyclists, you may see us riding along the Silver Strand or hitting the trails in Cuyamaca (probably not on the same day). Thank you for joining us on this Bluedot ride!
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