Just some thoughts

Eric and I went to a viewing the other day of the movie Carbon Nation on his campus.  If you haven't heard about it or seen it, it is a very good, very eye opening documentary.  I consider myself to be pretty good with trying to be conscious of doing what I can for the environment, but my goodness, the movie really brought home how serious a thing climate change is.  A huge focus of the movie was on the solutions that are out there. Of course, it will take governments and big businesses to make the big changes, but we can all do our part.

One of the most interesting things to me that the movie's director mentioned was how eating organic foods is more than just avoiding pesticide residue etc on the foods we eat, it is also good for the environment.  Apparantly the use of pesticides also kills these bacteria in the soil that draw carbon dioxide from the air; so organic farming techniques actually increase the carbon uptake in the soil, helping to clean our air. This was something I hadn't heard before, and to me, that was the best argument I've heard for going organic.  And of course, eating local decreases your carbon footprint since the food didn't have to travel as far and use as much fuel.  Ah, I just wish it didn't cost so much more... I would love to go completely organic and local, but it would mean that either my fresh fruit and vegetable consumption would go way down or our food budget (which Eric and I keep very low while still eating tons of fresh produce) would skyrocket.  Which on our very meager student budget we just can't do right now.  I was happy to hear that as far as food goes, Eric and I are doing something right by not eating a lot of meat.  This was something I had heard before- that meat raising/production/transportation, etc uses a lot more water, fuel, and energy.  Our very minimal meat consumption, I have to admit, stemmed more from preference and budgetary reasons than from a desire to decrease our carbon footprint.  But now I am glad that we are already doing it!

So for now I will continue to turn off those lights, unplug those appliances, walk more and drive less, recycle, eat very little meat and do everything else I can. But organic will just have to wait.