live simply so others can simply live

happy earth day, readers.

the title "live simply so others can simply live" comes from a t-shirt that i bought in high school. there's a cute panda that goes with the slogan. i still believe it.

some of the most important resources we have are finite and to attempt to live simply is to attempt to leave some of those resources for others humans and other creatures.

on this earth day, with some environmental issues finally creeping in the right direction (e.g. epa finally allowed to report that greenhouse gases are bad for our health), i wanted to give a shout out to the individual efforts that people make to live simply. i heard a commentator on npr remark, that while recycling is often talked about, the phrase "reduce, reuse, recycle" should actually be thought of in that order. as in, first attempt to reduce, then reuse and then recycle.

anyway, here are some even more personal shoutouts:

to the Js, for air drying your clothes and not eating land animals (or fishies in JS's case)
to JA, for using cloth diapers
to YA, MC and NI, for still not buying a car and SL for making me think you don't have one since i never see it
to RK, never buying more than you need
to CR, for consistently getting groups outside to remind us how great the nature we have is
....
to my parents, for somehow getting into my head that there are many things more important than material goods

... these are just off the top of my head. please add shout outs in the comments to people you know (or yourself) for doing simple, environmentally-friendly things (and maybe tell us what they are ;) ).


5 suggestions from USN
and the new recycling rules for seattle-ites