This Earth Week I recommend starting your day by taking a few quiet moments to give gratitude for our abundant home – Planet Earth.
Did you realize that one mature tree gives enough oxygen to support a family of four for an entire year?
We are so blessed in Malibu to have all our wild trees clinging along the Santa Monica Mountains helping capture rainfall; and with billions of tree roots to slowly release water into our valleys and creeks – like my favorite, Cross Creek.
Many people ask me throughout the year what they can do to help our exquisite planet that’s warming at an unprecedented rate and bulging with more than seven billion consumptive humans.
Please consider the following suggestions. If each of us accomplished just three of these acts – our individual and family footprints will be lighter; and by supporting my seventh suggestion – you’ll help protect dolphins and whales from persecution.
— April is a good time to change household air filters, and clean air conditioner filter(s) with an outdoor water hose. Once a year it’s a good idea to have both your heater and air conditioning units professionally serviced. Maintained units run more efficiently, use far less energy and will save you more than $75 a month. Also be setting your thermostat at 78 degrees during the summer months you will save an additional $75 a month.
— Buy six organic cotton shopping bags available at any health food or enviro-friendly clothing stores. After you unpack your groceries, put the reusable bags back into your car, so you don’t forget them the following week.
— If a car trip is less than two miles, consider either bicycling or walking.
— Daily exercise is of paramount importance for your heart and to prevent the onset of Type II diabetes (an epidemic in America and worldwide). Also, little by little, we can begin to reduce our carbon footprints by riding a bicycle or walking to do chores, lowering monthly gasoline costs by $80.
— Earth Week is a great time to plant native yellow and blue flowers in large solid color blocks to help provide a safe source of nectar and pollen for our native bumble and solitary bees. Please do not use any pesticides, herbicides, fungicides or miticides in your yard.
— Did you know that pesticides sold at garden stores across America may contain bee-killing neonicotinoids that are 120 times higher than currently approved in agriculture?
— Plant bumblebee-pollinated tomatoes and peppers in your yard, interspersed with beneficial, pungent-smelling marigolds; they will keep leaf-sucking insects like aphids away, and within 8 weeks your family will have homegrown, healthy vegetables.
— Every Earth Week wherever I’ve been on the globe, I have planted a fruit tree. Consider planting a grapefruit tree this week in Malibu – it will provide a safe source of nectar and pollen for the bees; and in return a scrumptious, Vitamin C and flavonoid-rich bounty for your family and neighbors.
— Lastly, please support the work of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. They are standing up and protecting the intelligent and awe-inspiring dolphins and whales from rapacious poachers.
Earth Dr. Reese Halter is a broadcaster, biologist and author of “The Insatiable Bark Beetle.”