By motomynd
Next Monday, April 22, is the 43rd Earth Day. Do you remember the first one—how old does that make you feel? More importantly, do you remember the idealism of that first Earth Day, and all the things you resolved to do to help save the planet? So how have you done—does your resume make you an eco warrior, or just another backslider?
This Monday is your reminder to again strike a blow for the cause. To help you do more, or finally do something, here are some suggestions for you to mark the day:
If the modern “corporate” spin is what gets you motivated, check out the official “Earth Day” website to see what has become of Earth Day over the decades. You may have been slacking but other people have been busy.
To re-connect with the bohemian, activist idealism of that most likely long-forgotten first Earth Day, click here. Believe it or not, this was a time when people actually turned out in the streets to protest our invading foreign countries, and when folks got really worked up over horrific oil spills instead of trusting the suits and politicians to sort out the mess.
Now that you are motivated, try this:
- Leave the car at home. Surely you can plan one day where you can make your way around on foot, on a bike, or on public transit.
- Send an email to someone who wants your vote and tell them what you want them to do to help the environment, and why.
- Go vegan for a day. By all accounts, a vegetarian diet saves resources—to say nothing of saving animals. It even works for former wild-man boxer Mike Tyson, so it might work for you. If not, at least you will save some resources for one day.
- Set up that recycling station you have been procrastinating about for years. You finally did that last year? Great—set one up for someone else.
- Ditch the spray bottles of chemical-laden glass and counter cleaner and either use a commercial “green” alternative, or learn about some simple substitutes. Vinegar and oil is for salad; vinegar and water is a potent cleaning mix.
- Build a rain barrel. To learn how to design a complicated, fancy one, click here. For something simpler, ad lib. Just remember to put a top on it to block evaporation, keep out leaves, and save birds and small animals from drowning.
- Find a place to hang your reusable shopping bags by the door so you will actually use them next time instead of collecting yet more plastic bags.
- Start composting. You can begin with a D-I-Y simple setup or go a bit crazy with it.
_______________
Copyright © 2013 by motomynd
| Please comment |
You seem to forget, although they past all those laws, won law suits, and the people all cheered, the money was cut and very little got done. The agency that is charged with protecting the environment is but a ghost of it's former self. The really bad corporations just moved across the border. 98% of the American people believe in some kind of gun control, while Mississippi passes a law allowing you to ware your gun on your hip anywhere you want too. Bob was right; 'the time, they did a change'. The little we do is so outweighed by the corps it is more of a feel good thing. But, maybe I'm just better over the 60s. (smile) Remember, money rules over all things of man.
ReplyDeleteI get so 'p' at proofing after I post. Sorry, but the thought is there.
ReplyDeleteKonotahe, as I have said before, I greatly prefer the thought with typos, over no thought without. You are very correct that budgets were cut and much was not done. On the other hand, despite all that the green movement has perseveredl, and much has been done.
ReplyDeleteI have read that 2% of the world's energy came from oil in 1900, and 2% came from solar in 2000 - so there is hope. And there are results, in surprising places. An older friend recently bought a "hemi-powered" high-performance 2013 Dodge Challenger SRT8. It will outrun any comparable car from the "muscle car" era in which he grew up, yet it goes more than twice as far per gallon of gas. We may not be able to change the mindset of some people, but if we can get them to use half the gas, that is still progress.
The gas back then cost 35 cents a gal. For what he pays for a gal. he could have driven halfway across the country, on one fill up, at today's prices. I still say, change happens only when someone makes money and not because they are tying to do good. Once the oil companies own the wind--don't laugh it could happen; in Cali they had steam declared a mineral--then you will see wind power take off. But, I say if it makes you feel good and it hurts no one, then do it. Don't get me wrong I enjoyed the battles back in the day. It is harder to watch what little we did get done, slowly be erased, than if we had done nothing.
ReplyDeleteYour last line seems to say it is better not to have fought, than to have fought - and in many cases won - but lose ground later. I will have to ponder that one, because I wonder how bad it would be by now if no one had stemmed the tide of DDT, PCB and other pollutants washing across the country in the 1950s, '60 and '70s.
