Honoring Mother Earth Each Day

[anthropositor]

We are in the middle of a major runaway extinction which may well include many of us before long.  It will take the efforts of us all to stave off this disaster.  Let this thread be a place for any and all worthwhile ideas and of serious dialogue on what each of us can do to improve the situation in the thousands of ways required for the emergency to abate.

Global Warming, the Ozone Layer and the shrinking supply of potable water throughout the world are at the top of the list.  Let's get to it and let's keep at it!  It is not up to me to determine the threads that become permanently sticky.  If it was, this one and one other thread would certainly be made sticky.

[Wooley]

Recycle, Freecycle (or Ebay if you can't bear to give things away) and reuse.

Please try and avoid filling landfill sites with needless waste that can be reused for other things.

Amen

http://www.freecycle.org/

[LIGA girl]

This thread is a great idea, I had thought of starting one like it myself.

To save water:

• take short showers
• use washing machine grey water to clean paths, water lawns etc
• flush less
• keep a jug under the kitchen tap and save the water used for rinsing etc to use in the garden
• grow plants that dont need much water, or even better, grow veges in your garden (they taste better too)

[itchychick]

Bring your own canvas bags when grocery shopping!

[totalfolly]

Carpool.

[LIGA girl]

Recycle as many things as you can and purchase stuff with little packaging.

[Wooley]

Quite impressed with a certain UK supermarket (admittedly, probably the most expensive). I had a voucher for money off an order with Waitrose, and thought for once I'd treat myself. Unlike 2 of their competitors, when you book a delivery slot, not only is it just an hour (they are usually 2 hour slots) but also they colour code them so if a van is going to be in your area at that time, the icon shows in green.  It's great to have the option to save the fuel etc in that way.   

Wooley

[Wooley]

Buy local produce where possible - especially when it comes to fruit & vegetables. Check labelling and try and get produce from your own country or, failing that, from the nearest place you can.

[Uncle Matt]

When I get the garden sorted, I'm gonna grow some stuff of my own. Maybe potatoes, lettuce and perhaps some tomatoes too...

M.

[anthropositor]

Some great ideas you guys!  Keep them coming.  Virtually all of these ideas can be employed right away.  I will be focusing on ideas which may not be so easy to employ.

For instance:  My next door neighbor has a great expanse of lawn.  My front and back lawn combined are only about an acre.  A yard service mows the neighbors lawn about once a week.  They also spray weed killer, flea killer, termite killer and perhaps several other types of killer as well.  I have not seen them put out rodent poisons, but that does not mean that they don't.

The neighbors lawn is a monoculture.  One kind of grass.  I have never seen the mud mounds made by crawdads in my neighbors lawn.  Not a single one.  I have never seen a cricket crawling across that lawn.  It is mowed when it is two inches tall.  I have never seen a dandelion bloom in that lawn.  I have never seen a bird scrounging for worms or bugs on that lawn.

My lawn is a complex ecostructure.  There are usually a few hundred crawdad mounds.  Crickets and a wide diversity of other insects draw birds.  I generally mow it when it is about six inches tall.  This perhaps annoys my neighbor as much as his poisoned and characterless lawn annoys me.

But I have noticed that my lawn is lush and healthy.  It is a habitat for a wide diversity of life.  All the sprays and poisons that my neighbor uses don't just disappear.  They wind up in water runoff that ends in streams, rivers and lakes.

Furthermore, his gardeners use perhaps four or five times the gasoline to mow his lawn that I use to mow mine.  Not only that, but tall vegetation converts CO2 back to oxygen in much, much greater amounts than his manicured green fuzz.  My neighbor and I don't talk much.  About one unenthusiastic wave per year.  I suspect he thinks I am a real SOB.

Well, he can't be wrong about everything.

[Uncle Matt]

My front and back lawn combined are only about an acre. 

Mr. Anthro,

Only an acre? I can only dream about a lawn that size. It's almost Stately Home size...

My back lawn is about 10 yards one way, and about 12 the other way... A mere postage stamp in comparison....

I still get birds, caterpillars, worms, dandelions, spiders, and loads of other things besides, though.

Matt

[itchychick]

Lawn? We have a "lawn" which is used as a medieval battle ground for the young knights in training who live here,  it is an ongoing excavation site for dinosaur bones and other antiquities, and a hunting ground for the orc hunters who come around fairly regularly!  

