Getting the Motivation to Overcome Convenience: A Guide to Reducing Your Environmental Impact3/2/2021  By: Paul Warner
Taking action to reduce an individual’s environmental impact and embrace local gardens is an admirable goal. We may have a high degree of motivation to make this a priority in our lives, but our world systems do not make these choices very convenient. We end up falling back into patterns of using plastic bags, not recycling enough, using energy-consuming transportation or eating food originating from far away. But there is a way to get your motivation to overcome convenience to enact the change you wish to see in the world. This is the way: start by putting what you are motivated to do in your path of current convenience. What does this mean? Here are a few examples.
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 By Isabel Cabrera
The fashion industry as we know it produces over 10% of all humanity's carbon emissions, pollutes the oceans with microplastics, and stands as the second-largest consumer of the world's water supply. As society takes a turn to more conscious efforts, thousands of sustainable goods/sustainable fashion companies have developed.  By: Will Roth
Like many others, the tumultuous nature of this past year compelled me to plant a garden. I refrained from calling it a “Victory Garden,” skeptical of jinxing things on my first real attempt at growing food. Sure enough, that decision proved prescient, as the radishes that I harvested (weeks after they should have been ready) were about the width of a Ticonderoga #2 pencil. They tasted as if they were full of rage. I ate them all anyway.  By: Kay Kim
Any consumer will throw something into the garbage, but how many know what happens to their discarded items and where it goes? There are generally 3 different bins to throw something out:
 By: Manya Gupta
Located deep in the African forests, enormous mountain gorillas are currently foraging for food. But they may not be doing so for much longer. Unfortunately, thousands of species around the world are endangered, and mountain gorillas are just one of them.  By: Isobel Li
Dorothy Stang once said “the death of the forest is the end of our life,” and she’s absolutely correct. Not only do 80% of terrestrial animals live in a forest ecosystem, but almost a third of the world also directly depends on forests to live. That’s nearly 2.6 billion people, and that number continues to grow by the day. In the past 25 years, we’ve lost more than 502,000 square miles of forest—that’s nearly two Texases—and in 2018, The Guardian reported that every second, a soccer field-sized piece of forest is cut down.  Jacqueline Regan
One of the places in the home that we, as a society, spend the most time is our kitchen. Between dishes, groceries, and hundreds of meals, we produce a lot of waste.There are some simple but effective ways to reduce waste in your kitchen that will help not only your wallet, but our beautiful planet, too.  By: Karsen Grace
I’m sure you’ve heard people say to turn off lights when you leave a room or to turn off the faucet when you’re brushing your teeth, shaving, washing your face, etc. Some people may have even suggested trying out LED light bulbs or other energy efficient appliances. These statements are all targeted to save energy, and every single day, people use energy in so many ways. Whether it’s for turning on lights, cooking a meal, traveling by various transportation methods, heating or cooling rooms, and so many more, energy is being expended. However, it is the way you choose to use your energy that can affect the environment and people’s well being as well.  By: Althea Ocomen
Fast fashion’s impact on the planet is colossal and detrimental. The burden to decrease costs and speed up generation time implies that natural resources are constantly being wasted. Fast fashion’s negative impact incorporates its utilization of cheap, harmful material dyes, making the fashion industry the current biggest polluter of clean water after horticulture. That’s why Greenpeace, an environmental organization, has been constraining brands to evacuate unsafe and dangerous chemicals from their supply chains through its detoxing design campaigns over the years. Cheap materials moreover increment quick fashion’s impact. For example, polyester is one of the most well-known textures that is cheap and accessible. Obtained from fossil fuels, this material contributes to rising global temperatures and can shed microfibres that expand levels of plastic in our seas when it is put through the wash. But even “natural fabrics'' can be a huge problem at scale from the burden fast fashion creates. Routine cotton requires colossal amounts of water and pesticides in developing nations. This results in the risk of drought and creates increasing amounts of stress on water basins, as well as competition for resources between companies and local communities.  By: Karsen Grace
Located in Southeast Alaska, the Tongass National Forest is the largest national forest in the United States at slightly under 17 million acres. Initially, Tongass was established in 1907 by an executive order issued underneath Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency. However, it wasn’t until 1909 that official legislation declared the land a national forest. At the time, Tongass was named to honor the Tlingit Indian Tribe who were native to Southern Alaska. |
TUGIWelcome to Seeds for Thought, the TUGI Blog where we will be highlighting incredible stories of environmental activists and change makers, environmental news, and tips to living a more green and sustainable lifestyle. If you are interested in learning more about what we are doing on a monthly basis, subscribe to our TUGI Newsletter. Archives
March 2021
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