ReplyDeleteYour point about the oil companies wanting to own the wind is an intriguing one. Especially since they essentially bought much of the sun by using the windfall from their Bush-era tax breaks to reportedly buy as much emerging solar technology as they could.
I didn't do Earth Day. By that time many of us had already been fretting about population/resource issues for more than a decade, and felt that a "Day" was a feel-good exercise unlikely to be effective. Maybe not; it's all about manipulating public perceptions, which I don't know how to do. (And consider morally suspect.)
ReplyDeleteIn any case I tried to do things that might actually help: not have children, move closer to work, weatherize the house and modify it for passive solar, murder my lawn. And eventually I changed my research, first to ozone chemistry, later to river management.
I think Chuck said it better than I did. By the time someone decided to have a day of feel good, most of us had moved on. I do my personal bit, but I would do it with or without a 'Earth Day'. I may look meanly at someone for throwing something out of their car, but I don't care enough to chase them down. As for DDT and PCBs the only real movement to change that were the number of people dying. There was no nation wide protest. A few local people that lived around the stuff that was killing them protested. Kids at colleges did not turn out in the thousands demanding change. I'm not even sure all that damage has been cleaned up.
ReplyDeleteMe too. I do my personal bit without Earth Day, same as I've said more than once about Thanksgiving (I practice gratitude without reference to a special day for giving thanks). I am continually struck, though, and befuddled by all the litter that is thrown out into "the commons" (scores of aluminum cans at Yosemite National Park; bags, bottles, and cans along Southport's marina this week; candy wrappers and discarded plastic and paper cups along the streets of my own neighborhood—along virtually all streets in the town I live in and in all other towns in the United States....). Might Earth Day play a part, if only a tiny one, in "bringing to consciousness" a few of the individuals who throw out this litter?
DeleteTo mention just one offense against the environment, even if not the worst one.
Morris, might I suggest carrying a baseball bat and "bringing to unconsciousness" a few offenders to re-frame their thinking? I am kidding, of course, but wonder if that is the only way to alter such behavior. A more practical option, if less entertaining, would be to put a hefty deposit on ALL containers, but I doubt the chances of getting such a law passed.
ReplyDeleteHere in North Carolina I run four to five miles along a two-lane road several times a week. The amount of litter is shocking. The most thrown-out items seem to be Pepsi and Coors cans, empty cigarette boxes, and fast food containers. One of my favorite running trails in Virginia has become overly popular with hikers in recent years, and the number of water and soft drink bottles discarded along that seven-mile every weekend is almost unbelievable. Why people can carry a full bottle in, but can't carry an empty bottle out, says something about the mentality, and the effort it will take to change it.
The huge decline in litter was the biggest visual change I saw after Earth Day became a big topic in my high-school days. In the Southeast, throwing trash out the window of a car went from being accepted to strongly discouraged. In the years since, that ethic has unfortunately changed here, and we are close to being back where we were. On my recent trip to California, however, I noted litter was practically non-existent, so at least the message has endured there.
Motomynd, I'm encouraged by your report that there was significantly less litter in California. Maybe there's something about the Cali mentality that can be learned and transferred....
DeleteRight, carrying a baseball bat...isn't on, but setting an example is, and whenever I don't pick up litter in my own neighborhood I'm acutely aware of missing an opportunity, not to set an example (for probably no one's watching anyway), but to live up to my principles....
After suggesting a comparison in my previous comment between Earth Day and Thanksgiving, I realized/remembered that I've criticized Thanksgiving as likely having the negative effect of rendering people less thankful on other days (since they have that one day to take care of thanksgiving), and now I'm wondering whether Earth Day might not suffer the same shortcoming, which I think is a point that Konotahe and Chuck were making.
Morris, perhaps I'm the starry-eyed idealist here - even though I do think enforcing societal manners with a baseball bat is not such an awful idea - but I believe Earth Day makes people more aware the rest of the year, not less. Thanksgiving has been around forever, and is loaded with family tensions and commercial trappings, so that is a different situation.
DeleteIf people choose to view the celebration of Earth Day as an excuse not to do something positive for the environment that day, I doubt they would do something any other day, Earth Day celebration or not. To paraphrase John Kerry, in America people have the freedom to be selfish, inconsiderate dolts if they wish, and there is unfortunately little the rest of us can do about it.
