Earth Day which was on 22nd April has just gone by. I have not stuck to the New Year Resolutions that I made, so I thought I would make some Earth Day resolutions which would be good for me as well as the Earth. Even a few changes you make in your day to day life can make a difference. Read on and tell me if you are going to join me in this worthwhile exercise.
I shall recycle: That recycling is good for the environment is a no brainer. The mantra you can live by is reduce, reuse and recycle. Buy less to begin with, reuse whenever possible so that you minimize waste and recycle whatever you can. When you buy stuff at the store, carry your own bag or at least ask for a paper bag rather than a plastic one. Remember you will use a plastic bag for five minutes and it will take nature 500 years to biodegrade it.
I shall drive less: Walk to wherever you can, or use your bicycle, leaving the car at home. Whenever possible, use public transport. If you are thinking about getting a new car, at least consider an electric vehicle or a hybrid at least.
I shall take the train not the plane: If you read my post about the best train journeys, then you will know, that according to me, trains are the best way to travel because you get a feel of the place you are traveling thru, the people, the culture, the look, sounds, even the smells of the place. It is also the best way to travel environmentally speaking because it has the least negative impact on the environment.
I shall plant Trees: Ideally, you can try planting a tree for every 10 books you buy (textbook, notebook, count them all). I know this is not at all practical or even feasible, but try planting one tree a year. You can choose earth day to do this worthwhile activity. Or read e-books as a way to reduce the demand of cutting trees for making paper.
I shall reconnect with nature: Get together with likeminded friends or family and explore your neighborhood. Organize a camping or trekking excursion; explore parks, woods, and historical sites. Let this be how you spend your leisure time rather than staying indoors watching the TV, using heating or cooling and other appliances.
I shall eat smart: Reduce the amount of frozen or canned foods that you eat (canning uses energy and material and increases garbage and freezing uses energy and packing material), instead eat fresh, seasonal produce.
Any more that you want to add to my list?
I seem to be in a solemn mood these days. Serious, weighty matters are occupying my mind. It was the news about Earth Hour perhaps that set me thinking, what are we doing on this earth, more importantly what are we doing to this earth, is the climate change situation really as bad as we think is global warming really the grim reality that we are being told it is?
This brings to my mind the words of someone who has been an influence on me my whole life; Mahatma Gandhi, who said,
“The earth has enough for man’s need, but not for man’s greed”
This is so true and evidence of man’s greed is all around us: vanishing forests, destroyed ecologies, rising sea levels, polar icecaps melting, rising temperatures, atypical droughts and floods, depleting petroleum supplies, mountains disfigured from mining, the list is endless. Are we doing anything to reverse this, or even limit this destruction? I have to say that awareness is rapidly increasing. Substantial strides are being made in development of alternative, non-polluting, renewable and sustainable energy. Blogs like Auto blog green, The fraser domain, Zap world and Tree hugger which I regularly read are great to keep abreast with recent developments in this field. I find reading them reassuring. They keep giving me information about new developments in the field of green energy such as electric vehicles, hybrids, harnessing of wind and solar energy etc.
So getting back to what was the inspiration for this post, Earth Hour, this was a movement started by the question “How can we inspire people to take action on climate change?” and they came up with the idea of asking the people of Sydney to turn off their lights for one hour. This was a symbolic act started last year, and this year many more people, businesses and cities both took notice of and observed Earth Hour. Over 20,000 businesses and nearly 300,000 people have signed up for Earth Hour.
So on Saturday March 29, between 8.00pm and 9.00pm whenever that time arrived in respective parts of the world, people joined the Earth Hour movement by flicking the switch, turning appliances off stand-by and enjoying an hour of quiet darkness. If you want to see pictures of what cities looked like after people switched off their lights, visit the site Earth Hour. In Canberra there was a 73 per cent participating in Earth Hour and 11.4 per cent drop in electricity consumption for the hour! The amount of awareness and understanding the event spread across the world? That would be incalculable!
The message sought to be sent out by Earth Hour is this:
“Simple things like turning off appliances while not in use and switching your light globes to energy efficient bulbs, will all help us reach our goal of reducing our annual emissions by 5%. Even something as simple as turning out lights when you’re not in a room and switching to cleaner sources of electricity like “green power”, make a big difference.”
evawhite on April 25th, 2008
