1000 Flowers for the Planet - #458 Do the 28-Day Palm Oil Challenge

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #458 Do the 28-Day Palm Oil Challenge

Flower #137 Avoid Palm Oil explained how companies are causing the destruction of rainforests in countries like Indonesia in order to plant palms for the palm oil industry. In doing so they are destroying the habitat of orang-utans, which are now an edangered species. We may lose these creatures in a few years – our grandchildren may never see a living orang-utan. For those of you with the stamina to go full on and avoid palm oil altogether there is a 28-day palm oil challenge at:  http://www.saynotopalmoil.com/What_can_i_do.php. This site also gives lots of information about the issue and other ideas for how you can help. The power we have is in our ‘consumerism’ (or lack of it). We make a difference through the choices we make when we go shopping. All we need to add to the shopping list is some thinking time, whereby we acknowledge that our actions and our choices have consequences, and we’re able to change the outcomes by changing our behaviours. If you can take the 28-day palm oil challenge, go for it, and good on you! And thanks for helping the orang-utans.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #457 Go Low Impact

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #457 Go Low Impact

Sometimes the idea of going without something altogether is way too scary, so we avoid taking any steps at all because we think we’ll fail. This can be true of living a life entirely without plastic, for example. That kind of lifestyle takes a huge amount of dedication and sacrifice, so most of us baulk at the idea and continue doing what we’re doing. But we can take the decision to reduce what we do – go low impact. In regards to plastic, instead of trying to avoid all plastic we can avoid just single use plastics and make our impact that way. Instead of trying to avoid all foods with palm oil in them, substitute as many as possible to make at least some difference to the plight of the orang-utans. Instead of going without makeup at all, buy makeups that are not tested on animals and maybe change your beauty routine to remove at least one product from your bathroom (they’re not all necessary, you know).

Take baby steps. Don’t bite off more than you can chew in your fight to save the planet. Do what you can, think about what you do and how it impacts the planet, and resolve to at least go low impact.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #456 Discourage Moonscaping

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #456 Discourage Moonscaping

Moonscaping has been occurring in my neighbourhood for a few years now. It happens because we have large house blocks and when an old house is pulled down to build several units the entire block is bulldozed of all plant-life. Trees that are 30, 40, 50 years old are felled. Beautiful rhododendrons, giant azalea bushes, big camellias 35 years old are bulldozed. The land is made completely bare before the new buildings are constructed, and then they build right up to every fence-line and concrete everywhere else so that there is nowhere for a tree or large bush to grow. They call this progress. They call it development. They make money from this. They also deprive people of greenery, gardens and space to breathe. They deprive children of a place to play. Moonscaping destroys habitats for all sorts of creatures, from bugs and insects to possums and birds. The larger animals have no food to eat and have to find somewhere else to live, which means they overcrowd some other area where the same species is trying to live. Birds have nowhere left to perch, have less food, and fewer places to nest and raise their young. Moonscaping is destructive and short-sighted. There has to be a better way – if we are as intelligent as we claim to be, we’d find that way.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #455 Use a Wind-Up Clock

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #455 Use a Wind-Up Clock

It may sound awfully old-fashioned, but returning to the old ways can help save the planet from resource depletion. Using a wind-up clock means you won’t be using any fossil fuels converted to electricity, nor will you be using batteries, which as explained in Flower #403 (Recycle Batteries) use many resources and create toxic waste. Wind-up clocks are completely inoffensive, create a nice ritual at the time of winding which can be quite calming and meditative, and still tell you the time! I recall as a child being part of the ritual of winding up my great-uncle’s grandfather clock, which stood opposite the front door in pride of place. The great heavy weights hanging from sturdy chain would be carefully pulled by Uncle Harry until they were all lined up at the top of the case, ready to spend the next week gradually working their way towards the floor again. There was a ritual at my grandparents’ home too, when my grandfather took a large key from a drawer to wind up the mantle clock, which sat on the hall table. There were three holes to wind with that key: the time, the chime and the bong. Yes, it made musical chimes every quarter hour  - clocks of yore could tell you what time it was without you even having to be in the same room. You don’t get that from digital. Wind-up clocks come in all shapes and sizes, and they also come with alarms to wake you in the morning, just as well as any digital piece can do. Give them a try, and save resources.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #454 Learn to Love Odd Veggies

