The Green Fairy Blogs

Hi ladies!

In Big Idea Week, I’ve saved one of the most difficult big ideas for last:

EAT LESS MEAT

Oh, I know everybody’s gotta eat their protein. That’s all you hear these days: protein, protein, protein. (By the way, don’t buy into that logic. Plant-foods DO have protein in them.) And I’m not telling you to stop eating meat altogether. Maybe just give it up once a week.

Why? Because it takes a lot of energy to grow a cow (or a chicken or a pig or a fish). Especially the way our food is grown today, on big feedlots. All that feed has to be grown (with fossil fuels) and trucked in (with fossil fuels). The cow eats the food and grows, but most of the food it eats is expended as body heat. After two years, the cow is killed and becomes your steak, but it’s taken much more energy to grow than it’ll provide to you in calories.

So try cutting meat out of your diet once or twice a week. If you go completely vegetarian, you get a gold star: A University of Chicago study found that cutting meat out of your diet is like trading a Camry for a Prius, in terms of carbon emissions.

It’s one of the biggest, simplest payoffs you can get, if you’re trying to make your life a little greener.

Enjoy your weekend! Love, The Green Fairy

Hello, friends!

I apologize for yesterday’s technical difficulties. To remind you, this week we’re talking about the big picture.

What do I mean? I mean worrying less about whether or not you used a plastic bag at the grocery store, or whether you were in a hurry and had to use the dryer instead of air-drying. These things happen.

And realistically, one misstep isn’t going to change the world. What will change the world is if we change our lifestyles. Without further ado, here’s lifestyle change numero uno:

DRIVE LESS.

No! No! Don’t stop reading! I didn’t say “stop driving!” I know you have to use the car, to pick up kids from school, to haul groceries, to get to work. I’m not asking you to stop doing those things. I’m just asking you to do it a little less. Maybe you can carpool to work one day a week, or even take public transportation. Just one day a week. If you tend to go out for lunch every day, maybe you can bring lunch one day a week, and save the trip. Or maybe, instead of driving to church, you can walk—I’m sure it’d be a pleasant Sunday stroll.

The point here is this: you don’t have to change your life overnight, and I certainly don’t expect you to. The Green Fairy is small, herself, and she believes in small changes. Big ideas, small changes.

Have a good day! Love, The Green Fairy

P.S. I want to address something that’s been in the news this week: Inflating your tires correctly will totally save you gas. If we all kept our tires properly inflated, the US. Dept of Energy estimates we’d save 1.5 billion gallons of gas a year. See, this is the kind of small change I’m talking about. Learn to use your air pressure gauge; you can thank me later.

Hi friends!

Do you feel a bit overloaded? Do you ever feel like every choice you make is ruining the planet?

Yes, probably, it is.

No, no, no, I’m kidding. But I know how you feel.

This week, I’m going to try to help you. Okay, so you got a plastic bag at the grocery store. Or you accidentally left your cell phone charger plugged into the wall all night. Chill out. For the next five days, we’re going to widen our perspective and look at the grand scheme of things.

Prepare yourself for the big ideas, the overarching concepts that are going to help you save the planet.

There, now. Don’t you feel more powerful already?
Love, The Green Fairy

P.S. AP and KR, we miss you!