"Remind yourself what it is you're trying save: nature," writes author David de Rothschild in The Live Earth Global Warming Survival Handbook.
Busy with work, errands and household chores, we all too often treat the outdoors simply as an unavoidable transition from the house to the car to the school to our jobs to the store to the restaurant and back home again. If we're not careful, nature simply fades into the background of our lives. That's why we all need Essential Skill #32 in the Handbook:
Get lost in nature.
It's literally time to stop and smell the roses, whether they're in your own front yard or a field of flowers in the Holland.
"There are still 1.8 million square miles of unexplored rainforest in the Brazilian Amazon," writes de Rothschild. "Nearly one-quarter of the Earth's land is mountains waiting to be climbed. There are almost 600,000 miles of coastline -- much of it untouched -- and millions of square miles of glorious desert waiting to be crossed."
In other words, the world we're trying to save from global warming is still alive and well out there. The more we take the time to enjoy it, the harder we'll fight to keep it.
Take the time to enjoy your own backyard at least 15 minutes a day. Get your kids involved in outdoor activities and sports. Take your family camping, hiking, skiing or whitewater rafting. And plan vacations to places where the biggest tourist attractions are the landscapes, not the shopping malls.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Friday, February 22, 2008
Essential Skill #31: Eat Your Veggies
"Which adds more greenhouse gases to our atmosphere, motorized transporation or livestock?"
Based on the title of this post, you can probably guess that answer to David de Rothschild's question in The Live Earth Global Warming Survival Handbook. Or maybe you've already heard. The answer is livestock, which accounts for an astonishing 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Thankfully, there's a simple way to change all that through Essential Skill #31:
Eat your veggies.
Though the meat and dairy industry would love you to believe otherwise -- and spend big money every year making sure you don't change your mind -- you don't need meat or dairy to be healthy. In fact, a vegetarian or vegan diet is healthier, as it's minus much of the fat and cholesterol that leads to heart disease and other complications.
All of this is not to suggest that if you really are a true-green environmentalist, you'll become become vegetarian or vegan overnight. But just like you cut down on your water, electricity and gas use, you can cut down on your support of the livestock industry to help shrink your carbon footprint.
"One pound of meat requires eight times as much energy to produce as one pound of veggie protein such as tofu," write de Rothschild in the Handbook. Add to that the deforestation for pasture land, fertilization of feed crops, methane from animal flatulence and nitrous oxide emitted from manure, and you can see how the greenhouse gases add up quick.
Check out this link to the Mayo Clinic for details on a healthy vegetarian or vegan diet.
If you need any more inspiration to eat your veggies instead of cows, pigs, chickens and other livestock, consider this. Ours is no longer a world of small family farms that respect the animals they're raising. Instead, we're eating animals from the cruel factory-farming system, which treats animals like unfeeling commodities meant only to be bought, killed, packaged and sold. If you want to know the truth that the meat meat and dairy industries do not want you to know, go to The Humane Society of the United States.
Based on the title of this post, you can probably guess that answer to David de Rothschild's question in The Live Earth Global Warming Survival Handbook. Or maybe you've already heard. The answer is livestock, which accounts for an astonishing 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Thankfully, there's a simple way to change all that through Essential Skill #31:
Eat your veggies.
Though the meat and dairy industry would love you to believe otherwise -- and spend big money every year making sure you don't change your mind -- you don't need meat or dairy to be healthy. In fact, a vegetarian or vegan diet is healthier, as it's minus much of the fat and cholesterol that leads to heart disease and other complications.
All of this is not to suggest that if you really are a true-green environmentalist, you'll become become vegetarian or vegan overnight. But just like you cut down on your water, electricity and gas use, you can cut down on your support of the livestock industry to help shrink your carbon footprint.
"One pound of meat requires eight times as much energy to produce as one pound of veggie protein such as tofu," write de Rothschild in the Handbook. Add to that the deforestation for pasture land, fertilization of feed crops, methane from animal flatulence and nitrous oxide emitted from manure, and you can see how the greenhouse gases add up quick.
