Orange County Interfaith
Coalition
for the Environment
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The following are tips that we at OCICE feel will help you to care for the planet and live your values more effectively. If you have a suggestion that you think we should include, please contact us. 1. Live Your Values: Buy Local, Organic, and Fair Trade 2. Find Connection with Creation: Grow Your Own Food 3. Seek Truth: Choose Independent Media Sources 4. Support Ethical Energy Sources: Choose Alternative Energy 5. Show Gratitude: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Compost 6. Be a Good Neighbor: Get to Know Yours Buy local: Energy consumption and transportation to ship from far away are serious but often-ignored aspects to what we use and buy. Buying local cuts down on the amount of fossil fuels used in transport and thus, global warming. Links www.caff.org/farms/final/csas.html Buy organic: Pesticides are poisons to critters and you and the U.S. dumps 8 lbs per American per year into our soil and water. Pesticides are a primary cause of ground water pollution and conventional farming is a major contributor to topsoil erosion. (soil being our main source of life). More energy is used to produce synthetic fertilizers than to till, cultivate and harvest all the crops in the U.S. 50 –60% of processed foods in the U.S. (non organic) contain genetically modified ingredients (you know frankenfoods, crossbreeding tomatoes with cold water fish and that sort of stuff ). Industrial agriculture and factory farms pollute the earth, air and water torturing animals and lacing our food with toxic pesticides, diseases and bacteria. All this adds up to buy organic! Links http://www.organicglobal.org/ Buy Fair Trade: Many of our clothes are made in sweatshops and even under conditions of forced labor or even child slave labor. Buying fair trade products will ensure that your coffee, chocolate, and even t-shirts are produced without sweatshops or forced labor. Fair Trade The "why" of it: Factory Farming Seafood Genetically Engineered Food 2. Find Connection with Creation: Grow Your Own Food At the beginning of the 1900’s there were over 7,000 varieties of apples in the US. Over 6,000 of those are now extinct—these same rates of loss have happened in all our food crops. When you plant something unusual that you have never grown before, you help to support biodiversity. Growing your own food also decreases the waste of packaging, as well as the fossil fuels that would otherwise be used to transport your food from a farm to a market. Links The "why" of it: http://www.organicconsumers.org/monlink.html 3. Seek Truth: Choose Independent Media Sources These days, the corporate media only answers to the bottom line. Investigative reporting is on the decline and many stories go unreported. There is very little accountability among politicians and corporations. If we want to know the truth, we have to find it ourselves and read independent media. Do your homework and write to your local newspapers about the issues that concern you. Links Periodicals Online only The "why" of it: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1406 4. Support Ethical Energy Sources: Choose Alternative Energy Global warming is a reality and we need to start dealing with it. Links Biodiesel Solar The "why" of it: Global Warming 5. Show Gratitude: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Compost Our society encourages waste at every turn. Our wasteful habits are so illogical that they could be qualified as neurotic, and yet, the mainstream media depicts a canvas bag carrying individual as somehow marginal. We kill over 100,000 sea mammals every year through the plastic bags that end up in our oceans, yet we continue to use them in abundance because remembering to bring our own is supposedly too much to ask of a consumer. Let's all stop the madness. Checklist to reduce waste:
Links Canvas Bags Bioplastics Recycled toilet paper Composting and sustainable lifestyle products The "why" of it: Your Ecological Footprint (your impact on the earth) Plastic Pollution 6. Be a Good Neighbor: Get to Know Yours Don’t wait until a rainy day to get to know your neighbors. Just as a spider weaves a web of support, so should we create lifelines in our social relations. There are many reasons to get to know your neighbors. Knowing who is around you makes you more aware and safer, but also could lead to business relationships, life-long friendships, and much more. You never know who might be living right next door. |
"Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed. Mahatma Ghandi Tip of the Month Plan a Green Halloween! Tip One: Rather than purchasing a Halloween costume that will more than likely only be worn once, get creative. Look through your closet or attic for old clothing that can be made into a costume. Maybe that old plaid flannel shirt and those holey jeans will make a good scarecrow costume for your trick or treater or as a porch decoration. Do you have any 1980’s clothing still sitting around - how about planning a retro theme? Tip Two: Don’t waste your pumpkin when making a jack-o-lantern. Use the meat of the pumpkin to make pies or muffins. Bake the seeds for a healthy snack. When the jack-o-lantern has seen its last days, compost it rather than throwing it in the garbage. Tip Three: Don’t go overboard with the candy. All too often, kids go home with their treat bags overflowing with candy that more often than not, gets thrown away, creating even more waste! Purchase Fair Trade, Organic candy; it’s better for the farmers, the trick or treaters, and the planet. Tip Four: Forgo the Halloween cards; instead, send e-cards, thus reducing the number of trees cut down, the amount of fossil fuel wasted in the production and shipment of the cards, as well as reducing the waste in the landfills. Also consider this for Thanksgiving and other major holidays.
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