We all know that eating more fresh Raw vegan foods will help in the departments of being happier, healthier and reducing stress. But, here are 6 other ways that can help:
1. Gardening & Greenery
According to Patricia Farrell, PhD., surrounding yourself with nature's greenery can increase oxygen levels and help you experience more peace. In fact, one British study found that gardening can actually be as effective as pyschotherapy - and I suspect that anybody who gardens will agree!
2. Journaling
Turning to pen and paper is a great way to reduce stress. The simple act of putting your feelings and experiences down on paper and getting them out of your system can be cathartic. I've been journaling for years (and I've saved them all and they make for great reads years later!).
3. Painting, Drawing, Sewing, Knitting
These activities require concentration and can help you take your mind off issues that might be causing stress. It can become almost meditative, forcing you to be mindfully present.
4. Singing
This is one of my favorites! Singing has been shown to help boost your health by raising immunity-boosting white blood cells. Now, you might need to keep in mind the people you're around if your singing voice isn't so good or you might actually increase their stress - ha ha! - even though you're helping yours. Any one watch American Idol? You know what I mean.
5. Dancing
Oh yeah! This is another favorite of mine... that's a picture of me dancing in the produce department at Whole Foods (they haven't kicked me out yet so I guess they don't mind!). Dancing can release those awesome, high-inducing, feel-good endorphins. Dancing is exercise so it helps you lose weight, lower blood pressure and boost the flow of oxygen to your brain. Next time you want to boost your mood and health, put on some fun tunes (disco music for me) and shake your groove thing!
6. Nature
Spending time in nature can be such a calming experience. One of my favorite things to do is go on long nature walks or take short road trips. I find such peace, and my mind opens up to new ideas and inspiration. Taking time to do this is important, so be sure to make it at least a semi-regular ritual, such as once a month, if not more, depending on where you live.
Showing posts with label choose this: live close to nature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label choose this: live close to nature. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Gibran: Earth delights to feel your bare feet...
Khalil Gibran (1883-1931)
Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
5 Minutes Outside Can Boost Your Mood A new study shows being outside, even for just 5 minutes, makes you feel good about life and about yourself.
5 Minutes Outside Can Boost Your Mood
A new study shows being outside, even for just 5 minutes, makes you feel good about life and about yourself.
By Emily Main
Find ways to get 5 minutes of outdoor exposure into your day: A quick walk or a short gardening session is really all it takes.
RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—The next time you're looking for a natural mood elevator, turn to nature itself. A new study published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology confirms what anyone who's experienced a sunny-day high already knows: Nature is almost foolproof at boosting your mood and self-esteem. And, amazingly, it only takes five minutes.
THE DETAILS: Professor Jules Pretty and colleagues at the University of Essex in the UK analyzed findings from 10 separate studies that measured self-esteem and mood after people engaged in "green exercise": cycling, walking, running, gardening, farming, and water-based activities like fishing or sailing. In each of the studies, participants' self-esteem and mood were measured before and after the activities using a standard psychological test. The Essex researchers also assessed study variables such as exposure time outdoors, exercise intensity, type of green space (urban parks, rural setting, forest, and so forth), as well as subjects’ age and mental-health status.
Regardless of what they were doing or where they were doing it, all subjects saw improvements in self-esteem and mood after exercising outdoors. People saw the greatest self-esteem changes while doing light-intensity exercise and after being outside for just five minutes. The biggest mood changes occurred after light- and vigorous-intensity workouts—also after just five minutes. (Note: Self-esteem and mood continued to improve with longer workouts, but the changes were greatest after five minutes.) Around water seemed the most uplifting places to exercise, and while all age groups saw mood and self-esteem boosts, people between the ages of 30 and 50 experienced the greatest lift.
WHAT IT MEANS: "For 300,000 generations, humans were hunter-gatherers and farmers,” says Pretty. “Yet for the last six to eight generations, we have been living in an increasingly industrialized world. The disconnection from nature is deeply felt." Which is why a mere five minutes of nature can have such a profound impact, he says.
Please read the full article: http://www.rodale.com/natural-mood-elevator?cm_mmc=DailyNewsNL-_-2010_05_07-_-Top5-_-NA
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A new study shows being outside, even for just 5 minutes, makes you feel good about life and about yourself.
By Emily Main
Find ways to get 5 minutes of outdoor exposure into your day: A quick walk or a short gardening session is really all it takes.
RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—The next time you're looking for a natural mood elevator, turn to nature itself. A new study published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology confirms what anyone who's experienced a sunny-day high already knows: Nature is almost foolproof at boosting your mood and self-esteem. And, amazingly, it only takes five minutes.
THE DETAILS: Professor Jules Pretty and colleagues at the University of Essex in the UK analyzed findings from 10 separate studies that measured self-esteem and mood after people engaged in "green exercise": cycling, walking, running, gardening, farming, and water-based activities like fishing or sailing. In each of the studies, participants' self-esteem and mood were measured before and after the activities using a standard psychological test. The Essex researchers also assessed study variables such as exposure time outdoors, exercise intensity, type of green space (urban parks, rural setting, forest, and so forth), as well as subjects’ age and mental-health status.
