Dare to be different?Care to be green?Christmas is about sharing and caring. As the year ends, it is time to give back to Me + Earth = ME.
Fit for yourself and fit for the planet!
Celebrating and giving for the sake of personal and planetary wellbeing (minimum costs and wastage) is about collective sustainability, let¡¯s share some creative ideas on how to celebrate a green Christmas.
Healthy eating and healthy cooking is a good start.
Shop for healthy cookbooks as gifts, or better still, offer surprise cooking class subscriptions for husband and wife, father and child, grandparent and grand children. Remember, food growing, food production, food transportation, storage and food waste disposal consume land, water, energy and fuel.Saving the planet starts with the mouth.
Capture nature¡¯s beauty and personal beauty.
This is my little greenhouse, I grow my own breakfast
Discover green fun with your cameras by taking photography lessons.Learn to take thematic portraits and landscapes and hunt for happy faces and inspiring sceneries.Organize X¡¯mas picnics and photo outings with family, friends and hobby-pals.Learn to shoot rather be shot!It¡¯s more fun.
Self-appreciation & self-remake
Dig out your old photo albums, borrow or buy a good scanner to digitize the history of your life.It would be fun to transform old prints into digital formats that could be loaded onto digital picture frames.It is the recalling of the good old days and reliving the good old memories that bonds family ties.Those youthful, happier faces and slimmer healthier figures are timely reminders for a more balanced lifestyle away from over-indulgence and excessiveness.Don¡¯t waste yourself.Don¡¯t waste the planet.
Sealed it with chopsticks
Visit the local ¡°seal carvers¡±(near MTR exit in Sheung Wan) and ask them to carve names, dates, messages, poems, secret codes, onto pairs of metal or plastic chopsticks.Help your love ones, families, friends and colleagues to become proud users and owners of eco-friendly chopsticks.Surely, these personalized chopsticks would not be disposed of after just one use!Goodbye to disposals.
Grow your breakfast
Buy some organic seeds, such as buckwheat, rhubarb, mustard, soybeans and germinate them in small trays (recycled from your grocery packaging).Keep them in mini greenhouses in the shape of mini tents. It¡¯s fun to watch them grow.It is fun to harvest your breakfast every morning.Support the organic movement.It is healthier for you and the planet.
Taking photo with Nature is fun.
Safer Climate, Cleaner Village, Hopeful Future
Pig waste into biogas, little pigs are power plants of the 21st Century. They are climate heroes!
Mitigate your and your friends¡¯ climate footprints (energy consumption and air miles) by donating to help China villagers switch to biogas, prevent logging and soil erosion, reduce animal waste contamination, liberate women from firewood gathering and improve rural hygiene. Support the Sunflower Project
Christmas celebrates the birth of Christ, savior of mankind.The time has come to celebrate those of you and your friends who care to be guardian angels of our Planet under stress.
Live simply so that others could simply live!
Mrs. Mei Ng
A Sustainability Pathfinder
An Evergreen Volunteer
In solidarity with Nature, Culture and Future
December 2007
** Info about the ¡°Mini-greenhouse¡± and ¡°China Village Biogas Sunflower Projectplease visit www.foe.org.hk and www.cuncaoxin.org.cn
