Organic cotton.  I've seen bamboo toothbrushes, bowls and cutting boards but I don't know the full range of bamboo products.

This is an excellent question, one I'm not sure I know the answer to.  The climate action group, 350, is committed to systemic change and I try to support what they do.  Rather than just, say, biking to work themselves, they try to advocate for infrastructure that makes biking a more attractive option themselves.  For instance, they helped pass the Portland Clean Energy Act and are working for the Clean Energy Jobs bill.  I am in the very beginning stages of trying to connect with our civic leaders about the climate crisis.  From this challenge, I see that very few people opted to contact elected leaders and I have heard them say on several occasions "The feedback we are getting from the community shows..." So lets give them some feedback!

Informing parents that having period is natural and not a sickness. The country where I grew up many people believe that they should keep their girls home during that time of the month.  

4 minute showers!  You can also put a bucket in your shower to catch water as it warms up and use that to water plants.  In droughts, people don't flush every time unless they had a number 2.  If this is too radical, even just one person in the household flushing 3 fewer times a day would make a significant difference. "If its yellow let it mellow." Oregon was in drought through the winter, and it has been affecting crops and livestock.  Just put the lid down.  Its your own toilet, who's to judge?  Its no different from having a garbage can under your sink and waiting to empty it until you need to.  It doesn't make it any harder to clean and it isn't a health hazard.

The kids and the forest fires. I've lived in this state for 38 years and I know what is normal weather.  When I realized that the forest fires that were sending toxic smoke into our town were not a one-time thing, I started to do some digging and learned that climate change is here and its huge.  As one WWF director was quoted as saying, "Nature isn't just nice to have. We need it for our survival." Water supplies, food supplies, being able to be outside without freezing, overheating or choking on smoke, and the increased spread of diseases are all impacted by climate change.  Renewable energy and how and what we eat have a monumental effect on carbon emissions. Increasing renewable potential in our state is one of the best things I  can do to lessen climate change. 

Wow.  Palm oil is just the beginning.  Lots of tropical crops, if the forest is cut down to clear land, destroy the rainforest.  Shade-grown for coffee and other things usually means grown within the forest.  The Rainforest Action Network evaluates companies and puts a little tree frog symbol on those things that don't destroy the rain forest.  Happily, I was able to identify things I can enjoy without contributing to the burning of forests.  The crispy kind (only) of Pepperidge Farms cookies and some MI-DEL cookies are grown without Palm Oil, otherwise I can bake my own. For chocolate, Chocolove, Dagoba, Newman's own, and Seattle Chocolates among others are rainforest friendly.  I know these brands and I am overjoyed to be able to eat chocolate in good conscience.

I think during the westward expansion we didn't have established croplands, so hunting and ranching provided filling nourishment for a population on the move. We got those sorts of meat-centric recipes ingrained in our culture, and having meat started to feel like a mark of satiety and security.  Nowadays we are no longer on the move, so our calorie intake is excessive and we use the majority of our food-growing area to feed the cattle rather than ourselves.  There are so many more of us and we don't need to eat as much meat as we do, and the carbon emissions from meat production are one of the top 5 contributors to climate change.  It's time for a change, a time to grow up and enable our future instead of living in the past.

I am on a list of individuals ready to sign up for the Master Recyclers program for Washington County in the Fall.  I can't wait.  I am very interested in find out more about items which are not recyclable in your curbside recycling bin--I want to know where/how else to recycle those harder items and become a knowledgeable resource for others in my community.

I feel like I already did an "ok" job with these labels, but I also shared what I learned with my husband, whom is FAR more likely to throw food out based on the label.  Hopefully this is something we can get better about, now that we are more aware of the fact that the labels are not based on actual data and at the discretion of the company trying to get people to buy their product.