Regardless of what they were doing or where they were doing it, all subjects saw improvements in self-esteem and mood after exercising outdoors. People saw the greatest self-esteem changes while doing light-intensity exercise and after being outside for just five minutes. The biggest mood changes occurred after light- and vigorous-intensity workouts—also after just five minutes. (Note: Self-esteem and mood continued to improve with longer workouts, but the changes were greatest after five minutes.) Around water seemed the most uplifting places to exercise, and while all age groups saw mood and self-esteem boosts, people between the ages of 30 and 50 experienced the greatest lift.
WHAT IT MEANS: "For 300,000 generations, humans were hunter-gatherers and farmers,” says Pretty. “Yet for the last six to eight generations, we have been living in an increasingly industrialized world. The disconnection from nature is deeply felt." Which is why a mere five minutes of nature can have such a profound impact, he says.
Please read the full article: http://www.rodale.com/natural-
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Sunday, March 28, 2010
Thinking Like a Mountain by Aldo Leopold
Wolves and Deforestation
Thinking Like a Mountain
By Aldo Leopold
A deep chesty bawl echoes from rimrock to rimrock, rolls down the mountain, and fades into the far blackness of the night. It is an outburst of wild defiant sorrow, and of contempt for all the adversities of the world. Every living thing (and perhaps many a dead one as well) pays heed to that call. To the deer it is a reminder of the way of all flesh, to the pine a forecast of midnight scuffles and of blood upon the snow, to the coyote a promise of gleanings to come, to the cowman a threat of red ink at the bank, to the hunter a challenge of fang against bullet. Yet behind these obvious and immediate hopes and fears there lies a deeper meaning, known only to the mountain itself. Only the mountain has lived long enough to listen objectively to the howl of a wolf. Those unable to decipher the hidden meaning know nevertheless that it is there, for it is felt in all wolf country, and distinguishes that country from all other land. It tingles in the spine of all who hear wolves by night, or who scan their tracks by day. Even without sight or sound of wolf, it is implicit in a hundred small events: the midnight whinny of a pack horse, the rattle of rolling rocks, the bound of a fleeing deer, the way shadows lie under the spruces. Only the ineducable tyro can fail to sense the presence or absence of wolves, or the fact that mountains have a secret opinion about them.
My own conviction on this score dates from the day I saw a wolf die. We were eating lunch on a high rimrock, at the foot of which a turbulent river elbowed its way. We saw what we thought was a doe fording the torrent, her breast awash in white water. When she climbed the bank toward us and shook out her tail, we realized our error: it was a wolf. A half-dozen others, evidently grown pups, sprang from the willows and all joined in a welcoming melee of wagging tails and playful maulings. What was literally a pile of wolves writhed and tumbled in the center of an open flat at the foot of our rimrock.
In those days we had never heard of passing up a chance to kill a wolf. In a second we were pumping lead into the pack, but with more excitement than accuracy: how to aim a steep downhill shot is always confusing. When our rifles were empty, the old wolf was down, and a pup was dragging a leg into impassable slide-rocks.
We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes - something known only to her and to the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters' paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.
Since then I have lived to see state after state extirpate its wolves. I have watched the face of many a newly wolfless mountain, and seen the south-facing slopes wrinkle with a maze of new deer trails. I have seen every edible bush and seedling browsed, first to anaemic desuetude, and then to death. I have seen every edible tree defoliated to the height of a saddlehorn. Such a mountain looks as if someone had given God a new pruning shears, and forbidden Him all other exercise. In the end the starved bones of the hoped-for deer herd, dead of its own too-much, bleach with the bones of the dead sage, or molder under the high-lined junipers.
I now suspect that just as a deer herd lives in mortal fear of its wolves, so does a mountain live in mortal fear of its deer. And perhaps with better cause, for while a buck pulled down by wolves can be replaced in two or three years, a range pulled down by too many deer may fail of replacement in as many decades. So also with cows. The cowman who cleans his range of wolves does not realize that he is taking over the wolf's job of trimming the herd to fit the range. He has not learned to think like a mountain. Hence we have dustbowls, and rivers washing the future into the sea.
We all strive for safety, prosperity, comfort, long life, and dullness. The deer strives with his supple legs, the cowman with trap and poison, the statesman with pen, the most of us with machines, votes, and dollars, but it all comes to the same thing: peace in our time. A measure of success in this is all well enough, and perhaps is a requisite to objective thinking, but too much safety seems to yield only danger in the long run. Perhaps this is behind Thoreau's dictum: In wildness is the salvation of the world. Perhaps this is the hidden meaning in the howl of the wolf, long known among mountains, but seldom perceived among men.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
The Island Where People Live Longer
The Island Where People Live Longer
Author Dan Buettner has traveled the globe visiting "Blue Zones," where people tend to live longer and lead healthier lives.
NPR
Saturday, May 2, 2009
(link to the full article below)
Making it to 90 years old is awe-inspiring in much of the world. But on a tiny Greek island in the North Aegean Sea, nonagenarians barely merit a second glance.
The island of Icaria could be the newest of the world's so-called blue zones — places where residents have unusually long life spans.
Dan Buettner has crossed the globe many times over the years in search of blue zones, and he recently teamed up with AARP and National Geographic to study Icaria.
Buettner and a team of demographers work with census data to identify blue zones around the world. They found Icaria had the highest percentage of 90-year-olds anywhere on the planet — nearly 1 out of 3 people make it to their 90s.
Plus, Buettner says, "they have about 20 percent lower rates of cancer, 50 percent lower rates of heart disease and almost no dementia."
