What’s Your Eco-Resolution for 2009?
The countdown to 2009 is literally hours away. This is the time to reflect on the year past and think about all of the cool things we can all do to make 2009 the greenest year ever? Check out these eco-resolutions from greenies all over the country:
“I do resolve to always fill (with tap water; mine is Brita filtered) and carry my reusable bottle with me whenever I travel, and never buy another bottled water unless absolutely necessary!”
- Begin using the rain barrel I was given this year for my birthday
- Start a compost pile
- Never, ever bring another plastic shopping bag into my home
- Find innovative ways to reuse items as much as possible
- Switch over to using CFL bulbs throughout my house
- Buy only what is absolutely necessary“
“In 2009 I plan to start a larger garden with my son in the early spring and grow quite a bit more of our food. This past year, we had a planter garden on our deck and grew summer squash, tomatoes and mint. Next summer we plan to add beans and lettuce and cucumbers, plus lots more herbs and possibly some garlic, plus more squash and varieties of tomatoes. We might even put in a new fruit tree to compliment our figs and plums. We hope to eat lots of our own fruit, plus share it with family friends and those in need, not to mention canning some nice sauce and salsa for next winter.”
“I am a mom of two kids under 3. My big resolution for 2009 is to completely stop using disposable diapers AND wipes.”
“Every year I make the same resolution: Throw out half of what I own and spend more time with my friends.”
“My wife (reluctantly) and I decided to get a little crazy for 2009, although we got a head start by a few weeks. I recently purchased two pounds of worms and in the past week have started a vermicompost bin in one of our bathroom closets.”
Honestly, I have the bags, I just always forget to take them with me. Can a resolution be to take gingko biloba so I can remember to take my bags to the store? lol
My eco-resolution is to switch to cloth napkins! I will also continue to learn about living a greener lifestyle and continue with the baby green step approach to doing so. If I can convince my family and friends to use reusable bags in 2009 I will feel like I have really accomplished something!
I plan to keep blogging about my eco-remodel on my house. But I want to do it more often. I keep putting up posts about how to make your home more green but I’m lucky if they’re a week apart. Must blog more!
ECO-Resolution for 2009: SPEAK OUT loudly, clearly and often
Dear Friends,
In calling for change in our time, great scientists are speaking about what could somehow be true to wealthy and powerful people who prefer that the “business as usual” status quo be maintained. Industrial/big business powerbrokers and their bought-and-paid-for politicians want to keep things going along just as they are going now, come what may for the children and coming generations, for life as we know it, for the integrity of Earth and its environs.
Many voices are needed to support “voices in the wilderness” like those of Jim Hansen and John Holdren, exemplary scientists who have been willing to speak truth to those with the power to make the kinds of necessary change that make belief in a good enough future at least a possibility. Assuring a chance of a good future for the children and for life as we know it is an achievable goal that will lead us to overcome the arrogance and avarice of many too many leaders of my “Not So GREAT GREED GRAB Generation” of elders.
If too many leaders of the family of humanity choose to keep doing precisely the things they are advocating and doing now, and if we in the human community keep getting what we are getting now, then it appears a sustainable world for our children cannot be achieved. By so doing, the limited resources of Earth will be permanently dissipated, its biodiversity massively extirpated, its environment irreversibly degraded and life as we know it recklessly endangered. The current gigantic scale and anticipated growth of per-capita overconsumption of limited resources, global production and distribution capabilities, and absolute human population numbers worldwide are simply, clearly and patently unsustainable, even to the year 2050. Given Earth’s limitations as a relatively small, evidently finite and noticeably frangible planet, the projected increases in these currently unbridled consumption, production and propagation activities of the human species could soon lead the human family to come face to face with some sort of colossal ecological wreckage.
Now is the time to speak out loudly, clearly and often about what is true for you. Forget about political correctness and convenience. Let go of economic expediency and greediness. Embrace necessary change rather than waste another day preserving the selfish interests of the small group of rich and powerful people, and their many minions, all of whom are adamantly and relentlessly defending an unsustainable, same old “business as usual” status quo.
Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001
http://sustainabilityscience.org/content.html?contentid=1176
My eco-resolution is to go as waste-free as I can. Kids Konserve held a Waste-Free Lunch Challenge at my son’s school and it really got him thinking about all that trash!!! For lunch and snacks we use reusable containers - no more plastic baggies or plastic water bottles. We have invested in stainless steel containers and water bottles. Here’s to a reusable, greener, New Year!
Check out http://kidskonserve.com for more info.
My eco-resolution is to grow my worm herd and continue to find more organic endeavors!
This year I will continue my ban on bottled water and continue to fill up my reusable bottles and take with me everywhere! I am also going to plant a vegetable garden (which I cannot wait to get my kids involved in) and get a composter! Exciting stuff!
OK - I already compost, bring my own bags & water bottle, eat locally and organically, and live off grid. But there is still so much more to do! This year is going to be about internal change:
1. Choose to be positive in all my interactions, including with myself!
2. Think twice or three times before purchasing anything new.
3. Strive to find ways to keep all business dealings true to our ethical, environmental and social goals.
4. Get REALLY serious about eliminating PLASTIC from my life - jeez, that stuff is EVERYWHERE!
My resolution for 2009 is to have an “As” for all my classes.
Our big resolution for the year is to stay open to possible changes as we work on our set resolutions of composting and expanding our gardening. I posted about our changes in 2008 here: http://www.greeningfamilies.com/green-saving/reflecting-on-2008-and-looking-ahead-to-2009/. What was fun was that most of the changes we made happened naturally as the result of previous changes. Once we got things moving in the direction we wanted, a momentum developed.