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #454 Learn to Love Odd Veggies

Vegetables grown naturally come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. It’s quite outrageous that people have been conditioned by corporations to believe their vegetables should always be a uniform shape and size. ‘People’ don’t come in uniform shapes and sizes, so why would we believe nature’s foods come that way? Yet corporations demand this uniformity from their suppliers, the farmers, thereby rejecting any produce that doesn’t conform to their ideals. The vegetables that don’t meet their criteria are often thrown away. This is the worst type of food waste, costing farmers a lot of money because they’ve already invested their time and resources in growing it only to toss it away. We need to recognise that vegetables are vegetables, no matter what they look like, and encourage traders to buy all the produce a farmer produces.

Rest assured, the shape of a vegetable has no bearing on its quality and taste. Get over the misconception that every veggie must be perfect and encourage traders to offer us whatever the farmers produce. It will be a lot more fun having funky shaped veggies, like funky shaped fruit (Flower #433), and in turn it will be better for farmers, reduce food waste, and be a better use of resources used for production.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #453 Use Boiling Water to Kill Weeds

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #453 Use Boiling Water to Kill Weeds

Here’s yet another chemical-free way to rid your garden of weeds – use boiling water. It’s a particularly good method for killing weeds in cracks, those weeds that are really fiddly to try to pull out by hand or weeds in hard to reach places. Sometimes we boil more water than we need, so the remaining water can be used to pop outside and pour over some weeds. You may need to do this a number of times before the weed is completely killed, but basically once a weed is unable to photosynthesise then the roots should die off too.

Take particular care when walking outside carrying boiling water and always ensure children and pets are not about to avoid any accidents.

Using something like boiling water to kill weeds means we keep chemicals out of the garden and therefore out of our water systems where they otherwise contaminate water, threaten marine and bird life and generally damage the ecosystem. It’s also a much cheaper option.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #452 Observe World Thinking Day

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #452 Observe World Thinking Day

World Thinking Day was devised by the Girl Guide movement in 1926 and is a day of friendship, advocacy and fundraising for Girl Guides and Girl Scouts around the world. The girls are encouraged to think about each other, and their fundraising efforts are to help girls around the world develop their skills, education and potential. This is a true leadership quality in our youngsters that should be noticed, admired and emulated by adults everywhere.

Educating girls in all countries around the world is an important step towards a better planet, that currently faces greater and greater challenges with every year our population grows. How we treat our girls will determine how well we manage our future. And apart from that message, the Guides and Scouts are showing and reminding us how important it is to think of others, no matter where you live or how old you are. Sometimes our children have the answers.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #451 Buy Concentrates

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #451 Buy Concentrates

Often we have the option to buy concentrated products, and many household cleaning products are available that way. If you feel the need to buy products specifically for cleaning, because you don’t feel water alone can possibly clean anything, then seek out products you can buy in concentrate so that you decrease the amount of packaging you use. This saves so much more than just packaging – it saves resources, it saves transportation and all the costs involved in moving stuff from one place to another, so it saves fossil fuels, it reduces your need to travel to the shops to replace product and it saves money. All of these things are better for the planet.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #450 Use Vinegar to Kill Weeds

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #450 Use Vinegar to Kill Weeds

