skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Good News Network posted an intriguing article last week, noting two English bishops’ request that their parishioners give up not the usual Lenten choices (chocolate, booze) but instead cut back on activities that produce or encourage carbon emissions. I searched the web to learn more about suggestions from the Bishops of Liverpool and London, and in the process stumbled upon a site called Tearfund that has created a complete 40-day (plus Sundays) “Carbon Fast for Lent.”
Lent began on Ash Wednesday (February 6), so I’m getting a a late start. But to change things up a bit on the blog, I’ve decided to join the Carbon Fast for Lent by featuring one of Tearfund’s suggested daily actions each day and blogging about undertaking these actions myself. I’m deviating from their order a bit to make up for the lost days (and to skip some actions that are England-specific and/or meant for homeowners instead of apartment-dwellers like me. For a neat PDF with all the daily actions in their original order, visit here).
Without further ado . . .
Carbon Fast, Day 1: “Remove one lightbulb (without inviting danger) and live without it for 40 days.”
Interesting concept, removing a bulb altogether. I like the symbolism. I removed one of the bulbs from my ceiling fan light fixture, which now looks very odd (and is a tad annoying) and so will remind me I’m on the Carbon Fast. (Hey, if this is going to rival giving up chocolate, it shouldn’t be too easy!)
Today’s mitzvah: Consider joining Daily Mitzvah on the Carbon Fast for Lent.
It’s hard to avoid news of problems in the U.S. economy, whether watching presidential primary debates, wondering when we’ll receive economy stimulating “rebate” checks, or reading about families losing their homes to foreclosure. Working America, the AFL-CIO’s community based affiliate, is lobbying leading mortgage lenders to institute a one-year moratorium on home foreclosures related to “sub-prime loans,” as well as urging the conversion of “predatory” loans to more conventional fixed 30-year mortgages. Today’s mitzvah: Your voice matters. Support Working America’s email campaign for a freeze on home foreclosures. While you’re there you might also consider joining the group (their slogan: Building A Better Future for Working Families); membership is an affordable 5 bucks/year.
Consumers Union, best-known for their flagship Consumer Reports magazine, also advocates for consumers on a variety of health and finance issues. This Valentine’s Day they have a special project: Kiss Credit Card Rip-Offs Goodbye. In time for February 14, CU hopes to have 100,000 Valentine's Day cards ready to send to Congress urging passage of fair and reasonable legislation against credit card issuers’ hidden fees, “universal default” rates unrelated to a consumer’s actual history with a particular creditor, and other “gotcha” tactics. Much of this legislation has already been proposed but is languishing in Congressional committees and needs a nudge.
Today’s mitzvah: Visit CU’s Credit Card Reform.org site to offer your signature for a Velentines Day card urging Congress to Kiss Credit Card Rip-Offs Goodbye.
This is about as simple as it gets. Would you like to conserve resources, help neutralize Co2 emissions, and cut back on the number of trees felled for throwaway consumer items? Reduce the margins on your printable documents. And urge Microsoft to change its current 1.25" default margin setting to .75". This half-inch difference, multiplied over millions of printed pages each year, can make a measurable difference, as Tamara Krinsky notes on her aptly-titled blog, Change the Margins. (A shout-out to Marty Finestone’s Activity Book for the link.)Today’s mitzvah: Reduce your word processing default margin from 1.25" to 1" or less. And visit Change the Margins for more tips as well as a petition to ask Microsoft to reduce the default margin in Word.
It’s Super Tuesday. A volunteer from My Candidate’s local headquarters called with an invite to watch the returns at local pub Brocach downtown tonight, but here in the Badger State we won’t get our own chance to vote until next month. This gives me extra time to badger everyone I know (no pun intended) to get registered — and to bother friends in other states to get out the polls today.
Today’s mitzvah: The democratic process doesn’t work without you. If your state has an election today: please vote. No primary today for you? Encourage others to vote, in the primary as well as the general election. Easy info and links to state forms are available at Rock the Vote. Need some inspiration? I’m all about the “Yes We Can” video posted here.
