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July/August 2007 Living Now
Have a Green Summer: 5 Tips for Helping Mother Earth

Through small shifts in individual awareness, as well as simple, easy actions, everyone can contribute to a powerful transformation of the world. Here are five tips for having a green summer:

1. Plant a tree in your yard or start a garden. Plants and trees help clean the air and are uplifting visual expressions of nature's beauty. Even something as simple as growing herbs in a garden can provide nourishment and delicious meals for the family.
2. Simply stop using pesticides on your lawn. Pesticides contribute to the pollution of the Earth and poison the water supply, endanger human health and sicken wildlife. There are many effective, natural alternatives available, or even simpler, allow nature to take over the growing of your lawn, creating food for bees, birds and animals.
3. Support a local, organic farmer or community supported agriculture (CSA). Some farmers require your active participation, some deliver to urban areas. The food is nutritious and delicious, and uses fewer non-renewable resources. Also visit a local farmer's market for organic produce.
4. Buy energy-saving, compact-fluorescent light bulbs and other energy efficient products. When your next bulb goes out, replace it with a compact fluorescent light bulb. They last 10 times as long, and over their lifetime, use one-fourth the energy of an incandescent bulb.
5. Recycle. The old adage "reduce, reuse, recycle" still works well today.

Visit www.ecomall.com for more ideas and resources for green living.