Green Living Tips


Live the green life. Green living is a way of connecting with an eco-friendly, environment in a responsible manner by minimizing the size of our destructive footprint. Going green concerns itself with a range of topics and practices including conservation of resources, recycling, sustainability, green construction, alternative energy, and a vegetarian diet. As Buckminster Fuller would say: “Doing more with less is the heart and soul of the green energy movement. 
More and more people are learning to work from home and go green. Commuting is an old school ethic that has been replaced with a more practical system of computer networking. You can now perform tasks from your home computer that once could only be done at the jobsite. Save paper, save time and save gas by connecting with bosses and workers from your home computer. If you’re a writer you will no longer have to worry about snail mail deliveries. Most publishers now accept digital submissions. Sending query letters to publishers is a common practice. A personal youtube video in conjunction with a well-written proposal could be a winning combination. Let your computer do the walking.

Invest in Green Energy. This viable alternative is no longer reserved for a select group of environmentalist dedicated to saving the planet. Solar, wind, geothermal and hydro are basic sources of renewable energy but the manner of using energy to create jobs and build a sustainable future is also important. Green living people who use green houses to grow food for local businesses are shaping our future economy. Most people agree that the worldwide use of green renewable energy will reduce CO2 emissions and help make our planet a healthier place to live. 





Live in a green house. Green Architecture uses designs and construction materials that maintain a comfortable temperature range without relying exclusively on air conditioners or fossil fuel heating systems. Simple passive adobe homes may be adequate in New Mexico and Arizona, but more active solar heating systems may be required in colder climates, like Main, with less sunlight. 

Work from home and save time and money and energy. Commuting to and from work is often unnecessary today with the advances in video conferencing and instant messaging. If you must commute a long distance consider car pooling and if this is not an option and your job is too good to lose move closer to work. 


Get a green car.  Hybrid cars or totally electric cars can pay for themselves in a short time with the energy they save. If the trip is not too far consider walking or biking. The exercise will be good for you and you will become a hero in the green energy revolution.











Recycle second hand materials that are filling up sanitary landfills and destroying valuable real estate. Plastic shopping bags, carried by the wind, find their way into the oceans where they float around for hundreds of years. Fortunately more and more people are recycling plastic milk bottles and soda bottles and paper. Did you know recycled paper products are just as good and they are less expensive than standard paper products? So next time you shop keep your eye out for recycled paper made into printing material and paper towels.



Don't eat animals. It takes a hundred times more solar energy to produce a pound of animal protein that it does to produce a pound of vegetable protein. The cattle and poultry business has turned thousands of acres of pastureland into deserts and has placed an enormous strain on the water table in areas where water is hard to come by to say nothing about the unnecessary cruelty associated with eating a fellow animal. Growth hormones and antibiotics placed in the feedstock are passed on to the consumer. For these reasons meat products are bad for our bodies, bad for our mind and bad for the environment. 


Compost all organic mater. Composting is a kind of recycling that returns organic matter to the soil from where it came. Many people have their lawns cut by a landscaping service. The grass clippings are collected and brought to a dump site. There are some landfills that have a composting service, but this is something home owners can do on there own. Many landscapers would be happy to empty their truck on your compost pile. Almost any kind of organic mater such as kitchen scraps, leaves, garden debris and kitty litter can be composted and made into soil rich in humus. Humus is an ideal fertilizer that may be used in the garden or may be spread directly on a lawn.












Eat Real Food and make a more direct connection with the sun. Nutritionist agree that it’s possible to obtain all the essential nutrients we need from plant products such as soy beans and barley and rice and carrots and celery and tomatoes and a variety of other plants. It is also a well known fact that vegetarians have a healthier digestive system, a longer life expectancy and a healthier outlook on life than meat eaters.













Compute green to get more involved with the green energy movement. By turning computers off when not in use we not only save energy but we also extend the life and health of our computer. All electronic appliances have a limited life expectancy that seems to be die the day after the warranty expires. I had to learn this the hard way by leaving my monitor on too long when all I had to do was press a button to shut it down. Most modern computer systems have built in energy saving feature that place computers in a state of hibernation when the idle time is exceeded, but some energy is still consumed in the hibernation state. In addition to this problem computers pick up “cookies” and other temporary files from the Internet that can slow down and even crash a system. By turning our computers off when not in use we can limit the number of temporary files. When the computer is rebooted many temporary files are eliminated and important updates become available.. I could go on and on about printers and all the other peripheral devices but I’m sure you get the idea. Placing all your electronic equipment on one smart strip is also a very smart investment.





Digitize Photographs . Now is you chance to get organized. You’ll probably never look at those old photographic albums anyway and if you don’t want to look at them I doubt anyone else will. Old hard copy photographs are perishable and hard to find when you need them most. Digitized photographs can be downloaded from a computer file in a matter of seconds. Folders and thumbnail files are easy to organize and find. They may be organized in multiple categories and may be filled according to size or date. I often copy and paste files with a common theme in a single folder. This makes it easy to organize a comprehensive slide show or video. 

Digitize Manuscripts. Don’t be a paper pusher. There are still plenty of trees left in the Canadian forests, but we no longer have to grind them up to make newspapers and send out unsolicited snail mail advertising. Sometimes the pile of junk mail gets so high it’s tempting to heat our homes with the pile BUT instead let’s contact the supplier of unsolicited mail and request having our name removed from their list.

Plug into the sun. The source of all renewable energy.