Reduce Climate Change by Acting and Buying Green

Acting green means to change your habits, whereas buying green means to consciously purchasing products that are manufactured in a socially and environmentally responsible way. One way to both act and purchase green is to start your own carbon sequestering organic garden. Planting a fruit, vegetable, and herb garden helps take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and turns it back into clean oxygen! 

Home gardening accounts for nearly 80 million pounds of pesticides used per year in North America. Most of these chemicals are used to control those annoying insects that eat your fruits and vegetables. Unfortunately, these chemicals find their way into streams or rivers as runoff, and from there into the oceans. 

In sum, these pollutants and chemicals are not confined to our oceans and drinking water resources. We end up consuming them through the food web too. Much of our food livestock eats pounds of grain that have soaked up these chemicals through the soil. This is called bioaccumulation. Biomagnification is when we consume meat that has eaten lots of polluted corn meal or grain, and the pollutants travel up the food chain and into our bodies. When you eat contaminated food, you absorb those chemicals and over time they build up in your body. 

 Starting an organic garden is a great way to: 

• Reverse climate change (when you carbon sequester; you turn carbon dioxide back into oxygen which reverses global warming)

• Reduce your weekly grocery bill.

• Be healthier (and the food tastes better!)