15 Green New Year’s Resolutions for 2013

MoJo staffers weigh in.

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Welcome to the third annual Econundrums new year’s resolution roundup! I like to end every year of Econundrums by asking: What are your environmentally-themed goals for the year to come? (You can check out previous years’ resolutions here and here.) This year, I posed the question to my fellow Mother Jones staffers. Here are some of their responses:

 

 

Rinse and re-use plastic zip lock bags. Remember to take reusable vegetable bags to the store. Remember to turn off power strips not in use. -Khary Brown

Divest myself from fossil fuels. -Tim McDonnell

Stop buying palm oil imported from Indonesia. They’re destroying entire acres of precious habitat in order to grow palms for palm oil. The baboons who live here, as well as a species of tiger, are losing their habitat and may become endangered. -Young Kim

Make the switch to natural cleaning products. Go cruelty-free with cosmetics. -Allison Stelly

Eat less cheese. -Kate Sheppard

Eat only sustainably harvested fish/shellfish. Oh! I’m going to miss it so! And make all gifts and cards for the year out of things I already own–sewing projects using old clothes, mostly, but some book binding too. -Emma Logan

Bike to my nearest “park & ride” (as opposed to driving!) -Jacques Hebert

Stop drinking soy milk. -Maddie Oatman

Overcome the idea that real action on environmental problems has anything to do with individual consumer choice. -Luke Smith

Remember to bring my own bag and stop getting charged 10 cents. Reuse food scraps and pulp (for soups, pies, curry) before throwing into compost. -Jaeah Lee

Drink more—from reusable containers like growlers. -Tom Philpott

I want to opt out of a full-body TSA scan at least once. I’m not comfortable with the amount of radiation those scanners give off, or the way TSA handled the public’s health concerns around them. -Maggie Severns

Refill my hand, dish and laundry soap from the bulk section at my local health food store rather than bring new containers into my home. -Amber Hewins

Stop being afraid to tell the 7-11 guy that I don’t need a plastic bag. -Sydney Brownstone

…and as for me, I’m going to volunteer for at least one environment-related project in my community—maybe a community garden workday, a beach cleanup, or trail maintenance at a local park.

Do you have an environmental new year’s resolution? Leave it in the comments.

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AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

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