There are a few natural weed-killing remedies available for the conscientious gardener and the environmental friend – and this one’s pretty good for the lazy gardener too. Simple household vinegar can be used to kill weeds in your garden. Put some in a spray bottle with a teaspoon of natural liquid soap, which will aid the vinegar in sticking to the weed, and spray those nasty plants out of place. You will need to repeat the process a number of times, maybe half a dozen, but you’ll win in the end. For really noxious weeds there is a better approach by using stronger vinegar with 20-30% more acetic acid concentrate – it’s a by-product of the wine industry – but needs careful handling. A good site to read more detail on several natural weed-killing remedies is at: http://www.no-dig-vegetablegarden.com/organic-weed-control.html. So give the old household vinegar a try first and see how much success you have. You’ll certainly be doing the best thing for your garden and the environment.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #449 Develop Likeminded Ideas

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #449 Develop Likeminded Ideas

Put two people in one room and arguments are inevitable. It is really hard to get people to agree on things, particularly in any detail, but if we are to become a civilised race of human beings without conflict, living in harmony in a sustainable way, then we need to develop likeminded ideas. This doesn’t mean we need to all follow the same religion, for example, but that we need to all agree to leave each person to follow their own faith in peace. We need to agree on how we care for animals, share food, and care for the planet. We need to evolve so that our values are more in tune with each other, which will reduce conflict. If we can agree to nurture rather than destroy, we will have more rather than less. This isn’t pie in the sky – this is achievable, but only if we want to and only if we put in the effort to develop likeminded ideas.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #448 Reject Laziness

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #448 Reject Laziness

Every little bit of effort counts. If each and every one of us makes the effort to do the little things that we are capable of doing, the shift in the planet would be immense. Take the time to divide up your recycling properly and put it in the right place; take the time to switch off lights; take the time to maintain your car in top working order; speak up against injustice, animal cruelty, slavery, corruption; save resources; consume less; contribute more; think about your actions; reduce waste; save a species; participate in good actions. There’s so much to be done, all of it positive, but we need to lift ourselves out of our comas, relinquish apathetic attitudes and get active. Reject laziness and help the world become an even more amazing place.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #447 Switch Off at the Wall

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #447 Switch Off at the Wall

Vampires are pretty trendy these days, but have you ever heard of vampire electricity? It can also be called electricity leak, phantom energy or leaking energy. This is electricity that is being used by your appliances even when they are turned off. Usually the amount being leaked is extremely small – for example, a phone charger will use 1 watt of electricity without any phone attached to it. All those appliances that have clocks or some type of display that functions even when you turn off the appliance, such as microwaves, TVs, DVD players etc. will still be using energy to power those functions. If you had 10 appliances in your home using only 1 watt per day of phantom energy (i.e. while their turned off), and each unit cost 20 cents, that would equate to $730.00 over a whole year. Even if it only cost 10 cents per unit (doubtful in Australia), you’d be saving a dollar every day. You can read a more detailed explanation with facts and figures at: [http://gogreeninyourhome.com/how-to-save-electricity/appliances-still-use-power-when-turned-off/]. So the best way you can save money is by switching off at the wall, and if you want to get really serious about it, pull the plug out of the wall too – that way you can be 100% sure your appliance is not using any electricity. Saving money is great, but saving energy is even better for the environment, particularly if your energy source comes from fossil fuels.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #446 Save Your Teabags

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #446 Save Your Teabags

Having suggested you buy Fair Trade Tea (Flower #362) and Buy Organic Tea (Flower #445), it might be a good idea to double the use of your tea bags, which have probably cost a bit more to purchase. Apparently tea bags do have a lot of uses: for healing mouth sores; clearing up acne; relieving sunburn; relieving sore eyes; cleaning and refreshing. Learn more about how to take advantage of the humble used tea bag at http://www.lifeadvancer.com./this-is-why-you-should-never-throw-away-the-used-tea-bags-again%E2%80%8F and take a look at the site for other useful lifestyle tips too.

