Your home is a reflection of who you are. If you value the earth, it should definitely show in your home. Thankfully, there are several ways to create an eco-friendly home that treads gently on this planet. Here are a few tips and tricks to keeping your home as sustainable as possible.
According to NASA, the current warming of the earth is roughly 10 times faster than the ice-age-recovery warming. Impacts of climate change can be felt all around the globe, from the rising sea levels and extreme weather conditions to shrinking ice sheets and decreased snow cover.
As you may or may not know, fresh water is not an infinite, renewable resource. There's only so much of it and we aren't making any more. That's why it's so important not to waste water. This life-giving resource needs to be conserved and valued. The good news is there are plenty of ways to reduce water consumption—one of the biggest ways being your diet. Here are five ways to reduce your water footprint ASAP.
Imagine a world where weekly garbage pickup didn't happen. Would you still make as much trash every day, knowing it would eventually consume your entire sidewalk, possibly even your home? We often forget how privileged we are to have garbage pickup services—not everyone is so lucky. We give very little thought to what happens to our garbage when it's sent away. The truth is, it doesn't go away. It goes to landfills, likely located in poor communities, where it emits toxic gasses bad for people's health and the earth.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have fresh fruits, veggies, and herbs available right in your yard? If you embrace edible landscaping, you can enjoy this experience practically year-round and save money to boot. Veteran Edible Farmer Rosalind Creasy shares that while these types of gardens do require an initial investment of time and money, they offer significant savings on produce costs—for example, in 2008, the value of the vegetables she grew in a 100-square-foot garden totaled more than $675.
Everyday we create food waste in one form or another. Tossing out food that has spoiled, failing to utilize food scraps to their full capacity, and even gluttony are all culprits of food waste. It's hard to imagine, but our ability to overindulge as a first world country isn't only bad for health, it's also not doing our food supply any favors.
“Terroir” is a French term that stems from the word “terre,” meaning “land” or “earth.” It is a concept commonly used when discussing wine and vineyard-growing regions. The “terroir” of a given wine – the complexities of its flavor – essentially depends on four unique factors: climate, soil, terrain, and tradition. Combined, these four aspects offer a unique and non-replicable terroir associated with the wine that is produced under those specific circumstances.
Have you ever thought about what your clothing is made from? Most clothing these days is made from synthetic materials. Or try entering a local fabric store; it’s rare to find any textile with a label listing actual ingredients. Even more extraordinary is to find a textile that comes from your local community. According to federal regulations, most textile and wool products must have a label listing fiber content, country of origin, and identity of the manufacturer or another business responsible for handling the item.
This house is where I got my first taste of an intentional community. An Intentional Community (IC) is a community built on a foundation, so to speak, of people living together and working as a team. Many times the people living in a community like this share and hold common beliefs, such as religion, spirituality, politics, science, etc. There are also communities that are full of people with different opinions, religions, and outlooks.
So, what exactly is sustainability? Most people might not know what it is because it’s not something that can be easily defined, but I’ll do my best to do so. To me, in order to be sustainable, you must be doing everything in your power to meet your own needs, while keeping the needs of future generations in mind too. In other words, we cannot destroy and/or deplete the natural resources that Earth has to offer. Luckily, there are numerous small changes you can make that will help the conservation effort and lessen your impact.
