I recently attended a screening of the film Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. After the viewing, the director, Joe Cross, spoke to the crowd about his journey to health and his philosophy on how to start and maintain healthful habits. One of his statements particularly resonated with me: “If 3 million people walked into McDonald’s tomorrow and asked for green juice, and the next day 3 million people walked in again and asked for green juice, McDonald’s would be selling green juice.”

We have the power of consumer clout to make the marketplace work for the health of both people and the planet we call home. The bottom line is, when we change the way we spend our money, we change the world. Cross spoke about the responsibility (think response-ability) of each individual to take control of his or her health. Similarly, we have the right to intentionally shift our spending to support the greatest environmental benefit.

October’s special Environmental issue suggests many things we can do starting today to benefit our families, communities and nation. We have never faced a more critical moment in terms of the urgent need to habitually go green.

I challenge you now to do one small thing every day for the next year that will help make a difference, recognizing that such small actions add up to great movements. Here are some of the ideas, some which I already practice, others that I plan to take action on.

• Use a 2 in 1 shampoo and conditioner to save time and water, with less packaging to recycle.
• Switch to reusable cloth napkins to keep paper out of the trash. Select organic cotton, hemp or bamboo fabrics to avoid pesticides; wash in cold water and hang to dry.
• Mix a vinegar solution to clean the house for a considerably cheaper and safer alternative to chemical-laden commercial cleansers.
• Buy recycled brands of toilet paper because they work well and take less energy and fewer resources to produce.
• Join a local Freecycle.org networking group to “gift” things you don’t need to others during your fall cleanup. Less goes to landfills and you can find things given by others that you need, all for free.
• Buy Halloween treats with recyclable packaging, for example, choose goodies in recyclable little cardboard boxes, not plastic wrappers.

Step by step, we lighten our impact and show Mother Earth that we do care about our home planet.

How great it is that green living is healthy, and healthy living is green, - Audrey

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