As promised in December, Daily Mitzvah is keeping a charity piggy bank. In keeping with the blog’s theme, this is a small way to make a difference in a big world, just through everyday activities. Here are the totals as of February 1st:
- Proportional giving: $27.79
- Savings account interest: $0.64
- Found money (vending machine, sidewalk): $2.25
- Change jar (not full yet!): $0.00
- TOTAL: $30.68
I’ll post an update each month and keep a running total on the blog’s upper right column, with the goal of making a contribution to one or more charities at the end of the year.Today’s mitzvah: Consider creating a “charity piggy bank” to collect small sums during the year for a year-end charitable contribution.
Animal Week has been lots of fun — one more chance to show a picture of our friend Jazzy, and I’ve met a terrific new group of blog readers, reaching all the way to Australia. To close out the week, here’s a Simple Sunday mitzvah: visit Care2’s Pets in Need page. Sponsors will match each click on the green Click to Help button with a small donation to the Humane Society of the United States’ Rural Area Veterinary Service programs, including free and low-cost veterinary examinations and vaccinations for pets whose humans are in financial need. Everybody wins in this arrangement.
Today’s mitzvah: Click-to-give on Care2’s Pets in Need page to support the Human Society’s RVAS program, at no cost to you. Jazzy says thank you!
Looking for a free, flexible web-based email account? Reluctant to use your personal email account when signing petitons or supporting online letter-writing campaigns? I’m a big fan of Care2’s various “click to give,” petition, Daily Action and Soular Energy sites. A lesser known Care2 feature: free, web-based email accounts with 100 MB storage and the ability to access POP email from your other accounts. Why use this? In addition to the convenience of accessing the mailbox from anywhere, the domain names are fun. In honor of Animal Week, I note especially yourname@whale-mail.com and yourname@animail.com. (Other options incude @wildmail, @vegemail, and @peacemail.) Every time you read or send e-mail using this free account, you generate donations for nonprofit organizations.
Today’s mitzvah: Check out Care 2’s email accounts, as well as the rest of this activist-oriented online community.
Keeping with the theme of Animal Week (and thinking ahead), Save the Manatee suggests, “Adopt a manatee for Valentine’s day and win a few hearts!” A $25 contribution garners a photo of your manatee, the manatee’s biography, an adoption certificate, a membership handbook, and quarterly newsletter for a year with updated reports on your adoptee. For $35, they’ll throw in the above and a manatee stuffed animal that looks very cute. (Not as cute as Jazzy, of course, but then who is?) This is a gift that keeps giving, as contributions fund efforts to protect this endangered species in Florida.
Today’s mitzvah: Consider giving your Valentine a manatee adoptee. Looking for something faster and cheaper to help our friends in the sea? Click on Care2’s Race for the Oceans for a sponsor-generated contribution to the nonprofit group Oceana’s ocean protection programs.
As promised, heeeeere’s Jazzy! This adorable young lady, who inspired Daily Mitzvah’s Animal Week, lives with two of my favorite family members. But Jazzy was not always so happy. As one of her humans told me, shelter workers “found Jazzy and her brother hiding under a bush one winter day. When we brought her home, she had a severe case of worms, and Parvo, and had to be quarantined until she got better.” While Jazzy is happy and healthy now, she still has to follow a special diet.
It’s easy to help people who help animals like Jazzy, even in the midst of our very busy lives. Shopping online this week? By using a portal like Nonprofit Shopping Mall to visit favorite stores (Amazon, Target, Macy's, Office Depot, and many more), a portion of your purchase is donated to a nonprofit you designate, with choices including the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) and the Humane Society of the United States. Or try the shops that link through iGive, which allows you to keep track of donations and even provides receipts for taxes. Pressed for time (or cash)? For every click on the Animal Rescue Site, sponsors will make a small donation to Cleveland Amory’s Fund for Animals, Petfinder.com (a group that works with pets during natural disasters), and the North Shore Animal League.Today’s mitzvah: Wave hi to Jazzy, and pop over to the Animal Rescue Site for a free click-to-give.
