It matters what you buy.  Some products are made by companies that are working to reduce their ‘carbon footprint,’ while other companies are trying to avoid responsibility altogether.  So doesn’t it make sense to purchase products from  companies who care about climate change, rather than giving your hard-earned dollars to companies that are doing nothing to green their operations or are even opposing progressive environmental legislation?

    But how is a consumer to know which companies are eco-friendly and which are not?  One environmentally-minded company, Stonyfield Farm, Inc., has collaborated with Clean Air-Clean Planet to form the nonprofit Climate Counts.  Climate Counts rates companies in a variety of industries, based on their efforts to reduce their carbon footprint.  

     In such areas as food, household products, clothing, and electronics, Climate Counts has assigned a score to competing companies, based on their actions to reduce their carbon footprint.  The higher the score, the more a company is doing to stop climate change.

     So if you want your spending to reflect your commitment to stopping global warming, download Climate Counts’ handy pocket guide.  You’ll be able to compare the leading manufacturers and service providers in nine categories of commonly purchased consumer goods and services.  Just click on  http://climatecounts.org/pdf/ClimateCountsPocketGuide08.pdf to download your Pocket Guide.

     The more times I read this lovely little poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay, the more I identify with the poet’s longing  to really enter into the world of the magnificent and mysterious fawn.  Like Millay, I yearn to be the companion of the wild and delicate young animal.  To witness a sleeping fawn and then to see it streak off is certainly a thrill.  But I long for more!   I want to be closer!  For longer!–April Moore  

There it was I saw what I shall never forget
And never retrieve.
Monstrous and beautiful to human eyes, hard to believe,
He lay, yet there he lay,
Asleep on the moss, his head on his polished cleft small ebony hooves,
The child of the doe, the dappled child of the deer.

Surely his mother had never said, “Lie here
Till I return,” so spotty and plain to see
On the green moss lay he.
His eyes had opened; he considered me.

I would have given more than I care to say
To thrifty ears, might I have had him for my friend
One moment only of that forest day:

Might I have had the acceptance, not the love
Of those clear eyes;
Might I have been for him the bough above
Or the root beneath his forest bed,
A part of the forest, seen without surprise.

Was it alarm, or was it the wind of my fear lest he depart
That jerked him to his jointy knees,
And sent him crashing off, leaping and stumbling
On his new legs, between the stems of the white trees?

     I want to spread the word about a segment of the environmental community that I think is extremely effective.  It is the segment that is focusing on getting a Congress and 50 state legislatures that will enact the legislation we need to protect the environment and address global warming.  

     The League of Conservation Voters (LCV) works in several  ways to achieve its goal of a pro-environment Congress.  The organization identifies pro-environment candidates for the U.S. House and Senate and devotes resources to helping elect them.  By the same token, LCV targets for defeat Members who regularly place other interests above the environment. 

     The League is effective.  Since 1996, more than 80% of its endorsed candidates have won election, and 23 out of the 37  candidates it has targeted for defeat have been defeated. 

     In addition to working to elect a pro-environment Congress, the League also publishes its National Environmental Scorecard.  The annual Scorecard is an easy way for voters to determine how well their two Senators and Representative are doing at voting on behalf of the earth.  Each Member of Congress is assigned a numeric score, based on how he or she voted on the key environmental bills of the preceding year.  The higher the score, the more often a Member voted with the environment.  And you can guess what a low score means!  Environmentally conscious voters across the country use LCV’s Scorecard to evaluate their  Senators and Representative and to hold them accountable. 

     Since many important environmental issues are addressed not by Congress, but by state legislatures around the country, activists in more than 30 states have established state Leagues of Conservation Voters.  These groups work to elect pro-environment state legislators and defeat those who do not support environmental legislation.  The state leagues also publish an annual scorecard for the voters.

     State leagues get results.  For example, Maryland’s legislature recently passed most of the bills on the Maryland League of Conservation Voters agenda, including important protection for the Chesapeake Bay.  In the southwest, Conservation Voters New Mexico fought for–and won–victories for expanded energy renewal and efficiency.  Missouri Votes Conservation held a Lobby Day in the state capital, at which more than 85 citizen activists educated legislators about upcoming legislation and reminded them that a concerned public is watching how they vote. 

