My Top 10 Eco-Peeves

These are the top 10 environmental offenses that bugged me this week.

The list includes things in my own immediate world: home, work, shopping, and moving around town. And, btw, I don't claim to be innocent or above reproach. The ones I contribute to are the ones that bug me the most! Change is not easy.... I have to start small and chip away at it.

1. My neighbors' Siamese cats on the prowl for prey.

2. Too many gas-guzzling cars on the road, most with one driver.

3. Weak mass-transit options in my city (Charlotte).

4. Smog problems in my city because 61% of the city's electricity is from coal-fired power plants, and because we have no real mass-transit options, and few of us live close to where we work.

5. Streets that are wider than necessary, and sidewalks and driveways not made of paver stones (with openings for water to pass through). All this impervious pavement destroys streams and stream wildlife, by preventing rainwater from percolating through soil. Pavement-runoff into storm drains feeds streams with too much water, too warm and too fast.

6. Lawns lawns everywhere. Lawns are our 5th biggest "crop" and they serve no real purpose at all.

7. Manicured ornamental non-native yard plants. Shrubs and lawns that require trimming use up fossil fuels, generate landfill waste, and generate air and noise pollution. Yards planted only with native plants need no care, no trimming, no watering. With careful selection, native plants can nurture wildlife.

8. Green peppers in the grocery store from Israel or Holland. Apples in the grocery from Washington state. What?? What's wrong with North Carolina apples? Why don't grocery chains buy local food?

9. Carts at the grocery store loaded up with Tyson chicken and Food Lion eggs and Jimmy Dean sausage. These animals produce way more waste than all the people in the United States and not an ounce of it is treated. It's liquified and sprayed on crop fields, where it washes into rivers and streams. Veggie Revolution spells it all out.

10. Citizens who trust that everything President Bush tells them is on the level.

Okay readers. Argue with me. Or tell me what I should add.
Sally