Our life spans are about 20 percent dictated by our genes, Buettner says. The rest is lifestyle. People in Icaria live in mountain villages that necessitate activity every day. "They have gardens," he says, for example. "If they go to church, if they go to their friends' house — it always occasions a small walk. But that ends up burning much more calories than going to a gym for 20 minutes a day."
"They also have a diet that's very interesting," Buettner continues. "It's very high in olive oil; it's very high in fruits and vegetables." It's also very high in greens; about 150 kinds of veggies grow wild on the island. "These greens have somewhere around 10 times the level of antioxidants in red wine."
And though they live on an island, Icarians don't eat much fish. Buettner says pirates pushed the culture up in the highlands and villagers couldn't depend on the sea as much as might be expected.
To read the full article: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103744881
Author Dan Buettner has traveled the globe visiting "Blue Zones," where people tend to live longer and lead healthier lives.
NPR
Saturday, May 2, 2009
(link to the full article below)
Making it to 90 years old is awe-inspiring in much of the world. But on a tiny Greek island in the North Aegean Sea, nonagenarians barely merit a second glance.
The island of Icaria could be the newest of the world's so-called blue zones — places where residents have unusually long life spans.
Dan Buettner has crossed the globe many times over the years in search of blue zones, and he recently teamed up with AARP and National Geographic to study Icaria.
Buettner and a team of demographers work with census data to identify blue zones around the world. They found Icaria had the highest percentage of 90-year-olds anywhere on the planet — nearly 1 out of 3 people make it to their 90s.
Plus, Buettner says, "they have about 20 percent lower rates of cancer, 50 percent lower rates of heart disease and almost no dementia."
Our life spans are about 20 percent dictated by our genes, Buettner says. The rest is lifestyle. People in Icaria live in mountain villages that necessitate activity every day. "They have gardens," he says, for example. "If they go to church, if they go to their friends' house — it always occasions a small walk. But that ends up burning much more calories than going to a gym for 20 minutes a day."
"They also have a diet that's very interesting," Buettner continues. "It's very high in olive oil; it's very high in fruits and vegetables." It's also very high in greens; about 150 kinds of veggies grow wild on the island. "These greens have somewhere around 10 times the level of antioxidants in red wine."
And though they live on an island, Icarians don't eat much fish. Buettner says pirates pushed the culture up in the highlands and villagers couldn't depend on the sea as much as might be expected.
To read the full article: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103744881
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
The Real Food Diet
The Real Food Diet
http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/healthy-recipes-47012605?src=nl&mag=tdg&list=dgr&kw=ist
1. Eat Food. Not too Much. Mostly Plants.
Michael Pollan wrote it. Live it.
2. Eat Super Foods.
Super foods pack the most nutrients into each serving. Use our Superfood Index, which pairs the most nutritious foods with delicious recipes.
3. Eat Real Foods.
Whether you concerned about salmonella in peanut butter and bisphenol A residue from foods packed in plastic, or just plain confused by misleading food labels, less-processed foods are the answer.
4. Eat Local.
Get your foods locally, so you can ask your farmer how she grows her food, and how she cares for the soil.
5. Eat In Season.
Get your nutrition from foods that are in season whenever possible to ensure freshness and reduce food miles.
http://www.thedailygreen.com/
1. Eat Food. Not too Much. Mostly Plants.
Michael Pollan wrote it. Live it.
2. Eat Super Foods.
Super foods pack the most nutrients into each serving. Use our Superfood Index, which pairs the most nutritious foods with delicious recipes.
3. Eat Real Foods.
Whether you concerned about salmonella in peanut butter and bisphenol A residue from foods packed in plastic, or just plain confused by misleading food labels, less-processed foods are the answer.
4. Eat Local.
Get your foods locally, so you can ask your farmer how she grows her food, and how she cares for the soil.
5. Eat In Season.
Get your nutrition from foods that are in season whenever possible to ensure freshness and reduce food miles.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Cherokee prayer to respect and honor nature
"Let me walk in beauty and make my eyes behold the red and purple sunset. Make my hand respect the things you have made, my ears sharp to hear your voice. Make me wise, so that I may know the things you have taught my people, the lessons you have hidden in every rock and leaf." -Cherokee prayer, early 1800s
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Norman Wirzba introducing Wendell Berry
From Norman Wirzba's introduction to The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry
"Though more of us than ever before live a life of luxury and ease, fewer of us can claim that our lives are permeated with peace and joy. The frantic, stressful striving going on all around us indicates that we are profoundly lost. We seem unable to ask with any seriousness or depth the question of what all our striving is ultimately for.
Where can we turn for help and direction? In the same essay ["A Native Hill" (1969)] Berry concluded that the source of help cannot come from within ourselves for 'it is not from ourselves that we will learn to be better than we are.' The path towards wholeness depends on our discovery and acknowledgement of, and then response to, a greater goodness that contextualizes us. Our fundamental mistake is that we have presumed to be the authors of ourselves and our destinies, and thus have forgotten or denied that we are part of 'a great coauthorship in which we are all collaborating with God and with nature in the making of ourselves and one another.' We can only become what we truly are by acknowledging that we do not exist by, from, and for ourselves. Our lives are always rooted in a natural and cultural community, so that to cut ourselves off from these roots, whether that be in the name of progress or human liberation, is to ensure the eventual withering and then death of life. Once we have forgotten or denied our biological kinship with the earth and its inhabitants, it is hardly an accident that so much of human spiritual life is premised on an escape from rather than an affirmation of this life."
