Do Something Positive

Everyday people throw away single-use plastic “stuff” without thinking twice — plastic bottles, bags, utensils, cups, containers and more.

But this “stuff” never truly goes away. Instead, it clogs our landfills, threatens our health, trashes our parks, litters our streets and even washes into our rivers and oceans. Nothing we use for a few minutes should threaten our health and pollute our future for hundreds of years.

Join the February Plastic Challenge!

The Plastic-Free Challenge is a month-long effort starting February 1 to reduce how many plastics you use in ways that fit best in your lifestyle and have the most impact on reducing your plastic footprint.

Do something positive for yourself, your family and for the planet in February. With so many plastic items in our lives avoiding them may feel impossible, but there is a lot we can do to reduce our plastic footprint. Please Join with us to learn ways we can reduce our exposure to plastic. There are many activities to choose from, but you can also create your own challenge. Keep it simple, and even choosing one activity will make a difference. You will learn a lot, and have fun during this February challenge. Sign up here:

https://tcplasticfree.ecochallenge.org/dashboards/teams/lynnhurst-plasticfree

The Plastic-Free Challenge is a month-long effort starting February 1 to reduce plastic consumption, in ways that fit best in your needs. You only need to choose one activity that works for you like bringing your reusable shopping bags, or asking not to be given a straw with your drink, or bringing your reusable cup with you for February. Many other ideas will be suggested when you register. Keep it simple. Do a good job on one thing!

Resolutions for Eating

Reducing food waste is SO important!

Melissa Clark is an extraordinaire food writer for the New York Times. She has set her food resolutions for 2025.

She is missing the most important food resolution: REDUCE your food waste! Food waste is an enormous waste of energy. time and water. Food waste is an enormous contributor to our climate crisis. Read about it here:

Tips to fight food waste

https://www.ecowatch.com/holiday-food-waste-reduction-tips.html

And then read Melissa’s resolutions below:

3 resolutions for eating and drinking in 2025

New Year’s resolutions are fast upon us, and chances are that your list will include some version of trying to eat better. I’m here to help.

Food is both my profession and my obsession, which means it’s my job to consume delicious things every single day, reveling in each bite of tangy arugula salad, silky roasted salmon or gooey blackout cake. The key for me is to maximize the pleasure while also leaning into moderation, and to generally eat more sustainably.

I want to share this balancing act with you. Here’s my approach, broken down into easily digestible morsels.

1. Learn to cook something — or something new.

If you’re just starting out in the kitchen, make 2025 the year you learn to cook. The recipe columnists and editors at New York Times Cooking have compiled a recipe collection for absolute beginners, and in the course of 10 dishes you’ll acquire basic skills to bolster your confidence.

Start with Eric Kim’s tuna mayo rice bowl, which doesn’t even require turning on the stove if you have leftover rice or a rice cooker. Genevieve Ko’s cheesy eggs on toast is equally good for breakfast as it is for dinner. And my lemony chicken with potatoes and oregano is easy to make on a sheet pan, and it’s just the thing to slather with your favorite condiment, be it chile sauce, mayonnaise, mustard or all three.

Keeping your pantry well stocked will get you halfway there — and here are some tips on how to do just that. Even on nights when I don’t have time to plan or run to the store, I know I’ll still be able to cook something incredibly satisfying that’s often faster and cheaper than getting takeout.

If you’re a seasoned cook but feel tapped out for inspiration, commit to making one new recipe per month. You get bonus points if it includes ingredients or techniques you’ve never tried before. Dishes like one-pot mushroom and ginger rice (which calls for velveting the mushrooms) and crunchy scrunched cabbage salad with fried almonds are just waiting to help you get back in your groove. You can also sign up for our What to Cook newsletter for even more suggestions.

2. Eat less meat.

Cutting back on meat gets easier for me as the years go by. As it turns out, the less meat I eat, the less of it I crave. (That is sadly untrue of cookies, though.) And replacing animal-based foods with whole grains, legumes and nuts has been linked to a lower risk of Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Now, I mostly use meat as seasoning for vegetables, beans or pasta. A little prosciutto, a sprinkle of bacon or a few ounces of ground turkey go a long way.