I can't abide seeing perfect, golf green lawns, because it invariably means that pesticides, herbicides, and energy and water were wasted to acheive that.  Eventually (when the kids aren't using it any more), I plan to convert our entire lawn (it's small, we live in the city) to native wildflowers and other local flora that requires only the moisture from rainfall.

[Wooley]

Anthro you have made me feel so much better about my garden. Both of my neighbours "look after" their grass and have those types of lawns you speak of. I'm basically happy to leave mine until it starts tripping the children up.  We have dandelions, daisies and all sorts of mosses and other patches and I couldn't care less. I expect my neighbours dispair about that.

We also have a regular visitor - a hedgehog. Or at least we did last autumn. I have not seen him yet this year but I have seen some telltale black gifts in the garden (that's the only thing, because of the children I do have to pick all the pooh up). I bet the neighbours would cringe if they knew I fed him during the Autumn months. We also get loads of birds, especially seeing as it's a tiny garden - about the same size as Matt's.

Hurray... I feel better about it now. My neighbours can frown over the fence all they like!

Wooley

[LIGA girl]

Some great ideas you guys!  Keep them coming.  Virtually all of these ideas can be employed right away.  I will be focusing on ideas which may not be so easy to employ.

This is a great idea, Anthro. I agree we need to think beyond the immediate, which is what all the information in the various media is trying to put back onto us as consumers. I think the govt should take a more regulatory approach here. Many of the problems are way beyond our control and our changes will have only a negligible impact on them. The govt can make a real change, but because of its interest in maintaining economic growth, it will not enforce controls which go contrary to this.

One example in my area is coal mining. This region is the largest exporter of coal in the world, and new mines continue to be approved in spite of lots of local protest against it. The govt will not retreat from this position as one major political party is aligned with the mining companies which profit from the developments while the other major party is aligned with the workers who do the mining. We as voters do not have a real choice in this area. Yet the approvals continue and noone is forced to look at alternative energy sources while there is still plenty of coal to burn. This is very detrimental to our kids as they will inherit a polluted earth and they will not have the benefit of lots of energy as we do.

I also agree with the lawn ideas, mine is non-immaculate and is gradually shrinking as I expand my vege garden areas. My whole front yard, part of which is on my avatar, is a native garden area and has no lawn. I have a little pond which encourages frogs and would love to see a hedgehog, but we dont have them here, we have more reptilian animals,  which terrify me at times! Actually, now I think about it, maybe that is why the frogs are no longer so vocal ....

[itchychick]

What you describe, LG, about coal mining, is similar to what is going on here with the oil industry.  Our current government has stated that they have absolutely no intention of even trying to meet Canada's Kyoto commitments.  Their most recent PR move is to scare the public by claiming that meeting Kyoto targets would bankrupt Canadian industry.  Meanwhile, exploitation of the oil sands steams forward, and is already causing environmental degradation to the surrounding areas.  It's truly maddening, but I have to hope that eventually the public will care enough to demand a new approach.  I just hope that can happen before it's too late.

[LIGA girl]

That's interesting to hear what you say about Kyoto commitments, itchy. Our govt will not even endorse Kyoto, our PM employing a rhetoric that lacks any sort of logic (eg "the Kyoto targets are not high enough to be effective" - why not at least try to meet the lower targets than set none at all?) when attempting to justify it. I think this makes us a global embarassment ..... In a perverted kinda way though it is funny to hear that other govts are effectively taking the same stance .... 

[itchychick]

Well, it's a disgrace really.  Our previous government ratified the treaty, and then spent the rest of it's term in office doing absolutely nothing to meet obligations.  It is a global embarrassment, and what's worse is all the blame being piled on countries like India and China... let's lead by example, shall we?!

[LIGA girl]

what's worse is all the blame being piled on countries like India and China... let's lead by example, shall we?!

Hear hear!

[anthropositor]

It seems to me, if solutions are to be found, the most important will come from innovators, not from industry or government.  Certainly laws and agreements like Kyoto play a part.  

But our current problems did not become so intractable in a vacuum.  Our legislatures collectively contributed to the current state of affairs.  I don't think it is quite reasonable to anticipate, or even hope that our governing bodies will successfully grapple with the complexities.

Want to know the most polluting human activity?

WAR

[LIGA girl]

It seems to me, if solutions are to be found, the most important will come from innovators, not from industry or government.

Like Richard Branson offering a reward for anyone who can come up with an effective solution to global warming .... that is being proactive, more so than the govts.

It does not surprise me that war is the highest polluter at all ....