Thursday 12 June 2008

Timely Reminder

A friend sent me this in an email and I was so moved I thought I would put it on my blog. This is a video of the then 12-year old Severn Suzuki addressing the UN Conference on Environment and Development. The speech was in 1992, but it is even more relevant today.

The question is: what kind of world do we want to leave for our children? For that matter, what kind of world do we want to live in when we get older? We need to take action now (actually, a long time ago) and address our overly consumptive patterns of behaviour. They are simply just not sustainable.

Please take the time to view the video (some of you may have seen it already) and think about what actions you can personally take.

My own list will be something like this:
  1. Use the bus more often, even when inconvenient
  2. Walk more or ride my bicycle
  3. Increase our level of self-sufficiency as far as our food is concerned
  4. Grow open-pollinated varieties of food crops (instead of hybrids) and save the seed
  5. Decrease the amount of meat we eat (it wll be fun convincing the carnivores around here!)
  6. Implement some more grey-water recycling solutions in our household
  7. Install rain water tanks
  8. Reduce our energy and water consumption further
  9. Think before buying - we already have too much "stuff"
  10. Free-cycle or sell the "stuff" we no longer need
  11. Be grateful for what I have
  12. Simplify, simplify, simplify
  13. Spread the word, educate and lobby
  14. Have FUN doing the above (don't want to die from crawling seriousity LOL!)
What's on your list?

love and light
naturewitch

6 comments:

The Crone at Wits End said...

Peeing in a bucket from now on! Seriously!

You hear that all future visitors to Wit's End! No more flushy here :)

Anonymous said...

NW, your list is very similar to what I aim for, I also want a composting loo...no- one but me is willing to go for the loo bucket thingy here!

Blessings:)

Cheryl said...

Great post naturewitch.....as you know I am slowly working through my list.....I am pleased with where I am heading. My children and grandchildren are always my main thought. I would hate to leave this life and say "I didn't try"

naturewitch said...

Ooh, I forgot the loo! It is a bit difficult here as our house is on a slab, which means building an extra room out the back (but I don't want to give up garden space) or trying one of those composting toilets that are like a throne, only we don't have enough room in our littlest room.

I too have suggested the bucket loo for pees, only to get a look of "you must be mad!" from the others here. Pointing out that it would be good for the citrus didn't seem to work, either. I did ask the fellows if they would mind peeing on the citrus, but they were a little shy of doing so, as passers-by would be able to get a good look from the walkway near our house LOL!

However, when I am by my witchy-self, which happens from time to time, I'll use the bucket.

The main thought I'd had around the whole loo thing here is to try to tap into some of the grey water from the bathroom (again, difficult because of the slab) and recycle it into the loo.

And of course, there's always the old chestnut "if it's yellow, let it mellow; if it's brown, flush it down!" I'll just have to keep trying . .

And as Cheryl points out, wouldn't it be a shame to leave this life without at least trying to do our bit?

xx

flmom said...

Thanks for dropping by my blog!

First I have to say that your cats are absolutely gorgeous!

Number 11 on your list is a biggie for me right now. I also want rain barrels very badly. Even though June is our rainy season, we're still in a drought. It's become even more apparent this year that we need to go that route since we've gotten back into gardening and have plans to expand (and if I have my way, keep expanding!).

naturewitch said...

Hi flmom

I noticed that your soil looked a bit sandy - you'll probably have to build it up with lots of compost before it will start to hold much water. The Crone (link is on my side bar) has experience with this, as her soil is very sandy, too.

I'm not sure what water saving measures you have in place at the moment. Here in Oz we are getting rather good at it, as the last few years have been very dry and a lot of the country has been or still is drought declared.

Things we do include:

Use every bit of available grey water than you can to keep your plants alive. I put my washing water out onto the garden, but you need to wash in cold water and check that your detergent is not too high in sodium.

We also mulch our plants with whatever we can get our paws on - if it is cheap enough, I will use pea straw or hay; otherwise, leaf litter, shredded paper or any other such material works. Here in autumn when the deciduous trees drop their leaves, plenty of people are happy to get rid of them and I am happy to collect them. Oak leaves are particularly good for most of the garden and you can use pine needles for strawberries.

Water deeply and less often - this encourages the plants to put down deeper roots to find the water there. Not sure how well this works on sandy soils, though.

You can also save water with your toilet - if it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown flush it down. Try using a bucket for pees (ala Crunchy), dilute it and use it to fertilise your crops.

As for being grateful - when I'm feeling down, I allow myself to wallow for a little while, but I put a time limit on it and then I get on with life. I figure there's always someone worse off than me.

Good luck with your ventures xx