A Very Tangible Thing

I think reducing our environmental impact is a very tangible thing. The removal of environmental toxins just in individual homes and work places (smoking, lead, asbestos, even cleaning toxins, etc.) has a very quick and tangible result. Clean water, air pollution, chemicals leached into the soil, also have tangible affects on people that can be seen relatively quickly in someone's life, especially if they are a child.

This blog entry written by Trula Breckenridge. Thanks for visiting Family Footprint!

Mott Family Farm

After our sons made Brian breakfast and he opened his Father's Day' presents, we spent the day at his cousin's farm with Jeff and his wife Shelly and their two older boys who are 11 and 8. They also have a baby boy who is 9 months old. They are wonderful people, really good and kind people. It was a blast to see them again and spend the day on their farm! We hadn't seen them since the Christmas holidays.

They live and work on an all-natural farm on which they produce organic produce. The farm holds the official label of "Certified Naturally Grown" which means they do not use chemicals of any kind and practice permaculture. The farm is off the grid! They got a great deal on solar equipment from another farmer who got on the grid.

Here's a good article about their farm: Local family meets needs, works to change countryside

Their page on Guernsey County Farmers Market website.

The way they live has had a big influence on us and is a huge source of inspiration! Here are some pictures of their farm, and you can see more on my flickr:



Here's a good article about their farm: Local family meets needs, works to change countryside

Their page on Guernsey County Farmers Market website.

This blog entry written by Trula Breckenridge. Thanks for visiting Family Footprint!

The Environmental Moral High Ground

Why does there have to be a moral high ground here? I am struggling to understand what people mean by this. I often get snarky comments from people who feel as if I think I am better than they are for choosing to live green...I don't. Other comments include people suggesting that environmentally friendly choices are not for everyone or are not possible for everyone. Hmmmmmmm.

If you have decided that hunting and/or growing your own food, for example, is not for you, there are other alternatives like buying from local farmers. If you have chosen to use modern conveniences, there are other alternatives like reducing your use of them and recycling them (like if you have a microwave that no longer works, instead of dumping it have it fixed instead of buying a new one). I do believe that if there is any moral issue here, the moral thing is to do what you can do to lessen your environmental impact. That is something that is subjective from person to person, family to family, but even if all you can do is recycle one pop bottle a day, that's a spark that will cause you to open your eyes to the possibilities for doing more in your life. The moral high ground is to choose that rather than feel a competition with others that are able to do more.

This blog post written by Trula Breckenridge. Thanks for visiting Family Footprint!

Do What You Can

Certainly, someone can feel I am implying that by taking the steps I described that they will be free from complicity in what is happening with the environment. I believe that if someone feels this way they will soon drop this way of thinking because once they are on the environmental path, they will begin to understand that is just the tip of the iceberg. I have a sister who refused to recycle at all because she felt like she couldn't do more than that or keep up with it. I suggested to her to try just recycling her aluminum products. She just drinks a pop a day at her job and the company provides a recycle bin. After a few months of doing just this she felt confident enough to start recycling plastic bottles at home. Now after a few months she's starting on recycling her magazines and has started reducing her electrical use. She is on the path, you see?

I understand most people in the world have different life pressures that affect how much they are able to do. I think that using their different life pressures as an excuse to choose to do less than I am able, would be a cop-out for me. If I choose to do less when I can do more, I am just making their life pressures worse. I feel that by doing more I am not only helping myself but helping everybody else too.

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This blog entry written by Trula Breckenridge. Thanks for visiting Family Footprint!

Origins of the Phrase Tree-Hugger

Have you ever wondered where the phrase 'tree-hugger' came from? I've been called that a lot, so I did. Check it out:

The Chipko movement (literally "to hug" in Hindi) was a group of peasants in the Uttarakhand region of India who acted to prevent the felling of trees and reclaim their traditional forest rights that were threatened by the contractor system of the state Forest Department. The movement began in Chamoli district in 1973 and spread throughout the Uttarakhand Himalayas by the end of the decade. In Tehri district, Chipko activists would go on to protest limestone mining in the Dehradun hills in the 1980s as well as the Tehri dam, before founding the Beej Bachao Andolan or Save the Seeds movement that continues to the present day. In Kumaon region, Chipko took on a more radical hue, combining with the general movement for a separate Uttarakhand state.

At its height, Chipko gained widespread attention from the international environmental movement that was making major headway in drawing global attention to ecological concerns. Unlike, environmentalists of the West, Chipko was thought to embody an "environmentalism of the poor" [3] and thus a novel example of the growing reach of environmental concerns. The tactic of tree hugging, long an epithet for environmental activists in general, also inspired and fired the imagination of activists in the West.
Read rest of Wikipedia entry

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Today Is Ecological Debt Day

What is Ecological Debt Day?
From the site:

Globally, we are demanding 1.3 planets to support our lifestyles this year, and yet we only have one planet earth.

Ecological Debt Day marks the day when we begin living beyond our ecological means. Ecological Footprint accounting shows that, as of October 6, 2007, humanity has consumed the total amount of new resources that our planet can produce this year.

Each year Global Footprint Network calculates humanity’s Ecological Footprint (its demand on cropland, pasture, forests and fisheries) and compares it with global biocapacity (the ability of these ecosystems to generate resources and absorb wastes). Ecological Footprint accounting can be used to determine the exact date we, as a global community, go into ecological overshoot, using more than the planet can regenerate in a year. On Ecological Debt Day, we go into global overshoot for a given year and begin contributing to our global ecological debt, which has been accumulating since we first went into overshoot in the 1980s.
Read more

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Earth Clock

Ok, this is really cool, it's an online ticker that shows population growth, C02 emissions, and other interesting things you might like to know:
http://www.poodwaddle.com/clocks3.htm

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