Paint your roof white!

White. It's what you wear in the sun to keep cool. Party tents are white. Boats are white. Any kid in elementary school can tell you why: white is a reflective color; light and energy (heat) bounces off of it easily.

Now, through the amazing act of SCIENCE, the Center for Atmospheric Research has concluded from a recent study that painting the roofs of houses and buildings white can drastically change climate (to .7 degrees). Pretty significant, eh? So how does it work? The asphalt that makes up city streets absorbs energy and tall buildings trap heat close to the surface. By painting roofs white, it helps reflect the sun's energy, so the city absorbs less.

How can this help you in everyday life? When retiling your roof, make sure to use light colored tiles. Not planning to do that anytime soon? Use the natural properties of color to help paint your home for your climate. You live in a desert? Use light, reflective colors to direct heat away from your home. Live in a place where it snows 80 percent of the year? Use rich, darker colors to absorb energy and heat, to make your home cozy.

Check out treehugger.com for more on the topic: http://bit.ly/92iELV

Recycled Redeccorating

Recycling doesn't have to stop at glass, plastic, or cans. Take into consideration that things that can be reused get thrown away ALL the time. One person's trash is another's treasure, right? When renovating your home, you can use lots of recycled products to make your shabby house chic. Here are some ideas to turn your renovation quest into a recycling bonanza.

Antique stores, flea markets, and yard sales often have old cabinets, furniture, and recycled wood that you can reuse. Sand down, resurface, and stain cabinets to make them look like new. Cover an old armoire door with plastic and you've got yourself a ghetto-sled!

Recycled lumber can be used for a multitude of projects, including flooring, coffee tables, or wall accent pieces. Transform an old door into a headboard for your bed, or a new desk.

Plastic bottles can be recycled into an awesome light fixture. Heck, light fixtures can be recycled, rewired, and reused to give your place that vintage feel.

Use your imagination. Pretty much anything you find can be reused in some way or another. Go wild. Try turning old LPs into a fruit bowl or a room divider, use old shirts to make a quilt, or make a Devo hat out of a red bucket.

If you want to recycle and reuse materials, but aren't much of a thrift store hound, check out Habitat ReStore outlet (www.habitat.org/restores/default.aspx), which supplies reused and donated materials for renovations.

Farm to Table Eating

Food is one of those things that can evoke a love–hate relationship. Depending on how and where food is grown and how it is prepared, it can make you sick, fat, or utterly euphoric. With the proposed enactment of the Food Safety Modernization Act, the FDA can regulate the quality of the food that goes into our bellies, but how much will that matter? Spinach can still give you e-coli, and beef, mad cow disease.

This is a good time to get into the groove with locally grown food that leaves a local farm and lands directly on your table, or the table of your local eatery. Foodies have been onto this idea for a long time, understanding the importance of locally grown food and the ways they are prepared. You can join your local Community Sponsored Agriculture association to get local food at home. Check out sandiegoroots.org for more info.

Now for those of you who don't have the time, patience, or skills to turn a nice basket of CSA food into a delicious meal, fear not! There's a plethora of restaurants that are popping up in San Diego that serve home-grown foods. North Park seems to be a great hub for restaurants serving local and sustainable foods. Try out The Linkery, Sea Rocket Bistro, Ritual Tavern, and El Take It Easy, and do some research to find some other great restaurants in your neighborhood. sandiegoroots.org/restaurants.html