Conserve Water. 

·         Take one-minute showers

·         Turn off water when brushing your teeth

·         Wash clothes only with FULL load

·         Don't over-water landscape

·         Switch to water-friendly landscaping

·        http://www.h2ouse.org is an excellent resource for all sorts of water conservation information.  Also see www.lbwater.org for more ideas and information. 

·          The Long Beach Water Dept has free monthly 1-day residential landscape classes for its customers on Saturdays.   Click here for a flyer.

 

Offset your Emissions.

You can purchase "carbon offsets" to offset the carbon emissions which we create through daily living and, increasingly, when we travel.  Check out these three websites:

Carbon Fund is affiliated with the UU Ministry for Earth; donations support a variety of major initiatives that reduce CO2 emissions. 

Donations to The Nature Conservancy, are used to plant trees.

Join www.co2balance.com.  They own trees and the land on which they are planted.  Memberships give members discounts on special occasion trees that make perfect gifts. (From $25)  Also go to this site to find out YOUR carbon footprint.

 

Advocate.

House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has set up a new House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.  The House Foreign Affairs Committee recently approved a bill to obligate the administration to participate in international meetings on climate change.  The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is pushing a nonbinding resolution that encourages diplomatic fronts to combat global warming..  

 Contact your legislators.

Sign a Petition at http://moveon.org.   Full petition text:

Committee  "Congress must act now to move our country toward a clean energy economy based on solar and wind power by voting yes on H.R. 969, the Federal Renewable Energy Standards Act."

 

 

Eat Locally.

There are lots of reasons to buy locally grown foods. You'll get exceptional taste and freshness, strengthen your local economy, support endangered family farms, safeguard your family's health, and protect the environment.  Here are some resources to help you eat locally in Long Beach:

Long Beach Area Farmers’ Markets include:

LONG BEACH UPTOWN

THURSDAYS --- 3 - 6:30 pm.
Atlantic Ave./E. 45th Way (between E. Del Amo Bl. & E. San Antonio Dr.)
in the Bixby Knolls area.

LONG BEACH DOWNTOWN

FRIDAYS --- 10 am - 4 pm.
CityPlace Center, at Promenade N. and E. 4th Sts.
2 hours of FREE validated parking in any CityPlace parking structure!

Los Alamitos FARMERS MARKET

Saturdays 3P-7P 

Katella and Pine

LONG BEACH SOUTHEAST

SUNDAYS --- 9 am - 2 pm.
Alamitos Bay Marina: E. Marina Dr. south of E. 2nd St.

For a great day out, Pick Your Own lunch or dinner! A guide to pick-your-own farms is at http://www.pickyourown.org/.  Tanaka Farms in Irvine, grows strawberries, pumpkins, and other vegetables and fruits.  They also have a corn maze and give guided wagon rides around the farm. www.tanakafarms.com 5380 3/4 University Drive, Irvine.  Phone: 949-653-2100.

Ever heard of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)?  Read all about how you can buy a share of a local farm and have fresh produce delivered to your family year-round at http://www.biodynamics.com/csa.html

Long Beach Organic (LBO) is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting sustainable organic gardening practices and local food production in an urban environment.  Their website has info on community gardens and links to info on Sustainable and Organic Agriculture, Local Farms, & Food Security.  www.longbeachorganic.org

FoodRoutes is a national nonprofit organization that provides communications tools, technical support, networking and information resources to organizations nationwide that are working to rebuild local, community-based food systems  http://www.foodroutes.org  Other local-food resources are at http://www.100milediet.org/,

The Sierra Club has lots of information on why eating local is such a great thing to do for the environment:  http://www.truecostoffood.org/  The website includes recipes and a 15 minute educational and entertaining video, The True Cost of Food, all about sustainable food.

 

Learn.

Calculate your carbon footprint at any of these websites:

http://www.climatecrisis.net/takeaction/carboncalculator/

http://www.carbonfund.org/site/pages/carbon_calculators/

httP://www.co2balance.com (Find out how much CO2 air travel, household, car travel, ferry travel, & rail travel generate.)

For Ten things to do, see www.ClimateCrisis.net, the official website for An Inconvenient Truth.

The Northeast Earth Institute (www.nwei.org) provides a variety of study courses, including "Global Warming: Changing CO2urse" and "Voluntary Simplicity".

Institute for Religion and Science (www.iras.org) - qualified scientists who want to incorporate scientific understandings in religious thought. See their website for recent papers.

For text and streaming video of CNN's Our Changing Climate go to www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/1997/global.warming.

Eco-Justice.org provides a weekly email newsletter to involve and inspire people of faith with information and perspectives related to environmental justice issues. See www.eco-justice/E-list.asp for an archive of newsletters.

 The Global Energy Network Institute, based in San Diego, provides technical, social and policy data to world policymakers and industry leaders.  One goal: to establish a worldwide electrical grid that distributes sustainable energy (wind, solar, hydropower). See www.geni.org.

 

Read.

Six Arguments for a Greener Diet,by Dr. Michael F. Jacobson

HEAT: How to Stop The Planet from Burning, by George Monbiot (review at http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/46318/)

"Currently, global carbon emissions are about seven billion tons, roughtly one ton per person.  But the average American generates, directly and indirectly, some 10 tons per capita." 

David Morris, AlterNet, 1/9/07

"Raising a cow requires a thousand times more water than the equivalent average for grain." 

US News & World Report, 6/4/07