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How Your Internet Use Choices Help the Planet: 5 Simple Actions
Introduction After being overwhelmed by the IPCC Report on climate change, Alison and I wanted to spend some time focusing on personal actions that could help the planet. We’ve looked at a few areas of our lives so far, such as gardening, our food choices, our energy choices and how we can use our time to help the planet. This week I’m looking at how our internet use choices help the planet. How Data Gets Around the World Internet use choices such as streaming, searching, emailing – they all seem like they shouldn’t have much of an impact beyond maybe the electricity to run our computer. Somehow I thought that the data I download, upload,…
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How Your Energy Choices Help the Planet: Solar Panels
After being overwhelmed by the IPCC Report on climate change, Alison and I wanted to spend some time focusing on personal actions that could help the planet. So far we have looked at: How our food choices help the planet How our gardens can help the planet There will be simple actions we can make in all areas of our lives to lessen our impact on the planet and energy choices in our homes are just such an example! How often have you walked around the house and turned out lights before leaving the house – or because your kids have gone through and turned every light in every room…
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How Your Garden Helps the Planet: Locally Sourced Food
We’re continuing our series on how your garden helps the planet this week by looking at the impact of growing your own food or purchasing locally sourced food. If you missed our first posts in this series, check them out here: Composting, Trees, Plants and Garden Design, Lawns. Obtaining sustenance is a major focus of every life form – it takes up a large part of our collective time and resources and so it makes sense that these activities would make an impact on our planet. In today’s post we will explore how much of an impact food production has on our planet, and how we can make changes for…
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Backyard Garden: Surviving the Weather
Well, it’s been awhile since the last backyard garden update and a lot has happened this season! To set the stage for those who don’t live on the southwest coast of British Columbia: it’s been a wild year. We had a cold spring that ran quite late, which changed almost like the flip of a switch to a couple of very warm spells including a record-breaking heat wave that went above 40 C. That hasn’t happened here since recordkeeping began and the effect on the whole province has been profound. As you can imagine, the plants in the garden have reacted in varying ways – read on to find out…
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Plastic Free July: Plastic In Our Clothing
Take a peek into your closet – have you ever stopped to think about the plastic that might be hiding in your wardrobe? What are most of your clothes made of — are they synthetic or natural fibers? Do they have an elastic waistband or stretch material? Do they have plastic snaps, buttons, or zippers? It turns out there is a surprising amount of plastic in our clothes and it has a potentially larger impact on the environment than even straws or other single use plastics! Types of Fabric How often do you look at the fibre content in the label on your clothes? I grew up buying fabric and…
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Plastic Free July: Personal Care Products
So many of the personal care products we use are wrapped in plastic, stored in plastic, and even contain chemicals toxic to ourselves and our environment. However many of these products – such as foundation, eyeshadow, eyeliner, lipstick – are wrapped up in our identities. They help us to look how we want to look and we have long associations with brands, colours, and scents that make us feel ourselves. I (Krista) don’t wear a lot of makeup, but still have had a difficult time getting around transitioning from traditional eyeliner and mascara. However, as noted above, there are compelling reasons to consider alternatives that are better for us and…
