What You Can Do to Help the World

Volunteering your time in community services like

- Food banks and shelters for the poor and homeless
- Senior homes, helping to tend to the elderly
- Cleaning trash from local areas such as parks
- Church services/programs
- Building and painting section 8 homes (or the equivalent wherever you are)
- Tutoring students
- Landscaping
- Providing computer technical support
- Teaching basic or intermediate computer and internet technology
- Participating in fundraising programs/activities (walks, sales, etc)
- Disaster relief help

Hypatia wrote: Use Cold Water
Heating water uses a lot of energy. Wash clothes (so long as they aren't horrifically dirty) in cold water, and take a shower with lukewarm water rather than hot.

I wanted to point something out about the hot water that you may already know, but I wanted to point it out for others that may not.

In order to lower your energy bill in hot water, you'll actually need to adjust the hot water temperature on the water heater itself.

By not adjusting it on the hot water heater and taking luke-warm showers or using less hot water elsewhere doesn't do you much good because the hot water heater is still heating up and firing up all the time.

An analogy for this would be starting up your car in the morning and leaving it running all day until you're ready to use it in the afternoon. That's what a hot water heater does. It's firing up and using energy all day long. So even though you take lukewarm showers, that hot water heater is still firing up all day long just in case you decide to use the hot water later.

But I don't have to worry about that because we've got solar water heating! (We actually don't have a gas bill because we're off the grid due to the great Sun! Woo-hoo!) Of course, to make my home energy efficient, I had to pay thousands of dollars (one of the down-sides of going green, haha). But I'll break even in about a year based on what I'm saving in Gas and Electric.

MTFBWY,
LTK

Well there's one really easy thing that no one has yet mentioned...

Be Polite

I work in retail, and I think Hadi will also attest to this (we work with customers in retail), but it is sometimes great to just be polite. It is rare that a week goes by without someone thanking me

It is such a simple thing to do and it really does make the difference for someone. People ARE grateful when you are polite and kind to them

Another I thought of

Don't buy organic food

When I say organic I am referring to crops (as opposed to 'organic free range' etc which is much more ethical in my opinion)

There is absolutely no scientific evidence supporting the theory that GM crops are much worse for you than organic crops

Think of the countless hundreds of thousands more acres that can be cultivated to feed people with drought and pest resistant crops?

This is entirely ignoring the issue of global warming. If you can think of a way for non-adapted crops to survive and thrive and feed 7 billion people in a climate that might drastically change then I'm all for it!

Organic foods are really damaging in terms of their perceived 'benefit' for humanity in relation to GM foods

Of course the companies that make GM foods want to make them poisonous, because that will mean they wouldn't ever be sued or shut down and they will make SO MUCH MONEY from their 'poisoned' foods...

Those evil companies would never have the good intention of trying to make the best possible product...

FYI if the entire world lived on only organic foods about 3 billion people would be killed through starvation... fun fun fun...

Since I'm on the topic of crops and food...

If you have a choice between public transport and an 'ethanol' fuelled car... ditch the car

Consumable crop yields (wheat, maize, rice etc etc) have been dropping massively, because governments have been subsidising, and so making it profitable, for farmers to grow bio-fuel crops instead

Result? Funnily enough we have less food...

In Britain for example, one of the driving factors behind the increase in food prices is mainly because of farmers switching to bio-fuels because the government is paying them to do so

Now I'm not saying that we should just stick with petrol and diesel etc but don't get carried away with this 'awesome' alternative without first examining what actually happens when we do such things

I personally promote less usage of cars and would greatly love to see higher demand for public transport (higher demand will attract private investors)

Reduce. Reuse. Recycle.

In Britain for example, one of the driving factors behind the increase in food prices is mainly because of farmers switching to bio-fuels because the government is paying them to do so

I think that's mostly down to food mostly being imported (about a third) and the euro remaining high (pound is at its november 2008 level, you know, when everything had just collapsed).

The reason for the weak farming sector in the UK is maggy thatcher.

If you want to make a difference in the World travel somewhere beside your home country and find out what the rest of the world is really like. I'm not talking the Bahamas or Bali. Get outside the comfort zone and go to someplace like Bangladesh or Cambodia. Get down and dirty with the real people too, not the wealthy business people exploiting the place. I know this isn't possible for most people but if you get the chance do it. I'm sure it will open your eyes.

Recycle and compost. I know a few of you ahve already said this but its a big deal with my family. Not only is it enviromentally correct, it's a money saver here too. we get a big recycling can and a big composting bin for free. 80% to 90% of our stuff gets eithr composted or recycled so now I can "rent" a small trash can from the sanitation dept which costs way less than the big one.

Learn_To_Know wrote:
In order to lower your energy bill in hot water, you'll actually need to adjust the hot water temperature on the water heater itself.
By not adjusting it on the hot water heater and taking luke-warm showers or using less hot water elsewhere doesn't do you much good because the hot water heater is still heating up and firing up all the time.

they make water heater timers now, that you can attach to the heater and it will only work for certain periods of time. you can stop it from working while youre asleep, for example, or out of town.

Love it, just as it is, without thinking too much about how to make it better.

Something I'd like to get involved with is the 'Eco-town project'. The aim is start building environmentally friendly & sustainable communities which focus on integrating nature back into modern living, rather than annihilating the greenery for concrete and steel monstrosities.
Households will be running on green renewable energy and waste will be fully recyclable, while being in keeping with the natural surroundings.
Healing the Earth instead of tearing it apart.

This might be better here ....

http://www.templeofthejediorder.org/forum/General-Discussions/63078-Nice-?limit=10&start=10#64017

Still nice.