As mentioned in the last post, there are steps we can take in business AND our personal lives to make a difference in preserving tomorrow for our children.

Here are seven steps you can immediately take to make a difference for our planet:

1. Take the Bus / Train / Carpool
It’s no small secret that far too many individuals drive gas guzzling cars to work each day. By transitioning to public transportation for your daily commute, you ensure that one less car is expending valuable gasoline. This step won’t stop gasoline from being used, but it will prevent gasoline from being wasted. Waste is a luxury this planet cannot afford.

2. Shop Organic
Organic foods cost more, but they come without the guilt of toxic pesticides, fertilizers, and hormones that assault our planet and our bodies. Not only will you lighten your carbon footprint, you’ll be healthier. There are several options here. Look for your nearest Whole Foods Market, Ada’s, Sprouts, farmer’s market, or organic co-op. The co-op will be cheapest if you get in a good one.

3. Turn Off Your Faucets
Do you leave water running and then leave the room? Well, don’t! You may have believed in the past that water was unlimited and simply recycled. Now you know better. Not only do we have limited water resources, it takes nuclear or carbon based energy to power the refinement process (so that your tap water is relatively clean).

4. Work for a Green Company
Do some research. Find a company you can respect that is making a difference in the world and make a living doing something you can be proud of. Your personal time and energy will be added to the collective push towards environmental freedom. Check TreeHugger.com’s Job Board as a first stop along the road to a greener vocation.

5. Talk to Friends and Family
Instead of arguing Obama vs. McCain with your relatives, try a different tact. Bring up your thoughts on peak oil, organic living, or energy conservation with the people you love most. They’ll listen, if you share from your heart and stay away from the soapbox.

6. Plan for the Future
If more Americans had been willing to take an honest look ahead, we might have foreseen many of the problems we now face with renewable energy and our environment. However, our blind greed caused us to condone the cheapest possible methods for generating revenue, which led to the production and proliferation of toxic substances. By learning from history, we break free from the necessity of repeating it.

7. Love Children
That may seem like an odd requirement for you non-parents. But you see, it has to touch our hearts that another generation wants to survive after us before we’ll take steps that may inconvenience us for the good of our children. Far too many of us thought we could abuse the earth without consequence because it would hold together at least until we die. Fallacy. The earth is suffering now, and so is your pocketbook, as a direct result of how you and I, our parents, and our grandparents have lived over the past one hundred years. We’ve created most of this mess within the past 100 years.

Just think of that. Civilization has endured for thousands of years, and we managed to undo so much beauty in one single century. It puts a whole new perspective on the Industrial Age.