2019 New Years Resolution: The Plan


When I shared my NYR with my partner, he was generally supportive. He is on board with wanting to do what we can to make sure our child has a stable world to live in. However, we are already doing a lot of therecommended things to minimize our personal impact – we are only having one child, we try to drive as little as possible, we save water, we plant our own food, we don’t run the dryer, we don’t buy new things, we turn the lights off, we have a tiny home, etc.

What else can we do?

Seriously. 

 After looking at the way we live, there is really just one thing we aren’t actively doing that has the potential for a big impact – advocacy. I spend time washing cloth diapers, walking to the grocery store instead of driving, gardening instead of rock climbing, and all sorts of little things to support our environment and healthy living… But I don’t really talk to people about what we are doing and why. I certainly don’t write our representatives about it.

So, that is how I’m going to pursue my resolution this year.

This year, I resolve to write my local and state officials twice per month regarding environmental issues. Maybe it will be praise for good work or maybe it will be me raising my concerns to their attention. Either way, it will let my officials know that the environment is on my mind and hopefully they will take notice when they make public policies and laws.

I also plan on doing more to support the Utah Physicians fora Healthy Environment. They are a local non-profit that lobbies for environmental protections to support good health – a much needed advocacy group here in Ogden where somedays the smog is so bad I can’t see my neighbor’s house!

We already make monthly donations to UPHE, so I plan on telling folks about their mission and doing any “public action” requests they make this year. And if we are fortunate enough to have special occasion money this year, I’ll donate that to UPHE, too.

How are you going to achieve your 2019 goals?

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