As for the Cali mentality: Yes, there is something different there, and hopefully that influence can again reach the East Coast, as it did in the 1960s and '70s. Having driven across this country several times, on each trip I have noticed that as you leave the Northwest and head toward the South and East, some general trends develop: road maintenance and driving habits get worse, litter and overall trashiness increases, and people seem to think and move more re-actively rather than proactively.
One of my family members grew up in Upstate New York, lived much of his life in Virginia, and moved to Florida 20 years ago. His theory about why things are "nearly Third World lax here in Florida," as he puts it, is that if you let things get bad enough in your life, you could survive under a bridge in Florida - but if you try that in Upstate, you will freeze to death long before Thanksgiving. His take is that the need to plan, so one can survive, prompts increased mental energy, awareness and action. Sorry, no studies to support any of this, just observations.
Motomynd, I don't see any starry-eyed idealists among Konotahe, Chuck, or myself, so if there's one about, I guess it must be you.
DeleteOf course you're right that Thanksgiving is a much different holiday from Earth Day, and the family orientation is surely the most significant difference—even much more important than Thanksgiving's relative longevity.
I just realized in writing the preceding sentences that the only mention of Earth Day tomorrow that I have seen anywhere has been on Moristotle &Co., in your April 15 post. I wonder how many people beyond Moristotle & Co.'s readership are even aware that tomorrow is Earth Day?
I remember how thrilling I found the first Earth Day, and how impressed I was that IBM's CEO (Frank Cary) wrote a signed letter to all employees about the event and IBM's commitment to it. That felt like a turning of the tide, a new regime....
You know the story of the frog who slowly dies in a pot of water slowly being heated up over a burner? The rise in temperature is so slow, the frog never senses any crisis, which would have moved it to jumping out. Alun Anderson's essay "Homo Dilatus" [the procrastinating ape] in John Brockman's 2012 book, This Will Make You Smarter: New Scientific Concepts to Improve Your Thinking, points out that in evolution, "we acquired the brain circuitry to deal with sudden crises and respond with urgent action. Steady declines and slowly developing threats are quire different. 'Why act now, when the future is far off?' is the maxim for a species designed to deal with near-term problems and not long-term uncertainties." We don't seem well-equipped to meet life-on-Earth's contemporary challenges, not as individuals anyway. I wonder whether democracies are particularly poorly suited to enlist governmental action, given that potential leaders with the vision required to take urgent action would have to win a majority of procrastinators. But China seems to have other things on its mind also.
Be of good cheer, Morris. Earth Day has been mentioned, and often featured, in most of the media I read.
DeleteI argue, again, that a Day doesn't cut it. There is probably little harm, possibly a little good in it, but what is required to actually change the situation is a lifelong habit of thinking about what you do that is most destructive, then considering how far you are willing to go to be less destructive. For those of us in the First World, that would usually be driving a car and eating meat. I haven't manage to make myself do anything dramatic about these; but eveb reducing these bad habits by (say) a third can make a huge difference.
Chuck, same here - some mention of Earth Day seemed to pop up every time I turned on the radio or clicked online yesterday. While I agree a "Day doesn't cut it," to use your words, I have to believe that level of media exposure has to inspire at least a few people to take some sort of positive step.
DeleteI have now seen a few other references to Earth Day, including an email this morning from Verizon about recycling devices and investigating their new "paperless" apps.
DeleteI worry, though, that "a few people taking some sort of positive step" won't be enough people or enough steps to make a significant difference in the overall outcome. The few people can of course experience the good feeling that generally comes from doing the right thing (or some right things), but the more people will continue to experience their usual good feeling of doing what they want without let or hindrance or regard for long-term consequences.
Morris, at least you, through your blog, are keeping up the good fight you felt was starting back on the first Earth Day.
ReplyDeleteThe frog staying in the slowly warming pot of water until it was unable to jump out was always an interesting story - which, to me at least, was made much more intriguing by a couple who somehow managed to accomplish the same thing in their hot tub http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/20110808oregon-couple-hot-tub-deaths.html
Along that same line of reasoning - that people react to crisis with urgency, and to long-term disaster with a yawn - how ironic that non-believers are apparently in step with religious fanatics who think the world is about to end. Both sides seem to think that if the universe as we know it is about to implode, why worry about the environment?
