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Poll: Your #1 environmental/health issue
I thought this would make for a good poll: What's your #1 environmental/health/energy/home issue, or "hot button?" I think most of us here have that one issue that's really important to us, and we're not afraid to tell our friends, co-workers, and anyone else we can about it. What is yours, and why is it so important to you?
Mine is knowing where your food comes from. It.drives.me.crazy that the vast majority of Americans don't even know which hemisphere the food they bought at the grocery store came from, let alone how it was grown (pesticides? GMOs? Human rights violations?) This is the fuel for your body, I don't understand how where your food comes from is not every person's #1 priority. I don't see how anything else is more important. I'm not saying you have to buy local and in-season, but at least have the though that fast food is full of junk and is probably why you're fat and sick.
Re: Poll: Your #1 environmental/health issue
I think mine is a tie between not eating processed foods and limiting driving.
My DH and I both ride the bus to work almost every day and we live close to our offices, so if we would need to drive, its not that far. It really bothers me that some people choose to commute an hour to work every day alone in their car. It seems like such a waste of money and time. At least try to car pool, people. But it would be really nice if our city invested in some commuter rail, like they have been talking about.
this is me too. i have been telling people at work about the dirty dozen and GMOs. some are actually listening. i am really working on DH. he did not understand why i wouldn't drink the non-organic soy milk he bought me. i just keep making him watch documentaries and keep repeating my feelings.
i did feel like it was starting to sink in when he saw a HFCS commercial today and asked me how i felt about it. so at least he is listening.
This is mine too because I feel like it's so closely connected with my personal health and because I eat multiple times a day, it's a constant reminder. I know there are other things I should be just as passionate/educated/concerned about, but they're more "abstract" concepts as to how they directly impact me and my family so it's harder to generate as much passion about them or dedicate as much time to them (ie. education, preparation, finding alternatives, etc).
It bothers me that I'm one of those people! The Metro (train) out here doesn't really go out into the suburbs, the farthest west (i.e., coming out of D.C.) station is 3 miles from my job! Which is a 1-hour drive from my house. Oddly enough, another person at my small-ish (~35 ppl) company bought a condo in.my.neighborhood, but does not want to carpool b/c "you know, I could need to run errands on my way home"
Fine, then we'll both be single-car one hour commuters. Asshat.
At least I have a Prius.
I have two. (Hi again, you guys! I haven't posted here in a while, but I do lurk around here a lot still.)
1) Sustainable fisheries. It's just a pet issue that I picked up in college between my marine affairs masters and my marine bio bachelors. I'm extremely picky about what fish I will eat from where, and I'll gladly explain to others why they should eat this fish, not that one.
2) Like PP said, plain and simple reduce, reuse and recycle. I don't understand why some people can't be bothered, or why they look at me sideways when I put forth the effort. A story: Dropping off our rental car last time we went on vacation, I had an empty juice bottle in my hand when I got out of the car, and the rental guy asked if he could take it and dispose of it for me. I asked him if he would recycle it if I gave it to him, and he said probably not, so I stuck it in the side pocket of my backpack and brought it into the airport. The guy looked flabbergasted that I would rather hold on to my trash than give it to him to throw in a landfill. There wasn't a single recycling receptacle between Miami and Rhode Island, and I wound up throwing that bottle in my bin when I got home.
Sugar & Spice
I'd have to say food. Its so all-encompassing. It affects our health, our environment, our economies, from where and how its grown, to what it is, to the packaging and how the excess, waste or packaging are disposed of.
Beyond that, good, fresh, in season, real food tastes so much better than the processed stuff, and I think its really sad how our culture's taste buds have been deadened to real flavors, and addicted to corn syrups, greases and artificial flavorings, and how we've been marketed to the point of believing that processed foods are healthier, cheaper and the only way.
What to eat can get pretty complicated, but if we even made composting food wastes the norm, it would have such a huge impact. A while back there were several articles posted on here about cities efforts to reduce or eliminate regular trash, and the statistics on food waste were shocking. Its such a huge part of what ends up in our landfills, becoming environmentally toxic gases in plastic and filling these trash dumps faster, when if composted, it actually becomes beneficial. If every city did like mine and included food waste in the yard waste, it could make such a difference.
