Sunday Seven....Have you Herd?

It's Earth Day....that time in the year where we should all stop and look at what we are doing and what we can do to help pass on clean water, air, and a safe environment to our children and our children's children. Here are some suggestions that are easy enough to implement .

1. Buy local, eat local...for food that can not be grown in your region, such as tea, coffee, bananas, or chocolate, buy fair trade products where these are available. Make use of farmer's markets in your area.

2. Say No to Plastic bags that you use for just a few minutes that may last for years or decades in the landfills. Buy cloth bags and use them instead. Take one with you whenever you go out shopping and use it again and again.

3. Snip Six Pack Rings...Many 6 pack rings wind up in the ocean. Once they are in the water they become invisible to sea creatures and birds that are hunting for food. Sea gulls and pelicans can get the rings caught around their necks or becks when they dive into the water looking for fish. Tangled in the the rings, they can drown, strangle or stave.

4. Don't use Styrofoam cups. Polystyrene is forever: It is not biodegradable. Americans use enough Styrofoam cups each year to circle the earth 436 times. Don't be a mug...Use a mug!

5. Do Guerrilla Gardening: Our cities have more parking lots than parks. More traffic signs than trees. Guerrilla gardeners are people who anonymously plant herbs, flowers and vegetables on vacant land, in cracks in the pavement and by sides of roads and footpaths.

6. Commit to eating a vegetables -only dinner once a week. Producing meat requires a huge amount of resources compared to growing fruit, vegetables, and grains. Twenty vegetarians can live off the same amount of land that one meat eater would require. If Americans reduced their meat consumption by 10% , it would free 13 million tons of grain-enough to feed 60 million people.

7. Commit an act of kindness. Do something for someone else without any expectation of gain or reward. (If you get caught...it doesn't count.) Here are some examples: * Whenever you pass a playground or area where kids play, drop some coins. Do you remember how excited you were when you found coins? * If you know people who are having a hard time financially, put a $5, $10, or $20 bill in an envelope, and mail it to them anonymously. They'll talk about it for weeks, remember it forever, and wonder who sent it.

Plant a garden, go visit a community garden or just go out and hug a tree. For those of you having wonderful spring weather go out and enjoy the beauty of spring with the budding trees and flowers . We can all be better stewards of the planet.

Sunday Seven...Earth Day Edition

Seven Ways to help the Planet
from 365 Ways to Change the World by Michael Norton

Sunday Seven....Earth Day Edition

Play Along?

1. A hunger free world. More than 800 million people in the world go hungry. But we have the means to end hunger. The costs are not big. The United Nations estimates that the basic health and nutrition needs of the world's poorest people could be met for an additional 13 billion a year. Animal lovers in the US and Europe spend more than this on pet food. What sort of world is it where there is enough food to feed the world, yet people are still going hungry? Visit the Hunger Site daily and trigger a donation. It will cost you nothing, but you will be feeding a hungry person.


2. Buy a goat for a family, and help the family take a first step toward self-sufficiency. Goats for Peace runs a revolving goat scheme. Here's how it works:
Step 1. Goats are given to a goat bank.
Step 2. The goat bank lends a female goat to a family, (possibly a widow and her children.)
Step 3. The goat grazes on scrub land or eats up waste and produces milk.
Step 4. The children have nutritious milk to drink and the surplus is sold.
Step 5. The goat produces manure. If the widow has a plot of land, this fertilizes the soil and crop yield goes up. This represents more to eat or more money for the family.
Step 6. The goat gets pregnant and produces more goats.
Step 7. One female is returned to the goat bank to pay off the loan, and the widow keeps the others.
Step 8. A goat is lent to another widow, and so the process continues.



3. Transform some one's outlook: donate you old eyeglasses. Unite for Sight distributes donated reading and distance glasses and also nonprescription sunglasses to children and adults in Africa, Asia,and Latin America. Reading glasses and sunglasses are especially needed.

• Over 1 billion people in developing countries need eyeglasses but cannot afford them.
• Over 4 million pairs of eyeglasses are thrown away each year in North America.
• 25% of the global population needs eyeglasses.
• 50% of children in institutions for the blind in Africa would be able to read normal or large print if they had eyeglasses
• The price for glasses in Benin and other African countries can exceed three months' average salary

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4. Be a Backyard BEEKEEPER. Bees are essential to life on earth. They transfer pollen from the male parts to the female parts of flowers. Without this process, many garden plants would not be pollinated and so would fail to produce the fruits, vegetables, and flowers that we need and enjoy. Around 80% of the food we eat comes from crops that have been pollinated by bees.



5. Plant a Tree and improve air quality. (Arbor Day is the last week of April) Trees renew our air supply by absorbing carbon dioxide and producing oxygen. Just two mature trees can provide enough oxygen for a family of four. One tree produces nearly 260 pounds of oxygen each year. One acre of trees removes up to 2.9 tons of carbon dioxide each year. Trees cool the air by evaporating water in their leaves. Tree roots stabilize the soil and prevent erosion. Trees improve water quality by slowing and filtering rainwater, as well as protecting aquifers and watersheds.


6. Harvest the Rain....catch that water. If your house sits on a tenth of a acre plot and a storm dumps o.75 inches of rain, you've just received 1,750 gallons of water on your house and garden. This water is largely clean and chemical free. Use rainwater to water your garden and pot plants and to wash your dog and your car.


7. Make every day Earth Day. Promise to help the planet. Sign the earth day pledge:

I will act as a Trustee of the Earth by:
Promoting actions to preserve peace and planet
Conserving nature and its resources
Encouraging environmental stewardship and
Asking others to do the same.