Not to sound like a complete pessimist, but after this election, its incredibly obvious that our earth is going to be completely destroyed sooner rather than later. Unless WE do something. Neither of the two leading candidates actually give a crap about our earth or ANY of the people on it. Don’t be fooled by political propaganda and good PR, Hillary doesn’t care about human rights either– she’s made that very clear in her actions (not in words). Both options are incredibly painful options– both are evil.

As I’m writing this it’s the end of the polls– and the results will soon come in, but the reality is that either candidate as president is going to change and affect the entire world in horrifically awful ways. It’s pretty obvious the damage that Trump will cause— he’s been full discloser the entire way about how terrible he truly is. With Hillary, everything has been behind the scenes— all the damages she’s already caused to our third world countries and minority groups has gone unrecognized by popular media. And all the damage she will further create and our children she will poison has gone underwhelmingly unmentioned. At this point, the only way to make a difference is to use our freedom, our voice, our money, and our awareness to create the world we want to live in. I vote for equality, for care, for honesty, for actually building a future we want to live in, instead of living in a fear of setting everything back. Don’t you? I said it earlier today, but I don’t want to be a “nasty woman”, I want to be an educated and conscious woman who cares about our children, our future, and our earth. Don’t you?

Ever since the waste dump and toxic algae outbreak in Florida, Marlowe has been beyond passionate about wanting to make a difference. The girl is going to change the world one day. Right now, she’s set on creating an earth club that can help everyone understand what little changes they can make every day to make this world a little bit better. She asks constantly, wanting to know when we can talk to more people about the earth. Well specifically, she says she wants me to talk, and she can show examples 😉  There are A LOT of changes that need to be made, but need to happen on a government and political level– these will take time (and petitioning from us). But there are a lot of really easy changes we can all make at home. And I say it all the time, in regards to a lot of things, but it’s not about being perfect, and it certainly doesn’t have to be all or nothing. Even one little step forward is a step in the right direction. Let’s make little changes together, yeah?

Five Things You (And Your Kids) Can Do At Home Today To Help Take Care Of The Earth

don’t buy palm oil

Pretty straight forward sounding. Except it’s not. Unless you’re buying completely natural and clean products, there’s a good chance that A LOT of the products you have in your home have palm oil in it— everything from cleaners to make-up, to food, has palm oil in it. Even the whole foods brand of organic peanut butter has palm oil in it. It’s in EVERYTHING. And you know why? Because it’s a cheap crop that is being planted everywhere. Problem is that rainforests are being chopped down to grow these crops. Animals are losing their habitats and facing extinction, we’re losing our trees, and entire ecosystems. We need our rainforest, they aren’t just some luxury vacation spot, they serve a greater purpose on this planet as a whole. Read your labels, don’t buy anything with palm oil. The monkeys of the forests will thank you. And monkeys are cute, ya? So let’s be nice to them.

don’t buy sugar

You might not have been expecting this one, but it’s a big one. Sugar corporations are poisoning us in more ways than one. The sugar itself is wreaking havoc in our bodies, yes, but outside of our bodies, sugar is causing serious problems for our environment. Florida Crystals (sugar) is a big money damaging business. Honestly, I regret putting any recipes in my cookbook that contain processed sugar. I really regret it. I debated on it before I did it and went against my gut instinct and went forward with it. If I could go back in time, I would leave them out completely.

The pollution from the sugar industry creates serious problems– for instance, here in Florida a lot of the giant toxic algae bloom was due to excessive fertilizers in our water system (drained from Lake Okeechobee) due to sugar agriculture and other non-organic agricultural crops in the middle of the state. While the toxic algae bloom might feel like a lifetime ago, it wasn’t and it’s still an issue today. We put our environment, animals, and ourselves at risk with these dangerous fertilizers. Not only is growing sugar an issue, but the processing itself releases dangerous pollutants and ammonia, among other things into the atmosphere. Fruit is better and better for you anyway. Skip the processed, no nutritional use garbage.

buy organic

the same way the sugar industry creates environmental damage with fertilizers and pesticides so does conventional farming. Every single day we go to the grocery store and buy food, we are deciding what kind of world we want to live in. Our hardworking farmers around the world are being poisoned by toxic pesticides. Buying organic helps ensure that not only are we not poisoning our bodies with dangerous chemicals, but we’re not poisoning others as well.

I had a conversation with a friend recently about switching over to as many organic products as possible, even with clothes, and the response was, “what’s the difference, I’m not going to eat my clothes”— no you’re not going to eat your clothes, but someone still has to farm and process that cotton for your clothes to be made. And our earth is still being damaged from the chemicals we are spraying on it. So every single organic vs. conventionally farmed product matters, to just produce. Buying organic also ensures that we’re not buying GMO products. While some rumors state that GMO’s will help feed our world and GMO products need fewer pesticides, this is NOT true. GMO products still use A LOT of damaging and cancer-causing pesticides, they just use pesticides that are specially made for that GMO product. And as bug resistance increases, so will the toxicity of the pesticides. We’re trying to play god by our poor agricultural practices— we need to work with the land, not against it. Pesticides go into our food, our soil, our streams, and into our bodies. Ever wonder why cancer rates are on the rise? There’s a lot of reason, and glyphosate and other chemicals are high on the blame list. Do yourself and your family a favor and stick with natural, whole, and organic products. The farmers of the world thank you.

