Article by Make The Days Count Contributor Blake Cothron

 

The Western world is now beginning to embrace the concept of “going green” and becoming more environmentally aware and responsible.  With 2009 upon us, we can do something new for the Earth and help reduce our own footprints on the Earth’s resources and ecosystems.  We can make this a New Green Year.

 

It can seem like there’s so much to catch up on.  Organic food, holistic medicine, natural fibers, hybrid vehicles; there’s so much to learn about it can seem like too much.  As with most major trends it’s easy to get swept up in the current of hype and lose touch with the essence of the movement (see footnote for more information).

 

What I will say first is a common theme in much of my advice - avoid the hype.  As businesses realize there’s money to be saved by “going green,” they also realize there’s as much or more money to be made by selling the green movement.  For instance, I witnessed earlier this year many businesses giving away or selling these so-called reusable shopping bags to customers.  These things were hardly thicker than a plastic shopping bag and lasted about as long.  That’s not helping anything but a company image.  We have to get real - and that means distinguishing what’s really helping and what’s hype.

 

Let’s keep this process focused on what it’s about: Love for the Earth, respect for Earth’s resources, and keeping ecosystems functioning and abundant for Earth’s creatures and the generations to come.

 

Here are three easy ways to get started on genuinely going green:

 

Plant a Tree

This is one of the biggest things we can do to help restore balance to the Earth.  Trees are incredible - sucking up carbon gases like gigantic sponges, creating habitat for innumerable creatures, purifying the air and water, building soil by the ton, feeding us with fruits and nuts, sheltering us from wind and sun, creating rainfall through transpiration, giving us timber and fiber to build our homes, heat them and make other products … plus holding the soil together with mazes of roots, preventing it from washing away in rains.  Wow!  That’s something so precious and important that Earth cannot live without trees.

 

Here are some tips to get you started with your tree planting:

 

-  Go Native.  Native trees have evolved for millennia to be perfectly adapted to your area - withstanding bugs, drought, storms, and snow with ease.  Trees also fit into the ecosystem with other native creatures, giving them shelter and food.  I’ve noticed after large storms that non-native trees were hit the worst by far.  Oak trees are fantastic, red maples, white pines, tulip poplar, redbud, slippery elm, and catalpa are all fine choices in the American Midwest, for example.  Their vibrant spring flowers and fall coloring will be delightful.  (I highly recommend native food trees as well, like black walnut, American persimmon, butternuts, the amazing paw paw, and the endangered American chestnut.  That way you’re helping the native ecosystem and growing amazing, delicious food for your family and wildlife.)

 

- Consider Fruit Trees.  That’s right!  You can grow the best fruit you’ve tasted in your own backyard.  Get trees from a local, reputable nursery that specializes in fruit trees.  In the Midwest, go for apples, plums, cherry, peaches, paw paw, pears and mulberry.  Dwarf trees are genetically very small and can fit in nearly any back yard and produce bountiful fruit.  Get healthy, medium sized trees and follow growing directions found online or at the nursery.  Nut trees are an excellent choice too, get very big, and produce prodigious crops.     

 

- Plan Ahead for Tree Size.  To successfully grow your trees, first must remember that TREES GET VERY BIG!  Please, for your sake and the tree’s, plant it at least 15-20 ft away from other trees, your house, and power-lines-20-30 ft if possible.  Fall is an ideal time to plant, before it gets very cold.  Spring is also good.  Plant your tree as soon as possible after purchase.  Plant in a large hole twice as big as the pot and add some compost if available.  Water the tree very deeply, several gallons at least.  Then mulch heavily with leaves, straw, newspaper, wood chips, or whatever you have available.  Water once a week or so deeply the first summer.  Presto!  You just made a difference.  

 

Buy Local Food

With “Peak Oil” looming overhead and the multinational corporation-based food system in serious question, supporting local farmers and food systems is important.  Farmers are who feed us.  Most supermarket fare is trucked in from California and all over the globe, traveling thousands of miles in refrigerated trucks, to the great expense of petroleum and food quality.  Without new technologies, it is an unsustainable system.  Not only that, it doesn’t taste as good!  Fresh food tastes wonderful, and local is thousands of miles fresher. 

 

So what counts as local?  Some definitions of “local” recommend staying within a hundred mile radius.  For the Louisville area, that would include central and southern Indiana, Lexington, Bowling Green, and even Cincinnati is considered local.

 

You can support hardworking local farmers in many ways.  The farmer’s market is a great option.  There are now farmer’s markets open all over the state.  Many of them are open all year.  Many local health food stores sell great local produce.  Online you can find sources for local u-pick farms, specialty items, meat and dairy, honey, and other items.  Every time I go shopping I buy local food.  It’s the first step to reweaving the local food web.  If the farmers stay farming, we stay fed.  Try it-you’ll love it.

 

Reduce Waste 

This means reducing the amount of disposable things you buy and use.  This includes items such as shopping bags, plastic bottles, disposable razors, diapers, and cheap goods that will likely break soon. 

 

Buy or make a quality long lasting shopping bag or use a backpack when you go shopping.  Obtain a quality metal or glass water bottle and drink filtered tap water instead of using imported bottled water.  Choose quality cloth diapers to use at least part of the time, to help reduce waste.  Always buy top-quality goods and avoid plastic, flimsy mass-produced goods that will soon be in the trash.  It’s an investment that saves lots of cash as well. 

 

Recycle!  This is an absolute necessity.  We all produce trash, and most of it is recyclable and valuable reincarnated into a myriad of other items.  If you don’t already recycle, it’s a very important step towards being green.  If your local trash company does not provide recycling services, request them.  It’s easy and fun, and brings about a sense of responsibility and accountability for what we use and where it ends up. 

 

Hundreds of tons of biodegradable kitchen waste gets lost in landfills every year.  Consider starting a compost pile in your yard.  Then you’ll have plenty of excellent fertilizer for the fruit tree you just planted. 

 

Good luck going green!

 

“I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting sweetness and her respecting her seniority.”
-William Westmoreland, Essays  

 

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Note:

The green movement is about making changes to reduce the amounts of natural resources humans use (and more importantly Waste), and to be a caretaker of our remaining natural resources.  Historically people have thought resources and land were infinite - and burned through them with that mindset.  We as Americans use relatively a large amount of resources now seeing that resources are precious and anything but infinite - some would say much more than our fair share.  For example, “The average African family uses about 5 gallons of water each day.  The average American individual uses 100 to 176 gallons of water at home each day.”  U.S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet “Water Q&A: Water Use at Home.” Quoted at “Water Facts,” www.water.org 

 

Here are some more figures:

-The average American family produces 100 pounds of trash per week, that’s 3lbs of waste per person per day. 

-Over 1 billion trees are used each year to make disposable diapers.
-Americans throw away about 10% of the food they buy at the supermarket. This results in dumping the equivalent of more than 21 million shopping bags full of food into landfills every year.
-1 ton of paper made from 100% recycled stock saves: 7,000 gallons of water (recycled paper uses 35% less water), 60 lbs. of air pollution effluent (recycled paper creates 74% less pollution), 4,000 KWh of energy, 17 trees, 3 cubic yards of landfill space and $35 per ton of waste disposal fees.
- The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries estimates that over 200 million trees are saved each year due to current recycling efforts.
-In a lifetime, the average American will throw away 600 times their adult weight in garbage. This means that a 150-pound adult will leave a legacy of 90,000 pounds of trash for their children. (Source: www.uncc.edu/recycling/ and www.jmu.edu/recycling)