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Happy New Year
Text of this ecard written by Heather Havey, as a prayer for you all:
May we experience delight, joy, astonishment, mystery, & beauty, for these fill hearts with peace. these are gifts & examples of nature - God as form.
May we experience love & care -
these are gifts & examples of essence - God as formless.
Earth is a mirror of God; so are you.
May we listen to rivers, thank oceans, learn from animals, play with dogs, swim with fishes, serve birds, behold wilderness, feel wind, plant trees, grow food, watch life grow, replace lawn with wildflower & garden habitats, honor organic, choose no poison, build bat & bee homes, encounter willdness, remember the miracles & beauty of all forms, & enjoy the silence that designs & guides it all.
All life is sacred, including you.
~ Lalita (Heather Havey)
© 2004-2009 Peace Through Kindness
John Francis - a wonderful hero & example for our new year
"As we walk upon the road we meet ourselves. And at the end, perhaps we'll find that there are no sides to take, no ememies of state, no arguments against the other. There's only death that waits. But on this tiny planet, and in this precious moment, we have the chance to live in peace together. If only we could take a walk." ~John Francis
an interview with john francis about his years of walking and silence, in honor of the earth:
http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2005/05/10/hertsgaard-francis/
His nonprofit organization: PlanetWalk
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Wendell Berry
"I dream of a quiet man who explains nothing and defends nothing, but only knows where the rarest wildflowers are blooming, and who goes, and finds that he is smiling not by his own will."
-Wendell Berry, from II, Sabbaths 1999, in "Given"
Some of his most awesome books:
A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems 1979-1997
The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry
A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems 1979-1997
Wendell Berry and the Cultivation of Life: A Reader's Guide
The Mad Farmer Poems
The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture
-Wendell Berry, from II, Sabbaths 1999, in "Given"
Some of his most awesome books:
A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems 1979-1997
The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry
A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems 1979-1997
Wendell Berry and the Cultivation of Life: A Reader's Guide
The Mad Farmer Poems
The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture
Wendell Berry
"I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief... For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free."
~ Wendell Berry
Some of his most awesome books:
The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry
A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems 1979-1997
Wendell Berry and the Cultivation of Life: A Reader's Guide
The Mad Farmer Poems
The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture
~ Wendell Berry
Some of his most awesome books:
The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry
A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems 1979-1997
Wendell Berry and the Cultivation of Life: A Reader's Guide
The Mad Farmer Poems
The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture
Wendell Berry
"What I stand for is what I stand on."
~ Wendell Berry
Some of his most awesome books:
The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry
A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems 1979-1997
Wendell Berry and the Cultivation of Life: A Reader's Guide
The Mad Farmer Poems
The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture
~ Wendell Berry
Some of his most awesome books:
The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry
A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems 1979-1997
Wendell Berry and the Cultivation of Life: A Reader's Guide
The Mad Farmer Poems
The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture
Thursday, December 18, 2008
9 Christmas Gifts You Can Give To Your Mother - Earth
9 Christmas Gifts You Can Give to Your Mother ... Earth
By Tara Lohan, AlterNet
December 17, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/113131
http://www.alternet.org/water/113131/
http://www.alternet.org/story/113131/
You'll read a lot this time of year about "green" gift guides. But are solar-powered cell phone chargers really the greenest gift we can come up with? Sure they save electricity, but what about the environmental impact of their manufacturing and shipping? If you really want to do something good this holiday season, what about putting Mother Earth at the top of your shopping list? It may help clean up the air and water, cut down on CO2 emissions, and it will save you a trip to the mall.
1. Stay Home
One of the best things you can do for the planet is fix up your own nest with holiday cheer and enjoy the festivities with loved ones near by. Airline travel is one of the biggest parts of our carbon footprint, and buses, cars and trains have big impacts as well.
As the Low Impact Living blog points out:
Our leisure travel by car alone accounts for over 9 billion gallons of fuel and 90 millions tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) each year. Air travel tacks on 140-plus million tons more of CO2. That's a huge amount of CO2 emissions -- taken together it represents more than the entire annual emissions of countries like Venezuela or the Netherlands!
To put this all in a personal context, if you drove roundtrip from Los Angeles to Kansas City, you'd put out 1.5 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2), whereas if you flew, you'd be responsible for 2.2 tons. If you took a train, you'd contribute 0.9 tons. For you international vagabonds, if you flew from Los Angeles to Paris, you'd have put out 4.4 tons of CO2 (and yes, we know you can't drive).
Even if you recycle all your wrapping paper, you'll be hard-pressed to make up for a ton of travel miles.
2. Save a Tree
While some can make a case for the environmental benefits of tree farms, if you celebrate Christmas, think about planting a tree instead of cutting one down (or more likely, paying someone to fell it for you and truck it to the city or town where you live). There are lots of great programs abroad and in your own community. The environmental advocacy group NRDC supports a rain-forest restoration program in Costa Rica, where for just $10 you can have a tree planted. You can also make the donation in someone's name as a gift, too.
