Examples of frugal (read non-corporate) living

[Sick_of_Rethuggery]

1. Ride a bike or walk to work/college etc.

2. Buy a manual mower for your home, not those polluting mechanised ones.

3. If you need to ride, try to car pool with your family/friends/etc.

4. Do not heat or cool your home over much -- we get by with 64 in the winter and 84 in the summer. Also, lower it even more when you are away.
In the winter, use sweaters and other cover ups for warmth -- or hug :-)

5. Do not use only one side of a paper -- use both sides and every inch.

6. Wash clothes on a full machine load. Summers, dry clothes outside.

7. Cancel every paid subscription: whether for TV, news mags that are not above par, newspapers etc.

8. Do not waste any food -- and, eat minimally -- good for you, good for the earth -- if you can, eat meat minimally.

[NMDemDist2]

1. save our rivers and save water

do you let the faucet run while you brush your teeth?

while doing the dishes? better to just put a bit in the sink to rinse the dishes before loading them in the dishwasher. only do FUll loads of dishes and laundry

catch the water in the shower while it heats up and use for landscape

how much water can you save every day? Clean potable water will soon be the new "oil" as it becomes a scarcer commodity

think I'm kidding?

Water Scarcity Could Affect Billions:
Is This the Biggest Crisis of All?
by Michael McCarthy


Glug-glug: Not normally a sound of foreboding. But mankind's most serious challenge in the 21st century might not be war or hunger or disease or even the collapse of civic order, a UN report says; it may be the lack of fresh water.

Population growth, pollution and climate change, all accelerating, are likely to combine to produce a drastic decline in water supply in the coming decades, according to the World Water Development Report, published today. And of course that supply is already problematic for up to a third of the world's population.

At present 1.1 billion people lack access to clean water and 2.4 billion lack access to proper sanitation, nearly all of them in the developing countries. Yet the fact that these figures are likely to worsen remorselessly has not been properly grasped by the world community, the report says. "Despite widely available evidence of the crisis, political commitment to reverse these trends has been lacking."

Faced with "inertia at the leadership level and a world population not fully aware of the scale of the problem", the global water crisis will reach unprecedented heights in the years ahead, the report says, with growing per capita scarcity in many parts of the developing world. And that means hunger, disease and death.

more at link http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0305-05.htm

[Lorien]

2. A list from LiberalMuse

from an earlier thread:
* Check out dvd's and books from the library instead of purchasing them.

* Boycott many of the large corporate 'entities' that are now dictating national policy and profiteering from war.

* TV is poison. Turn it off. It is an idiot box that will fuck up your mind and priorities in life so that you forget what really matters.

* Start an online purchase and barter/trade system or start online co-ops of sorts that offer us an alternative to giving our money to the corporate slave-masters.

* Recycle everything you can. You will be shocked and disgusted at how much waste you create and it will make you more conscious of your consumer choices.


As far as the television bit goes; I've cancelled my cable and I'm not missing it in the least!

[Lorien]

3. A suggestion from BuycottJoe (new DUer)

My example from last year: I had car insurance with some guy in the suburbs for 20 years or so. After researching different insurance companies I decided to stay with the same company but changed insurance agents. In so doing I killed 3 birds with one stone. My new agent is:
1) Female
2) Black
3) In Detroit (Detroit passed an anti-war resolution last year).

The insurance bill is the same. Females vote Democrat more than males do. This wasn't the case in the 1960's but it's the case otherwise.

[UrbScotty]

4. Save electricity.

If you don't absolutely need a lamp, turn it off.

When posting a message on DU, turn off your monitor. Then turn it back on to make edits.

[politicat]

5. I hope the last was tongue in cheek... that's a good way to kill a monitor

And thus, add to the crap in the landfills. Monitors are hard to recycle.

Of course, an LED monitor is very efficient.

Pcat