Daily Choices for a Healthier World

Organic snacks and salads are being served throughout Berkeley, California public schools, thanks to the initiative of Eric Weaver and other parents. Sick of a synthetic carpet that was making her son's allergies worse, Terri Isidro-Cloudas of Connecticut replaced her rug and vinyl flooring with hardwood over concrete, wired for energy-efficient, radiant heat. These individuals are part of a growing consumer movement whose green choices are changing the marketplace while protecting Earth's ecosystems and their families' health. Fifteen percent of U.S. shoppers routinely include environmental considerations in their individual purchasing decisions.

This issue of The Green Guide compiles the greener, healthier household choices that have proved most popular with our readers in recent years - and all the information's freshly updated. Environmental change really does begin at home. A few examples:

*In California, consumers voluntarily conserved energy, cutting demand by 12% while reducing utility bills and pressure to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

*Due to consumer demand, retail organic food sales have been expanding at 20% or more a year.

*Buying certified organic, bird-friendly, ECO-O.K. or shade-grown coffee, chocolate and bananas have become popular ways to help build healthy local economies and save rainforests...while you enjoy your breakfast all the more!

*The Smartwood label ensures that wood is certified sustainably harvested by the Forest Stewardship Council, which protects 55.3 million acres worldwide.

*The Paper Project is using consumer pressure to get all publications to join Earth Island Journal, E.Magazine, The Green Guide and others in printing on recycled paper.

*100 million Americans recycle every day.

3 Legislative Actions You Can Take

1. Ask your Representatives to support the Hybrid Vehicle Incentive Act, H.R. 2369, that would open HOV (high-occupancy-vehicle) lanes to hybrid cars, which combine electricity and gas to get up to three times the miles per gallon.

2. Ask your Senators to vote for the Arsenic-Treated Wood Mandatory Labeling Act, S. 877, which would require warning labels on pressure-treated lumber, used for playgrounds and decks, that contains poisonous chromated copper arsenate (CCA).

3. Southern Right Whales are recovering from the brink of extinction. But now the U.S. Navy's worldwide ocean sonar program threatens ALL whales' hearing, breeding & migration. Ask your reps to cut this funding via www.nrdcaction.org.

(Call the Capitol Switchboard at 202/224-3121, or e-mail via www.house.gov/writerep/ or www.senate.gov.)