• Change Your Mindset. Reduce Your Environmental Footprint.

    by  • December 8, 2012 • Climate Change, Conservation, Green Living • 318 Comments

    Keep these two things in mind and you’ll immediately reduce your environmental footprint.

    Here at Sustainable Friends, we write a lot about the good that other people and organizations are doing and encourage our readers to get involved with them. We do this in an effort to help these socially and environmentally responsible entities succeed, as they are the ones leading the way to a more sustainable future. We also hope to foster cooperation because we believe that is the only way to get things done.

    Until now, we haven’t really given advice on what you can do beyond simply getting involved with our sustainable friends. We haven’t really told you what we think you can do to live a greener lifestyle. Well this is all about to change…

    Here are two things to keep in mind that will have an immediate and long-term impact on reducing your environmental footprint:

    1) Remember that everything you do has some sort of impact on our natural resources and earth’s carrying capacity. Everything.

    From buying a head of lettuce at the grocery store to getting online to read your favorite blog, everything you do has some sort of impact on the environment.

    That head of lettuce needed water and nutrients from the soil to grow. It then needed to be transported to your grocery store using fossil fuels and kept fresh while doing so. You then needed to prepare that head of lettuce for consumption using tools that were made from materials extracted from the earth. You then needed to discard the packaging and any portion of the head of lettuce you didn’t use.

    Your favorite blog requires servers and computers to communicate with the world. Those servers and computers were made from natural resources (fossil fuels for plastics, precious metals for the electronic components, etc.) extracted from the earth. They also use a lot of energy to run 24/7. You need a computer of your own to connect with those hosts so the information can be transmitted and you can read the story. Your computer, just like the host computers, was also made from resources extracted from the earth. You also need to keep that computer charged…

    2) The second thing to keep in mind is closely tied to the first: Our extremely comfortable lifestyles wouldn’t be possible without fossil fuels.

    Look around you. Just about everything you own or use has some sort of connection to fossil fuels. Your computer, your desk, your home, your car, and everything inside and outside of them, including your cup of coffee…

    All of those things either 1) contain fossil fuels or fossil fuel derivatives (e.g. plastics), 2) were manufactured by burning fossil fuels, or 3) were transported to the end-user by burning fossil fuels.

    Our connection to fossil fuels is undeniable and our dependence on them is worrisome. Ever heard of climate change? It still isn’t clear what we will be using when they run out, but we’ll have to figure it out if we want to continue living this way.

    Keeping these two things in mind is a great way to start living more green and preserving the earth for future generations. You don’t really have to “do” anything, just keep these two things in mind.

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    Treehugger. Soccer player. Energy lover.