"Through no fault of our own, and by dint of no cosmic plan or conscious purpose, we have become, by the power of a glorious evolutionary accident called intelligence, the stewards of life's continuity on earth. We did not ask for this role, but we cannot abjure it. We may not be suited to such responsibility, but here we are."
-Stephen Jay Gould, The Flamingo's Smile
This blog is just to jot down few things that I do to minimize my footprint on earth.
A simple and natural living recognizes that the resources in nature are finite and that we share this planet with all other living beings, in the big scheme of things we are all interdependent. The destruction of nature will in turn extinct humanity and the quest to search the ultimate truth of nature will end for good.
We form some of our habits as a kid, during adolescence media and peer pressure influences our choices. It is not easy to break the cycle of the activities that we do in daily life which put enormous burden on nature, we have to actively gather information and make Eco-friendly choices. There are few things that we could do without much of an effort, I would mention those in here.
a. Reducing garbage:
When we throw something "away" its only "away" from our eyesight,
there are no "away" in real sense.
- Buy products with minimum packaging.
- Use cloth/nylon bags for shopping, instead of disposable plastic bags.
- Don't use any plastic bags to wrap vegetable/fruits.
- Take a container with you for take out foods.
- Recycle: before you recycle, try to reuse them few times. make sure to recycle the electronics/batteries in special locations. For electronics recycling in Vancouver see here.
- Compost:
b. Saving Energy:
- Buy local products: since the transport of goods is a major cause of green house effect.
- Take public transit and keep your driving to a minimum.
- Use energy efficient light bulbs.
- Unplug appliances when not in use.
- Take stairs instead of elevator whenever it is possible.
c. Saving Water:
- Use slow stream shower head
- Use natural cleaning products: All the commercial poisonous chemical that we use today, ultimately end up in water and all the creatures living in water are affected in this process. The fish that we consume gets polluted in turn and this infinite cycle of chemical consumption will cause unknown negative effects on us.
vinegar and baking soda are two of the most essential green cleaning products. There are many sites which provides helpful green cleaning methods. I have found this one very helpful. To read the guide on toxicity, see here.- Natural laundry detergent. wash in hand in tub or make sure to use cold water and dry at home.
d. Don't buy anything disposable.
e.Try to become vegetarian: meat are extremely inefficient calorie provider. At least try to reduce your meat consumption, and you might end up helping your heart as much as nature itself.
f. Consumption:
- Buy what you need, not what you want. Unlike need, want has no limit. To fulfill infinite want is impossible which in turn will make sure you are never happy, since your expectation are never realized.
- When you buy things keep in mind that the dollar price is only part of the equation, exhaustible resources are being used to produce them and we can not put a dollar price on it. Every unnecessary purchase creates a burden on natural resources.
Time is the most precious thing in our life, so to spend our life in a loop of almost slave like work to feed our unnecessary consumption can not be very satisfying. We learn to follow social norms like lemmings and we never ask the basic question about costs of the comfort that we enjoy today. read more, more and more.
"How well each does for himself in adapting to his social environment is not the same thing as how satisfactory a social environment they collectively create for themselves."
-Thomas Schelling, Micro motive and Macro behaviour
I think Schelling's quote applies to natural environment as it does to social environment.