OK, technically that should be “primates” or chimpanzees. But it was just too much fun typing “Monkeys!”As part of the ongoing Animal Week here on the blog, today I want to give a shout out to the Jane Goodall Institute, which since 1977 has focused on education, conservation and development, and wildlife research, as well as its best-known projects, the Chimpanzee Sanctuaries in various parts of Africa. As our friends at Care2 note, “from fostering micro-businesses in Tanzania to educating young people about conservation, the Institute’s programs make the world a better place for people, animals, and the environment.” Even in the midst of a manic Monday (I know, I’m having one, too), you can support the Goodall Institute with a free click on Care2’s Race to Save the Primates. Free to you, the site sponsors make a donation for the Goodall Institute’s chimp protection programs for each click.
Today’s mitzvah: Try a free click to aid in primate protection — and get a pick-me-up with some very cute chimp photos!
I am declaring this Animal Week in honor of our friend Jazzy, who we’ll meet later on. Stay tuned!
Last Sunday, I wrote about an opportunity to “chill the drills” to help save polar bear habitat in Alaska. Unfortunately the current administration has fast-tracked the approval for gas and oil drilling leases in Alaska, yet postponed the decision that was due January 9 on whether or not to place polar bears on the Endangered Species List. (If the bears are declared an endangered species, drilling in their habitat would be restricted.)
Simple Sunday mitzvah: Click here to send a message (via the Natural Resource Defense Council’s web site) urging Congress to pass the Markey bill (H.R. 5058), which will reverse the go-ahead for the oil and gas lease sales until the Bush Administration makes its final decision about protecting polar bears under the Endangered Species Act.
Today one of my students thanked me for coming to campus to teach on a bitterly cold Friday. Yep, someone actually thanked me just for doing my job. This unexpected kindness reminded me how easy it is to get busy and distracted and to forget the simplest mitzvah of all: saying “Thanks.” This also reminded me I’m overdue in thanking several fellow bloggers for their kind mentions of Daily Mitzvah. Last month Upgrade: Travel Better and inFlightOut both referenced my December 14 post about donating frequent miles to charity. More recently, on Monday The Lost Albatross gave us a very nice hat-tip mentioning the January 19 Keep Wisconsin Warm post, which our local collaborative blog Dane101 also kindly included in their January 19 “Breakfast Links.” I really enjoy reading each of these blogs: thank-you to all!
Today’ mitzvah: Thank someone who isn’t expecting it, either in person or with a surprise eCard.
For the past few years our local power company has offered customers the option of paying extra for wind power to balance the coal, oil, and natural gas nonrenewable fossil fuels that provide most of our electricity. But it was a pricey proposition.Yesterday’s mail brought news of several new wind farms and a new solar energy producer in our community, which have greatly reduced the cost of this renewable energy program for consumers. Just $6/month is supposed to offset the carbon dioxide emissions in an average household’s electricity use. Since these are offsets — basically just contributions toward the utility’s acquistion of renewable energy — and not direct purchases of solar and wind power for one’s own home, I want to investigate this further before signing up. But it’s certainly encouraging to see solar and wind power playing a larger role in this very traditional utility’s offerings.Today’s mitzvah: Visit your electric utility’s web site and investigate their renewable energy options.
I’ve been wondering what to post for Martin Luther King Jr Day that wouldn’t be trite or clichéd. The more I thought about it, the more it seems like one needs to be in touch with what the Quakers call that “still, small voice” within to discover one’s purpose in the midst of the busyness and mind clutter of most of our daily lives.What is your dream? Gratefulness.org offers a quiet space to stop, contemplate, and light a cyber (but still quite lovely) candle. There’s also space to post a few words. Each candle burns for 48 hours.