While there are a bunch of programs like this, I also think it's great to do something in your own community. Here in San Francisco, we've got an amazing group called Friends of the Urban Forest, which plants groups of trees that help clean up and green up neighborhoods. Most cities and many towns have similar programs. While you may not get to decorate these trees, you can enjoy them day after day.
3. Invest in Sustainability
The holiday season is prime fundraising time for thousands of worthy organizations, and while it is great donate to the ones that you support, you can also put your money where your heart is in another way. Consider making an investment in a community instead of a donation. The organization MicroPlace makes this super easy by giving you the opportunity to make small investments -- or loans -- to help lift people out of poverty. To a person living on a dollar a day, $20 or $50 of capital can mean the chance to build or expand small businesses and ensure income for their family. The best part is your money comes back to you over time, and you can invest again, and the gift keeps going.
Here's an example:
Consider the story of Puja Patel, a single mother who lives with her four children in a village in India. With a $50 loan, she bought a sewing machine. She made clothes, sold them for a profit and repaid the loan, with interest. She was also able to save some money to buy books and send her children to the local school. This is microfinance in action.
4. Start Valuing Water
Everyone is abuzz about energy and how much of our precious oil we have left, but a water crisis is afoot, even here in the United States, where 36 states are facing water scarcity in the next five years. And this is one liquid resource we can't find any alternatives for. There are lots of ways to save water in your home -- some that require a little more effort than others. One of the best, and most fun ways, is to collect rainwater. It's easy and and free (once you get your barrel set up), and you can use the water for your garden, plants or lawn. The EPA reports that, "Nationwide, landscape irrigation is estimated to account for almost one-third of all residential water use, totaling more than 7 billion gallons per day." You can also reuse gray water for flushing toilets.
There are also other ways you can save water, beside the usual low-flow options for sinks, toilets and showers (that should be a given by now), and that's in food and energy. According to the Stockholm International Water Institute, it takes more than 1,500 gallons of water to produce the food eaten eat day by the average American. And while we can save water by not eating lettuce grown in Arizona, we can also do really simple things like not waste our food -- according to this study, each year we throw away about $43.3 billion worth of food.
You can also cut down on your energy use, which is a huge source of water use. Over half of us in the United States get our energy from coal-burning power plants, and the Union of Concerned Scientists points out that, "a typical 500-megawatt coal-fired power plant draws about 2.2 billion gallons of water each year from nearby water bodies such as lakes, rivers or oceans to create steam for turning its turbines. This is enough water to support a city of approximately 250,000 people."
5. Buy a CSA Share
The benefits of local food are immeasurable -- and one of the best ways to eat local is by supporting small farmers by getting a Community Support Agriculture share. Basically, you just sign up with a CSA farm to receive a weekly box of whatever is fresh -- veggies, fruit and sometimes other goodies like eggs. This way you get fresh food every week, grown by folks in your community and it travels a very short distance to get to you (According to a study from the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University, "the produce in the average American dinner is trucked 1,500 miles to get to the plate, up 22 percent in the past two decades.")
Eating local food and eating lower on the food chain, like fruits and veggies, is a big plus for the environment. A report from the United Nations found that eating meat is, "one of the ... most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global." And eating outside the industrial agriculture system saves on pesticides, pollution and water. Worldwide, agriculture is our biggest water guzzler, and the same is true in parts of the United States, like California.
If you're into the giving spirit you can also give a CSA share to someone as a gift -- a friend or loved one, or even a community member in need. Here's a great link to find one need you.
6. Grow Your Own Greens
Being part of CSA is fun, but if you have the space, try getting your own hands dirty by starting a food-growing garden or turning your lawn into something edible. When it comes to healthy eating, there is nothing more satisfying then being able to eat food you've grown and picked yourself. And, organic farming is a great way to combat climate change. Research from the Rodale Institute shows that "organically managed soils can store (sequester) more than 1,000 pounds of carbon per acre, while nonorganic systems can cause carbon loss."
If you currently have a lawn, considering switching to an "edible estate," as the organization and book by Fritz Haeg suggests. Here are a few facts that may make you reconsider trying to keep your green lawn:
* Of 30 commonly used lawn pesticides, 17 are detected in groundwater, 23 have the ability to leach into drinking water sources, 24 are toxic to fish and other aquatic organisms vital to our ecosystem, 11 are toxic to bees and 16 are toxic to birds. (National Coalition for Pesticide-Free Lawns)
* Homeowners use up to 10 times more chemical pesticides per acre on their lawns than farmers use on crops. (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)
* North Americans now devote 40,000 square miles to lawns, more than we use for wheat, corn or even tobacco. (The Lawn: North America's Magnificent Obsession by Robert Fulford)
* Americans spend $750 million a year on grass seed alone and more than $25 billion on do-it-yourself lawn and garden care. (From the exhibit at CCA, "The American Lawn: Surface of Everyday Life")
You can find great resources and photos about edible estates on their Web site.
7. Join Forces with Community Members
If you don't have a lawn or yard of your own, fear not -- there are 10,000 community gardens in the United States that you can join. And if you can't find one in your area, then consider teaming up with your neighbors to start your own. It has great "environmental, economic and social impacts on a neighborhood," as Urban Community Gardens points out.
Not only are people in communities getting together to grow food, but there are also tool-sharing networks cropping up, as well, that help people share the cost of owning tools that can be used for gardening or home improvements. Need help getting those new solar panels up? Consider asking your neighbors and working to form a tool collective.