Using your teabags twice gives you double the value for your money, which is always helpful when balancing the household budget. It also means you’ve better utilised our natural resources and probably stopped yourself from using a chemical alternative in the process. The antioxidant qualities of tea are known to be beneficial, so you have nothing to lose by giving these tips a try.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #445 Buy Organic Tea

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #445 Buy Organic Tea

Buying organic tea is about reducing health risks from chemicals used in the growing of tea and it’s about protecting the environment from those same chemicals. That’s a win/win situation. Sadly it can be expensive to gain certification for organically grown tea, so supporting growers that look after our health and the health of the planet can be tricky. Conversely, there are tea sellers who label their teas as organic when they are not – such a difficult (dare I say corrupt?) world we live in. Organic products are better for our health and the sooner we tell producers and corporations that we want healthy, chemical free, unaltered foods and beverages, the sooner we begin to look after the earth which sustains us. It cannot sustain us when it is constantly fed chemicals that cause disease. Lots more information is available at www.ratetea.com where you can read about the difficulties facing consumers as well as growers, and find lists of organic teas.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #444 Ditch the Q-Tip / Cotton Bud

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #444 Ditch the Q-Tip / Cotton Bud

When I was young our cotton buds (in American that’s q-tips) had wound paper sticks with the cotton ‘buds’ on each end. Sadly they changed to making the stick part out of plastic, probably because it’s cheaper. How do you keep those tiny lengths of plastic out of your life? The answer is simple – just don’t buy them. Apparently, from all the research I’ve done on the Internet, the consensus is that we should not be putting anything into our ears anyway, because we risk damaging the eardrum, and nature has created our bodies with inbuilt protections such as perspiration, tears and earwax. Yep. Earwax is a natural body function and should be left alone. Read all about how and why at http://theconversation.com/health-check-what-you-need-to-know-about-ear-wax-31302 which provides an excellent article on the topic.

Keeping small pieces of plastic out of our lives and out of the environment is important. These small pieces are often mistaken by birdlife as food for their babies, thereby causing the deaths of birds in large numbers as they eventually die of starvation when real food is unable to pass through their plastic-filled stomachs. Small plastic also goes into water systems where it partially breaks down and is ingested by fish – we then eat the fish. Small plastic pieces = big environmental impact. Delete as much out of your life as you can.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #443 Recycle Pooch-Poop

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #443 Recycle Pooch-Poop

Dog poo contains nitrogen and phosphorous which, when they find their way into our water systems, promotes the growth of algae, which in its turn chokes the waterways and kills fish and other marine life. This was explained previously in the post: Clean Up After Your Dog (Flower #317). The good news is that there are forward-thinking, creative people who have ideas for using dog poo in a positive way. At www.poopower.com.au you will find a site that explains how dog poo is used to generate biogas. The project is in its infancy at this point, but it looks like a sensible solution to an ever-growing problem as the population of dogs around the world increases dramatically. Give them your support and spread the idea – its potential is huge, and it will make an incredible difference to not only the visual impact of our parks and streets, but more importantly to the planet.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #442 Attend to Hand Hygiene

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #442 Attend to Hand Hygiene

Disease is easily transferred from one person to another via contact, most often the hands. Washing our hands is a very simple thing to do, and something that has the potential to make such a huge difference. When attended to properly, hand hygiene can keep families and communities in better health. It is important in the home, when visiting hospitals, in schools and work places. Wash your hands thoroughly with soap, taking care to wash in between all your fingers and underneath any jewellery you may be wearing. The process should take at least a minute to be done properly, then ensure you dry your hands thoroughly. Always attend to hand hygiene before and after handling food, always after going to the toilet, before and after visiting sick people, after gardening, after handling rubbish – use your common sense to know when you should be washing your hands. It will ensure the chances of spreading disease are greatly reduced, creating healthier families and communities that will not be putting pressure on the health system. Reducing the need to use the health system means saving lots and lots of resources, as well as money, and this in turn reduced the pressure we put on the planet. Healthy people equals better lives and a healthier planet.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #441 Build a Boma