Maple-roasted tofu with butternut squash and bacon, spicy tomato white bean stew, and one-pot tortellini with prosciutto and peas all keep the meat minimal and the satisfaction high. (For some meatless recipe ideas, subscribe to my colleague Tanya Sichynsky’s vegetarian newsletter, The Veggie.)

3. Drink less alcohol.

Drinking more moderately is about emphasis in my book. I’ve come to realize that drinking more low- or no-alcohol cocktails and mocktails is just as satisfying as drinking alcohol.

I’ve also discovered that the ceremony of having a drink is just as important as what’s in the glass, if not more so. Give me something with a deep bittersweet tang in a fancy coupe as a gateway to a congenial evening, and I won’t ever miss the hangover.

A sweet and citrusy nonalcoholic French 75, an olive filled nonalcoholic dirty lemon tonic and a ruby-hued hibiscus fizz are fit for festive toasting or quiet imbibing, whatever the occasion.

2025 is looking delicious, indeed.

Have you voted yet?

Please vote on Tuesday, November 5.

Always vote for Truth!

To me this election is about an intelligent articulate woman and a despicable former president. The former president has no sense of what is right and wrong. He belittles people and constantly lies. This former president has no understanding of what is true and what is not true because he lives in a world of conspiracy and corruption. Someone that lies about everything should not be a world leader. There is no way we can trust him! Neither his own citizens or other countries believe what he says.

Choose listiening, compassion and understanding over hate

Below is an editorial from former Startribune reporters:

On Nov. 5, voters must choose between one candidate who respects the rule of law, and one who doesn’t. One who possesses personal characteristics like integrity, honesty and honor, and one who doesn’t. One who abides by the norms of civilized behavior in a democratic republic, and one who trashes the norms, flouts tradition and makes a mockery of virtues like courtesy and a commitment to the peaceful transfer of power. Every presidential election carries enormous importance, but this year’s stands in a class all its own: Do we vote to preserve our democracy and to embrace an invigorating “new way forward,” or do we choose to elevate to the highest office in the land a man who has threatened over and over to end that democracy?

Read the entire endorsement here

The choice is clear!

Happy October

Yes, the world is a disaster. It is being dominated by many very evil men and being ravished by effects of climate change. It is hard to be optimistic for the future. but our own mental health depends on doing something good for the earth and taking good care of ourselves. So, this October do something good for yourself and something good for our planet. Start by using less plastic, use less sugar, drive less and spend more time outside. But most important GO VOTE!

The calendar below gives you some ideas:

Wow, please vote!

Madame President

“Unless American voters stand up to him, Mr. Trump will have the power to do profound and lasting harm to our democracy” NYT

Endorsement for Harris from the New York Times:

“It is hard to imagine a candidate more unworthy to serve as president of the United States than Donald Trump. He has proved himself morally unfit for an office that asks its occupant to put the good of the nation above self-interest. He has proved himself temperamentally unfit for a role that requires the very qualities — wisdom, honesty, empathy, courage, restraint, humility, discipline — that he most lacks.

Those disqualifying characteristics are compounded by everything else that limits his ability to fulfill the duties of the president: his many criminal charges, his advancing age, his fundamental lack of interest in policy and his increasingly bizarre cast of associates.

This unequivocal, dispiriting truth — Donald Trump is not fit to be president — should be enough for any voter who cares about the health of our country and the stability of our democracy to deny him re-election.

For this reason, regardless of any political disagreement’s voters might have with her, Kamala Harris is the only patriotic choice for president.”

Read the entire endorsement here:

Opinion | Kamala Harris is the Only Patriotic Choice for President – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Holding Exxon Accountable

“ExxonMobil lied to further its record-breaking profits at the expense of our planet and possibly jeopardizing our health” Attorney General Rob Bonta

Plastic is harmful to our earth and to our bodies. The producers of plastic should be held accountable.

“For decades, ExxonMobil has been deceiving the public to convince us that plastic recycling could solve the plastic waste and pollution crisis when they clearly knew this wasn’t possible. ExxonMobil lied to further its record-breaking profits at the expense of our planet and possibly jeopardizing our health,” Rob Bonta, Attorney General, California

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/california-sues-exxonmobil-saying-company-deceived-public-about-plastics-recycling

A coalition of environmental groups have joined together to take ExxonMobile to court. Surfrider Foundation, the Sierra Club, Heal the Bay, and San Francisco Baykeeper are taking on the world’s largest producer of single-use plastic polymers for their claims about plastic.

