Green Living
"The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second-best time is now" (African proverb noted in Dambisa Moyo's book "Dead Aid")
A lot of us are asking the question “What should I do with my life?” Perhaps the answer won’t be found in one great thing…but in all the little things. Your everyday choices define who you are, what you stand for, and the world you want to see.
Each of our choices in the past built the world we live in today. And each of our choices from this moment forward will build the world of tomorrow. If you’re not living your values, whose life are you living…and what kind of world are you building?
Simplify
Imagine a world of billions of people living exactly as you do? Would it truly be fair and sustainable? Live simply, so others can simply live.
Fair-Trade
Ensures that farmers, artisans, and other producers get a fair price for their goods. It guarantees a living wage, encourages environmental responsibility, and reinvests in communities. Look for fair-trade certified products.
Organic
Protect people, the planet, and precious wildlife. Organic products ensure that chemicals are not sprayed and dumped on farm workers, on the land, and in our water supply. Pesticides are poisons designed to kill living organisms. Promote health—including your own. And save energy. In the United States, more energy is used to produce synthetic fertilizers than to till, cultivate, and harvest all the crops.
Fair Labour
Sweatshops, child labour and slave labour are a growing problem even in North America. Clothing and other products like coffee, fruit, chocolate, and flowers are often produced under brutal working conditions. The cheapest products often come with the greatest human costs. Get to know more about how the products you purchase are made and make the most humane choices.
Renewable Energy
Wars are fought for resources. To build a world that is safe and secure and to preserve the planet for future generations, choose solar, wind, wave, geothermal, biofuels, and other renewable choices. If these choices aren’t readily available to you, continue to conserve energy and consider buying renewable energy credits.
Car-Free
Take the bus, ride a train, or get on the subway. Better yet walk or ride a bike. Use your own energy to get around. You'll feel and look great.
Local
Be the champion of local businesses. Buying local supports small businesses, creates local jobs, and keeps more money in your community. And, when you support a local company, you then have the opportunity to make sure they treat people, the planet and animals responsibly. Unlike giant national retailers, they are members of your community. The products sold by giant retailers are mostly made at the expense of poorer nations, their people and their environment. The cheap prices of giant retailers come at a huge cost others.
Vegan
Vegan foods are plant-based and contain no animal products (meat, fish, eggs and dairy). The reasons more and more people are choosing a vegan lifestyle include bettering human health, ending farm worker and factory worker exploitation, ending industrial racism, saving family farms, protecting the environment, ending climate change, ending world hunger, using energy and resources more wisely, conserving land, protecting wildlife, preserving our oceans and waterways, and being kind to animals. A vegan lifestyle expands your circle of compassion to include those who rely on your kindness. Vegan choices are some of the most far-reaching personal, practical, and ethical choices you can make. Being Vegan is not living without... it’s living in abundance of joy, health and kindness.
Recycled
Remember when you throw something away, there is no such thing as “away”. Use less, reuse, and recycle. Choose used and recycled products whenever possible.
Tree-Free
Choose recycled lumber and paper products, consume products with less packaging, recycle what you use, and consider tree-free papers like kenaf and hemp
Cruelty-Free
We have the compassion, intelligence, and technology to move beyond hurting animals for the product of food, clothing, cleaning products, and personal products. Industries that make a profit by hurting others do so with the consent and support of those who buy their products. Make the kind choice, buy cruelty-free.
Most of us have felt the unconditional love of an animal…that deep bond that seems to go beyond our human connections. We talk to our dogs and cats and sometimes we connect with them more deeply than with anyone else. They love us…and we love them
You can feel that connection again and again by giving your love to every animal-- those we call our pets, wild animals, and those who suffer on farms and in factory farms.
Make Vegan choices to align with your true love for animals. Expand your circle of compassion and the love will come back to you a thousand times.
To see how much resources your diet consumes, check this out!
National Geographic: The Hidden Water We Use.
“A human being is a part of the whole, called by us the ‘Universe,’ a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
Albert Einstein
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