8. Re-energize Your Home
The most popular residential renewable energy option right now is solar, although you can find other renewable energy options, here. More than 10,000 homes in the United States are completely powered by solar, and 200,000 use some type of photovoltaic solar technology.
One of the best places to use solar energy in the home is for heating water. Solar Development points out:
* The United States spends more than $13 billion a year on energy for home water heating. That is the equivalent of 11.4 barrels of oil per household, more than the amount of oil burned by a medium-sized automobile driven 12,000 miles.
* Of all of the major types of water-heating systems, solar energy systems offer the biggest potential savings to homeowners -- with owners saving 85 percent on their utility bills over the costs of electric water heating.
Realistically, not everyone can afford to buy solar systems for their homes, although the long-term savings usually outweigh the up-front costs. And of course, many people are renters and can't put capital investments into the place where they live. So how else can we save energy, and as a result, also money and water?
Here's a few ideas from Flex Your Power:
* Enable "power management" on all computers and make sure to turn them off at night. A laptop computer uses up to 90 percent less energy than bigger desktop models.
* When possible, wash clothes in cold water. About 90 percent of the energy use in a clothes washer goes to water heating.
* Turn your water heater down to 120 degrees or the "Normal" setting when home, and to the lowest setting when away. Water heating accounts for about 13 percent of home energy costs.
* Test for air leaks by holding a lit incense stick next to windows, doors, electrical boxes, plumbing fixtures, electrical outlets, ceiling fixtures, attic hatches and other locations where there is a possible air path to the outside. If the smoke stream travels horizontally, you have located an air leak that may need caulking, sealing or weather stripping.
* Add weather stripping around windows and doors to reduce drafts.
* Unplug electronics, battery chargers and other equipment when not in use. Taken together, these small items can use as much power as your refrigerator.
There are also a bunch of great resources to do a home energy audit. And if you're curious whether your home is powered by coal that comes from the destructive practice of mountaintop removal mining, then you can check this easy link at I Love Mountains to find out.
9. Stop Buying Stuff
If it's one thing the holidays can be sure to provide, it's a desire to buy lots of stuff we don't really need. Let's start with clothes. Author Stan Cox writes about how much Americans spend on clothes:
The average annual shopping haul swelled from $1,550 per household in 2002 to $1,760 last year. That spending spree was prompted in part by what the Bureau of Labor Statistics says was a 30 percent drop in real apparel prices over the past decade. With cheap imports allowing a dollar to buy more, the physical bulk of garb purchased by the average household has risen 18 percent in just five years.
All this shopping means we each discard around 68 pounds of clothing each year. This of course, stresses landfills, but as Cox points out, the most harm comes from producing clothes with pesticide-laden cotton and synthetic fabric that "consumes petroleum, blows out greenhouse gases and spews wastewater-bearing organic solvents, heavy metals and poisonous dyes and fiber treatments."
And it's not just clothes that are a problem, our consumer goods, in general have huge environmental impacts, especially because most of it comes from overseas. Cox writes:
In and near the world's ports and coastal sea lanes, emissions from oceangoing vessels caused 60,000 premature deaths in 2002. With increasing trade, the number of such deaths is projected to rise 40 percent by 2012. Ships' crews, dockworkers, truckers, other port personnel and local residents are all vulnerable.
The particulate matter produced by burning diesel has been associated with lung cancer, asthma, chronic bronchitis, cardiovascular disease, coronary heart disease, decreased lung function in children and infant mortality.
And that's just the human impact, not withstanding the enormous cost of increased pollution and the burning of fossil fuels on global warming and air and water quality.
Clearly we've got to make changes, he writes:
Halting that growth or even making deep cuts in imports would not only help clear the air, it would make it easier to clean up the toxic water pollution that accumulates in sea lanes and ports; it would curb the noise pollution that can do serious damage to human health and interfere with communications among marine mammals; and it would stop the headlong rush to pave more land for logistics parks.
Of course there is an upside to all these grim numbers. A recent article from YES! Magazine summed up, that "The Good Life Doesn't Have to Cost the Planet." Spending less money on stuff and more money with family and friends is bound to be way more rewarding. And that seems like the best part of the holidays, anyway.
Tara Lohan is a managing editor at AlterNet.
By Tara Lohan, AlterNet
December 17, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/
http://www.alternet.org/water/
http://www.alternet.org/story/
You'll read a lot this time of year about "green" gift guides. But are solar-powered cell phone chargers really the greenest gift we can come up with? Sure they save electricity, but what about the environmental impact of their manufacturing and shipping? If you really want to do something good this holiday season, what about putting Mother Earth at the top of your shopping list? It may help clean up the air and water, cut down on CO2 emissions, and it will save you a trip to the mall.
1. Stay Home
One of the best things you can do for the planet is fix up your own nest with holiday cheer and enjoy the festivities with loved ones near by. Airline travel is one of the biggest parts of our carbon footprint, and buses, cars and trains have big impacts as well.
As the Low Impact Living blog points out:
Our leisure travel by car alone accounts for over 9 billion gallons of fuel and 90 millions tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) each year. Air travel tacks on 140-plus million tons more of CO2. That's a huge amount of CO2 emissions -- taken together it represents more than the entire annual emissions of countries like Venezuela or the Netherlands!
