I understand today is being recognized as a blogger environmental awareness day. Let me say I do not consider myself a greenie by any means. I think global warming is a lot of hooey. I don't worship the environment as a religion. I don't see much evidence of concern for the environment among most people that I know.
However, I DO feel a personal responsibility to be a good steward of things that I can do to make a difference.
We will be moving to Santa Fe, New Mexico in 2008...and I have been compiling a list of things I can do personally to help the fragile high desert environment where I will be living:
1. Save rainwater to water plants.
2. Recycle! (Plastic bags and containers, cans, glass, newspaper)
3. Library and second hand book stores instead of new books.
4. Eat leftovers; throw away less food.
5. Lights out when not in a room.
6. Purchase locally grown fresh products (farmer's markets, farms)
7. Vegetable/herb garden.
8. Use the concept of xeriscaping for gardening.
9. Put up some bird feeders to attract and feed the local bird population.
10. Make a bunch of reuable cloth dinner napkins.
11. Turn off water when showering, brushing teeth and washing dishes.
12. Soak dishes prior to washing; makes washing very quick. (I don't use a dishwasher!)
13. Low water washing machine.
I add to my list as I think of more things.
Nothing scientific for me; just common sense.
3 comments:
Towanda, thank you for posting this important list. Your #2 (recycle plastics, etc.) got me to thinking about plastic in the New Mexico landscape, something I see every day. I just read this amazing statement in "The World Without Us," by Alan Weisman, St. Martin's Press, 2007: "Except for a small amount that's been incinerated...every bit of plastic manufactured in the world for the last 50 years or so remains. It's somewhere in the environment."
An awful lot of that plastic is flying around New Mexico, through our otherwise clean air, or stuck to cacti and other plants in our beautiful deserts. We all have a lot of work to do to get people to recycle this everlasting stuff and to stop just tossing it on the ground. "Toss No Mas" indeed!
~clairz
http://zeesgowest.blogspot.com
Towanda, your practical enviro list sounds VERY much like ours. Are you sure that you will be able to stand living that close to the green wienie capitol of NM? I love my quiet greenish life without the smuggosity (yes, I just invented that word).
clair: It drives me just nuts when we visit or property near Santa Fe and I see plastic stuck to the cactus. If we don't remove it, I guess it would stay there for a hundred years.
lin: Oh your reference to the greenie weinie capitol of NM makes me laugh!!!! hahahaha.... I love the looks of Santa Fe, I love the mountains there, I love the climate ... but I know I am about to move to a city full of elite, artsy, maybe snobby people. That's definitely not me, so I expect life to be a challenge as I remain ME in a somewhat alien atmosphere for me. Should be fun ... Lord, I hope....
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