Looking for something you can DO? Try an online monthly action below (the older ones are still quite doable). Read Green Tips by Dee Simmons. Visit some of the Green Links we have collected for you (see left side bar).
February 28 2010, March 28 2010...
(Fourth Sunday, 12:00 pm, usually in the Fireside Room)
Topics/Actions Recently Under Discussion/Consideration:- Hosting an Ecology Center climate change workshop with the book, Low Carbon Diet
- Instituting a MDUUC environmental/green lending library
- Placing MDUUC's Wildlife Habitat signs on the campus
- Fall LEAP class "Choices for Sustainable Living" with Paul Armstrong (developed by the Northwest Earth Institute)
- Bike Rack for MDUUC
- Earth Day 2010 (April)
- 350's International Day of Climate Change (See the side bar on the left for an article about our participation.)
- MDUUC Rainwater Use/Rainwater Garden Rainwater Garden - Learning Store PDF
- Water Conservation/Get Rid of Your Lawn Campaign
Online Green Action of the Month:
2009 September/October/November - View the inspiring photographs from the International Day of Climate Action, which occurred on October 24th, 2009, on flickr. People from 181 countries partook in this momentous event (including some from MDUUC). Find out the significance of 350 by visiting http://www.350.org.
AND/OR help lower our current 390 to 350 by calculating your carbon footprint then starting to make the appropriate lifestyle changes.
2009 June/July/August - The Green Group has certified the MDUUC campus as a Wildlife Habitat through the National Wildlife Federation's (NWF) Certified Habitat program http://www.nwf.org/. You can also certify your backyard or patio. This is a non-governmental way to be more Green and provide shelter and food for pollinators and wildlife. Considering the world-wide decrease in bee populations, this is a very-good-thing to do. The requirements are fairly easy to meet and certifying costs just $20. A sign costs an additional $30, but a sign is not required. It is also an easy-to-understand way to involve your children/grand-children with environmental issues.
AND/OR if you don't want to go as far as creating a habitat, you can still help pollinators by Building a Bee House, also at NWF. Or get instructions about how to plant a bee-friendly garden at Help the Honey Bees by Haagen-Daz (the ice-cream company's web page has a cute animated graphics, fun for kids.)
2009 April/May - Download and print our PDF fact sheets on Water Conservation (includes information on various ways to save water during the drought) and our Get Rid of Your Lawn Campaign (includes information about drought resistant plants and Californian native plants).
2009 March/April - Save trees and buy recycled paper products. Go to National Resource's Defense Council and download their Shop Smart, Save Forests PDF. (You may also visit their site and read Green Living, Buying Tissue Paper). If you have access to a printer, print it out and take it with you next time you shop. If not, just read it. It is an outstanding example of some of the handy, free Green PDFs on the Net. It is a small, very portable score card for: facial tissues, toilet paper, paper towels, and paper napkins. It shows what percentage of each recycled product is actually made from recycled material, and how the product was bleached to be white. Look for products labeled totally chlorine-free (TCF) or processed chlorine-free (PCF).
AND/OR go to We Can Solve the Climate Crisis and sign the petition to Repower America. By signing the petition you wil receive email updates from the We Campaign, but they send out emails only occasionally.
(For instructions on printing PDFs double-sided (and smaller), see How to Print PDF Files. For more information about PDFs, also see A Little About PDFs.)
The Internet is an incredible resource for being Green. There are even more actions available under Social Justice and Green Resources, Green Actions. Green Education has links for self and child education (the child education links are great!). And there are newspaper articles about environmental issues under Green News.
Photograph -- Chapel Redwood Grove on MDUUC grounds
