efsthathiasgreenchallenge20-blog

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Debunking the myth!

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Reducing My Carbon Footprint

Todays Challenge is create my own personal gameplan to find a way to reduce my carbon footprint. I’d like to reduce my Carbon footprint by at least ¼. Instead of taking four planet Earths to satisfy people, we could use at least less than three.

  10 lifestyle changes that could help reduce my Carbon footprint

  Have a Meatless Monday, or even a Meatless Wednesday

Purchase products that are made of 100% post consumer recycled content

Walk once a week to school

Buy Compact fluorescent light bulbs

Turn off Laptop when not in use

Turn off lights every time I leave the room

Eating more local food

Recycling everything, including food scraps

Unplugging chargers and gadgets when not in use

10. Filter my own water instead of using bottled water

    I then made my mom take the carbon footprint quiz. we had similar results. That’s expected, we do live in the same house!

  Now I’ll make a game plan for my mom! We both will be able to support each other to continue these lifestyle changes.

  10 lifestyle changes that could help reduce my mom’s Carbon footprint

  Have a meatless Monday, or even a couple of days

Get rid of paper junk mail

Eat more local food

Switching to green energy/ solar energy

Get a worm bin for compost

Use rechargeable batteries

Use a hybrid car or a fuel efficient one

Eat seasonally

Keep the car tuned up

10. Filter water instead of using bottled water

  One item on my footprint reduction game plan that seems easy enough for everyone to do is unplugging chargers and gadgets when not in use. Every little bit that we do to help lower the carbon footprint counts. I nominated three of my friends to try it for a week, and of course they accepted.

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Day 5 Carbon Footprint

In order to keep this planet healthy and alive for the next generations, we have to take care of it.

Using the Global Footprint Calculator that Project Green Challenge recommended, (http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/calculators/) I realized there are things I do that are carbon intensive.

After completing the quiz,  I found out that if everyone in the world lived the way I do,  we would need 4.1 planet Earths to provide enough resources. Looking at the break down showed that most of my CO2 (48%) comes from services. What are services? I don’t call costumer service everyday.

  It turns out, services accounts for the services that the whole society is part of. That includes the carbon footprint of the government, military, healthcare, restaurants and etc. Since we are part of the society who has such a large Carbon Footprint, we are partly responsible for change as well.

  My next two highest were from shelter and food. We don’t have any solar panels so the electricity that we get is not considered green. Also my family and I eat meat almost every single day. That would be the easiest way to lower my carbon output, by having a meatless Monday, or eating less meat.

  It is imperative to minimize your carbon footprint because we need an Earth to call our home. If we increase the amount of CO2 in the planet there wont be much of one soon.

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Making the Mealll

It was finally time to make the meal!!! In order to get the first couple of ingredients my mom and I went to the Commissary. My dad is in the Army so we do a lot of our shopping on base. We headed straight to the organic section that they had. While my mom and I were there, we were able to speak with the produce manager and some employees as well. They were so nice and even let us take a picture.

  Magalay Fernandez, the Produce Manager showed me how much people are changing their daily habits. She told me that the organic produce goes by fast and people are always asking them to restock. Its always great to find out your community is living healthy.

After we bought our Super Green Salad for 3.99,  the Cherry tomatoes for 2.99, the organic apple for 50 cents and the bunch of bananas for 2.69, it was time to leave the commissary.

  I love how it says thank you for shopping here. Why, your welcome!

Then it was time to look in the garden and the kitchen for the rest of the ingredients. I took all that I could find. I was sooo happy to find that there were so many things ready to be picked. 

What was I going to do with so many hot peppers!!!!???

It was time to  start cooking. I got all my ingredients ready.

    The salad looked a little empty so I went to the front yard and took some dandelion. Yes, Dandelion is a weed. But it has many nutritional properties and can be eaten raw! It is best to harvest dandelion leaves while they are small.

    I was finnnnally done with the meal! 