     Why am I so gung ho for these environmental organizations that focus on Congress and the legislatures?  Because these bodies make our laws, including a great many that affect the environment now and for generations to come.  If we are to succeed in addressing our serious environmental problems, we need a U.S. Congress and legislatures all around the country that are committed to enacting effective pro-environment laws.

     You can find out if your U.S. Senators and Representative are voting for the earth or not by visiting LCV’s site, www.lcv.org.  Simply click on the Scorecard.   Also at the site, you can learn more about what LCV and your state league are doing and how you can help.

     I am thankful that these national and state organizations are hard at work on behalf of our planet.  Supporting them is one of the best ways I know to protect the earth we love. –April Moore

     I just got back from a several-hour walk in the Sandia Mountains with my good friend Judy.  What a lovely experience.  While I have hiked the Pino Trail, near our home, many times, I don’t know that I have ever hiked it in May.  This must be the best time of year!  So many delicate little forest wildflowers along the trail.  And they seemed to specialize in yellow. 

     One pretty little ground-hugging yellow flower was the Oregon grape.  I remembered a much taller Oregon grape in our yard.  Was this an example of evolution’s incredible ability to adapt to different microclimates?  Had the tiny Oregon grape adapted to the dry New Mexico soil and high altitude of the forest by staying small and sticking close to the ground?  Perhaps the much larger variety thrives and grows taller because it lives at a lower altitude and has a well-trained human to water it regularly.

     I have read about varieties of plants, many of them food crops, that change ever so slightly over the course of generations, so that, for example, the beans grown on one farm are a little different from the beans grown just a short distance away.  Farmers, before the advent of today’s giant agribusiness operations, carefully saved the seeds each year and planted them the next.  Over time, then, the beans (and other crops) grew increasingly well-suited to that particular spot. 

     This seems to me a homely yet fascinating example of how evolution is taking place all the time, all around us.  Nature is always looking for a niche.  Life is always seeking a way to continue.  Evolution is quite wondrous, I think.  

     We all know that cars pollute.  A lot.  And now that gas prices are rising rapidly, there is even more reason to find ways to use less gas.  The following suggestions are offered by the Sierra Club:

1.  Keep your car tuned.  Change your oil filter and tune the engine when needed for maximum efficiency.  You can tell if your air filter needs changing by taking it out and holding it up to the light.  If you don’t see any light coming through, it’s too dirty, and time for a change.  You can tell if your engine needs tuning by putting your hand briefly in the exhaust plume (about three inches from the exit port).  Then smell your hand.  If it smells like gasoline, you’re dumping fuel and wasted money into the air, rather than burning all the fuel.  And do check your tire pressure monthly.  For consistent readings, use the same gauge each time, and always take readings when the car is cold.

2.  Take the junk out of the trunk.  According to the U.S. Department of Energy, every 100 pounds you carry inside the car lowers the car’s fuel efficiency by 1-2 percent.  So try not to haul around equipment, tools, and other weighty items you don’t need.

3.  Don’t drive like a jerk.  Fast, aggressive driving is a big fuel waster.  Try to maintain a constant speed.  Most cars reach peak efficiency while cruising between 55-60 miles per hour.  Avoid rapid acceleration and braking, which can increase fuel consumption by as much as 40 percent (and make everyone else on the road hate you too).

4.  Use the car air conditioner wisely.  You’ve probably heard the question:  which is more efficient–using the air conditioner or opening the windows?  Well, the answer is–both.  When you’re driving at speeds over 40 mph, use the air conditioner.  Then engine power won’t be wasted in reducing drag.  But when you’re driving at slower speeds, say around town, it’s more efficient to keep the windows open.

5.  Use your car less.  Maybe you can do some of those errands by bike, or even on foot.  Your travel will certainly be more enjoyable.  Will the city bus take you near some of the places you want and need to go?  Look for opportunities to carpool.  If all of the above fail, can you postpone that errand you were planning to do by car until you have more errands?  Then you can make one multi-stop jaunt instead of many single destination trips.

