SERVE - Gardening can combat climate change

As climate change affects the delicate systems of providence God designed to provide for all the critters of this teeming green world, many creatures will no longer have places to call home or stable supplies of food.  So, in addition to driving less and offsetting emissions, we as Christians can help mitigate climate change by transforming our backyards into open homes for threatened local wildlife.  Butterflies, squirrels, birds, and all sorts of animals can find safety from the early stages of climate change right outside our windows!  In the United Kingdom, where the effects of climate change are already being seriously felt by wildlife, the organization English Nature has given many tips to gardeners and homeowners for how to turn their bit of God's creation into a wildlife sanctuary.  Their suggestions include:

• Create a pond or boggy area for amphibians like frogs and salamanders
  
• Plant native plants
• Leaving logs in corners of the yard to provide a home for a variety of small mammals and insects
  
• Give birds a variety of foods, not just seeds
• Use natural predator control by attracting critters that eat plant-threatening bugs such as aphids
• Plant well-nectar'd plants to provide for bees
• Don't use artificial pesticides, herbicides, or fertilizers

Check out more at the English Nature website here, and the Guardian Observer article about the program here.