The lawsuit was filed in San Francisco, California and states that ExxonMobile knowingly hid the truth about the harm caused by plastic and misled the public about its recyclability.

Niall McCarthy, partner at the law firm that is representing the coalition, said:

“Some of the greatest progress in American history was caused by civil lawsuits holding the powerful accountable for their actions. This is another such case brought by the most prominent environmental nonprofits in California who are willing, for the public good, to take on a company worth billions. The case will expose the devastation caused by single-use plastics and the deceptive recycling myth pushed by plastic producers such as ExxonMobil. The case, at its core, is about accountability. ExxonMobil’s promises of being a good corporate citizen are divorced from the reality of its conduct. As detailed in the complaint, ExxonMobil’s single use plastics are smothering California’s environment.”

https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2024-09-23/california-ag-files-suit-against-companies

Hold Plastic Polluters Responsible

Change your Shopping Habits

My life changed when I discovered bulk shopping. I love to choose my own amount, and I feel good about not having to purchase items in plastic. Instead of using plastic bags, bring your own reusable containers,

Shopping bulk helps to manage two big issues that contribute to our climate crisis. A shopper can reduce tons of plastic packaging, and choose as much as you need. This reduces food waste. Bring reusable containers, both big and small. Use whatever you have. I reuse glass mustard jars, pasta jars, pickle jars or cloth bags

The article below from Hennepin County tells you how to shop in bulk. the customers and the store personnel are all willing to help you through this journey. I hope you like this new independence as much as I do!!

Deciding where to shop

Buying from the bulk section

No, we don’t mean buying in large quantities like at Costco. The bulk section of a grocery store has self-serve food containers where you can take as much or as little as you need. Using the bulk section for things such as grains, beans, or spices can help you purchase just the amount you need and avoid waste.

Here’s how to buy things in bulk:

Choose the item you want to purchase.
Grab the provided bag or, if your store allows it, your own clean container. If you can use your own container, record the weight of the container when empty, before you fill it up.
Fill your container or bag with the food.
Write the product number, listed as PLU, for the item on the bag or on a sticker or twist tie label.

World’s Indigenous People

We are all connected!

This is from the Carbon Almanac!

Today we celebrate International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples.

Raoni Metuktire is an Indigenous Brazilian leader and environmentalist. Born in 1932, he has seen a lot of change due to climate change.

In The Carbon Almanac, we feature his quote and it serves as a reminder that we are all connected.

We all breathe this one air, we all drink the same water. We all live on this one planet. We need to protect the Earth. If we don’t, the big winds will come and destroy the forest. Then you will feel the fear that we feel.

Overshoot Day

WE consume too much stuff, use too much plastic, and create too much garbage. Our consumerism fuels Overshoot Day, but also all our driving around and wasting more fossil fuels than what we need.

Consuming less is good for our air and our water, and over consumption contributes to our climate crisis. We all need to be responsible for the trash we create, but the producers of so much packaging also needs to be held responsible.

Consuming and wasting less is the key!

Today is the day after Earth Overshoot Day. But what does that mean for you?

Earth Overshoot Day is the date when humanity depletes all the natural resources that the Earth can regenerate in the year. So as of today August 2, we are living at a deficit. We are consuming more resources than we can replace.

This metric from the Global Footprint Network is a striking reminder of the importance of taking care of the planet and using resources responsibly. However, it can also serve as inspiration to take action. Individual actions can make a difference to help #MoveTheDate!

What YOU can do to help?

Buy less and reuse instead of purchasing something new.

Reduce your food waste.

Have SMALL families.

Reuse, Reuse, Reuse! A good place to start is by trying to reduce unnecessary purchases, opt for sustainable products, and reuse items whenever possible.

We all need to waste less, and work together to lift up our Earth.

Reading List:

Aug 1, Overshoot Day

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/earth-overshoot-day-2024-how-to-make-the-best-of-this-important-benchmark/ar-BB1qUlt6?ocid=BingNewsSerp