     I recommend contemplating any one of these sayings for a sense of peace:

“When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.”  –John Muir

“I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.”  –Walt Whitman

“A bird does not sing because it has an answer.  It sings because it has a song.”  –Chinese proverb

“One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between Man and Nature shall not be broken.”  –Leo Tolstoy

“Everything in life is speaking, in spite of its apparent silence.”  –Hazerat Inayat Khan

     The following article, published February 4, 2008, on the World Science website (http://www.world-science.net/) illustrates an important and disturbing trend.  As adults and children alike spend more time indoors–at the computer and watching TV–and less time enjoying outdoor activities, there are serious consequences.  The worst may be a growing indifference to nature–and its protection.  –April Moore

In an alarming trend, out­door ac­ti­vi­ties are on the wane as peo­ple around the world spend more lei­sure time on­line or watch­ing TV, re­search­ers say. They worry that the trend will lead to fatter, un­health­ier po­pu­la­tions—and more en­vi­ron­ment­al des­truc­tion, as peop­le lose in­ter­est in both na­ture and its pro­tect­ion.

“The­re’s a real and fun­da­men­tal shift away from na­ture—certainly here [in the Un­ited States] and pos­sibly in oth­er coun­tries,” said Ol­i­ver Per­gams, a bi­ol­o­gist at the Un­ivers­ity of Il­li­nois at Chi­ca­go.

Activities as varied as hik­ing and fish­ing are drop­ping in po­pu­lar­ity, the re­search­ers said.

Pergams and Pa­tri­cia Zaradic of the En­vi­ron­men­tal Lead­er­ship Pro­gram, Del­a­ware Val­ley in Bryn Mawr, Pa., had pre­vi­ously re­ported a steady de­cline in per cap­i­ta vis­its to U.S. na­t­ional parks since the late 1980s. That, they found, cor­re­lat­ed very strongly with a rise in vi­deo-game play­ing, In­ter­net surf­ing and mov­ie watch­ing.

The re­search­ers call this shift to sed­en­tary, elec­tron­ic di­ver­sions “vid­e­ophilia.” It “has far-reach­ing con­se­quenc­es for phys­i­cal and men­tal health, es­pe­cially in chil­dren,” Pergams said. “Videophilia has been shown to be a cause of obes­ity, lack of so­cial­iz­a­tion, at­ten­tion dis­or­ders and poor ac­a­dem­ic per­form­ance.”

In the new stu­dy, Pergams and Zaradic said they gathe­red and an­a­lyzed sur­vey da­ta on var­i­ous na­ture ac­ti­vi­ties from the past 70 years, in­clud­ing the two dec­ades since U.S. na­t­ional park vis­its be­gan their on­go­ing de­cline.

“We felt that na­t­ional park vis­its in the U.S. were a pret­ty good proxy for how much peo­ple were in­volved in na­ture,” said Pergams. “But we wanted to see if peo­ple were go­ing less to oth­er na­ture-related venues or par­ti­ci­pat­ing less in na­ture recrea­t­ion ac­ti­vi­ties, both here and in oth­er coun­tries.”

The bi­ol­o­gists ex­am­ined fig­ures on back­pack­ing, fish­ing, hik­ing, hunt­ing, vis­its to na­t­ional and state parks and forests. They found com­pa­ra­ble sta­tis­tics from Ja­pan and, to a less­er ex­tent, Spain. They found that from 1981 to 1991, per-cap­i­ta na­ture recrea­t­ion de­clined at rates from 1 pe­rcent to 1.3 pe­rcent per year, de­pend­ing on the ac­ti­vity stud­ied. The typ­i­cal drop in na­ture use since then has been 18-25 per­cent, they said.

The study is pub­lished in this week’s on­line is­sue of the re­search jour­nal Pro­ceed­ings of the Na­t­ional Acad­e­my of Sci­ences.

“We don’t see how this can be good for con­serva­t­ion,” Pergams said. “We don’t see how fu­ture genera­t­ions, with less ex­plora­t­ion of na­ture, will be as in­ter­ested in con­serva­t­ion as past genera­t­ions.”

     This following introduction to the book EARTH PRAYERS moves me.  While I applaud the many tangible ways in which people are trying to use less, recycle more, and cut carbon emissions, the truth of the matter is that our hearts have become hardened to our Mother Earth.  Perhaps the best thing we can do for our planet–and for ourselves–is to love the earth, really love it.   –April Moore

     “Several years ago, as we began to grasp the extent of the damage being done to the Earth’s life systems, we were filled with deep sadness.  So much is being lost–so much richness and natural beauty that our children will never know, perhaps never even miss!  How can we heal all that we have disrupted and polluted?  Of course our society and our daily lives have to change.  Yet the healing of our relationship with this planet ultimately needs to emerge from our hearts and our spirits.