Help Stop Global Warming:

We can take personal actions to help plants, animals, and people vulnerable to global warming. Each of us can do our part to reduce our personal contribution to global warming, and help educate others in our community about how to live efficiently and cleanly. Here are few suggestions for what you can do:

  • Drive efficiently. Choices about energy use are some of the most important environmental decisions we make. Choosing a fuel efficient vehicle directly reduces greenhouse gas emissions and is probably the single most valuable thing you can do to reduce your carbon footprint.

  • Drive less. Reducing how much you drive can also make a huge difference. Look into options for carpooling, using public transportation, walking, or riding a bike — good for you and good for the environment!

  • Save energy. Energy efficiency is key, even out of the car. Check to make sure your appliances are as efficient as possible by looking for the EPA Energy Star label. Weatherize your home by caulking, replacing the windows or taking other steps to make it more energy-efficient. Using warm instead of hot for washing machines, covering pots, and using pressure cookers and steamers can also help save energy.

  • Even small choices help. Pay attention to how much electricity you use around the house every day, and try to reduce it as much as possible. Unplugging appliances when they are not in use, using fluorescent light bulbs, flipping off the light switch when you leave and wearing a sweater instead of turning up the heat are great places to start.

Take Action to Help Wildlife:

  • Reduce, Reuse, Recycle! Help reduce waste by choosing reusable products (including shopping bags) and products without a lot of packaging. Whenever you can, recycle paper, plastic, newspaper, glass and aluminum cans. Aluminum, especially, is extracted from the earth in destructive ways that destroy forests and other crucial habitat. Recycle.

  • Pick up trash. Animals sometimes eat plastic, foil, and other trash, thinking it is food. And animals catch their necks, wings, or paws in plastic six-pack rings or discarded fishing lines. All this trash can make wildlife sick or die. So clean up. And cut the six-pack rings.

  • Create habitat. Just like people, animals need safe places to eat, drink, rest, and raise their young. By putting up bird feeders, nest boxes, and bat boxes; providing clean water; planting a variety of native trees, shrubs, and flowers; having lawnmower-free areas; and keeping old trees, fallen logs, and compost (the perfect homes for many wildlife), you can provide habitat in your own backyard. And remember that helping a few species will also help others — in making the ecosystem healthier and enhancing the food chain.

  • Reduce pesticide and chemical fertilizer use. Pesticides, herbicides, and insecticides often do not just get rid of targeted pests, but other plants and animals too. There are a number of less harmful ways to discourage pests — such as using ladybugs to control insects and designing gardens with more disease- and insect-resistant plants. Avoid chemical fertilizers as well, because their chemicals can injure and kill wildlife (for example, by contaminating nearby water supplies). If you must use pesticides or chemical fertilizers, use as little as possible and only as directed.

  • Control cats. Cats kill hundreds of millions of birds and other small wildlife every year. So keep your tabby indoors.

  • Join others locally. Join activities in your area (or organize them!). With your neighbors, get rid of non-native plants that often crowd out native plants needed by wildlife, clean up riparian or green areas, create habitat, plant trees, and so on.

  • Check out additional resources and links here.

Additional Resource Links