Laurie David and Heather Reisman have penned a terrific how-to take care guide for individuals, families and ultimately our Mother Earth.
They remind us that, “Our planet, like our bodies, is a system. Everything is interconnected.” Many of us have become disconnected. This book teaches us how to reconnect and nourish our bodies and minds.
To kick-start this process, they ask thought-provoking questions: “Is the amount of news about heatwaves, floods, droughts and wildfires really beginning to worry you? Do you sometimes feel as though our climate crisis is so big that your individual actions can make much of a difference?”
This concise handbook brings awareness to plastics, food, clothing, chemicals, paper, water and transportation. Each chapter begins with important facts that are followed by an inspiring story. And each one closes with a doable action plan to reduce your individual and family footprints.
Every small step is significant. David and Reisman’s winning formula helps us understand why we must break old habits that are detrimental to both Mother Earth and us.
Image credit: PURC Organics
This book is brimming with many simple, easy and affordable suggestions. For instance, say goodbye to liquid hair products and hello to suds by swapping your petroleum-based plastic hair product bottles for a couple palm oil-free bars of shampoo and conditioner. Also, replace your liquid hand soap and plastic dispenser by swapping it, too, for a bar of palm oil-free hand soap. Each year, many of the 500 billion liquid hand soap plastic bottles are winding up in the oceans, choking millions of marine animals.
Image credit: Atlas Naturopathic Heart Center
Conventional farming soaks crops in many different kinds of poisons. For example, apple orchards spray up to 16 times annually and use 30 different chemicals (many of which are nerve poisons). Understanding the consequences of eating these herbicides, insecticides, miticides and fungicides helps you to make better environmental and healthier organic food choices. The goal is a transition to a plant-based diet.
I particularly applaud the food chapter and section on avoiding palm oil, which is an additive in 50 percent of all processed foods. The expansion of the $92 billion per annum palm oil market is driving the deforestation of old-growth tropical rainforests, and, in turn hastening the man-driven Sixth Mass Extinction by hundreds and possibly a thousand times faster than the previous five others.
From 1999 to 2015, one hundred and fifty thousand Bornean orangutans died from bulldozing and chainsawing their old-growth rainforests and its conversion to monoculture palm oil plantations. Become aware of all the different names that are used to conceal palm oil as a mainstay ingredient. If we refuse to purchase these products, one by one, corporations won’t make them.
Buy local. Buy organic.
Fun Fact: Levi’s recommends washing jeans only after 10 wearings.
Image credit: Levi’s
Buy local. Buy organic. Buy water-smart clothes. Textile mills use 20,000 different horrible chemicals and contribute to one-fifth of the world’s industrial water pollution. Lead, mercury and arsenic are the three worst textile pollutants. Scrutinize labels and avoid purchasing viscose textiles. They are made primarily of old-growth rainforest pulpwood.
In order to survive the climate catastrophe, we need all the remaining old-growth rainforests, alive and perfectly inhaling carbon dioxide, making rainfall and exhaling oxygen.
Image credit: Rhett A. Butler
Each day, we must take care to protect ourselves from the barrage of deleterious man-made chemicals. Imagine It! warns women that, on average, they use 12 personal care products daily with 168 different chemicals. This informative handbook identifies the most toxic chems and explains their harmful effects.
Image credit: Reese Halter
The average North American uses 474 pounds of paper a year, most of it came from luxuriant old-growth rainforests. We need those majestic dripping beauties inhaling and exhaling not flattened, bleached and dumped as mountains of single-use trash that are contaminating the earth.
Image credit: Reese Halter
Please refuse single-use disposable paper cups lined with plastics. They are wasteful. There’s no waste in nature. Buy a locally made coffee/tea mug and use it, again and again.
Water is sacred. It’s up to each of us to become water caretakers. That means respecting, treasuring and protecting it. The single biggest reason why fracking for more deadly planetary heating fossil fuels must immediately grind to a halt, is that it poisons water forever!
Reduce your water footprint at home by replacing your manicured lawn with water-smart native plants that are pollinator, bird and small mammal-friendly. Grow a couple apple trees and place wood chips around each base to conserve water and build soil. Eat more homegrown, chemical-free apples, lots more.
Imagine It! will empower you to tweak your daily habits for a healthier and happier planet. Treat yourself and family to this good read, then launch your personalized action plans.
Image credit: Reese Halter
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Dr Reese Halter is an award-winning broadcaster, distinguished conservation biologist and author.
Dr Reese Halter’s latest book is now available!
GenZ Emergency
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