Ultimate Green Living

Being eco-friendly from day-to-day is great, and it does help, but if you're like me, that isn't really enough. You want to live in a way that isn't just more sustainable; instead, you want to be absolutely sustainable. Although this is often mistaken for an extremist approach, think of it this way: "sustainable" means that we are only taking from the Earth that which the Earth can replenish. Being only a little more sustainable than we are now still puts us on the road to destroying the Earth's resources, thus hurting the animals and impoverished people first, but finally, ourselves.

Housing can often be a problem. In Canada, where I live, many people live in gargantuan houses complete with every appliance one could dream up-- not to mention at least two televisions and a couple computers to boot. Since land is relatively cheap here, people don't seem to even consider living small. However, there are so many options for a more environmentally-friendly housing option.

• You could live in a small house (besides, the bigger the house, the bigger the chance of clutter-- and bills!).
• You could live in a storage container (Umm... this is a joke, right? Right??? Nope. Go to this link for details: http://ca.shine.yahoo.com/living-small--lulu-s-shipping-container-home.html ).
• You could share a house with a few friends.
• You could live in an eco-friendly house (this could include living in a "green community", building an advantageously energy-saving house, etc.) See http://sicarius.typepad.com/althouse/ecofriendly_homes/ and http://www.ehow.com/how_2146008_build-ecofriendly-house.html for some ideas.
• You could live in an apartment building or condo.
• You could live in a cat basket (Okay, this one is a joke!).

Next week, I'll be posting about let's-just-say-something-that-makes-me-tick, so come back next Friday for more details!

There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed.  ~Mohandas K. Gandhi

It's all in the Timing

The way you plan your day can have an immense impact on your personal footprint. How so? Well, when you do things at different times of day, different resources are needed.  Here are my suggestions for switching the order of events of your routine:

1) Shower in the evening, not morning. In the evening, you don't have to dry your hair, because you've got no where to go. This will mean that you use less electricity on the hair dryer. You'll also be more likely to have  cooler showers because you won't have to go out in the cold afterward! Once your hair is wet, tie long hair back into braids, and brush short hair every half-hour to keep it tidy and in place.

2) If your province/country has Time-of-Use rates and uses smart meters, electricity will cost more at certain periods (on-peaks), less during other times (off-peaks), and somewhere in the middle at other times of day (mid-peaks). Using the most amount of energy during off-peaks not only helps you save money, but it also helps the environment! This is due to the fact that during the on-peak, most people use a lot of electricity. This calls for more power-plants to supply for the demand. However, at off-peaks, these power plants will sit idle. To avoid this, we should try our best to save our most comsumerist practices for the off-peaks, so more power-plants don't have to be built. Regardless of whether there is or isn't a change in price depending on the time of day, it would still be beneficial to use less during on-peaks. Try to find out whether your area has Time-of-Use rates.

In my region, Ontario, the winter and summer Time-of-Use rates can be seen here: http://www.ontario-hydro.com/index.php?page=current_rates

3) Drive your car when it isn't rush hour! It takes more time to get where you need to go when the streets are packed, which uses up more gasoline (see my blog post "Don't idle!" for more info). And bicycle, walk, or take the bus whenever you can.

4) Sleep early; wake early. Be like a farmer. When the sun goes down, you should go to bed, too. This way, you won't have to use as much electricity to light your house, and you won't fall asleep watching TV! Of course, this only works if you remember to turn off the lights and TV before you go to bed.

I hope you see how easy it really is to live a much more sustainable lifestyle!

By the way, you can now sign up to receive my blog posts by e-mail every week. (See the sidebar; I won't be able to see your e-mail address and I promise it won't be more often than every Friday!)

See you next week!

DIY Eco-friendly Crafts

In our modern world, people tend to buy everything instead of making it themselves. The result? Big industry taking over everything-- deciding how we impact the environment, deciding what we buy, and controlling the quality of our products. So why not break the cycle and make our own things?
Eco-friendly crafts can be things that are useful, advocacy-oriented, or just darn fun-- as long as they have a smaller impact on the environment than most products. Today I will be showing you some of my favourites.