More than anything though what I'd like to change is the belief that processed and factory-farmed/made foods are 'cheap'. I'm so tired of the short-sighted viewpoint, taking the end cheap price as all that matters from corporations that pollute our lands at our cost, in so many ways.
This
Mine is also food. We are a slow food family, so it isn't just what goes into your body it is also the about quality of meals and preserving endangered foods. And I tell everyone about it. Ad nauseum I am sure.
I think it is rubbing off. My neighbor had my daughter over one night and freaked out because she remembered our eating habits and spent all afternoon cooking a meal from scratch. I thought it was a hell of a lot of effort to put into someone else's beliefs (I am sure the child would have been fine with whatever was placed in front of her), but man was I touched! She also found a cookbook called "cooking without packets" (but in dutch) that is about to be released. She knows I am learning the language and thought it would help me practice and give me "local cuisine" recipes in a way I normally cook. Plus they all know when it's baking day. I suddenly get lots of drop-ins for coffee then....
This is me too. I know that reducing and reusing have a bigger impact, but recycling is EASY! (at least in my neighborhood where I witness neighbors who don't recycle. I know it's not as easy in an apartment or in cities that don't support it.) They have bags and bags of trash but no recycling bin.
I also help monitor the recycling in my office. One floor is using theirs as a trash can despite three signs directly above the bin and the bin itself is marked. I had to throw out a whole bag because there was stinky food and wet garbage all in it.
This too! DH's BFF and her FI (acronym time!) live in our neighborhood, so we have dinner together a.lot. They don't use our neighborhood's single-stream curbside recycling bins.
They're huge bins with wheels, it couldn't be any easier. The 4 of us go through a lot of beer, and I've asked my DH to death if I can ppplllleeeeasseee bring the bottles home with me instead of watching them throw them away and he says no, and it turns into a huge fight. It's one of the few things we still fight about, actually.
Alisha, did you see my post on MM about Farmer's Markets being $$$?
http://community.thenest.com/cs/ks/forums/thread/38197193.aspx
When I saw that I was like, okay I normally just lurk on MM but I have.to.say.something. I feel like my post turned that whole thread around. The "food has to be cheap" mentality drives me crazy too. We're just exporting the costs to our children, why is everyone so okay with that? I'm also angry that the government doesn't do something about it. They're so two-faced. They do press releases and warm fuzzy stories about eating organically, but then support industrial agriculture, exempt them from environmental legislation, and have extremely lax food labeling rules. If "edible food-like substances" as Michael Pollan calls TV dinners and whatnot had to be labeled that way, things would change.
I don't know how close you and your co-worker are, but when one of my friends (granted, he was one of my best friends) and I agreed to car-pool it was with the agreement that we really SHARED our cars. So, if he needed to run an errand at lunch but I drove, he'd take my car and vice-versa--OR, we'd just stick around for the other person while he/she ran the errand. It only worked though because we did have so much trust in one another--and we did try to plan things accordingly. I'm sure it would be a little more complicated if either one of you ever got into an accident.
And to answer your OP--I think my #1 issue is still the Reuse, Reduce, Recycle. It's interesting to hear from vendors that I'm located in the "Styro-east" (Southeast). Our city recycling program pretty much BLOWS, so Dh and I are really putting forth the effort to reuse and reduce as much as possible because it's our "best" option. It's easy, it's less expensive in the long run-- I just don't "get" why people think disposable/one-time use is so great.
Food is my very close 2nd, for most of the reasons you all have mentioned. I'm much "newer" the healthy food movement than most of you, whereas I've been into the RRR movement for some time now.
Yes, obviously a hot issue for me too! Gah! Your cheap food is costing ME! You too, but you chose it (not you you, the generic 'you'). We pay to clean up after industrial waste, with taxpayer dollars, if at all. That's insane. *I* couldn't run my sewer line into the road, and yet, Tyson chicken can?
Gah!!
That is so strange. Why don't they use it?? Why ask? I'd just put the bottles back in the case, and take with me. If they said anything just say so you can recycle them. You don't have to be preachy, but why should you be forced to go against your beliefs?
