Q: If I were to give up one habit for April, what should it be?
A: The Western world ain’t particularly good at abstaining from anything. There’s a scene in an old Seinfeld that encapsulates this perfectly – the one where a flight attendant in first class asks Jerry, “More anything?” To which he responds gleefully without missing a beat, “More everything!”
That’s us.
We’re the “more everything” culture. And we’re smothering the planet with the ramifications of manufacturing, consuming and tossing all that everything. That’s why I love the idea of a carbon fast for Lent dreamt up by a couple earth-loving bishops in England a few years ago. UK churches are huge on it.
But Lent’s a tough sell for non-Christians, which is why it’s so awesome that this year the peeps at Earth Day Canada have kick-started Give It Up For Earth Day. Anytime in April (like say, right now), you can sign up to give up one habit that’s damaging the planet for the rest of Earth Month (earthday.ca/giveitup). They’ll even let you promise to give it up for as little as a week. To make things easy, they suggest one of four moves.
One option: stop shopping. Vow to give up buying stuff you don’t actually need for the rest of the month. This is a seriously tough one for the vast majority of us. Canadian households are fabulous consumers. We spend about $13,000 a year on non-essential items, all the stuff that falls outside of keeping the heat, water and lights on, getting from A to B, and health and education costs.
Since households contribute 46 per cent of Canada’s greenhouse gas-es, and two-thirds of that C02 actually comes from the making of those products and services we use, we’ve seriously got to pare it down where we can.
If you need something fresh, go to Freecycle, Kijiji or Craigslist (and avoid the posers selling new stuff). Hold a swap night with friends. Try upcycling something old into something new. Host a Story Of Stuff movie night and maybe inspire friends to join your pledge.
A second option on the table for the month is to give up all TV – perhaps an even harder task for most. The average Canadian watches up to 25 hours of telly a week. Start by throwing a blanket over your television, and, no, this doesn’t mean live-streaming shows on your laptop instead. Unplug, and pull out a good book. Sign up for a new class, be it belly dancing or swing, pottery or kung fu. Go for more walks. Go to more talks. Get out into the world and connect with your friends, neighbourhood, city.
Probably the easiest pledge on the list is to give up toxic cleaners. There’s such a sea of greener cleaners on the market today, there’s no excuse for even the most strident vinegar-hater to scrub with chemicals. Still, the average Canadian family uses anywhere from 20 to 40 litres of toxic cleaning products a year, so this is a good starter pledge to encourage family members to sign onto.
Or, finally, go full veg or vegan. Kicking up my mostly vegetarian/conscious pescetarian diet to 100 per cent vegan is my personal challenge for the rest of April (and one I’ve admittedly never attempted.) That means no goat cheese sandwiches, sardines or hangover eggs. Since veganism has the smallest eco footprint in town, tofu scramble it is (as long as it’s organic and Canadian-grown, of course).
For more ideas on all kinds of planet-friendly diets, look for NOW’s special Earth Day issue coming out next week. And in the meantime, good luck abstaining. I recommend trying one main resolution for the month and experimenting with others for a week or two. And you don’t have to stick to these four. Invent your own and run with it. May the earth be with you.
Got a question?
Send your green queries to ecoholic@nowtoronto.com
