1) Put on a sweater. Remember when you turn up the heat in the wintertime, your furnace is probably burning fossil fuels. A sweater or a nice warm robe will keep you even warmer and will help conserve and reduce climate change.
2) Put one foot in front of the other. One hundred years ago, 99.9% of people got by wuthout cars. They took the train, they lived near their workplaces.....and they walked. Using fuel efficient cars is important, but we can save even more fuel by driving less.
3) Go for seconds. Recycling doesn't always means only separating your cans and bottles. It can mean using things a second or third time. That nice padded envelope you got in the mail, for example? Instead of throwing it away, scratch out the address, tear off the stamps and use it again.
4) Watch your waste. Items you may be throwing away can contaminate the soil for thousands to millions of years. Your community probably has special disposal procedures for things like used oil and batteries. Ink cartridges can probably be recycled where you bought them. And many of the new super efficient lightbulbs contain mercury, so proper disposal is crucial. Check with the store where you buy them.
5) Paper nor plastic. Bring your bags with you! By taking reusable bags to the grocery store, you can cut down on the 350 bags the average American uses each year and reduce needless deaths of marine life caused by plastic bags that end up in rivers, streams and oceans.
6) BYOB. Last year Americans went through 50 billion water bottles. Fill up a reusable water bottle at home and bring it with you. Don't like the taste of your tap water? Buy a filter! (Remember much of the bottled water sold today is filtered tap water anyway.
7) Flip 'em off. In much of America we can't even see the sun anymore, due in part to all the electrical lights. Keep the lights on in the room you are in, but keep the rest of your house dark. You'll find the darkness is soothing.
8) Get in touch with your roots. Plant a tree! It's good for the soil, good for the birds, good for reducing vlimate change -- and good for the air your breathing.
9) Get off. Catalogs are great when they're from companies you like to order from. But if your getting catalogs from companies you don't by from, call them and tell them to get you off their list - and that's an order.
10) Support the WWW. We're working to protect endangered species and preserve their habitats. Time is running out for many of the animals you love. We must act urgently, and support is crucial in our efforts.
