Greenvine: How Are We Making the World Greener?

Last year I was going to replace my lawn with meadow grasses. They are drought resistant,and grow using tubers so they spread quickly. The problem is that almost no one carries them so I had to hold off.

I also started riding my bicycle to work recently. I feel invigorated when I get to work and when I get home (and no, I am not an in-shape athlete)

I started a wind energy business that is helping to make progress towards reducing the energy pressures from oil prices.

I switched my electric utilities over to wind energy.

I shutoff my office A/C and power daily.

Commute to work at loss frequently and spend more time on Newsvine :-)

Go greenvine tag... nice idea.

I use a reel mower instead of a gas mower. Better exercise and I think it gives my lawn a better look to boot. A good company that makes them is http://www.reelin.com/

Also I recently installed ceiling fans in my home, they let us cut back on AC and yet still feel cool.

This isn''t exactly personal but my city (Fort Worth) has a fairly comprehensive recycling program that is actively encouraged by charging allot more money for larger non-recyclable waste collection. Basically we have three sizes of trash bins they will collect and the larger sizes cost much more a month while the recycle bin is ''free'' or included however you look at it.

I''m not doing much myself I admit. I rode Metro for about 4 years to work everyday but my current job is nowhere close to a station. So all I can really list is that I''m a vegetarian (saves a lot of water and land area).

I studied architecture in college, and the dean of our school is one of the leading proponents of green design, not just in building but in all our industrial processes. He''s the person I''ve known who''s done the most to make the world more green. You can read about him here. He wrote an amazing book called Cradle to Cradle, as opposed to cradle to grave, arguing that our industrial process should never end in the grave as trash, but should be the starting material for new products, i.e. disassembling computers/tvs for their components and raw materials. He''s one of the rare pro-business environmentalists. He''s worked with several large corporations trying to put his plans into action, and the book has apparently been incorporated into China''s government policy in their plans for providing housing for 400 million more people.

I recently ditched my car in favor of the city bus system, also I became a vegetarian because the rate at which Americans consume meat is completely unsustainable. I'm in the process of creating a website for people who are concerned with the direction the world is headed. It will have vegetarian recipes and as much research about the human effect on the world as I can get my hands on. My goal is to get people to reduce their meat consumption and live sustainably. When it goes live sometime this summer, I'll be sure to write an article for "greenvine."

Side-note: is there a term for people who are vegetarian not because of any moral reason, but because of the scientific facts presented that show the unsustainability and the immense negative impact that we have on the world?

My 60 yr. old house is on it's 3rd yr. of a 1 yr. remodeling project (it would have been easier to tear it down and start from scratch : -). Outside walls are now 6 inch for more insulation, ceiling fans in all rooms, high efficiency wood stove, and double pane windows all around. Most lights are the new 60 watt (rated) that burn only 14 watts. I grow my own veggies (but I still love my steaks. Not a vegetarian), have a compost heap to return nutrients to the garden, and am planning to install rain barrels for the gutter downspouts this summer, to (help) cut down on watering the lawn on county water. Oh, and my wife and I often shower together to conserve water =)

I live in a very rural area in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan... lots of trees, wildlife, and the fishing is good. We have clean air and fairly clean water (no major industries to pollute anything anymore). I took part in the first Earth Day in 1970 where our school cleaned up the whole town we lived in. That made an impression on me at an early age. I still pick up garbage wherever I go and dispose of it properly. One of my minors in college was Environmental Science, so I've taken courses in conservation, soils, ecology, etc. I've also taken several courses offered by the County Extension Service toward my Master Gardener certification, but didn't complete it (yet). I've worked in greenhouses and also was hired as a City Gardener, where I took care of all of the city garden beds and parks. I moved a few years ago, so I'm not doing that job anymore. Currently, we supplement our oil furnace with wood heat (wood is abundant here, and we also cut up and burn windfalls, neighbors' tree trimmings, etc.). We also have a garden, but I'm planning on adding to it with some growing beds nearer to the house. Michigan has a bottle deposit law (instituted years ago in response to Earth Day, if I recall correctly) which helps keep the environment clean... I remember how it was before we had the bottle deposit law, and the roadsides and stream banks are much cleaner now.

Here at newsvine, I try to help out by seeding environmental / ecology articles. There's a good one about Cuba instituting permaculture as a sort of response to their oil shortage. It's worked out very well for them, so far.

[As you can see, I'm a heavy user of tags to organize info.]

Hmm.... on the suface I can't say that I do much. I drive a SUV, that will change soon, but i want to run the thing in the ground before I trade it in and my wife and i just bought a new car about 9 months ago... So, there's that. I recycle when I remember to put all my bottles and cans (just clap your hands.) in blue bags, but to be honest I don't do it that often.

I will say though that when I go diving in the various lakes around here, I try to pick up as much man made trash while down there, that I can. I also have given money to various ocean conservation organizations, and have played my part that way.