To put this all in a personal context, if you drove roundtrip from Los Angeles to Kansas City, you'd put out 1.5 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2), whereas if you flew, you'd be responsible for 2.2 tons. If you took a train, you'd contribute 0.9 tons. For you international vagabonds, if you flew from Los Angeles to Paris, you'd have put out 4.4 tons of CO2 (and yes, we know you can't drive).
Even if you recycle all your wrapping paper, you'll be hard-pressed to make up for a ton of travel miles.
2. Save a Tree
While some can make a case for the environmental benefits of tree farms, if you celebrate Christmas, think about planting a tree instead of cutting one down (or more likely, paying someone to fell it for you and truck it to the city or town where you live). There are lots of great programs abroad and in your own community. The environmental advocacy group NRDC supports a rain-forest restoration program in Costa Rica, where for just $10 you can have a tree planted. You can also make the donation in someone's name as a gift, too.
While there are a bunch of programs like this, I also think it's great to do something in your own community. Here in San Francisco, we've got an amazing group called Friends of the Urban Forest, which plants groups of trees that help clean up and green up neighborhoods. Most cities and many towns have similar programs. While you may not get to decorate these trees, you can enjoy them day after day.
3. Invest in Sustainability
The holiday season is prime fundraising time for thousands of worthy organizations, and while it is great donate to the ones that you support, you can also put your money where your heart is in another way. Consider making an investment in a community instead of a donation. The organization MicroPlace makes this super easy by giving you the opportunity to make small investments -- or loans -- to help lift people out of poverty. To a person living on a dollar a day, $20 or $50 of capital can mean the chance to build or expand small businesses and ensure income for their family. The best part is your money comes back to you over time, and you can invest again, and the gift keeps going.
Here's an example:
Consider the story of Puja Patel, a single mother who lives with her four children in a village in India. With a $50 loan, she bought a sewing machine. She made clothes, sold them for a profit and repaid the loan, with interest. She was also able to save some money to buy books and send her children to the local school. This is microfinance in action.
4. Start Valuing Water
Everyone is abuzz about energy and how much of our precious oil we have left, but a water crisis is afoot, even here in the United States, where 36 states are facing water scarcity in the next five years. And this is one liquid resource we can't find any alternatives for. There are lots of ways to save water in your home -- some that require a little more effort than others. One of the best, and most fun ways, is to collect rainwater. It's easy and and free (once you get your barrel set up), and you can use the water for your garden, plants or lawn. The EPA reports that, "Nationwide, landscape irrigation is estimated to account for almost one-third of all residential water use, totaling more than 7 billion gallons per day." You can also reuse gray water for flushing toilets.
There are also other ways you can save water, beside the usual low-flow options for sinks, toilets and showers (that should be a given by now), and that's in food and energy. According to the Stockholm International Water Institute, it takes more than 1,500 gallons of water to produce the food eaten eat day by the average American. And while we can save water by not eating lettuce grown in Arizona, we can also do really simple things like not waste our food -- according to this study, each year we throw away about $43.3 billion worth of food.
You can also cut down on your energy use, which is a huge source of water use. Over half of us in the United States get our energy from coal-burning power plants, and the Union of Concerned Scientists points out that, "a typical 500-megawatt coal-fired power plant draws about 2.2 billion gallons of water each year from nearby water bodies such as lakes, rivers or oceans to create steam for turning its turbines. This is enough water to support a city of approximately 250,000 people."
5. Buy a CSA Share
The benefits of local food are immeasurable -- and one of the best ways to eat local is by supporting small farmers by getting a Community Support Agriculture share. Basically, you just sign up with a CSA farm to receive a weekly box of whatever is fresh -- veggies, fruit and sometimes other goodies like eggs. This way you get fresh food every week, grown by folks in your community and it travels a very short distance to get to you (According to a study from the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University, "the produce in the average American dinner is trucked 1,500 miles to get to the plate, up 22 percent in the past two decades.")
Eating local food and eating lower on the food chain, like fruits and veggies, is a big plus for the environment. A report from the United Nations found that eating meat is, "one of the ... most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global." And eating outside the industrial agriculture system saves on pesticides, pollution and water. Worldwide, agriculture is our biggest water guzzler, and the same is true in parts of the United States, like California.
If you're into the giving spirit you can also give a CSA share to someone as a gift -- a friend or loved one, or even a community member in need. Here's a great link to find one need you.
6. Grow Your Own Greens
Being part of CSA is fun, but if you have the space, try getting your own hands dirty by starting a food-growing garden or turning your lawn into something edible. When it comes to healthy eating, there is nothing more satisfying then being able to eat food you've grown and picked yourself. And, organic farming is a great way to combat climate change. Research from the Rodale Institute shows that "organically managed soils can store (sequester) more than 1,000 pounds of carbon per acre, while nonorganic systems can cause carbon loss."
If you currently have a lawn, considering switching to an "edible estate," as the organization and book by Fritz Haeg suggests. Here are a few facts that may make you reconsider trying to keep your green lawn:
* Of 30 commonly used lawn pesticides, 17 are detected in groundwater, 23 have the ability to leach into drinking water sources, 24 are toxic to fish and other aquatic organisms vital to our ecosystem, 11 are toxic to bees and 16 are toxic to birds. (National Coalition for Pesticide-Free Lawns)
* Homeowners use up to 10 times more chemical pesticides per acre on their lawns than farmers use on crops. (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)
* North Americans now devote 40,000 square miles to lawns, more than we use for wheat, corn or even tobacco. (The Lawn: North America's Magnificent Obsession by Robert Fulford)
* Americans spend $750 million a year on grass seed alone and more than $25 billion on do-it-yourself lawn and garden care. (From the exhibit at CCA, "The American Lawn: Surface of Everyday Life")
You can find great resources and photos about edible estates on their Web site.
