~ Green Living ~

Green Living or ECO-Living...caring for the environment...being  responsible...becoming a good steward...

However you want to describe it, doing as much as we can to help the environmental situation is important. The information you find in this section will help you make informed decisions about how you can do your part.

We have all heard the lament from poor Kermit about how it isn't easy being green. Perhaps he was right in many ways, though I doubt that he meant exactly what we are about here. Does being Green, trying to adjust your lifestyle to "Green Living" need to be difficult? There are many things we can all do on a daily basis that will, collectively, make some measure of difference.

To start with, maintaining a vegetarian diet does lend itself to a "greener" lifestyle. We mentioned the following information in our page with other interesting articles but they bear repeating here.

- Food accounts for 13% of all Greenhouse Gas emissions.

- Red Meat and dairy are responsible for nearly half of all Greenhouse Gas emissions from food for an average U.S. household.

- Replacing red meat and dairy with chicken, fish or eggs in  your diet for one day each week reduces emissions equal to  760 miles per year of driving.

- Switching to vegetables one day per week cuts the equivalent  of driving 1160 miles per year.

That's pretty interesting when you think about it. The problem is that we don't think about it. The companies who are running large factory farms especially don't think about it.

A report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations discusses the all-too-rapid expansion of the global livestock sector. They cite such statistics as the fact that the livestock sector alone generates 65 percent of human- related nitrous oxide, which has 296 times the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of CO2. Most of this comes from manure!

And it accounts for respectively 37 percent of all human- induced methane (23 times as warming as CO2), which is largely produced by the digestive system of ruminants, and 64 percent of ammonia, which contributes significantly to acid rain.

Livestock now use 30 percent of the earth’s entire land surface, mostly permanent pasture but also including 33 percent of the global arable land used to producing feed for livestock, the report notes. As forests are cleared to create new pastures, it is a major driver of deforestation, especially in Latin America where, for example, some 70 percent of former forests in the Amazon have been turned over to grazing.

The livestock industry also accounts for significant damage to the land and water systems. The report goes on to say that "the livestock business is among the most damaging sectors to the earth’s increasingly scarce water resources, contributing among other things to water pollution, euthropication and the degeneration of coral reefs. The major polluting agents are animal wastes, anti- biotics and hormones, chemicals from tanneries, fertilizers and the pesticides used to spray feed crops. Widespread overgrazing disturbs water cycles, reducing replenishment of above and below ground water resources. Significant amounts of water are withdrawn for the production of feed."

Remember the recent drought? Remember the folks in Georgia nearly running out of water because the reservoirs had all but dried up? Remember how they were at a point where they were about to do some significant damming and re-direction of river waters which would have ultimately impacted the Florida everglades and its eco-system? Could it happen again? The question is probably better phrased as when will it happen again? Will America experience another dustbowl? I don't know but sometimes it seems as though we are certainly tempting the fates a bit too much.

So, as mentioned before, there are some things everyone can do. It doesn't matter how small or insignificant you may think it is, at least it is doing something. And if every one of us did "something" wouldn't it be better than most of us doing nothing?

To read about more Eco-Friendly living ideas Click Here

And remember, the decision to "go green" is an important one. There are a lot of helpful sites available to guide you through the "whys and wherefors". We think Going Green For Life is one of the best. Pay them a visit!

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