Low Carbon Girl’s first birthday.
Low Carbon Girl’s first birthday.
And, what a year its been. China’s air pollution is just FREAKING me out. And, all of their ADAPTATION to air pollution – designer air masks – really? – hey folks, let’s not be so quick to adapt. Why not fight for a little while longer, what do you say?
That freak-out is followed quickly by Fukushima’s continued issues, including dangerous rod removal from waste water tanks that could, if they got too close, create a chain reaction and spew more nastiness into the air and water. This is not good for Pacific NW fishing as nuclear waste spreads out into the ocean. In fact, I heard a radio broadcast of our local government raising the allowable contaminants (not just radiation) for human consumption of fish – because, guess what? – if they didn’t raise the levels they’d have to tell us to stop eating certain fish, quickly followed by all fish. (I LOVE sushi by the way. But, I’m not eating it anymore. *sob*)
And, let’s not forget FRACKING. Oh, there’s a great idea. Let’s pollute ground water and streams to extract hard-to-reach natural gas. So what if a few farm animals, and under-represented people in PA and other remote towns suffer and/or die, or whatever, at least we never have to turn down our heat or alter our lifestyles whatsoever, right?
With all the other stuff going on it’s easy to forget our silent passenger, climate change. I tend to agree with scientists who say two degrees warmer is too much. Follow me on FB or Twitter to see what’s happening to trade winds, parasites lifecycles, animals, landscapes, glaciers, etc. due to climate change.
So, what have I been doing, you might ask? I haven’t built any nuclear plants for one. I’ve tried to reduce my impact on the earth (see all the lifestyle changes I’ve made over the past year, many changes have saved me money). I’ve been spending a little too much time on social media: FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google +, and Pinterest which has had a negative impact on my blogging. My most popular posts for the year were:
- Hot Tub vs Bath Tub, which uses more energy?
- Just One Word: Plastics, how to avoid using plastic
- What About a Composting Toilet? Tips on reducing energy consumption in the home.
- Sustainable Travel, surprising outcome when I calculated time, money and emissions of a 400 mile trip.
- Water Instead of Soda, a case for drinking tap water and using reusable bottles (11 comments!!) -WINNER
- Climate Change: What can the average Joe or Josephine do? Feel empowered, all is not lost! Yet.
- Plants Have Protein but How Much? How to get the Protein You Need on a Plant-Based Diet.
After a year of reading about climate change and carbon emissions and human impact on the environment, my three picks for lifestyle changes that would go a long way to reducing carbon emissions are:
- Reducing our demand for meat (so, meatless Mondays like the Norwegian military would help our planet and our bodies);
- Reducing our one-use plastics (bottles, takeout, packaging);
- If you fly a lot for business, look for ways to cut back when you can (video conferencing, Skype, or travel as environmentally friendly as possible: trains, cars, buses, etc.).
And, I’ve made a lot of friends online. I truly appreciate support from my blogging buddies: Green Steve, Joy, Clare, Green Gal, Biocadence, and Rachelle Strauss, and others who have been with me every step of the way for the past year. Love you guys! Thanks for making the vastness of social media a friendlier place.
Spoiler alert: Guess who is going to be the next President of Sustainable Bainbridge? Me, Low Carbon Girl, yup that’s right! Watch out world! Taking this green thing to the local level. 🙂
Congratulations on reaching this milestone (first of many I hope)!
I don’t know about you but for my part at least, blogging has actually been a real eye-opener. I mean it is one thing to try and be green but when you document a journey so publicly like this you are forced to not only do more thorough research but also walk the walk because of the accountability a blog brings.
I definitely agree with you about the #1 best way to reduce your ecological footprint – meat (especially red meat) has a far higher level of emissions associated with it than the majority of people would think (unless they’re in the know like us) so this is a message that needs to be spread far and wide. I still eat meat but red meat is more of a rarity these days.
Anyway, I look forward to reading another year’s worth of posts!
I was really surprised that raising cattle has such a negative impact on the environment. I grew up in PA farm county, our next door neighbor was a farmer. We used to walk over and pick our steer to fill the freezer each year. Ive always considered country farms (not to be confused with feedlots) bucolic. The rolling green hills dotted with black and white steer….