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #441 Build a Boma

A boma is a living fence, built to keep livestock safe from lions and other big cats. Dedicated people are resolving conflict between animals and humans by helping locals to construct bomas in Kenya and Tanzania. When lions kill their livestock the people kill the lions in retaliation. This conflict can be resolved by protecting the livestock with a fence so the lions can’t reach them, allowing the people to sleep soundly knowing their livestock are safe, and saving lions from retaliation killings. It’s a win-win situation. One boma only costs US$500 to build and US$25 a year to maintain, making them a very inexpensive way to save lions. This work is so important because lion populations are dwindling at an alarming rate, and if we don’t take all the opportunities we have to save these magnificent creatures, they will be lost to us forever. You can read more and make donations at www.buildaboma.org

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #440 Reduce Waste

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #440 Reduce Waste

Waste is a big problem facing every country on the planet. I’ve talked about it many times already, referring to water waste, land waste and even space waste. Even Mount Everest is plagued by waste left behind by adventurers climbing the mountain as a challenge. They’ve created a new challenge – cleaning up. Revisit some of the ideas already suggested: Reduce Landfill (Flower #7); Reduce Personal Waste (Flower #54); Avoid E-Waste (Flower #316); Deal With Your Own Waste (Flower #318); Avoid Food Waste (Flower #382).

As the world is plagued with an ever-growing population of human beings it is even more important for each and every one of us to reduce our contribution to the waste problem that pollutes this planet. Make the effort to think about the waste you create at work, at home, in the park, at the gym, at school, in the car – everywhere you go. Don’t mindlessly toss stuff away without a thought going through your mind as to where ‘away’ actually is – it’s landfill. Are you one of the top managers of a company that produces waste in massive quantities? How responsible is your company for that waste? What are you doing to deal with the problem?

If the rubbish was no longer collected from your property by the garbage collectors, and you were entirely responsible for how your own waste was dealt with, what would you do? How would you get rid of your waste? Would you bury it in your back yard? Don’t have a back yard – where would you put it? Landfill sites ARE in our backyard. They may not be your personal space, but they take up land and pollute the environment that belongs to all of us. So make an effort to reduce your waste.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - Take Ownership of Your Environment

1000 Flowers for the Planet - Take Ownership of Your Environment

Fixing the entire world is not a challenge for a single person. Thinking about all the problems we face with climate change, pollution, wars, energy production, human trafficking, animal cruelty and so much more is enough to stop the strongest activist in their tracks. But we can create change. We have the power to alter any outcome and create a better place for future generations and ourselves. And it does start with just one person – you.

Everything begins with the first step and goes on from there. To create change, first change your personal behaviours in your own environment, which is your home. Pay attention to how much you waste, how much you purchase needlessly, what you really need and what is just stuff without any meaning. Try to use less of everything – less water, less electricity, less gas, less petrol, less food, less clothing, less paper, less printer ink, less chemicals. You get the picture. Pay attention to what leaves your environment – are you putting chemicals down the drain, poisons into the soil, filling the rubbish/trash bin to the brim every week? See how you can take ownership of what happens in your own environment and how you can make less of a negative impact on the planet to help create change for the better. Once you know how to do it better, you can helps others to take ownership too.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #438 Discuss the Issues

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #438 Discuss the Issues

There’s a lot that needs our attention in this ever-changing world of ours. As technology brings us closer together and we become the global village, it’s more important than ever to develop our communication skills to higher levels, wherein we are free and able to discuss the issues presented to us as a human race. Discussion needs to be calm and open-minded. At individual levels we can practice our communication skills with family and friends, openly talking about environmental, moral and social issues (which is what this art project is all about). I’m opening discussion through my flowers – on a daily basis. I put it to my readers that you also share your thoughts and idea with others, so we can learn the facts, reduce our emotions, and find more common ground. Having created that, we can successfully deal with the challenges we face. It begins with simple discussion.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #437 Recycle Plastic Bags