  Everybody enjoyed it, my father couldn’t believe so much food could be made from our tiny garden! 

  The best part was that my family enjoyed this meal together. It didn't hurt that was all less than $20! :D

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Day 3+4 Food

Food is life. It is what we need to grow, live, and thrive. However, sometimes that’s not what food does. Fast food or food filled with pesticides actually harms our body and the environment. What we need to eat is sustainable food. Food that nourishes the body, and helps the Earth live, so we can thrive in it.

  The Challenge today is to make a meal that is as fresh, local, organic, seasonal, and non-GMO as possible but on a budget. A big budget! The meal has to be less than $4 dollars per person. I would make a menu that was suitable for my family and I. Inviting my aunt would make it a total of 5 people. The budget is $20.

  For my menu, I decided to use produce that was as fresh as possible, right from the garden!! The food that comes from there is organic, does not use any pesticides, helps create biodiversity, (even if its only the bees who come to pollinate), and seasonal as well! There are eggplants growing, cucumbers, tomatoes, and basil. Anyone can start growing produce, even inside the house. Also to be more sustainable, I’ll find other sources of edible plants.

  Menu

  Main dish- Baked Eggplant

  Ingredients-

4 eggplants from the garden

2 Tomatoes from garden

A handful of fresh Basil

2 Tablespoons of Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil (Mario)

1 teaspoon of Simply Organic Pepper

2 teaspoons of Simply Organic Rosemary

2 teaspoons of McCormmick Organic rubbed Sage

    Side dish- Salad with tomato dressing

  Ingredients

  Super green (Organicgirl)

Cherry Tomatoes (Santa)

Carrots (Earthbound Farm)

1 Cucumber from Garden

Dandelion

  Dessert- Chocolate Banana Icecream

Ingredients

Organic Dole Bananas

2 tablespoons (Navitas Naturals Organic Raw Cocoa Powder)

1 Organic Apple

  Beverage- Cucumber Water

  Ingredients

1/2 cucumber from garden

Filtered Water

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MANGOESSS

This is the mango.

Oh, how I love mangoes! They are so juicy. They can be sweet, sour, both at the same time! I used to eat one, everyday for breakfast. They are fast to peel, easy to cut, and supposedly healthy. Right?

  Prompted by Project Green Challenge I started looking to find out what my mango was really made of. The first thing I found was that mangoes were on the clean 15 list! That was great news. I thought that meant I wouldn’t find to many pesticides or other toxins related to mangoes. I was wrong. After delving further, I found more than 28 different pesticides and herbicides that could be used on mangoes. Three common toxins were,

  Glyphosate- (A non selective herbicide) This is linked to chronic health effects such as cancer, infertility, kidney and liver damage. Environmental effects include surface water contamination, and wildlife poison.

  Spinetoram- This toxin is usually used to control larvae of worms and caterpillars. It is linked to chronic health effects including infertility. This pesticide is also considered toxic to bees.

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Thiabendazole- This fungicide has been linked to chronic health effects such as cancer as well. It is used on a whole range of produce from sweet potato to avocadoes.  It is also toxic to wildlife such as fish and aquatic organisms.

  I couldn’t believe produce that was on the clean 15 list still had so much toxicity. Imagine the amount of toxins on fruits and vegetables that are in the dirty dozen! I don’t want to intentionally harm myself with poison. Learning that these toxins are so harmful not only for our body but for other wildlife as well, has really made it hard for me to want to buy mangoes again. I don’t want to support toxic water contamination or spread the death of wildlife. Knowing this information, I will start buying more produce that is healthy for the environment and me. Maybe I should just go somewhere tropical and eat mangoes fresh all day long!

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This is where I go to find the challenges!

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Project Green Challenge

Project Green Challenge sounds like one of the most exciting activities to do during the month of October! This is a great way to raise awareness and find out how simple changes in lifestyle could lead to a greener life. I cant wait to see the results!