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September 04, 2015

The (Green) Lunch Revolution: why forcing kids to eat healthy doesn’t work

September 04, 2015/ Kelly Pemberton

Updated 7/31/2021

The Healthy Lunch campaign to deliver more nutritious meals in schools around the country has sparked a national debate over the role of government in dictating lifestyle choices for the nation’s public school students. Yet the movement for healthier, greener lifestyles did not begin with the US government, nor does it end there. In fact, there have been a number of drivers over the past few years that have pushed us, kicking and screaming, to this point of revolution as a nation.

August 26, 2015

Direct and Indirect Health Effects of Triclosan

August 26, 2015/ Kelly Pemberton

Triclosan is an antibacterial chemical added to most commercial cleaning products that target bacteria. As mentioned here, long-term use of Triclosan may cause a disruption in the endocrine system. The direct and indirect effects of triclosan are important to understand for a healthier and sustainable lifestyle. The concept of “antibacterial” is particularly useful in a critical healthcare setting, but what happens when we over use this chemical in the comfort of our homes and our hormone levels are altered?

August 21, 2015

How the Growing Green Movement Will Benefit You

August 21, 2015/ Kelly Pemberton

Green is good, and it’s getting even better.

You can’t help but notice. There seem to be more organic foods available at your favorite grocery or warehouse shopping store. The media is paying more attention to the development of renewable energy, and some governments and private businesses have begun to invest heavily in this industry. Everyone seems to be talking about climate change. Healthy living is a big buzz word these days: the obesity problem in the US, the farm-to-table movement brought into schools, the importance of eating fresh over processed foods, and the ways that people are being exposed to toxic chemicals in their flooring, child car seats, lotions, sunscreens, and other personal care products have all made major headlines within the past year...

So what does this mean for you, your family, and your wallet?

August 06, 2015

Regulating Carbon Pollution through the Climate Action Plan: Window Dressing or Pathway to an Energy Revolution?

August 06, 2015/ Kelly Pemberton

On Monday, President Obama revealed the final details of his Climate Action Plan, partially fulfilling a campaign promise he made in the lead up to the 2008 elections. Some critics of the Plan claim that it will have a negative impact on the job market, especially in the major coal producing states. Other critics say that it does not go far enough to reduce toxic greenhouse gases and is still subject to being undermined by the judiciary...[T]he Plan does raise an interesting question for the long term: is the regulation of carbon emissions merely a form of political window dressing or can it be a lasting solution to counter the negative effects of climate change?

July 24, 2015

guest post on Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families website→

July 24, 2015/ Kelly Pemberton

Green and Prosperous began as a vehicle for getting the word out about how toxic chemicals are routinely used in the products we buy. The Little Guidebook for Green Moms and Dads is the first ebook in a series of “Green Guidebooks” published by Kelly Pemberton, the face behind Green and Prosperous. AlthoughThe Little Guidebook focuses on children’s products, it has something to offer for everyone. The second edition of this ebook is available for download on Amazon.com...

June 23, 2015

The Green Revolution in the MENA: linking environmentalism and social justice one step at a time

June 23, 2015/ Kelly Pemberton

Last month I was invited to give a lecture at the American University of Kuwait on Religion Gender, and Environmentalism in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa). Although environmentalism in the Middle East is a topic I don’t know much about, it was a chance to merge my professional expertise in the MENA region and my activism at Green and Prosperous. I just couldn’t resist...

May 12, 2015

The Chemicals We Live With

May 12, 2015/ Kelly Pemberton

As a consumer, you should be aware of what toxic synthetic chemicals are in the products you purchase and use. The point here is not to scare or alarm you but to inform and equip you to minimize your exposure to harmful, disease-causing toxins as much as possible.

How can you make the transition to less exposure at a pace that suits you?

April 04, 2015

Formaldehyde: the hype and the facts

April 04, 2015/ Kelly Pemberton

There was a predictable panic that followed a "60 Minutes" report that blamed Lumber Liquidators for offering laminate flooring, manufactured in China, which was tainted with larger-than-permitted levels of formaldehyde. While the company continues to do damage control, in part by offering buyers free home air quality test kits, many people who have purchased the tainted products have wondered whether the flooring has already done irreparable harm to their health. Formaldehyde is a known cancer-causing agent, and little bodies (which may like to squirm and crawl or lay on the floor) are especially vulnerable to its toxic effects.

In cases like these, it’s a good idea to separate the hype from the facts and think about the real risks, and what you can do about them, if you fear that you may have been exposed. And most likely, you and your children have already been exposed to formaldehyde many times over, even if you never purchased tainted laminate floors from Lumber Liquidators. That’s because formaldehyde is already in a lot of the ordinary, indispensable things that are in, or on your house, or on your body.

