Changing Habits

I received an email from Sierra Club today with a link to a website called 50 Ways to Help the Planet.

The crazy thing is, on the site, “they” give you 50 actual ways to help the planet. Unbelievable!

This isn’t the first published set of green action items, and it won’t be the last, but the lesson to take away from these lists is that they all ask people not to do things differently every now and then. but to change our habits. Only if fundamentally alter our behavior will we change the course we’re on.

The devastating climate change we’re experiencing currently took millions of people and decades to create. Changing to compact fluorescent light bulbs, while helpful, is only a small piece o the puzzle. The 49 others ways to help the planet presented on the list I’ve linked to should also be done by everyone; they must become habits.

Number 8 on the list – Go Vegetarian Once A Week – is the change in lifestyle that can go the furthest, yet is most often ignored by people. The site says, “One less meat-based meal a week helps the planet and your diet. For example: It requires 2,500 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef. You will also also save some trees. For each hamburger that originated from animals raised on rainforest land, approximately 55 square feet of forest have been destroyed.”

Bill Maher talks about vegetarianism on his show frequently, but no one else in the popular media – if HBO can be considered that - ever mentions it. I’ve talked about it time and time again, most recently in reference to an article written in The New York Times by a freakin’ carnivore of all people. And like Mark Bittman, the author of the NYT piece, a realistic real goal for environmentalists should be to get people to eat meat only once a day, not just be vegetarian once a week.

So go check out the site; it has bitchin’ free wallpapers for download and some great t-shirts for purchase.