Check out this link to the Mayo Clinic for details on a healthy vegetarian or vegan diet.
If you need any more inspiration to eat your veggies instead of cows, pigs, chickens and other livestock, consider this. Ours is no longer a world of small family farms that respect the animals they're raising. Instead, we're eating animals from the cruel factory-farming system, which treats animals like unfeeling commodities meant only to be bought, killed, packaged and sold. If you want to know the truth that the meat meat and dairy industries do not want you to know, go to The Humane Society of the United States.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Essential Skill #30: Befriend Your Farmer
"In the U.S., agriculture is responsible for 7 percent of annual greenhouse gas emissions," writes author David de Rothschild in The Live Earth Global Warming Survival Handbook. Much of that can be attributed to the packaging, storage, transportation and chemicals associated with transporting food from thousands of miles away to your local grocery store, as we discussed in last week's essential skill from the Handbook: Count Your Food Miles.
So anyone who wants to reduce their carbon footprint needs to think seriously about buying locally-produced food. The first step is Essential Skill #30:
Befriend your farmer.
"Your local farmers are important global warming fighters, not relics of the past," writes de Rothschild. "Farmer-to-consumer marekts are cutting out fresh food's middlemen.... At farmer's and green markets around the world, producers bring their goods -- from organic vegetables and fruits to farm-made cheese, preserves, and meats -- directly to the market."
Buying organically-grown local produce makes an even bigger difference, as it acts as a "carbon sink." So much so, that "100,000 organic farms will eliminate almost 12 million cars' worth of CO2 in a year. Industrial farming methods do not sink one ounce of carbon."
To find produce grown by local farmers in your area, check out LocalHarvest.org.
So anyone who wants to reduce their carbon footprint needs to think seriously about buying locally-produced food. The first step is Essential Skill #30:
Befriend your farmer.
"Your local farmers are important global warming fighters, not relics of the past," writes de Rothschild. "Farmer-to-consumer marekts are cutting out fresh food's middlemen.... At farmer's and green markets around the world, producers bring their goods -- from organic vegetables and fruits to farm-made cheese, preserves, and meats -- directly to the market."
Buying organically-grown local produce makes an even bigger difference, as it acts as a "carbon sink." So much so, that "100,000 organic farms will eliminate almost 12 million cars' worth of CO2 in a year. Industrial farming methods do not sink one ounce of carbon."
To find produce grown by local farmers in your area, check out LocalHarvest.org.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Essential Skill #29: Count Your Food Miles
"Can you imagine the nightmare if every time you got hungry you needed to travel to the other side of the planet before you could sit down to eat?" asks author David de Rothschild in The Live Earth Global Warming Survival Handbook. "As absurd as this sounds, we're not bothered by the fact that most of our food has to make this same journey to get to us."
In fact, every meal you eat typically travels 22,000 miles for you to buy it in the store. You know what that means to climate change -- lots of greenhouse gas emissions created simply because of our insistence on access to our favorite foods regardless of the season.
Instead of blindly buying whatever food strikes your fancy, try instead Essential Skill #29:
Count your food miles.
Find out what grows close to home. A great place to start is LocalHarvest.org where you can search for markets, restaurants and grocery stores that sell locally-produced foods. You'll not only be saving on greenhouse gas-emitting transporation, but also getting far fresher produce that is richer in vitamins and taste.
As de Rothschild points out, "Why should your food have more frequent-traveler miles than you?"
In fact, every meal you eat typically travels 22,000 miles for you to buy it in the store. You know what that means to climate change -- lots of greenhouse gas emissions created simply because of our insistence on access to our favorite foods regardless of the season.
Instead of blindly buying whatever food strikes your fancy, try instead Essential Skill #29:
Count your food miles.
Find out what grows close to home. A great place to start is LocalHarvest.org where you can search for markets, restaurants and grocery stores that sell locally-produced foods. You'll not only be saving on greenhouse gas-emitting transporation, but also getting far fresher produce that is richer in vitamins and taste.
As de Rothschild points out, "Why should your food have more frequent-traveler miles than you?"
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