As individuals, neighbors, friends, colleagues, and countries, we can’t help but impact our shared future. After all, we’re Hot Women! And whatever action we take, we do it with a sense of optimism, connection, and good humor. So try a few suggestions and please do let us know what you’re doing.

EDUCATE YOURSELF
There are so many issues and sources of information and often the news is not so good, it sometimes feels easier not to know. But in order to turn our care into inspired rather than frenetic action, we need to be well informed. There are lots of resources. Visit the KNOW page for some of them.

CONSUME CONSCIOUSLY
Calculate your impact on the earth with your carbon footprint www.climatecrisis.net, www.ecofoot.org, lowimpactliving.com. The national average is 7.5 tons of CO2 per person per year. How do you compare?
www.transitiontowns.org
www.lowimpactliving.com
www.thedailygreen.com
www.earthshare.org

Offset your current carbon footprint
www.carbonfund.org
www.nativeenergy.com
www.atmosfair.de/index.php?id=9&L=3

Just say NO to plastic bags, and recycle the ones you already have. Take your own canvas or recycled bags to the store, just keep them in your car. We use 500 billion/year plastic bags worldwide, recycle only 5%, and the rest take 400 years to break down. Animals mistake them for food, and they clog our earth and oceans. Review the attached pdf info and send it to everyone you know. Then Download the Hot Women logo and get your own bags printed. www.reusablebags.com

Make your current house as efficient as possible thegreenguide.com

And if you’re remodeling or building, learn how to be most sustainable
buildinggreen.com
naturalbuildingnetwork.org

Modify car habits:

• Carpool. Expands your relationships and saves ½ the gas. Make less trips.
• Replacing air filter boosts efficiency 10%, inflating tires properly boosts 3%, tune up boosts 4% or more. Four mile/gallon boost puts 200 fewer pounds CO2 per year into the air.
• Turn off your engine instead of idling if you’re going to be sitting still for more than 30 seconds. UPS has saved 1,000 metric tons of CO2 in eight months by making only right turns with the help of using a custom route program. No idling to make left turns.
• Make sure your tires are fully inflated – soft tires reduce gas mileage.
• Buy a fuel-efficient car.
• Drive less, ride your bike, take the bus, or walk more.

Reduce paper use and save trees (you know, the guys that help clean our air). Every two seconds, a forest the size of a football field is destroyed for things like paper towels.

Change document margins to .75 rather than 1 inch. Change your own print margins and ask someone else, preferably a company to do the same. www.changethemargins.com

Share your magazines with friends and neighbors, or take them to the library.

Of course, recycle paper and other products – don’t send them to the landfills.

If you want off as many junk mail lists as possible, sign up online at the DMA's website for a $1 fee charged to your credit card at: www.dmaconsumers.org/cgi/offmailinglist.

To reduce flyers and advertising supplements sent to “resident” or “occupant” mailers: Fill out and submit the form www.advo.com/consumersupport.html

Have you ever bought anything through a catalog and suddenly started getting pounds of unrequested ones? That’s because your name gets sold to other catalog and publishing companies. Get off the list by contacting abacusoptout@epsilon.com

Just say No to bags, and recycle the ones you already have. Take your own canvas or paper bags to the store, just keep them in your car. We use 500 billion/year plastic bags worldwide, recycle only 5%, and the rest take 400 years to break down. Animals mistake them for food, and they clog our earth and oceans. Download the Hot Women logo and get your own bags printed. www.reusablebags.com

Eliminate plastic water bottles - just like major restaurants are doing! Tap water is quality controlled. Bottled water is not.
Get your own water filter (see www.nsf.org for a certified provider) and buy a SIGG stainless steel water bottle for a one-time cost of about $20 and fill with tap water. Currently Americans spend nearly $11 billion on over 8 billion gallons of bottled water, toss over 22 billion empty plastic bottles and use 1.5 million barrels of oil to produce and transport them in one year. If you drank 8 glasses a day from bottled water, you could spend up to $1400/ yr. The same amount of tap water would cost 49 cents.

Know where what you buy comes from and the impact its production and transport have on the earth and the people that grew or produced it. Buy organic, environmentally-friendly products from socially-responsible companies. It’s a little inconvenient but so is running out of fresh air or being enslaved in poverty.
www.betterworldshopper.org
www.alittlegreener.com
www.nosweatstore.com
www.buyerbefair.org
www.globalexchange.org
www.evo.com

If the stores where you shop don’t carry these kinds of products, let them know you want them and you will find the products elsewhere. Merchants (big and small) don’t want to loose you as a customer.

Make sure your cosmetics are free of animal-testing. It’s inhumane and unnecessary. www.leapingbunny.org

Buy local food. It’s a great way to get to know your community and eat the healthiest food possible. Support local organic farmers and grow your own garden. www.localharvest.org

Recycle. Keep usable but unwanted items out of the garbage dump. www.freecycle.org

Decide with your family or friends to have a No Shop day or week each month to interrupt our mindless consumer culture.