NATURAL PERSPECTIVES:

Vic and I have great hopes and dreams for 2008. Hope that more people will raise their environmental awareness in the coming year and dreams that they will follow through on some environmental New Year’s resolutions.

We’ve had a fabulous time this past year seeing how much of our food intake could be locally acquired. Some believe men are natural-born hunters and women are hard-wired to be gatherers. We’re genetically predisposed to search out a variety of foods. These days, some women spend more time shopping for clothing and knick-knacks than food. It’s just too easy to make a trip to a modern grocery store and find everything you might want under one roof. With that gathering instinct left unfulfilled, many women go to shopping malls and browse for clothing, shoes, and jewelry.

But with closets and houses already filled, do we really need more clothing? From an environmental point of view, all that cotton comes from fields that are heavily sprayed with pesticides. In fact, one quarter of all the pesticides that are used worldwide are sprayed on cotton fields. If wool is your choice, then sheep somewhere are grazing on land that used to be habitat for wildlife. And don’t get me started on synthetic fibers, transport of fabric and finished clothing, all the dyes that are used in their manufacture, or the sweatshops of child laborers in Third World countries who make those shoes and shirts. So next time you think that you need another blouse, sweater or skirt, please think about the environmental cost of having far more clothing than you can ever wear out.

Instead, turn your inborn gathering skills to searching out locally grown, organic foods. Vic and I were pleasantly surprised to find that we could meet most of our fruit and vegetable needs with food from local farmer’s markets and our own garden. I don’t think we’ve ever had a year in which we have eaten tastier or healthier food.

We cooked more vegetarian meals this year than ever before. But we’re also committed carnivores. I made an effort to search out locally raised meat this year. We enjoyed two delicious, heritage breed turkeys from Rainbow Ranch Farms in San Bernardino County this past year. We also obtained a lamb from a farmer in Vista in San Diego County. But that’s a story in itself, and will have to wait for another time. Suffice it to say the lamb is delicious, and we’ll be enjoying him for months to come.

In the past, most of the wines that we drank came from Australia or South Africa. But with our heightened awareness of how much global transport contributes to global warming, we made an effort to search out some good Southern California wines. We drank a lot of locally produced wines this year, and were surprised at how good they were. This past year, we homed in on wines from San Diego County, with Orfila Vineyards and Pamo Valley being two of our favorites. We plan to explore the wineries of Temecula in 2008.

I also went on a search for the perfect cup of coffee. For me, ideal coffee will be organic, shade-grown, fair trade certified, locally roasted, and decaffeinated, plus taste good. I guess truly ideal would be grown locally, but that’s impossible. I also found it impossible to find all of those traits in one bean. I did find some great-tasting, locally roasted coffee beans. Angel’s Brew, available at Plowboy, is roasted right here in Orange County. Some of the best tasting coffee that I found was from New Mexico Coffee Company. They roast pinion nuts with coffee beans for the best-tasting coffee ever. Usually, Vic and I mix beans that are shade-grown, organic and fair-trade certified with organic decaffeinated beans in a one to three ratio. The taste and level of caffeine is perfect, and we’re happy to be supporting at least some shade-grown coffee.

Turning into locavores has been fun, fascinating and rewarding. We hope you’ll join us this next year in eating more locally-grown foods and drinks.

We have done other things to help reduce our consumption of fossil fuels and reduce our impact on the planet. Most of the light bulbs in our house are now fluorescent. As the last few incandescent ones burn out, we replace them with energy-saving fluorescent ones. I’m making a greater effort to turn out lights that aren’t needed. Our electricity bills averaged $48 a month this year, which isn’t too bad.

Our gas bills ranged from a low of $14 in summer to $72 in February last year. The average was $28 a month. This year, I’m going to make an even greater effort to remember to turn the heat down when we go to bed. When I say turn it down, I mean that we turn it down from 65 to 60 or even 58 at night. When it’s winter, we dress for winter in sweatshirts and sweat pants. With passive heating of our house, our thermostat stays at 58 or 60 during the day and doesn’t need to be turned up to 65 until the sun goes down.

As we look back over the past year, we’re proud of all the teaching we have done. In his college classes, Vic has opened the eyes of hundreds of young adults and seniors to the wonders of biology, birding, ecology and natural history this year. I get a new class of kids every two weeks at the Orange County Conservation Corps. Over the past year, I taught conservation awareness to 250 young adults, most of them former gang members on parole. I dearly love my homeboys and girls. Together, we have restored acres of wetlands and habitat at Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve, Crystal Cove State Park and Starr Ranch.

Vic and I look forward to 2008 and all the new adventures it will bring.

VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and environmentalists. They can be reached at [email protected].