{"id":2907,"date":"2008-04-28T12:57:18","date_gmt":"2008-04-28T18:57:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress-367309-1145705.cloudwaysapps.com\/2008\/04\/28\/environmental-defense-fund-bothering-to-save-the-planet-one-step-at-a-time\/"},"modified":"2017-08-03T13:05:03","modified_gmt":"2017-08-03T17:05:03","slug":"environmental-defense-fund-bothering-to-save-the-planet-one-step-at-a-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/environmental-defense-fund-bothering-to-save-the-planet-one-step-at-a-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Environmental Defense Fund: Bothering to Save the Planet, One Step at a Time"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>You swap out your light bulbs<\/a> for energy-efficient ones, keep your house as chilled as a meat locker in winter<\/a>, bicycle to work<\/a>, eat little meat<\/a> and drive a hybrid<\/a> \u2014 yet nagging at you is this thought: Do my small actions make a difference? Author Michael Pollan says they do.<\/p>\n In last week’s Sunday New York Times Magazine<\/em> (4.20.08), Pollan wrote a provocative essay, “Why Bother? Looking for a few good reasons to go green.<\/a>” In it, he wrestles with those lurking questions about our everyday choices to stave off global warming. Some excerpts:<\/p>\n Let’s say I do bother, big time. I turn my life upside-down\u2026, but what would be the point when I know full well that halfway around the world there lives my evil twin, some carbon-footprint doppelg\u00e4nger in Shanghai or Chongqing who has just bought his first car (Chinese car ownership is where ours was back in 1918), is eager to swallow every bite of meat I forswear and who’s positively itching to replace every last pound of CO2 I’m struggling no longer to emit. So what exactly would I have to show for all my trouble?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n He looks at the reasons we find for not doing anything: “There are so many stories we can tell ourselves to justify doing nothing,” he writes.<\/p>\n And yet, he resoundingly concludes that those little things are <\/em>worth the bother.<\/p>\n Why? …. The Big Problem is nothing more or less than the sum total of countless little everyday choices, most of them made by us\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n If you do bother, you will set an example for other people. If enough other people bother, each one influencing yet another in a chain reaction of behavioral change\u2026. Driving an S.U.V. or eating a 24-ounce steak or illuminating your McMansion like an airport runway at night might come to be regarded as outrages to human conscience.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Yes, you can make a difference. Pollan asks us to start with planting a garden. There are many more ways you can reduce your carbon footprint, of course. One is to choose food thoughtfully. Here are tips that will not only help the health of the planet but make you healthier, too.<\/p>\n Guidelines for choosing foods thoughtfully<\/strong><\/p>\n We’ve never had such a variety or abundance of food to choose from. And now we hear about our “food print.” Do we buy cherry tomatoes from Mexico or tomatoes grown locally in a hothouse? Do we get the Granny Smiths from the farmers’ market or the supermarket? Is organic produce healthier for us and the planet?<\/p>\n These are very complex issues that require analysis of many criteria, including the energy used in producing and transporting the food, as well as the type of soil and methods of raising the food. Despite the complexities, there are some general guidelines you can follow that are good for you and the planet.<\/p>\n Eat less meat (eat low on the food chain)<\/strong>. Your doctor may have advised you to limit your consumption of red meat because of its unhealthy saturated fat content, particularly corn-fed animals. (Milk, meat and eggs from grass-fed animals are both lower in saturated fats and contain higher levels of heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids.)<\/p>\n There are environmental reasons, too. Raising food animals contributes substantially to climate change because a meat-based diet requires more land, energy and water than a plant-based one.<\/p>\n Pollan sums up this principle in his book In Defense of Food<\/a><\/em>: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” (Read an interview<\/a> with the author in a New York Times<\/em> blog.)<\/p>\n Eating less meat and more grains and vegetables helps reduce:<\/p>\n Buying local may be, but is not always, climate-friendly<\/strong>. We often hear about the benefits of eating locally grown fruits and vegetables, and there are many. They include:<\/p>\n So buyer beware: <\/em>Use common sense and ask lots of questions when purchasing items.<\/p>\n Things to watch for:<\/p>\n Choose less-processed foods<\/strong>. Heavily processed foods tend to be low in fiber and high in fat and sugar. They often contain lots of dyes, colorings, and preservatives that aren\u2019t great for your health. And all that processing uses a lot of energy.<\/p>\n Getting your food from field to table requires multiple steps, including processing the whole food into a refined product, which then may be used as an ingredient in another food product. Still more energy is needed to package and ship the final product to retailers.<\/p>\n More steps in processing generally means more intensive energy use. Take a bottle of ketchup. Tracking a common brand of ketchup sold in Sweden through the 50-plus steps to produce it revealed steep energy and environmental costs, particularly from the processing and packaging steps.<\/p>\n Avoid heavily packaged foods and buy in bulk<\/strong>. Processing and packaging together take nearly a quarter of the energy used in food production. Choose minimally packaged foods or those in the biggest containers available. Fresh fruits and vegetables, of course, are usually not packaged at all (shun those Styrofoam containers!), and they are healthy choices.<\/p>\n Buying organic has benefits, too<\/strong>. Whether growing organic food versus conventionally grown food produces less global warming pollution overall is hotly debated, and the jury is still out. How much the soil is tilled, how much greenhouse gas the soil retains or releases, what type of food is raised (fruits and vegetables, grains, milk or chickens) \u2014 these are some factors that must be considered. Still, there are clear pluses for your health and for the environment.<\/p>\n The health benefits of going organic include:<\/p>\n The ecological upsides of growing food organically include:<\/p>\n You also help spur demand for organic foods by buying them. This in turn prods farmers to grow food without harsh chemicals. All your food choices together can have a profound effect on your carbon footprint, as much as the type of car you drive.<\/p>\n You swap out your light bulbs for energy-efficient ones, keep your house as chilled as a meat locker in winter, bicycle to work, eat little meat and drive a hybrid [ … ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":17488,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,24,7],"tags":[25,606,20,319],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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More things you can do<\/h3>\n
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