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #437 Recycle Plastic Bags

China uses 3 billion plastic bags every day. There are enough plastic bags to circle the earth 29 times. So plastic products have been, and will continue to be, a topic of discussion throughout this 1000 Flowers for the Planet art project. Several Flower suggestions made so far can be revisited in regards to plastic bags. They were: Reject Plastic Bags (Flower #18); Live Without Plastic (Flower #63); Avoid Single Use Plastic (Flower #64); and Refuse Plastic Products (Flower #392). But if you can’t keep plastic bags out of your life altogether, then ensure you recycle them in an appropriate way. This isn’t suggesting that you can make life easy by saying to yourself it’s okay to take as many plastic bags home as I like because it’s easier, and you know you can recycle them and that makes it all okay. It doesn’t make it all okay.

Find a local site that collects plastic bags for recycling. My local one is the Coles supermarket chain, where they take many different types of soft plastics as well as their own plastic supermarket bags. Another avenue is your local charity shop, which may like to take some off your hands to re-use as carry bags for their customers. Re-use the bags yourself for activities in your own life: carrying around gym shoes or muddy boots in the car; re-use them at the supermarket; when moving house they can be used as packing around glassware – search the Internet for more ideas. For crafty people, plastic bags can be cut into strips and used as yarn to be crocheted into useful or fun items. Whatever your lifestyle, if you can’t keep them out of your life completely, then find ways you can recycle all your plastic bags.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #436 Turn Off Your Engine

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #436 Turn Off Your Engine

Sitting in the car while it’s idling for long periods of time is a waste of your money and of valuable finite resources. When you find yourself having to remain stationary in your car for more than a minute, turn off the engine to conserve fuel. It does not take more fuel to restart the engine.

Sometimes we get caught chatting to a neighbour as we come across them when trying to leave the house, and we stop in the street with the engine idling for many minutes while we catch up with the gossip. This is a good time to turn off your engine. If you’re caught in a terrible traffic jam where the traffic just isn’t moving, turn off your engine. If you’ve dropped someone off somewhere and you’re just waiting for them to zip in and out, don’t leave the car idling all that time – they inevitable take longer than expected, so turn off your engine (or find a proper parking spot).

By avoiding lengthy idling times and turning off the engine we can save money on fuel, which adds up over time. We also reduce carbon emissions, thus helping the planet to breathe a little better.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #435 Protect Childhood

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #435 Protect Childhood

Childhood is a precious thing. It doesn’t last very long and then you’re grown up and have to face the realities and pressures of life. But too many children already have to face these realities, and too many children face way more than they ever should. In the western world we look back at the Victorian period in horror and call all things dreadful ‘Dickensian’, but today our children are growing up quicker than ever, with knowledge at their fingertips and drugs available in schoolyards. Modern children have to be ‘taught’ their motor skills because they don’t learn these otherwise ‘natural’ abilities through ordinary play – they’re not allowed to play anymore in the proper sense of the word. Every minute of their day is coordinated by helicopter parents who scurry from one destination to another offering everything from baby massage for newborns to ballet lessons to sports to tutoring for better marks and everything else beyond. They’re not allowed to walk along fences, climb trees, play down at the park without supervision or do any activity alone, which is the time a child needs to learn how to take risks, what is possible or not possible, how to problem solve without an adult around and develop those essential motor skills as well a social skills. What we thought we learned from the ‘Dickensian’ period was that childhood was valuable and children needed to be allowed to play and develop naturally. We’ve taken that away from them and replaced it with 24/7 supervision.

