Regine Drosos

We need to reduce food waste one way is to create more composting in the world. Other ways are to shop smart, learn to preserve food by storing food correctly, If you save seeds you can replant them and create your own food. Another thing is to avoid cocoa, palm oil, and coffee products because these cause deforestation. 

Knowing more helps make the world a better place. It's the little things you do. These slight changes in your life style that can make so much of a difference. 

I noticed on my daily walks that some people have adapted solar roofs in order to conserve energy and heat cooling techniques on their homes, but more people have not converted yet. I enjoyed the fresh air and it's always great to go for walks with another person it makes an individual want to walk longer and push themselves more in order to live a healthier lifestyle. 

Cities of the world and the buildings and infrastructure that comprise them are a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions through heating and cooling. Drawdown has come up with ways to reduce these gases, and some of these solutions are:

Green and Cool Roofs which use solar radiation in order to cool down or hear loads. Green roofs also mitigate carbon emissions.

Heat pumps also reduce heating and cooling loads and are more efficient then
HVAC (Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) systems.

Smart Thermostats are internet-connected devices in households that reduce the heating and cooling demand of homes by using sensors and intelligent settings to maintain building comfort.

Solar Hot Water use of solar radiation to pre-heat or heat water for residential and commercial use within buildings, which reduces the need for conventional fossil fuel-based water heating.

These are just some solutions to reduce greenhouse gasses. I think the most interesting fact I learned is how far we came with technology and using solar energy to create a better way of living. 

Foods that contribute to deforestation are Palm Oil, Cocoa, Coffee and even Meat, Dairy and Eggs.

Palm Oil is actually responsible for mass deforestation across Indonesia, Malaysia and now Africa. It can be found in 50 % of consumer goods. So the damned for this ingredient is extremely high.

Palm Oil can be found in Bread, Margarine, Soap, Shampoo, Chocolate and more.

Coffee

In the U.S. alone, the coffee industry is worth $100 billion. Producing enough coffee beans to meet global demands requires a whole lot of space for crops which typically, means converting forest lands into plantations.

While coffee plants used to grow inharmony with surrounding rainforests, in the 1970s a hybrid plant was introduced that required full sunlight and agrochemicals to grow this plant is largely responsible for the environmental concerns associated with coffee today

the average three cup a day coffee drinker needs at least 18 coffee trees to sustain this habit. Now imagine how many native forest, and plants need to be replaced how many ingenious animals end up losing their homes and sometimes worse their lives can be taken away just so you can have that warm roast fix.

I quit drinking coffee years ago. I found it left a bad after taste in my mouth and hopefully after some people read this it might leave one in their's as well. If this information get's at least one person to quit this habit it's worth putting it out there in the world.

Chocolate or Cocoa is another food that causes deforestation. The majority of cocoa plants are cultivated in West Africa, where this commodity crop sadly takes precedence over the native ecosystems. It is estimated that between 50 to 60 percent of biodiversity loss across Papua New Guinea and Madagascar can be linked back to habitat destruction for cocoa production.

Like coffee, cocoa can grow under forest cover, but the development of “efficient” hybrid plants that require full sun exposure has lead to a rapid increase in the amount of deforestation associated with cocoa.

Thankfully, you don’t have to swear off chocolate just yet. Many farmers are switching back to the shade-grown method of cocoa production that enables plants to be grown in collaboration with others.

look for the Rainforest Alliance green frog to ensure that you’re not supporting deforestation with your sugar fix.

Meat, Dairy and Eggs is not so much the product itself that is causing deforestation, but the feed. Soy is often given a bad rap for fueling deforestation across the world, but what many people don’t realize is that over 70 percent of the cultivated soy goes to feed livestock, not people.

So the more we demand Meat and Dairy the more soy we need to use the more soy the more deforestation the world faces. It pays to be Vegan  or at least cut down on meat and dairy products as much as you can. 

Transport produces 7 gigatons of carbon dioxide-equivalent greenhouse gas emissions annually or 23 percent of energy-related emissions, which is around 14 percent of all emissions. Wealthier people travel more, locally and internationally, and demand more goods and services. So, as a country develops economically, movement of people and goods increases. Which my be good for the economy, but not so much for the environment.

There is solutions to cutting down the carbon-footprint. The most popular form of transportation in the world is automobiles a solution to this would be to invest in  hybrid cars. Conventional vehicles use gasoline or diesel to power an internal combustion engine. ... By using both a conventional engine and electric motor, the best hybrids achieve significantly better fuel efficiency than their non-hybrid counterparts. Also pollute less and save drivers money through fuel savings.

The next form of transportation that is used world wide are Airplanes. If everyone took fewer flights, airline companies wouldn’t burn as much jet fuel. Which would cut down of the carbon footprint. In fact taking one round trip flight between New York to California would generated about 20 percent of the greenhouse gases this would take someone driving a car a whole year to be able to equal that same amount of greenhouse gases. 

Another thing you can do is buy carbon offsets, when you do this you pay to take planet-warming carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere in exchange for the greenhouse gases you put in. You can buy offsets through some airlines — Delta, United and JetBlue, among others.

Flying in business class are about three times as great as flying in coach.

In business class and first class, seats are bigger, so fewer people are being moved by the same amount of fuel. A study by World Bank estimates that a first-class seat could have a carbon footprint as much as nine times as big as an economy one. I found this the most interesting fact. 

A sustainable community is a community planned and  created for sustainable living. This sustainable living can consist of reducing waste, energy efficiency, and choosing better transportation to cut down pollution, and using materials that cut down on the carbon footprint. 

For such a vision of this to exist people have to cooking less food, build homes using  materials that reduce the carbon footprint like bamboo products and you can even use bamboo for building materials, solar power helps, reducing the greenhouse gasses, etc.