Earth Day, Carbon Foot Print, and Kind Life

Happy Earth Day Everyone!  I will have a few posts today!  This is my first!  I've always LOVED Earth Day and try and do something special each year.  Sometimes it's something small and others a bit bigger!  Last  year was a small year...I only decided to do a mini Herb Garden - which was later destroyed by a 'mutant' Raccoon who tore off the side of my back room to get to them!  Grrrrr!  Anyhow...this year...I'm still toying with the idea of a garden this year BUT I'm not sure - I'm still nervous I am going to screw it up!  I think at the very least I will try tomatoes since I do eat a lot of tomatoes!  PLUS...over the weekend I came across some AWESOME Heirloom Tomatoes - which are really rare to find in a grocery store here, and I don't even know of anyone locally who grows them, either, BUT I found some and bought a few small ones as they were priced by the pound.  They were gorgeous, tho!  I had one last night on a "sandwich" and a salad and it was all I could talk about for the rest of the day! 

For the past couple of years we have had a "yard leftovers" compost pile of sorts.  Nothing 'high tech' just a spot where we dump soil, wood chips/shavings that fall off trees, landscape clippings, etc into a pile at the end of our property.  Over the weekend I noticed we have 2 trees GROWING from it!  They don't look like much and our trees haven't bloomed yet - anywhere in town - but I am hoping these do!  These 'unexpected' trees are neat!  Can't wait to see what happens with them!  I will try to take pictures, soon!

I decided to go over to CarbonFootprint.com and see what my current 'footprint' was.  This is just a quick rough estimate for the past year or less but I was quite surprised!

• Your footprint is 6.31 metric tons per year
• The average footprint for people in United States is 20.40 metric tons
• The average for the industrial nations is about 11 metric tons
• The average worldwide carbon footprint is about 4 metric tons
• The worldwide target to combat climate change is 2 metric tons

 I think by changing to a vegan diet, trying to buy more local and organic, as well as our travel and how we do it in which vehicle has something to do with it.  There were lots of options in the survey that I left blank as it didn't apply to me/us.  To offset these a few suggestions are to try a Clean Energy Portfolio (which I don't think is really possible where I live), Reforestation in Kenya (which would be a great idea for a donation!), UK Tree Planting (or any tree planting, really!), and Certified Emissions Reduction.  I will be reading up on each of these to try and educate myself a bit more!

Another great site I have been spending a lot of time on lately is Alicia Silverstone's Kind Life Site!  Check it out when you have time!  I have LOTS more to share with you but will do another post in a few hours! What are you doing for Earth Day today?