Eco-friendly Bag: This is really easy to make. All it takes is some leftover material (I got mine from my family's scrap fabric bin, but you could always use an old T-shirt or two if you'd prefer), scissors, needle and thread, printable iron-on sheet and iron (optional), and some patience, of course!
Step 1: Cut the fabric to approximately the right size. Do it twice in total.
Step 2: Sew together the two pieces so that one side is open. Turn it inside-out.
Step 3: Sew down the material on the open end. If there is too much material on the inside, cut some of it off. (But be careful not to break the threads!)
Step 4: Print off a logo onto an iron-on sheet. Make sure the writing is backward-- this will come off the sheet and onto the bag the right way.
Step 5: Iron the logo onto the bag, following the instructions provided with the iron-on sheets.
Step 6: Sew the handle onto the bag. This can be any sort of fabric strip, really. (If you have trouble sewing the handle on sturdily, staple it on... It works!)

Awareness Letters: These are even more simple. All you need are some of those little iron-able beads that come with peg boards, called Perler Beads. You make them into letters that form an environmentally-themed phrase, word, or sentence, and then iron them together as the package explains. Then take a picture of it post it on the Internet and get your message out!

Eco-friendly Coasters: To make your own coasters, all you need is some leftover cardboard from old shoe boxes or the piece you get inside calendars, something to decorate it with (For the first one, I used a stargazing calendar, the one in the middle is from the plastic and mesh of a bag of oranges, and on the right I used a Christmas card), some tape, and scissors. Basically, you cut out little squares of cardboard and cover them with your decoration. Leave a bit of extra hanging over the side so you can tape it in the back. You may need to cut off some of the covering in the corners at the back, but I'll leave that to your judgement. Although Christmas is over for this year, that is not to say that you can't save them for gifts later on, or use them yourself!

By the way, I have a new e-mail address that anyone can use to get in touch-- ecofuzzyATgmail.com (replace AT with @, because I'm trying to avoid spammers who scan the web for e-mail addresses.) Use this e-mail address to tell me how I'm doing in the blogosphere, give suggestions, and ask questions. I'll be happy to get back to you! (But if you know me personally, please use my personal e-mail.)
Have a good week!

Make Your New Year's Resolutions Sustainable

                              

Well, it's almost the end of the year! Can you believe it? A lot has happened in 2011. From an environmental perspective of what I got done, I quit and then re-started Hug a Tree Today Seriously, I started up The Animal Rights Action Site, I got the idea of using ration books and used one for the month of December (alas, read the haiku below), I signed a LOT of petitions, I stuck little slips of paper into library books with my blog's URL on them (hey-- I'm not the only one who does that), I joined Taking It Global (a youth organization that has lots of great resources to make change), and I wrote an article or two for Teen Ink on issues about the environment. I can't remember what else I've done-- I'll add them if I think of them...

So now with New Year's Day on its way, you're probably thinking about what New Year's Resolutions to try. Please keep the environment in mind for these such things! Here is a list of suggestions:

1) Commit to using half the amount of paper as you did in 2011. Here is a list of ways to do so on my Taking it Global blog. http://princesscat.tigblog.org/post/5331133

2) Go vegan-- try it for at least a month. If it helps to make a more official commitment, you can pledge on one of these websites: http://whyveg.com/pledge.php https://secure.peta.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=2055&c=pfvskvp09

3) Commit to bicycle to work/school/stores.

4) Decide to cut back on your television time by one-half. Even better, stop watching TV altogether!

5) Dry your clothes on a clothes rack instead of a dryer.

6) Commit to using a ration book every month.

Well, I could go on all day, but that's enough to give you the idea!

Hug a Tree Today, Seriously also has a New Year's Resolution-- I aim to get 1000 page views by the end of 2012! Can you help me achieve my goal? I already have 411 page views at the time of writing. You can see the number of page views at the bottom of the page-- it changes every time you visit. Please tell your friends and family about my blog so that I can reach 1000 page views by January 2013!

MOST IMPORTANT POINT!!!: To acheive your goals, you must plan them out carefully, decide what you want EXACTLY, decide how you will get there, etc. The best way to do this is to use S.M.A.R.T. goals:

Specific: What is your goal? "To use less electricity", while having good intentions, is hardly specific enough. Instead, you could say something like: "To use the clothes dryer once per week and hang out all other clothing on the clothes rack."

Measurable: How will you know when you have reached your goal? In the example above, it would be when you only use the clothes dryer once per week.

Attainable: Is it physically possible? "To consume nothing for the rest of my life" is impossible, but to comsume less resources is. If your goal is not possible, you will be chasing it for your whole life and constantly tripping up over it.

