Sustainable New Year
We all secretly know deep down that us affluent first-worlders are living beyond the means of the planet just by living our normal first-world lives, driving a car, and buying and having and using and throwing out lots and lots of stuff.
So, how about making a resolution of two to make your existence more sustainable and your ecological footprint smaller in the new year? Here are some ideas:
Offset CO2 emissions from your car
Burning petrol or gas releases CO2 into the atmosphere. However, by planting enough trees, you can remove an equivalent amount of CO2 from the atmosphere. In Australia, for $30 per year, Greenfleet will plant and maintain 17 native trees that while growing should absorb the CO2 generated by your car in normal use.
Buy sustainably generated (renewable) power
Ask you electricity retailer to sell you renewable power or green power. In Western Australia, Western Power have two Green Energy products to choose from.
Make a committment to using public transport
Stop driving around in a car, and take on public transport instead. You save money and gain time by doing this, and make a more sustainable life for yourself. Also, somebody else is driving for you, so you can concentrate on other things. And you get exercise doing this as well. In Western Australia, see the TravelSmart site for support and details.
Focus on Less
Make a conscious commitment to buying less stuff. We fill our lives with many unnecessary or superfluous things, and then need to maintain and store them. If you never acquire them in the first place, you save money, energy and materials. If you want to get conscious and political about your consumption, have a look at The Media Foundation’s Buy Nothing Day site.
Graeme, I thought that was a great post. I republished your post as an article on FamilyResource.com under the Creative Commons License. My site is technically a commercia site, since I run Google ads on it, so please let me know if that will be a problem. I mainly run the ads, because they help me pay for my hosting, and allow me to spend more time maintaining the site. Thanks again, and please let me know if it will be a problem or not having your post on my site. The link to the article is here: http://www.familyresource.com/lifestyles/18/469/
No worries, Jon. Feel free.
Did I ever tell you about my plan to save the planet (Well bits of it anyway) by towing an iceberg and irrigating the Nullabor? I think I’ll have to write a blog myself about that one… the upshot of it was, lots of trees to counter the greenhouse effect, and lots of sugar-rich crop to turn into alcohol to fuel cars - although the data on alcohol-powered cars I have found doesn’t account for the extra CO2 released during the fermentation process.
Chris.