Thus far, we have focused on ways to make minor changes in our daily habits in order to reduce the amount of energy we use and in other ways to cut back on the greenhouse gas emissions we are responsible for. Fortunately, the vast majority of those advocated here save you money while, at the same time reduce waste. That has the silent benefit of also helping to conserve natural resources that are not easily renewed, or are not renewable at all.
This month, let’s start the new year off right with a set of lifestyle changes that benefit your health as well as reduce your carbon footprint and use of precious natural resources!
The last set of tips focused on saving money and energy indoors.
This time we're talking about both indoors and outdoors.
1. Don’t buy bottled water. Tap water is just as good or better, far cheaper, and using it instead of bottled water purchased in plastic saves a lot of greenhouse gas. Many of the best-selling brands bottle tap water from municipal water supplies, anyway. Especially eschew waters imported from distant lands; think of their wholly unnecessary carbon cost! And because tap water costs much less, you easily can drink more, which is good for almost everybody’s health.
2. Cut down on carbonated soft drinks. So many of us love our sweet, fizzy “pause that refreshes,” that it’s probably unrealistic to urge giving it up entirely; but do drink a lot less carbonated beverages and don’t start your kids drinking them. Most are sweetened with high-fructose syrup, chemically converted in energy-wasting ways from the starch of corn, which is one of the most GHG-producing of crops. Energy is wasted in the bottles and in their transport; and each drink releases CO2 to the air. Plus, of course, the fact that fizzy soft drinks are mostly bad for you: they dissolve tooth enamel, they contribute a lot to the obesity epidemic, many contain large amounts of caffeine, and many other chemicals of doubtful or unknown safety go into their recipes.
3. Keep a kitchen garden if you can. You get the freshest vegetables, berries, etc., without traveling (usually by carbon-burning car) to buy the produce or for the produce to be delivered to your store; and you can be sure it’s organic.
4. Buy locally-grown food. Find and patronize a local farmer’s market; and/or patronize a community-based agriculture system, if available. If you have to choose between organic and local, making it local is more important. A large proportion of supermarket food—including the organic—has traveled thousands of miles, burning fossil fuels. "The average piece of food on your table was transported 1400 miles." (Source: Janine Benyus, Biomimicry.) Local is almost sure to be fresher, and buying it sustains your community.
5. Buy organically-grown food. In addition to the health benefits, the pesticides and artificial fertilizers used on non-organic food are made using lots of fossil fuel and venting much greenhouse gas (more than just CO2; e.g., nitrogen oxides.) Claims denying that it is more nutritious are based on faulty research, looking only at a few vitamins!
6. Eat less meat. The production of meat — especially beef — requires astonishing amounts of water; and cattle vent a lot of methane, a greenhouse gas more than 80 times as potent as CO2; more comes from their poop as it decomposes. More than one third of all materials and fossil fuel consumed in the US is used putting meat on our tables! Some experts say that meat is a bigger source of GHG than all cars and trucks. Vegetarian food requires much less energy and water to produce; and it has real benefits to health, also. Most meat is grown using antibiotics, too, with many bad consequences.
7. Eat less highly-processed food; fresh, not frozen. Not only is it better for you, but enormous amounts of energy are used processing foods, greatly raising the cost (both monetary and carbon) of what we eat.