Realistic: This refers to whether it is likely to happen, judging by your lifestyle, needs, and how much you want it. For example, if your goal was to bicycle to work every day, but you work in a different town than you live in... well, good luck-- I won't be responsible for the outcome. Similarily, if you DO live close to work/school, but you aren't motivated enough to bike, your goal will, unfortunately, be useless. Make sure that you have the motivation to achieve your goals.

Timely: Set dates. In the clothes dryer example, you could mark January 3rd as your date to get a clothes rack, by January 7th you start experimenting with how well the clothes dry on the rack (you do not necessarily need a fabric softener for this, by the way, but if you do, make sure to go eco-friendly, vegan, and animal-testing-free!), by February you dry all your socks and underwear on the clothes rack, by March you dry pants and towels this way as well, etc.

Haiku:

It lies desolate

On my desk, almost all used up

This month's ration book

(My ration book was well used, however.)

By the way, here is the logo for Hug a Tree Today, Seriously. It is the picture that you should be able to find somewhere on your web browser while you are on this site! Does it work?

Up next: DIY Eco-crafts!



Don't idle!

Nope, I am not talking about lazing around (although we shouldn't do that too much, either!). I am talking about cars.
Cars, of course, cause air pollution, and air pollution causes smog, depletion of the ozone layer, and poor health for humans and animals, not to mention plants. The gasoline must be derived from the Earth, harming animals and ecosystems. Oil spills are the extreme examples of this devastation.
A lot of people think that idling is better than stopping the engine and starting up again. But in fact, idling for more than ten seconds uses up more gas than it would if you re-started. So when you are waiting to pick someone up or stopping for a snack, make sure to turn off your engine! You will be doing so knowing that you are making one more step towards being eco-friendly!

Greenify your hobbies!

Hey there!
Hobbies-- things that we enjoy in our spare time-- can be both helpful and detrimental. Usually the more natural hobbies are better for you and the environment. When something involves a lot of technology, it obviously harms the environment, but it can also complicate your life and leave you feeling unfulfilled.
I figured that I couldn't exactly tell you to stop all your hobbies if they aren't eco-friendly; however, swapping a consumeristic activity for an eco-friendly one definitely makes a difference! You can even make an existing hobby more sustainable! Here is a list of some 100% eco-friendly hobbies:

• walking/hiking/bicycling/canoeing/kayaking/swimming
• playing a musical instrument
• sports
• antique collecting (which is very fun, by the way)
• astronomy and cloud-watching
• cards and non-digital games
• bird-watching
• juggling
• meditation and yoga
• dramatic arts and public speaking
• window-shopping

Well, I could write more, but that's the idea of how easy it is to be eco-friendly and have fun at the same time. Assuming that you have time for hobbies, why not try some new eco-friendly hobby today? Do it outside where the lighting is natural and you'll get a bonus point.
There is also the matter of making current hobbies more eco-friendly. It's easy-- if your hobby involves paper, try to use paper with writing on one side already; if it is crafts, use recycled or organic materials; minimize car trips whenever possible; with many other hobbies, you can simply use the materials you have on hand instead of buying new ones.
I recommend that you stay away from electronic hobbies, as, like I said, they are typically unfulfilling and consumeristic. Television, especially, does not do anything at the end of the day but eat up your time. However, start up an environmental blog or do some online activism and I'll support that!
So go ahead and start up some new eco-friendly hobby! And tell me about your experiences afterward!
Carolyn
(P.S. I was on someone else's blog yesterday, and I realized how easy it is to ignore the requests for comments. However, please do make a comment, rate the post with the boxes below, and take the poll on the side of the page-- it really helps. Thanks!)

Stop those leaky taps!

This may seem silly, but a really smart thing to do is to always make sure that the faucet is completely off before leaving a sink. Why? Well, I did an experiment to judge how much water is wasted on dripping taps. Here are the results:
At a mere 17 drops per minute, a dripping tap can emit 3mL of water per minute.
In an hour, therefore, this would have accumulated to 180mL-- in between one half cup and one cup.
In a day, this number would have risen to 4.32L, or about 17.5 cups of water.
If everyone in the world did this for a year, the total would amount to approximately 11,037,000,000,000,000L of water.
What can we do with the above amount of water?
Let us leave it be in its source and keep the ecosystem flourishing. I would love it if we stopped draining lakes and started simply using less water, wouldn't you?
So please turn off the taps you see dripping in your house. Educate your family members to do the same. Think of how much we could save!
By the way, now is the ideal time to start using your ration books (see earlier November post)! I have started mine for the month of December already. I'm wondering how well I will do...
Until next week!