When my wife and I buy a house (renting now.) we're going to look into using solar power to cut into our heating bills, etc. I also would love to have a garbage disposal, which would cut down on our waste. And when the ol' SUV kicks the can, depending on how much they are, I'd love to get a Hybrid SUV. Hey, what can I say, I still have to haul scuba tanks around the hills of PA.

I live close to work, sometimes I walk in. But the 60+ guy who biked in all winter, lives 16 miles from work and then did a cross-country trip got my vote. We don't have A/C, we're getting a pellet stove, keep the house at 60, and are getting a smaller more fuel efficient car. We mostly camp and stay outside when we vacation, reserving the environmentally control buildings for akward on the road times. I love long train ride. People complain about the bathrooms, but I think overall it's a safer and friendlier way to travel. We carry on a cooler filled with food, beverage, wine etc., and you can take your bikes. I'm looking at green vacations now, I'd like to clean trails, and tag turtles someplace when I visit; it's a nice thought to compensate for your stay.

Making the world a better place is the only thing worth thinking about. If it's going to be better it needs to be human friendly or the critters will make a mess. So I think about housing, children, recreation, and health. Maybe we need to make our houses like tents, so they can be easily replaced and not destroy the earth if they wash out to the ocean. Somehow, I think it would force us to live close to the earth instead of trying to build an environmentally altered bubble.

The big deal is energy, someone in NYC consumes 32 times the energy of a farmer in Africa. So if they have six kids who have six kids, the city dweller's still doing more harm with one or two. You can't complain about population while ignoring consumption. Giving everyone a washing machine would destroy China. Maybe the answers are in more labor intensive solutions. Building furniture and clothes that are utilitarian and maybe not washing them if they're not that dirty, (some cultures air them out).

I just quit attending to the lawn years ago. I send my son out to eat all the clover and dandelions and violets and chickweed he wants, which I can't say helps the look of the lawn much, but it's organically produced greens grown locally! We took the side lot which we bought with our house and terraced it to make a vegetable garden...and maybe we'll even manage to grow something there, this year! Along those lines, I am dedicated to organic gardening and will not put toxic chemicals into the soil in order to have a bigger harvest. We invest in ladybugs and praying mantis each year, and this year we are going to try beneficial nematodes. We have a compost bin outside, and a worm composting bin in the bathroom (which kind of freaks out the grown-ups, but the kids find it fascinating!). I recycle everything our area will take, and do my best to re-use packaging that is not recyclable (bread bags, yogourt containers, etc). I would like to seed the back yard with oats instead of grass, but have had some trouble selling my husband on that one. *smile*
Three years ago, we bought a 100-year-old fixer-upper, which of course is not anywhere near done. We had to strip lead paint off the beadboard in my son's bedroom, and researched until we found a soy-based stripper which neutralized the lead and allows it to simply be thrown away, rather than the other products on the market, which are just as toxic as the lead is! I look for salvaged, rather than new, wood for our home projects.
I do have a big ol' pick-up truck, but worked hard to find a V-6 rather than V-8 (for what little that's worth). We are looking into finding a car that can be easily converted to bio-diesel for my husband, since we have a bio-diesel station here in town.

I am replacing about 800 sq feet of my lawn this year with recycled pallets (pallet mulch). I have a 100 sq foot compost bin I need to reclaim from the honeysuckle since I've started gardening again. This will reduce a lot of the organic, non-animal garbage I dump into the landfill. I recycle so much aluminum and glass I've had to go to two bins. But that is more of a statement on my beer consumption than conservation efforts. :D

I can only ride the bus to work 3 days every two weeks. But I do when I can.

But guys, won't God just clean it all up? He would never let us suffer in pollution. We don't have to worry about a thing.

Ah, Californians :) I'm proud of the group. Really nice one, Anna.

I forgot to give a green tip of my own. I would just say initially to write about this type of thing more, like Anna here has done; write to your local paper concerning anything on this topic; keep the subject matter out in the open, study it more, talk to friends, family. Because of course, like anything the else, the more it's made aware of, the more people are informed and are given other alternatives.

One of the simplest things you can do is to not leave appliances such as TV's, stereos etc on standby. In this mode, many use up to 75% of the energy they would use if they were actually on, so switching them off properly can save an enormous amount of energy.

I can't say I do all that much major. I walk to work. If I drive, I drive a car. I turn out the lights in a room when I'm not in that room. Only run the dishwasher when it is full. We heat with an efficient woodstove, burning wood that was harvested by sustainable forestry (but really, all the wood in my area is cut in that manner). And this summer I will continue to protest loudly against the use of our horribly inefficient window air conditioner that was not meant to cool the size of room it is trying to cool. I hope it breaks. But the louder I bitch and moan, the more persistent Dad is in turning the darn thing on :-\.

Oh, and I try not to buy over-packaged goods. I hate all that cellophane... and whatever that plasticky paper stuff is.

Very cool..
This reminds me of an article everyone should read. I'll seed it in a sec
http://cti.itc.virginia.edu/~meg3c/ethics/cases/dtex/dtex_exhibit3.html