In the developing world things are also grim, with children living in poverty having to work to help support their families and get enough food to eat. Some children are taken into child slavery or prostitution, and girls aren’t even safe to go to school without being kidnapped by militant groups. What kind of world is this for our children? Let’s commit to protecting children everywhere, allow them to be children and develop naturally so they can take on the responsibilities of adult life well prepared and ready to look after the planet for the next generation.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #434 Devise Local Recycling Initiatives

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #434 Devise Local Recycling Initiatives

We’re very fortunate that we currently have a forward-thinking council in my home area, making better decisions for the future of our local environment. Part of their initiative is regarding recycling, and this makes perfect sense as disposal costs for governments grow ever higher. It’s not sensible to create waste only to pay more money to dump that waste in a landfill somewhere. If your area doesn’t already have good recycling options for your community, devise some plans to present to your council showing how this will save money, as well as resources. If your area already has good recycling practices, take up the challenge to improve on what is already being done: Do people need more education? Can it be streamlined? Can it be more cost-effective? Can it be easier to collect resources? We can also look at recycling even more of our waste if we put our minds to it. It takes some good intention, a bit of brain power, some initiative, followed by action. This way we improve our world.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #433 Have Fun With Funky Fruit

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #433 Have Fun With Funky Fruit

Fruit sold at the big supermarkets is meant to be ‘perfect’, because the supermarket demands that all the fruit they buy from the growers is the same size and shape so it all looks ‘pretty’ on the display at the store. It’s also waxed and mucked around with. The supermarkets demand this from the grower, who then has to throw away any fruit that doesn’t meet the standards set. This is ridiculous! We don’t throw away people who aren’t the right height or body shape. Nature grows things the way they’re meant to be, so wouldn’t it be much better to have purely natural fruit, which comes in all shapes and sizes. Not every apple is exactly round, not every pear has the same shape – everything grows in its own funky, very individual way, and it’s time we returned to liking and expecting natural foods. Try supporting your local fruit grower who sells direct to the public. It makes sense that every piece of fruit that is grown should be eaten, not wasted. It can be an opportunity for the kids to have some fun, too. They can compare their weirdly shaped fruit with their mates and have lunch-time competitions to see who has the funniest piece. Lastly, if it really offends you to eat a piece of fruit that’s not perfect, then turn it into jam or preserves. All of this will help the planet by reducing food waste, helping farmers to survive, providing healthy fruit for our families and it will probably be more economically viable.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #432 Save the Wilderness of Iceland

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #432 Save the Wilderness of Iceland

Iceland has a large share of the most amazing wilderness on this planet. It is a beautiful, beautiful place that tourists should be immensely grateful to have the opportunity to see. It has rivers, waterfalls, glaciers, volcanic landscapes, Icelandic ponies, puffins and so much more. Yet in 2014 their government decided to pull back their protective laws that ensured the wilderness remained intact in order to plan a hydroelectric power plant. But power plants aren’t the only thing that damages wilderness. Human intervention of any kind will destroy what nature provides. Human over-population is the biggest problem nature faces. Iceland has so much natural beauty, but that doesn’t mean it’s okay to take large parts of it and concrete it for human convenience. If we don’t start protecting our natural assets now, for the future, the future holds nothing. This is true for every corner of the earth, but Iceland is a magnificent example of what we have to lose if we don’t pay attention to our behaviours and begin to change. At http://www.treehugger.com/environmental-policy/icelands-pristine-habitats-threatened-hydropower-plans.html you will find a beautiful video of a trek through Iceland to watch. Take a look, and see if you don’t agree that we should adjust our behaviours in order to preserve the magnificence of the planet.

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #431 Understand Newcomers

1000 Flowers for the Planet - #431 Understand Newcomers

Living in a multicultural country means we have the opportunity to meet and interact with people from lots of different countries, with different backgrounds and different views of the world. For them, coming to a new land, often having to learn a new language, must be hard. Some have even come from worn-torn countries and seen horrific things. Understanding these newcomers will go a long way to helping them adjust to their new home, so we need to take the time and effort to listen to their stories and find out how they see the world. Sharing, contributing and interacting with newcomers helps them fit into their new group better – bearing in mind the group they’re trying to fit into is your group.

This also applies to new kids starting at your school, someone joining your group whether it be Scouts, a sporting club or cooking class, and even people who have moved into your neighbourhood. By understanding newcomer and helping them fit into their new place in your group or area, we create better relationships, and this in turn leads to happier societies with less conflict and more peace and joy.