Wasting energy in your home! Designing energy efficient buildings is what I do for a living so it's near and dear to my heart. I don't think people have a clue how much energy is used by buildings and homes each year. Of all the energy sources in the US 40% of it is used by buildings and that's not including industrial buildings! Everyone is concerned about their vehicles...that's great but all transportation, public and private, only uses 28% of the energy in the US which is only slightly more than residential homes use (22% of that 40% I mentioned above).
Installing a programmable thermostat and calling your home energy efficient doesn't cut it. People always look at home upgrades as pricey but that new Prius is worth it because it's EF. Right? Simply adding insulation to our attic reduced our home's CO2 emissions by 37,650 lb a year!! Compare that to upgrading your vehicle:
Average 30 mph car generates 8,495 lb of CO2 per year (according to EPA).
Upgrade to a 55 mph car and you'll save 3,861 lb of CO2. That would take 9.75 years to save as much energy as one year of savings that insulating our attic did!
That's just a rough example but you get the idea. And the numbers get even bigger for commercial buildings. For a recent children's hospital I helped design they calculated our design had saved 415,000 lb of CO2 each year compared to a baseline hospital!
LOL, can you tell this is my hot button issue?
Food. I am probably a little fanatical about it. But to me there is nothing more personal and basic as food.
Recycling is kind of a big one of mine too. People who don't recycle are just lazy and it pisses me off.
I cannot stand how many choose disposable items over reusable--especially when both options are readily available. It makes me irrationally crazy. My former office mate comes in each day with 3 or 4 plastic bottles of water. WTF? We have filtered water in several places in our building. At least get one giant bottle instead of 4 small ones. At a meeting last week (at a hotel) I witnessed 16 out of 20 coworkers (I counted) choose paper coffee cups, plastic lid AND cardboard sleeve for their afternoon coffee instead of the ceramic mugs that were sitting right next to them! I just don't get it and almost freaked out and hid the paper cups under the table. I never know what, if anything, I can do in these situations. All I could think of was to chat with a coworker who was also using a mug about why he chose that instead of paper. We got into a discussion about waste loud enough that I others could hear. Hopefully it made some people rethink their choice. Probably not.
My #1 issue is eating locally. I see how that solves so many of the issues surrounding food. Local food uses less oil to be produced/to get to the consumer, is not processed, tastes better, is healthier, is better for the surroundings, etc. SO many people (me included, 5-6 months ago) have no concept that food grows in seasons. I mean, they must know, but don't think about it. (It's easier not to.) I am having so much fun planning my meals around what's in season.
As a side note, I get really annoyed when my one friend who is "super green" about everything buys oranges, melons, etc. out of season (or that are never in season) but rants about people who drive wastefully. I don't think she puts two and two together that the fruits and veggies she just bought probably traveled 1500 miles to get to her.
Cycles 1-18 = a bust
DX= unexplained infertility
Cycle 19-20 On BCP, shutting down the ovaries
Cycle 21- monitored Gonal-f injections + HCG trigger = BFN
Cycle 22- 3 weeks of BCP + Gonal-f + HCG trigger = BFN
Cycle 23- 3 weeks of BCP + Gonal-f + HCG trigger - BFP!
VOTE ON MY PHANTOM BABY NAMES
Yeah this bothers me too, but more that I have to do it, not because I choose to do it. I have already explored all of my carpooling, etc. options, but the fact is that I live on the mainland and I have to commute out to an island every day. Not a single person I know has to go where I go, so carpooling is not an option (I have been trying, believe me). I am comforted by the fact that we live super close to FI's work, so he carpools (and when he doesn't, he has a super fuel-efficient vehicle).
Other than a general lack of knowledge about how to reduce the energy you use, where your food comes from, etc. mine would have to be water waste. It makes me really mad to see things like sprinklers (at people's houses) on in the rain, etc.
FI used to be one of those that left the water running while brushing his teeth, running a load of dishes for like 3 cups, and doing a load of laundry with only a few items. I've managed to break him of those habits, and explained to him that these were unacceptable practices. His little brother is getting an Evolve shower for an early Christmas present because he leaves the water on while it heats up.