March 16, 2015

The (grim? hopeful?) future of small-scale farming in 2015

March 16, 2015/ Kelly Pemberton

This year’s news for small farmers is a sobering reminder that there is still a long way to go to achieving a real, sustainable “movement” that could also help small-scale farmers. According to a report released last month by the US Department of Agriculture, farmers’ incomes are projected to drop by as much as 34% in 2015 as compared to the 2014 forecast. In this grim scenario, the Northern Crescent region of the U.S. is expected to be hardest hit. Some of the reasons for this decline are lower crop yields, lower crop prices and higher costs of doing business.

Despite the ongoing challenges small-scale farmers face, there are some encouraging reasons to pay attention to small-scale farming in 2015, and to understand its importance for the (local and global) economy, the environment, and for reducing your exposure to toxins in the food you and your children consume, whether or not you patronize your local farms.

August 22, 2014

What you can do about Climate Change

August 22, 2014/ Kelly Pemberton

The July 3rd post featured my interview with Moms Clean Air Force National Field Manager Gretchen Dahlkemper-Alfonso. This week’s post continues the conversation about the climate change agenda, drawing on information from that interview and from recent studies that suggest that that time for sounding the warning bell is over: now is the time for taking action.

Taking action on climate change is not just something for policy makers and governments to tackle: there are things you can do, too. So we end this post with a list of 6 things you can do to take action on global climate change problems. But before we get to that it’s important to understand something about why action now is so crucial, and so timely…

July 03, 2014

Everybody’s talking clean air and climate change again

July 03, 2014/ Kelly Pemberton

By many accounts, more so than ever before, climate change today is the biggest environmental issue of our time. No one in this world is unaffected by it, and it has not only environmental consequences, but also economic, political, and social ones.

Whatever the reasons, people are beginning to listen to the chorus of voices that have been pushing for the US to get serious about climate change. One of these voices belongs to Gretchen Dahlkemper-Alfonso, who I interviewed this past June. We talked about changes in the everyday awareness of people about environmental management in general and climate change in particular, why climate change is the biggest environmental challenge of our time, and what ordinary people can do to address it, when so many our political leaders here in the US seem unable or unwilling to get serious about passing substantive legislation that will deal with climate change and the things that are driving it.

May 11, 2014

The importance of eating local

May 11, 2014/ Kelly Pemberton

When you eat fruits and vegetables that are in season, there is less of a need for the farmers who grow those crops to use pesticides on them. Locally produced and distributed fruits and vegetables are growing at a time when they would normally grow, and consequently, farmers don’t have to over-protect them. There are many other good reasons to eat locally. Six of them are the topics of this post:

March 06, 2014

Does eating tilapia lead to heart disease?

March 06, 2014/ Kelly Pemberton

Should you eat tilapia?

We all know that eating a Mediterranean diet leads to a longer, healthier life. A big part of this diet is fish.

Not all fish are created equal, though. In fact, some doctors have claimed that eating certain kinds of fish may be worse than eating a slab of pork bacon, a box of doughnuts, or a fat, juicy hamburger!

What determines whether any particular kind of fish is good or bad for your health depends on a number of factors...

February 22, 2014

The Chemicals We Don’t Know: is West VA’s Chemical Spill Just The Tip Of The Iceberg?

February 22, 2014/ Kelly Pemberton

Five and a half weeks after a chemical spill in West VA and we still don’t know much about the chemical, Crude MCHM, that has alarmed officials in the state and increasingly, across the country. What little we do know gives a false sense of security: used to process coal, MCHM is made up almost entirely of the chemical called 4-methylcyclohexanemethol. It is listed in the Toxnet chemical database of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as a skin, eye, and respiratory system irritant. The CDC conducted a study that recommended 1ppm (part per million) for safe levels of MCHM in drinking water (as of a week ago, the group Appalachian Voices’ Appalachian Water Watch reported that levels of MCHM just near the site of the spill was 1.130 ppm).

This recommendation, and the implication that it MCHM is now undergoing intense evaluation, may be giving some people a false sense of security...

February 06, 2014

A cheaper green? How to shop for healthy and eco-friendly products on a budget

February 06, 2014/ Kelly Pemberton

A couple of weeks ago I was shopping at Whole Foods and noticed that the person in the aisle next to me had a shopping cart full of items. In fact, while wandering through the store looking for a marinade I used to use years ago, apparently no longer sold by Whole Foods (maybe too overpriced?), I noticed quite a few people with shopping carts full. None of them seemed to be to be the type of people who had money to burn. Now looks alone are no judge, but I wondered, how the heck can people afford to do so much of their grocery shopping at Whole Foods? Very few of the people I Having joked with the staff on many occasions about how it was impossible to get out of the store for under $30, I was pretty surprised to see more than a handful of people buying what struck me as hundreds of dollars’ worth of groceries.

There are cheaper options than Whole Foods, of course.