Reduce global warming -Here are 10 things you can do right now to and oh yes, save money on gas and food. This list was first developed for Vacation Bible School this summer at Fort King Presbyterian Church in Ocala. It works!
Reduce global warming with changes in your lifestyle
1. Buy produce grown locally. Get to know your local farmers. Support organic growers. Suggestions: Find the closest Farmer’s Market in Florida and m
ark the day on your calendar. Nothing near you? Talk it up at meetings, at church, at the next gathering of friends and start the ball rolling.
2. Pick one day a week to be car free. Park it. Walk, ride a bike, or, gasp!, stay home and get to know your back yard, front yard, even talk to the neighbors. PS you release nearly a pound of CO2 for every mile driven. Bummer.
3. Plant a vegetable garden. Start with a container or two now in the hot summer (tomatoes, peppers), work the ground for a fall planting. Remember everything you buy grown far away costs energy to deliver it to your door. Break that cycle. Don’t have room? Share a plot with a neighbor who does.
A good book to read: “Food Not Lawns: How to Turn Your Yard into a Garden and Your Neighborhood into a Community”, H.C. Flores, Chelsea Green Publishing Company, 2006. Amazon has it.
4. Shop with a neighbor. Trade off driving to the grocery store once a week.
5. Consider a carpool to church or school or work. Look around the church pews on Sunday. Look around the office or the classroom. See anyone who lives near you?
6. Start a compost pile. Make your own compost. It is richer than dirt. Those bags of topsoil you are buying at Lowes and Home Depot were produced somewhere else and lugged here. That is global warming in action. Break the cycle.
7. Take a rain barrel workshop. Save rainwater. Every drop counts. Just FYI, in Kentucky, they are making rain barrels from oak whiskey barrels. Plants watered with this rainwater are said to be smiling. (just kidding). Water use and global warming go together. The hotter it gets the more water we use. A good book to read: “Mirage: Florida and the Vanishing Water of the Eastern U.S.”, Cynthia Barnett, University of Michigan Press, 2007. Amazon has this book.
In Florida, the Institute of Food and Agricultural Services at University of Florida in Gainesville, is big into rain barrels. Check out your local Agricultural Extension Service office to see if they offer rain barrel workshops and inexpensive rain barrels. In Marion County, we can get them at the Ag office for $50 and that includes all the hardware you need. See my blog on rain barrels. Have fun!
8. Get a dog. Okay, this is a little radical but think of the consequences. Dogs need to be walked. You will be walking the dog. Less time spend running around in the car doing “errands”. Plus, when you are walking the dog, you slow down enough to appreciate natural beauty. Pretty soon you’ll want to spend more time outdoors and less time at the mall. A win win situation for you and the planet, not to mention the dog.
9. Drive the speed limit. Set your cruise control. It is a concept, driving the speed limit. More people are actually doing it with gas prices going up. You will save gas driving slower. Trust me.
10. Turn off your sprinklers. Don’t water your lawn. Let God do it. Plant native plants that are drought tolerant.
To get in the mood, take this test to see the size of your ecological footprint. Ah! Revealing isn’t it, how many planets it takes to support your lifestyle. Now read the list of 10 things you can do again and get started. Good luck!
©2008 Lucy Beebe Tobias, author, artist, authentic Florida expert
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