Lifestyle Options
VOTE GREEN. While individuals can do much for environmental
protection and conservation in their daily lives, many of the biggest and most
decisive actions depend on governmental and corporate decisions. To truly turn
the world around, elected leaders of all parties must be convinced that voters
regard their environmental records as the most important reason to vote for or
against them. Tell your representatives at all levels and all political
persuasions that the environment matters to you. If they don’t share your
concern…you know what to do!
JOIN AND DONATE. Few things you can do personally will impact the
Earth as much as your membership in and donations to conservation and environ-mental
groups. Your membership gives those groups political clout when they approach
elected leaders and regulators. Your money, of course, enables them to publish
educational materials, fund special programs, bring legal actions, even buy
habitat and protect it from development.
RECYCLING. Recycling
is good. It gets people actively involved in conservation and it does conserve
some resources (especially landfill space). Sometimes it’s not the obvious
resource: paper recycling, for example, is probably more important for saving
water and electricity than trees since most paper is made from farmed trees.
But recycling should be a spur to additional action, not an excuse for sitting
back. Home recycling is a tiny part of an immense task. If all people do is recycle and everyone thinks that is doing their share, not
enough will get done to save the planet.
LOOK FOR THE ECO-LABEL. What corporations do has
a huge impact on the environment, and green shopping is a powerful way to
influence corporate behavior. More and more “eco-labels” are emerging – seals
of approval that indicate, or purport to indicate, that a product has been
obtained, made, and/or distributed in a sustainable, environmentally friendly
way (and in some cases socially responsible). But be careful: some eco-labels
are bogus, having been created by business groups to foster an illusion of
environmental responsibility. Look for labels that represent certification by
independent non-profit environmental, conservation and social organizations.
Examples of trustworthy eco-labels are SmartWood, Forest Stewardship Council
and Rainforest Alliance Certified, all affiliated with the Rainforest Alliance,
for lumber, paper and printing (http://www.rainforest-alliance.com/programs/):
Bird Friendly, by the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center; Fair Trade; and
Organic. Eco-friendly products (shade-grown organic fair-trade coffee;
forest-grown hazelnuts, etc.) may be purchased on-line from the National Arbor
Day Foundation at http://www.arborday.org/gifts.
Builders can find sustainable timber suppliers at http://www.rainforest-alliance.org/greenbuilding.
DRINK SHADE-GROWN COFFEE. One of the most powerful “buy green”
options is to drink shade-grown coffee. Look for it in stores and coffee shops,
and ask the business to start buying it if it isn’t available. Some
environmental groups sell it. The power of this coffee is that it requires the
preservation of tropical trees instead of clearcutting them as many mass-market
coffee farms do. Many think it is better coffee, but just as important it
protects native trees and wildlife in tropical forests. Also, it helps native
peoples, since this is their traditional method of growing coffee and they lose
their livelihoods or have to start working for other people for starvation
wages when the big forest-destroying coffee farms start to move in.
PLANT TREES AND VEGETATION. Planting vegetation, especially
wildlife-friendly, water-conserving native vegetation, is a major contribution
almost everyone can do to some extent. Check National Audubon Society’s
“Audu-bon at Home” program, http://www.audubon.org/bird/at_home/index.html
Much valuable free
booklets, bulletins and other information on tree planting and care can be
found at the website of the National Arbor Day Foundation, http://www.arborday.org, and they also sell
books and kits.
BUY ENVIRO-FRIENDLY VEHICLES. Perhaps the most important of all
green shopping choices is buying a vehicle. Study the latest information and
pick the most fuel-efficient, least polluting vehicle that is compatible with
your REAL needs. If you plan to spend a lot of time climbing mountains and
dodging bullets while surreptitiously making expose documentaries on drug
lords, by all means, get that Hummer. If you really have to carry anvils and
furnaces around
USE YOUR INVESTOR POWER. If you own stock in a firm, you have a
right to speak up at stockholders’ meetings and to write strong letters to
management as an owner. Don’t hesitate to use that power to demand
environmentally responsible behavior from the companies you invest in.
GARDEN WISELY. If you have a garden, plant heirloom seeds, i.e.,
the old, diverse crops that once dominated the Earth but have become scarce (if
not extinct) today. Profit-obsessed corporate agriculture has wiped out 75
percent of the genetic diversity of crop plants on Earth for the sake of
short-term growing, harvesting and marketing efficiency (but at the risk of
global crop failures from a single disease). But a few small firms still
collect and sell the old oddball seeds that yield more variety in taste and
texture while preserving genetic diversity and redundancy. For more
information, visit the Seed Savers Exchange website at http://www.seedsavers.org.
EDUCATE YOURSELF. A number of organizations publish paper and
electronic newsletters filled with tips on how to live a more
green lifestyle. One is the
CHOOSE RESPONSIBLE TRAVEL OPTIONS. Tourism can be a great boon for
nature, or it can be a destructive force. One way to identify sustainable
tourism operations in the sensitive rainforest areas is to use the catalog put
out by the Sustainable Tourism Certification Network of the
ADOPT PREDATOR-FRIENDLY RANCHING/FARMING PRACTICES. It is possible
to farm and ranch successfully without slaughtering every meateater in sight. For
tips, contact Predator Friendly, Inc., by calling Janelle Holden at (406)
587-3389 or visit Thirteen Mile Ranch at http://www.lambandwool.com.
Or Predator Conservation
BUY HUMANE AND HEALTHFUL PORK. Some of the worst environmental
damages are caused by mass hog-farming. But there is a movement to raise hogs
in a more humane way and with abusing antibiotics and hormones that can harm
human health. To find responsibly raised pork (by mail, at farmer’s markets,
and elsewhere), visit http://www.ncchoices.com.
And encourage your food store to seek out that kind of meat.
CONSERVE PAPER. To cut your paper waste, calculate how to focus
your paper-buying to minimize tree destruction at http://www.papercalculator.org.
DUMP YOUR LEAF BLOWER. One gasoline leaf blower emits as much air
pollution as 80 cars, as well as blowing allergens into the air to increase
human illness. If you really need to move the leaves – do you? – a rake is better for you and the environment.
BUILD GREEN. Environmentally-sensitive green building now adds only
about 3 percent to the price of designing/building a structure. Get ideas on
how to build a green house on the website of the