Not caring about missing RSVPs because there aren't any rocks!
A few months ago, my FI, his brother, and I went to my hometown. I took them to this really awesome little restaurant where the food is 100% organic (you can arrange to have a tour of their farm where the food comes from). FI's brother thought the food tasted weird and he didn't like it.
Well, yeah after eating McDonald's, etc. for most of your life real, fresh food will taste weird. Seriously, in the past his mom took him to McDonald's every morning for breakfast (his habit has been broken, but it took some fighting to break it).
Not caring about missing RSVPs because there aren't any rocks!
Hmm, I would like to talk to you. We're looking at new construction, not custom a subdivision, and I would like to know what things could be done, whether by the builder or us after we buy.
To OP, I'm making changes to a eco-friendly lifestyle and my issue right now is that I'm getting questioned why I'm doing it. When I explain its simply better for you and the enviroment, I get the eye roll or people say it's too hard.
I've noticed the difference in the few items we got from WF versus our normal grocery store. Its amazing that my oranges that I used to get from Sams left a list orange residue on my nails when I peeled them. Not with the ones from WF and it tastes like an orange.
This board has been a great help and I'm learning so much from ya'll.
Definitely food. We purchase local as much as humanly possible. We make no exceptions with local/grassfed/humane meat anymore, although sometimes we have to make exceptions with veggs.
People not recycling also drives me insane. One of our neighbors has 3 full (large) garbage cans every week, and don't recycle. I can only imagine how much that would be cut down if they did. I have been tempted to leave an anonymous note numerous times
I wouldn't care if they knew it was me, either!
I just read the farmers market posted on MM that was linked to above. It got me all stirred up again! My new mantra is "Cheap food comes at a price."
And as a side note (since farmers market berries were being discussed on that thread), I paid $4 a pint for Michigan (local) strawberries, and I swear, they were the best dang thing I have ever tasted in my life. They were droolingly good, and don't hold a candle to the Cali strawberries that are in the grocery store right now (that are probably produced specifically for the ability to be shipped long distances and still look perfect).
Cycles 1-18 = a bust
DX= unexplained infertility
Cycle 19-20 On BCP, shutting down the ovaries
Cycle 21- monitored Gonal-f injections + HCG trigger = BFN
Cycle 22- 3 weeks of BCP + Gonal-f + HCG trigger = BFN
Cycle 23- 3 weeks of BCP + Gonal-f + HCG trigger - BFP!
VOTE ON MY PHANTOM BABY NAMES
Toxic exposure, especially in, but not limited to, children. I want clean food, pcps, toys, building materials, plastics. I don't want to our bodies to be riddled with toxins.
You all make me feel very unpassionate.
I buy fair trade coffee and chocolate. I buy free-range farm eggs when I can (my farmers keep eating all their chickens in the fall...). I don't go to the farmer's market, as it's really inconvenient in both location and hours. I don't rant and rave to people about anything, really. I just quietly compost, recycle, bike to work sometimes, eat small-farm meat, grow some vegetables, and reuse as much as I can.
I lack the ability to rage against the machine.
DH won't let me put the bottles back in the case and take them with me, that's what we're fighting about. He says it's their home, they don't have to recycle if they don't want to and it is not my place to change what they do in their home. I've tried telling DH I'll do it quietly, I won't even say anything let alone preach, and that doesn't work either. I can't bring the bottles *I* emptied home with me, either. DH makes a huge stink about it and it turns into a screaming match. It's one of the few things we still fight about.
They don't use it because they just throw everything into the trash. When I asked them about it years ago, they
and made jokes about me being crazy for even suggesting they take the 2 seconds to sort their trash.
I think you've hit the nail on the head. Hellz to the NO is this co-worker driving my car. He is a total flake and doesn't have any attention to detail at work, there is no.flucking.way he's driving my car in rush hour in NoVA, or even down the street to grab lunch. I suggested to him that we don't have to carpool every day, even just once or twice a week would save on gas and release the passenger from their hour-long commute. Big no on that too.