don’t eat meat (*or eat less of it and choose meat that is sustainably raised)

Animal agriculture is a huge HUGE part to blame for the environmental crisis our earth is in. Like palm oil, we’re cutting down entire rainforests for the meat industry– accounting for approximately 16+% of the world’s deforestation. We’re growing (GMO) feed for cattle instead of growing food for people. We’re then destroying the land to raise said cattle– by poisoning our cattle (and others livestock as well) with antibiotics and hormones (that inevitably make their way into our soil and water system by way of feces excretion). The livestock industry is a HUGE part of the climate change problems were experiencing. The livestock industry releases 32.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year into our atmosphere. 32. 6 BILLION TONS. That’s insane. That’s 51% of the worlds total emissions– beating out cars and everything else. So even if you refuse to give up meat, cutting down on meat consumption can have seriously positive impacts on the world as a whole. Hey, HERE are some good non and minimally processed vegan recipes you can try. HOORAY!

buy less and buy smarter 

Consumerism is a bitch. We’re all guilty of wanting new things at some point in time. Doing little things like buying second-hand helps a lot– or looking at what you have vs what you need (<— smart) helps. Buying less creates less demand and fewer strains on our earth. And when you must buy something: buy smart. Buy organic vs. non-organic. Buy sustainable made products, vs. cheap, one-time use products. Be a conscious shopper. We need smart shoppers to make educated purchases with every single dollar spent. Each dollar makes a difference. Sure there are great things like re-using and recycling, but it starts with reducing as a whole. I know I say it over and over, but quality over quantity. We need less junk winding up in our already overflowing landfills. We need to make smart choices to ensure that we’re not overcrowding our land, oceans, entire planet with garbage. Just think about each purchase before you buy, easy enough, ya? Our fossil fuels are coming to an end. Fracking isn’t the answer– being sustainable is. Buy from companies who support sustainability as much as you can.

Alright, this post has been on my mind for a while, but obviously fueled a bit more tonight. I’m exhausted, emotionally and physically. To be quite honest, I finally wrote down all the personal stuff that’s been going on for me lately– and had it ready to post. But with everything going on,I thought it would be smarter to talk about a global issue over a personal issue, yeah? So yeah, there are lots and lots of ways to make a difference— recycling, buying only reusable items, not buying plastic, carpooling, opting to hold purchased items instead of putting them in plastic bags, planting a tree, or you’re own garden, etc, etc etc. Like I said, every little thing helps. Do what you can, when you can. And teach your kids how AND why. Our kids are the future. WE are the future. Our government isn’t going to make the changes we need to sustain our planet and the people on it. It’s up to us. Marlowe’s Earth Club thanks you. <3<3

8 Comments

  1. this post is one of the many reasons why i love your blog. thank you for sharing all of this. i am now going to try even harder to protect our earth using these examples. sometimes we all need a little reminder here and there. it really scares me what we are doing to this earth and it is probably the thing i feel most passionately about. that and equal rights. -Tina

  2. All due respect but I find it bothersome that you often make extraordinary claims without any evidence or citations to where exactly this information comes from. For example, how exactly has Hilary "poisoned our children"? I enjoy your blog but this is not the first time I've felt that some of the claims you make are irresponsible since the reader not given any evidence based source for the information. This is especially true when it comes to nutrition. Again, I enjoy reading and by all means if Hilary Clinton is poisoning children I think the world has a right to know but as stated it's just conspiracy theory.

  3. Drea, GMOs are not the problem. There are many bad uses for GMOs, I'm sure you know all about them (I'm talking about modifying plants so that we can add more pesticides to them and that type of things) but there are thousands of amazing uses too (read about golden rice (which has beta-carotene, the precursor of vitamin A, and could avoid malnutrition in so many places where people don't have access to plants with vitamin A), other varieties of rice that can survive longer periods of time when there is a flood (and will thus improve the quality of life of the farmers, as they don't suffer as much with a bad-year climate), tomatoes that can grow better when there is a drought (allowing people to have food in very dry climates)…). There are amazing uses for GMOs, they do really have the potential to improve the world, provide more food security, improve the quality of life of farmers, etc. We need to start differentiating between good and bad GMOs.

    I'd recommend you read the letter that more than 100 nobel laureates signed and sent to Green Peace, which say that Green Peace could be committing a crime against humanity doing all the anti-GMO propaganda they are doing, when they have already been informed by the scientific community of all the positive aspects concerning GMOs.

    Please Drea, you have influence on people through your blog, read into some of the things I spoke about here and stop being so negative about all GMOs.

  4. I really needed this today. Thanks, Drea (& Marlowe!), for keeping what's important in perspective! Can I join the club?

  5. A really great post Drea. The planet is so often the very last of our leaders' concerns. I was particularly happy to see the "buy less and buy smarter" bit. So much plastic rubbish is produced, purchased and in landfill within the year, it's utterly appalling. Future generations will be horrified at what we have done. The festive season is particularly sickening. I think I shall do a post as well, you have spurred me on. CJ xx

  6. That's a future world leader right there!

    Thoughts from London to Florida at this shocking time <3