My Environmental Pulpit (In Honor of Earth Day)
As people turn their attention to what they can do for the environment, I highlight a few things we all can do.
Try to stop drinking bottled water. In America, we have access to drinkable water right from the spigot of our kitchen sink. Instead, we have bought into the belief that bottled water is somehow better and safer. Public water has a history of being highly scrutinized and therefor a longer history of alarmist reports against it. Is a person's knowledge of the bottled water they are drinking that which gives them the belief it is safe or the scrutiny of the public water sources?
In a time when water is the scare for most of the humans on earth and drinking polluted water one of the leading causes of death for those with no easy access to drinkable water, we may not want to be so casual in our own consumption If you have concerns about that water you drink, invest in a water filtration system (PUR, etc.) Bottled water companies are concerned about making profits not necessarily providing people better water. If you'd like, fill up some bottles from your own filtered water.
Try to consume less. The next time you go to Target, walk out with what you intended to get. It's often fun, and comforting, to buy things. But to truly reduce your global footprint, we can try living more simply. It's important to keep that economy going but might be more important to ween the monster of consumption.
Occasionally, spend time and money on organic, free-trade and locally-grown products. Let's face it, it's nice to buy things cheap than spend money you don't got on basic stuff. But when you think of the diesel fuel that went into bringing some, fat, tasteless and mutated strawberry 1,000 miles to mold in your fridge, you start to see things in a different light. Think about the packaging and preservatives on top of that! Hmm, if I go to the farmer's market or the whole foods co-op, that money is going to the people instead of some big corporation. I'm getting something healthy and great tasting and it's lessening my damage of the planet. Cool! Yes, fair trade means that it probably comes from a big ship that took lotsa fuel to get here, but you are probably giving that money to the actual farmer. In many parts of the world, it's the power monger who has control of the resource of that land and the rest of population becomes a serf. (Look at Russia, Africa, S. America.) So, by buying fair trade, you are usually supporting environmentally friendly processes (how they grow, harvest) and also supporting basic human rights. Sweet!
People have their own ideas and their own ways of living and we are all environmental usurpers in one way or another. What more can we do than give it a good try?
Yahoo has a fun link: http://green.yahoo.com/living-green
Try to stop drinking bottled water. In America, we have access to drinkable water right from the spigot of our kitchen sink. Instead, we have bought into the belief that bottled water is somehow better and safer. Public water has a history of being highly scrutinized and therefor a longer history of alarmist reports against it. Is a person's knowledge of the bottled water they are drinking that which gives them the belief it is safe or the scrutiny of the public water sources?
In a time when water is the scare for most of the humans on earth and drinking polluted water one of the leading causes of death for those with no easy access to drinkable water, we may not want to be so casual in our own consumption If you have concerns about that water you drink, invest in a water filtration system (PUR, etc.) Bottled water companies are concerned about making profits not necessarily providing people better water. If you'd like, fill up some bottles from your own filtered water.
Try to consume less. The next time you go to Target, walk out with what you intended to get. It's often fun, and comforting, to buy things. But to truly reduce your global footprint, we can try living more simply. It's important to keep that economy going but might be more important to ween the monster of consumption.
Occasionally, spend time and money on organic, free-trade and locally-grown products. Let's face it, it's nice to buy things cheap than spend money you don't got on basic stuff. But when you think of the diesel fuel that went into bringing some, fat, tasteless and mutated strawberry 1,000 miles to mold in your fridge, you start to see things in a different light. Think about the packaging and preservatives on top of that! Hmm, if I go to the farmer's market or the whole foods co-op, that money is going to the people instead of some big corporation. I'm getting something healthy and great tasting and it's lessening my damage of the planet. Cool! Yes, fair trade means that it probably comes from a big ship that took lotsa fuel to get here, but you are probably giving that money to the actual farmer. In many parts of the world, it's the power monger who has control of the resource of that land and the rest of population becomes a serf. (Look at Russia, Africa, S. America.) So, by buying fair trade, you are usually supporting environmentally friendly processes (how they grow, harvest) and also supporting basic human rights. Sweet!
People have their own ideas and their own ways of living and we are all environmental usurpers in one way or another. What more can we do than give it a good try?
Yahoo has a fun link: http://green.yahoo.com/living-green
posted by Tony's Blog at
8:10 PM
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