the preachy site with the bulky name (ysmad.com)

Green Tips:

About
Reduce - Reuse - Recyle

(Oh yes, your share can make a difference)

Stop breeding

If there is just one thing you want to do, and you still want to have done the best you could ever have done for the health of this planet: stop breeding.

All details see vhemt.org , and a study from July 2017 pointing to the impact each new-born will have (considering CO2 emissions only).

Oh and think first before you object that Asia and Africa should stop breeding first, if you happen to sit on a fluffy couch in the "first world". Your unborn child would have wreaked much more havoc on this planet than the average, less pampered homo sapiens.

Buy less new stuff

Everything bought will have cost resources in form of raw material, production energy, transporting energy, plus will eventually cost energy of getting rid of it ... Our ecological footstep would be lighter if products are used as long as possible and new products considered twice if indeed a must-have. It's covering both "reduce" and "reuse" of "reduce, reuse, recycle"! :)

Update: here an example taken from book "Endgame" (Derrick Jensen, 2006):
"(...) the manufacture of the average computer takes about two tons of raw materials (520 pounds of fossil fuels, 48 pounds of chemicals, and 3,600 pounds of water;", and further detailling: "4 pounds of fossil fuels and chemicals and 70 pounds of water are used to make just a single two gram memory chip"

May we suggest this 20-minutes-movie?:

... and a preachy quote along with it: "Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed" (Mahatma Gandhi)

I recommmed watching the yearly Black Friday shopping absurdity on youtube for a better understanding ... this society is sick with greed. This planet is finite, there are limits to growth, and Earth is not a big pile of "resources", but the foundation of our - and certainly other's - life.

Give one percent of your income for the planet

Consider giving one percent of your income for the planet. Many of us give much more than that to churches. Only 2% of all charitable donations go to environmental programs. Why do our beliefs have much more value to us than our planet, the very environment we live from?

"Imagine going into Mecca, walk up to the black stone and spit on it. See how far you get. You're not going to get very far. You're going to be torn to pieces. Walk into Jerusalem, walk up to that wailing wall with a pick axe, start whacking away. See how far you're going to get, somebody is going to put a bullet in your back. And everybody will say you deserved it. Walk into the Vatican with a hammer, start smashing a few statues. See how far you're going to get. Not very far. But each and every day, ya know, people go into the most beautiful, most profoundly sacred cathedrals of this planet, the rainforests of the Amazonia, the redwood forests of California, the rainforests of Indonesia, and totally desecrate & destroy these cathedrals with bulldozers, chainsaws - and how do we respond to that? Oh, we write a few letters and protest; we dress up in animal costumes with picket signs and jump up and down; but if the rainforests of Amazonia and redwoods of California were as, or had as much value to us as a chunk of old meteorite in Mecca, a decrepit old wall in Jerusalem or a piece of old marble in the Vatican, we would literally rip those pieces limb from limb for the act of blasphemy that we're committing but we won't do that because nature is an abstraction, wilderness is an abstraction. It has no value in our anthropocentric world where the only thing we value is that which is created by humans." (Paul Watson)
More on our beliefs and what they have to do with our environment ... here.

Reduce Heating/Cooling

Heating and cooling accounts for the biggest share in the "carbon footprint" of most people - and mostly also has a significant share in the household budget. An additional sweater in winter and accepting it's summer in summer will save energy, money and the corresponding impact on the environment.

Oh - this is not primarily about global warming, if you don't buy into that. This is about mountaintop removal, with which we destroy our landscapes, about fracking, with which we may poison our drinking water, about nuclear waste, with which we are sure to delight thousands of generations to come -- and countless other "side effects" of our thoughtless energy consumption.

Common sense

Some day it will be common to not leave your AC running all day, to not use disposable products, to not drive cars with a gas milage of 15 mpg, to not let water run down the sink unused. It's common sense. Start thinking about conservation today. (Even if you don't like that preachy tone)

Use less of everything

No doubt about that: there are too many people living on earth to live sustainable with current lifestyles. Would it make a difference for you to use 20% less soap for washing your hands - probably not. Would it make a difference for the environment if 20% less soap would be used - hell yes! Go ahead and use less detergents, water softener salt, post-it notes, windshield fluid, lawn fertilizer, silicon caulk, shower gel, beverage cans, aluminum foil, hair spray, plastic bags, energy.

Plant a tree

Duh. Did you check your backyard yet if there is a spot for another tree?

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