Living a Greener Life
Easy and Painless Tips on Living a Greener Life
Thank you to Susan Oldham for writing these articles.
It’s never been easier to go green than it is today. With all of our scientific discoveries and modern advances, we now have the knowledge and the access to live greener, healthier lives, without feeling like we’re making too many sacrifices. All it takes is a little shift in the way we think – to always consider whether there’s a simple, greener alternative to each action.
Most of us rarely consider the long term environmental implications of our daily actions. Unfortunately, this way of thinking has caused a lot of damage to our planet. It’s now a widely recognized fact that global warming is a reality. You’ve all seen or heard about Al Gore’s slide show, so we won’t get into the evidence here.
What’s causing much of the damage to our planet is the carbon dioxide (CO2) that gets released into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels used to power our cars and run our factories that make all of the stuff we buy. The toxins and carcinogens used in so many products that pollute our soil and water sources are also really bad for the plant and bad for our health. And to top it off, it doesn’t help that we continue to cut down so many carbon eating trees and plants each year.
We all rely on natural resources to stay alive and each of us has an individual responsibility to do our part for the environment. We don’t all have to run out and buy electric cars and stop using under arm deodorant tomorrow to make a positive impact. There are hundreds of simple, easy things you can do everyday to dramatically improve our plant’s health.<.p>
Find your own unique path to a greener lifestyle by simply leading an examined life and making more earth-conscious decisions each day. It’s actually sort of fun to think of new ideas and keep track of how many tons of carbon emission you can eliminate! There’s a really cool EPA web site that helps you calculate your carbon footprint and shows you the impact you can make by changing some of your behaviors.
To help you get started, we've listed some easy and high-impact things you can start doing today to influence positive global change.
Shed Those Extra Pounds ...
Wouldn’t it be great if you could lose a pound a week with a couple of emails and phone calls? You can save thousands of trees and thousands of gallons of water by putting your mailbox in a diet. Sign up for on-line bill pay and receive your statements electronically. When you receive unwanted catalogs or other mail, call the 1-800 number and ask to be removed from their mailing list – it is legally required for companies to comply with your request.
Wash Those Chemicals ...
There are a lot of nasty ingredients that are used in our shampoos, conditioners and other beauty products. When some of these ingredients are applied to your skin or scalp, the head right into your bloodstream. The impact can be anything from skin irritation to cancer. In addition, these chemicals also end up in our air and water supplies.
Clean Up Your Act
Why apply toxic cleaners to household surfaces your family will touch every day? Using these products containing VOCs (volatile organic compounds), exposes your family to chemicals that may cause cancer and other diseases. Studies have confirmed that VOC levels inside our homes is 10 times greater than outdoors. VOCs from chemical cleaning products, vaporize and enter the atmosphere turning into air pollution and contaminating water supplies.
Get a Bright Idea
Switch to energy efficient light bulbs
Change your light bulbs to compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). I know everyone says this but not enough people are doing it. Here’s why it’s important: CFLs use two-thirds less electricity and last 10 times longer than standard light bulbs.
Power Off
All electronic devices before take-off
Hopefully your mother nagged you as a child about turning off the lights when you leave a room so we’ll trust that you’re already doing that. Just the same, turn off anything else that sucks power when it’s not in use.
Stop Being Trashy
Recycle
Recycling isn’t just something that hippies did in the 70’s – recycling is one of the best things you can do for the environment. Today we recycle one third of the 160 million tons of garbage we create each year, but we can do so much better than that. Recycling reduces the number of landfills that could end up in your back yard and reduces the amount of new natural resources needed to make brand new products, like wood for paper and fossil fuels for plastic.
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