Taking steps.

Today I watched a documentary called "No Impact Man". I highly recommend this to anyone and everyone. The premise behind the documentary was that an author and his family, while living in New York City, he decides to do a year long project in which he makes 0% negative impact on the environment. To do this, he slowly eliminates not a little, but ALL of the things that our consumer, disposable culture takes for granted. He eliminates non man powered transportation, food that is not locally grown or comes in packages, electricity, paper products (including toilet paper) non natural cleaning products, etc. He totally throws himself into it. His goal is to show that you can have a good life without wasting and destroying. Wow, it was inspiring.

Sometimes, actually often times, even people who try to take steps to live green get stuck in routines and limit themselves, because they become content with the small changes that they have made. A few months ago for a project in my environmental biology class I calculated my carbon footprint. It was about 1/3 of that of the average American consumer. A success, I would say, but when looking closer.... it is definitely not. It's not AS terrible, but it's still terrible. There are so, so many things that I can do on a daily basis to reduce my impact that I'm not doing because they take more effort, or inconvenience a little more than the usual switch eco-friendly bulbs. I claim to be someone who tries to do more good than harm, becoming Vegan, ride my bicycle more, use less electricity, compost my food waste, etc. but it's still far, FAR from equaled out. It's a harsh reality, I'm still damaging the world I love so, so much, but it's those harsh realities that motivate the change that is necessary.

There is more that I can do, there is more that all of us can do, a lot more. That's what it boils down to. It's the most important issue in the world right now and yet the vast majority of people are not doing a damn thing about it. Well, rather than fall into the mentality that I cannot make a difference in the face of so much that is defeatist and is the most damaging mindset we can have, I want to further embrace the Gandhi quote that I've always liked "Be the change that you want to see in the world". To teach by example, that is what I want to do. I recently had a friend ask me if she could sit down with me and talk about converting to a Vegetarian diet, and if I could help her making that transition. This really made my day because I feel like, by being Vegan and working out regularly I felt as if I had inspired her to start making that change for herself. I hope that once I start taking further steps into a more environmentally conscious life, that someone or maybe a few someones, will start noticing and will embrace the ideas themselves.

It's going to be an adventure, and a fun one. Sometimes getting out of your comfort zone and doing things that you wouldn't normally do in your day to day life bring more than the rewards of a clean conscious and sustainability, but also simply become interesting and enjoyable, like a personal odyssey towards living a better life. Who doesn't love an adventure? Who doesn't love a challenge? I know I love them both, and this is one I'm going to continue to take further steps in.

Some steps I'll be taking first.

• Switching to using clothesline instead of using the drying; saving electricity, not having to use dryer sheets.
• Using "soap berries", a berry that has a naturally occurring cleaning effect when combined with water; eliminating chemical impact on the waters supply through washing cloths.
• Making my own candles and using them instead of electric lighting a lot of the time.
• Start buying food at the farmer's market; not supporting the long distance shipment of food and reducing gas use.
• Making an even greater effort to ride my bicycle in place of driving, and even getting a wagon soon to haul groceries in; reducing gas and carbon emissions. 
• Getting involved in environmental projects.
• Using a bamboo toothbrush; reducing non-biodegradable plastic in landfills and bodies of water.
• Taking cold showers as opposed to hot showers; reducing the use of electricity and gas, heating the water.
• Reducing all paper usage and converting to recycled where ever I haven't already.

Even these things are not going far out of my way to change my life, but they are all important and valuable steps on the path. Once mastering these I will move further and further, all the while finding little day to day things that I can supplement them with. Reducing our carbon footprint is one of the few things we can do in our lives that really, really matters, so it should be at the top of everyone's list in my opinion. Let's first start with the little bit more than basic steps that I have listed, and then moving on from there. Nothing is more important to us than the health of this planet, let's always keep this in mind. 

Please, if you have any other ideas on day to day improvements towards a sustainable lifestyle, let me know. Knowledge is power.