Today’s mitzvah: Visit the the Gratefulness site’s grottoes to light your own candle and contemplate the dream that will propel you this year.
OK, this is an imaginary trip to Brazil. (It’s still really cold here.) But if we were lucky enough to be in Rio de Janeiro today we would be celebrating Foundation Day. And having a delightful day at the beach, no doubt.Today’s fast, easy, and simple Sunday mitzvah: Celerate Rio’s Foundation Day holiday with a free-to-you click donation to Pró Menor, a children’s charity that takes advantage of Brazil’s under-utilized military bases and their facilities, as well as volunteer military personnel, to provide homeless street children with meals, education, organized sporting activities, counseling, and vocational training. Just click on the left-hand link marked Doçao Grátis (you’ll know it worked when the resulting page returns an image of stacked coins). The site’s sponsors make a contribution to Pró Menor to for every click (up to one per person per day).
Good morning, it’s a balmy -7° here, with a wind chill of -22°. We’re predicted to hit a low of -15° by evening, with who-knows-what as a wind chill at that level. The extreme cold is the primary topic of conversation today here in the region, so I gave a little extra contribution to Keep Wisconsin Warm this morning. With this kind of weather, it’s hard not to. A local group estimates 50,000 Wisconsinites are living without adequate electricity and/or heat, and that’s before the crazy weather. The need for assistance is even more pressing than when I last wrote about this in November.Today’s mitzvah: If you have some extra cash rattling around, consider a donation to a heating assistance program in your area. For no cost, drop off used coats and warm sweaters at Goodwill — or see if a local group is sponsoring a blanket drive in your area.
You can’t stay in your corner of the forest, waiting for others to come to you; you have to go to them sometimes.
Today is Winnie-the-Pooh Day, to commemorate A.A. Milne’s birthday. So a hats-off to Edward Bear, more fondly known as Winnie the Pooh. Allegedly a “Bear of very little brain,” we know better and can spot a Taoist Master when we see one :-)
Today’s mitzvah: Help enhance a child’s sense of wonder through books, with a free click-to-donate at The Literacy Site. And reward yourself with some Poo-ish wisdom from the Thousand Acre Wood.
A few months ago Family Circle magazine began arriving in my mailbox. First I thought it was from my friend Enterprising Author, who happened to be profiled in that issue. Now I’ve given up speculating on the source and am just enjoying the recipes and articles. The February 2008 issue includes an article called “The Gifters,” a short profile of three women — Asha Bandele, Ginnny Graves, and Lori Erickson — who spent two weeks performing random acts of kindness. Some acts had unintended results, at least one was rained out, but overall the process helped the women to learn more about themselves and their communities. Since it’s Thursday, here’s a “Thursday 13” from the article:
- Hid a prepaid phonecard in the babysitter’s purse
- Mopped the hall of my apartment building
- Slipped $10 into a friend’s coat pocket
- Sent candy to a relative who is a “male role model for my daughter”
- Dropped off dog treats for a friend’s new puppy
- Weeded a neighbor’s garden
- Left a message thanking firefighters for making us safe
- Sent magazines to the troops
- Left money in a vending machine for the next person to find
- Placed a thank-you note on a local gardener’s truck
- Shoveled snow for a neighbor early one morning
- Donated a bag of art supplies to a local school
- Wrote the manager of the supermarket naming a clerk who had been especially helpful
Today’s mitzvah: Take Family Circle’s Kindness Challenge with a random act of kindness (or “sneaky niceness”) of your own!
Good News Network posted an intriguing article last week, noting two English bishops’ request that their parishioners give up not the usual Lenten choices (chocolate, booze) but instead cut back on activities that produce or encourage carbon emissions. I searched the web to learn more about suggestions from the Bishops of Liverpool and London, and in the process stumbled upon a site called Tearfund that has created a complete 40-day (plus Sundays) “Carbon Fast for Lent.”