7. Join Forces with Community Members
If you don't have a lawn or yard of your own, fear not -- there are 10,000 community gardens in the United States that you can join. And if you can't find one in your area, then consider teaming up with your neighbors to start your own. It has great "environmental, economic and social impacts on a neighborhood," as Urban Community Gardens points out.
Not only are people in communities getting together to grow food, but there are also tool-sharing networks cropping up, as well, that help people share the cost of owning tools that can be used for gardening or home improvements. Need help getting those new solar panels up? Consider asking your neighbors and working to form a tool collective.
8. Re-energize Your Home
The most popular residential renewable energy option right now is solar, although you can find other renewable energy options, here. More than 10,000 homes in the United States are completely powered by solar, and 200,000 use some type of photovoltaic solar technology.
One of the best places to use solar energy in the home is for heating water. Solar Development points out:
* The United States spends more than $13 billion a year on energy for home water heating. That is the equivalent of 11.4 barrels of oil per household, more than the amount of oil burned by a medium-sized automobile driven 12,000 miles.
* Of all of the major types of water-heating systems, solar energy systems offer the biggest potential savings to homeowners -- with owners saving 85 percent on their utility bills over the costs of electric water heating.
Realistically, not everyone can afford to buy solar systems for their homes, although the long-term savings usually outweigh the up-front costs. And of course, many people are renters and can't put capital investments into the place where they live. So how else can we save energy, and as a result, also money and water?
Here's a few ideas from Flex Your Power:
* Enable "power management" on all computers and make sure to turn them off at night. A laptop computer uses up to 90 percent less energy than bigger desktop models.
* When possible, wash clothes in cold water. About 90 percent of the energy use in a clothes washer goes to water heating.
* Turn your water heater down to 120 degrees or the "Normal" setting when home, and to the lowest setting when away. Water heating accounts for about 13 percent of home energy costs.
* Test for air leaks by holding a lit incense stick next to windows, doors, electrical boxes, plumbing fixtures, electrical outlets, ceiling fixtures, attic hatches and other locations where there is a possible air path to the outside. If the smoke stream travels horizontally, you have located an air leak that may need caulking, sealing or weather stripping.
* Add weather stripping around windows and doors to reduce drafts.
* Unplug electronics, battery chargers and other equipment when not in use. Taken together, these small items can use as much power as your refrigerator.
There are also a bunch of great resources to do a home energy audit. And if you're curious whether your home is powered by coal that comes from the destructive practice of mountaintop removal mining, then you can check this easy link at I Love Mountains to find out.
9. Stop Buying Stuff
If it's one thing the holidays can be sure to provide, it's a desire to buy lots of stuff we don't really need. Let's start with clothes. Author Stan Cox writes about how much Americans spend on clothes:
The average annual shopping haul swelled from $1,550 per household in 2002 to $1,760 last year. That spending spree was prompted in part by what the Bureau of Labor Statistics says was a 30 percent drop in real apparel prices over the past decade. With cheap imports allowing a dollar to buy more, the physical bulk of garb purchased by the average household has risen 18 percent in just five years.
All this shopping means we each discard around 68 pounds of clothing each year. This of course, stresses landfills, but as Cox points out, the most harm comes from producing clothes with pesticide-laden cotton and synthetic fabric that "consumes petroleum, blows out greenhouse gases and spews wastewater-bearing organic solvents, heavy metals and poisonous dyes and fiber treatments."
And it's not just clothes that are a problem, our consumer goods, in general have huge environmental impacts, especially because most of it comes from overseas. Cox writes:
In and near the world's ports and coastal sea lanes, emissions from oceangoing vessels caused 60,000 premature deaths in 2002. With increasing trade, the number of such deaths is projected to rise 40 percent by 2012. Ships' crews, dockworkers, truckers, other port personnel and local residents are all vulnerable.
The particulate matter produced by burning diesel has been associated with lung cancer, asthma, chronic bronchitis, cardiovascular disease, coronary heart disease, decreased lung function in children and infant mortality.
And that's just the human impact, not withstanding the enormous cost of increased pollution and the burning of fossil fuels on global warming and air and water quality.
Clearly we've got to make changes, he writes:
Halting that growth or even making deep cuts in imports would not only help clear the air, it would make it easier to clean up the toxic water pollution that accumulates in sea lanes and ports; it would curb the noise pollution that can do serious damage to human health and interfere with communications among marine mammals; and it would stop the headlong rush to pave more land for logistics parks.
Of course there is an upside to all these grim numbers. A recent article from YES! Magazine summed up, that "The Good Life Doesn't Have to Cost the Planet." Spending less money on stuff and more money with family and friends is bound to be way more rewarding. And that seems like the best part of the holidays, anyway.
Tara Lohan is a managing editor at AlterNet.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Please Bless Us To Share Your Love
© 2008 Peace Through Kindness
http://www.peacethroughkindness.com/
(this prayer is an adaption of Paramahansa Yogananda)
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