Motomynd, apologies for taking so long to get back here. A number of possible explanations for the couple's hot-tub demise come to mind, including their having climbed in there when very tired and sleepy and both happening to doze off. Since they HAD a hot tub, I guess we can give them the assumption that they KNEW the cautions about prolonged use. But maybe they didn't....
ReplyDeleteThe irony you pose may only be apparent. The apocalyptically religious seem to believe in something (on no evidence but debunked prophetic speculations) quite different from the scenario imagined by those who try to be familiar with pertinent scientific investigation, such as atmospheric science and evolutionary biology and psychology. In the former, the world really is imagined "to end"; in the latter, if the evidence is being interpreted correctly and trends continue, the biosphere on Earth may undergo another significant adjustment, possibly including the demise of the higher mammals—perhaps like what happened after an asteroid hit the planet and effectively ended the age of the dinosaurs.
And, while we imagine that the apocalyptically religious really don't worry about the environment because it's going to end soon anyway, I don't believe that the scientifically inclined (a more precise characterization than "non-believers" [in supernatural phenomena]) can be indicted with that charge.
Morris, don't mean to argue the point, but why can't the "scientifically inclined" be indicted on the charge of not worrying about the environment because it's going to end soon anyway? Many of them drive gas-guzzling cars, maintain energy-wasting lawns, live in houses many times larger than they need, and needlessly fly around the world on vacations: Are you suggesting they know that changing these actions could help save the environment, and they just don't care enough to make the effort?
ReplyDeleteMotomynd, of course INDIVIDUALS can be indicted, whatever their belief or inclination, even an environmental activist who forsakes his principles for a day without good justification. But you seem to be talking about whole CLASSES of individuals. You characterized "both sides," for example, without singling out "some" of them. Of course, I did the same in responding that "the scientifically inclined" couldn't be indicted but failing to specify explicitly that they couldn't be indicted AS A CLASS, which was my intention.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad there's no argument here. We are agreed in indicting some individuals for destructive (or indifferent) behaviors.
Morris, so how many individuals have to be involved before we can consider them a "class" of individuals?
ReplyDeleteAccording to many polls, 12% of Americans believed the world would end on December 21, 2012 - the date of the infamous Mayan calendar farce. Does it seem reasonable to assume those 36-million people probably didn't care about protecting the environment in 2012, because the world was going to end, and indict them as a class?
Other polls show that 30% of Americans believe that recent extreme weather trends, coupled with the "new" Middle Eastern political upheavals, are signs the "biblical end times" apocalypse is playing out in our lifetimes. Does it seem reasonable to assume those 90-million people probably didn't care about protecting the environment, because the world is going to end in their lifetime, and indict them as a class?
Yet other polls show 48% of Americans believe climate change is a serious threat to our future, and 78% think the president and Congress should be doing more to combat it. Is it reasonable to assume those 144-234 million would be considered the more "scientifically minded" Americans, and the Mayan calendar/apocalypse "doomsdayers" are basically the "flat earth believers" in what is supposedly the most culturally advanced and best educated populace in the world?
If all that is acceptable logic, and if that 144-234 million of highly-educated, scientifically minded Americans are doing just as much as the "flat earth" types to ruin our environment - with too-big cars and houses, and palatial lawns, and globe-trotting vacations - then aren't they just as indictable as a class as the doomsday types? And if there are two to three times as many "scientifically-minded" Americans as not, and they are the most aware - but they choose to talk instead of take action - aren't they even more indictable as a class?
Being ignorant is not an excuse to do harm. Being aware, and still doing harm, is inexcusable - as an individual, or as a class.
Well, if you're defining a class as "all those who do harm," then the class includes ALL such individuals (not just a high percentage). Basically, I was simply objecting to your criticizing EVERYONE who could be labeled a certain way, the initial labels being "religious fanatics" and "non-believers" in your statement on which I originally commented:
ReplyDelete....how ironic that non-believers are apparently in step with religious fanatics who think the world is about to end. Both sides seem to think that if the universe as we know it is about to implode, why worry about the environment?