a pile of trash?

God cares about his creation. If we are the pursue the heart of God, then we should care about the same things he cares about. "Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?" Matthew 6:26

And that says to me that God cares about us and our health. In 2005 (a Roger Gottlieb study), umbilical cord blood of ten randomly chosen newborn in the US were tested for toxic chemicals. Can you guess what they found? A total of 287 toxic chemicals, the average being about 200 per baby. 3/4 of the chemicals were known carcinogens (cancer causing) and the rest were threats to the nervous, endocrine and immune systems. As babies the environment that we are charged to take care of has already compromised our ability to live a clean, healthy life. Scary, right? Shouldn't we be trying to reduce the amount of chemicals that can attack our bodies since God considers us all valuable? Back to walking/biking more and driving less? That could be a start. Maybe we should consider owning more efficient cars, or not even owning one at all. Check out the carshare program: http://www.austincarshare.org/ with research at: http://www.utexas.edu/research/ctr/about/news_items/carshare.html It might be possible for you to not even spend money on a car, insurance, registrations, inspections. . . how great would that be to simplify our lives in that way! Less errands to run, less carbon dioxide emitted into the air, less money to spend! Yes!

Here's another quote: "God did not design the air to make us short of breath. It was meant to sustain us. The Harvard School of Health looked at the impact of one power plant in Massachusetts and found that it caused 1,200 ER visits, 3,000 asthma attacks, and 110 deaths annually. Nationally, the soot from power plants will precipitate more than six hundred thousand asthma attacks."

Now I'm not saying that we go to the power plants and demand them to shut down. I just feel that we can take small steps in our own lives not only to begin to reduce our personal impact on the environment (seriously http://www.myfootprint.org/, go there) and inspire other people around us to do the same.

So Jason and I carpooled again today. Yay. And we have been discussing starting a compost pile in our back yard. Not only does this provide you with FREE fertilizer for your yard, it reduces the amount of trash that is sent to landfills and diverting trash from landfills = good for our environment. http://www.compostguide.com/ to check out more information. Maybe once we get our compost started, I'll post a picture or something.

So speaking of diverting trash from the landfill: Each year, 100 million trees are used to produce junk mail; 250,000 homes could be heated with one day's supply of junk mail; and Americans receive almost 4 million tons of junk mail every year. Are you tired of junk mail? I sure am. Check this out:
http://www.junkbusters.com/junkmail.html

It will help you figure out how to get rid of the junk mail that is being sent to you. Good stuff. If we take care of the earth we live on, it's one more thing we can be focusing on to align our hearts with God's. He cares for every animal and plant, he created it all, and it was very good. Let's consider it very good along with Him.

"Who provides food for the raven when its young cry out to God and wander about for lack of food?" Job 38:41