Your Time

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Everything we do has a consequence.
Unfortunately, our choices effect lives​.
Please,
​choose wisely.

 We can all...​​
VOTE

• Probably the most important thing you can do is vote. 

GREEN YOUR COMMUNITY:

• Create a checklist of what your community could do to be sustainable,  categorized by impact and difficulty. Areas to look at include transportation, waste management, water management, power sources, landscaping (planting trees, community gardens, native plants), local ordinances, housing/zoning/building codes. 

​​FOOD: ​

• Reduce the quantity and increase the quality of the protein that you eat.  Dr. Clyde Wilson of UCSF and Stanford suggests it is not the amount of protein that you eat, but how often you eat protein that matters.  The body can only buffer about 4 hours of protein.  He says that eating one ounce of protein every 4 hours is better for you than eating more protein less often.  Look for protein high in omega 3 fatty acids, such as sardines, salmon and anchovies.  This approach is not only good for you; it is good for the planet.  Become mostly vegetarian; 14 to 30% of all carbon is created by the feeding, raising and distribution of meat. The former director of the United Nations has implored families of the world to eat at least one vegetarian meal per week as a start to developing sustainable eating.  You can shrink your carbon footprint by up to 1.5 tons of carbon dioxide a year if you switch to vegetarian food. ( 9 April 2007 issue of TIME ).

EAT FOOD GROWN LOCALLY:  
The typical  meal contains on average, ingredients from at least five countries outside of the United States. Locally grown food produces less CO2 than any one imported product.  TRANSPORTATION:

• Take public transportation; One gallon of gasoline makes 19 pounds of CO2, and the USA used 368.51 million gallons a day, or 134.51 BILLION gallons (or 3.2 billion barrels) of gasoline a year or,  in other words, we create 7 BILLION pounds of CO2 a year. Work at home, move near work or start saving up for an environmentally friendly car.
• Take a train, preferably electric; worldwide, airline flights produce over 705 million tons of CO2. The USA alone consumes 20 billion gallons of aviation fuel each year. 

CUT CARBON:

• Use your own bag: 1.6 BILLION gallons of oil are used each year for plastic bags alone. 
• Use your own bottle: 17 Million BARRELS of oil are used in making plastic bottles. This is  more than 2.5 million tons off CO2 AND it takes 3 liters of water to produce 1 liter of bottled water. 
• The USA has 316 million people and produces 16% of the worlds’ carbon. China has 1.4 billion people and produces 24.6% of the worlds’ carbon.  A high percentage of China’s carbon foot print exists because the USA does their manufacturing in China instead of in the USA. We have millions of goods produced mostly for pleasure. We need to think globally. We need to ask ourselves “Is this gadget I’m considering purchasing worth the death of millions of species?” ​

HOUSEHOLD GOODS:
If you have a whole bunch of extra usable stuff, please sell or donate to a thrift store, or charity. 

CLOTHES: 
It's embarrassing, but the U.S. alone sends about 21 billion pounds of textile waste to landfills every year. And sadly, only 10-15% of donated clothing actually ends up in the secondhand market.
The trail of clothes https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/full/10.1289/ehp.115-a449
​
PLASTIC: 
A whopping 91% of plastic is NOT recycled! https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/07/plastic-produced-recycling-waste-ocean-trash-debris-environment/

Tips for using less energy...

• If you live in a dry climate, you can retrofit your home with strawbale insulation and reduce your heating and cooling bills substantially.
• Change your light bulbs to the florescent type.
  • For every incandescent bulb you replace with a compact fluorescent bulb, you'll save the equivalent of about 500 pounds of coal over the life of the bulb, and you'll reduce carbon dioxide by up to 1,300 pounds per year.
• Clean or replace dirty furnace filters on a regular basis.
• heating and cooling systems in the US together emit over a half billion tons of carbon dioxide into the air each year.
• Weatherstrip your home
  • Weatherstripping an electrically heated house can keep 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide from having to be produced. That means that that if 1,000 of these homes were weatherized, over a million pounds of C02 would be reduced.
• Ceiling fans circulate air, which lowers heating and cooling bills.
• When driving, link your errands together.
• Keep your car tires filled.
• Turn off your lights when not using them.
• Donate your unwanted possessions to charity.