Earth Day

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Don’t get me wrong. I think Earth Day is a great idea. Except for the fact that it only happens one day a year. Why isn’t EVERY day Earth Day? Yes, there are some days when it’s really fun to abuse your body with a 16 oz. steak and onion rings, or a bottle of tequila. Similarly, there are days when it’s just too damn fun to rap out a gas guzzling, 1960s sport coupe convertible on a country road. Day in and day out perfection is something only monks are capable of. Hell, Tiger even proved that he was fallibly mortal by not winning the Masters.

But, why do we insist on these once a year ‘holidays’ to prove our loyalty to god, a cause, mother earth? Chreaster or Eastmas are the classic part time Christian holidays. Look at lent. I see people engage in behavior that is detrimental to themselves for 325 days, then they stop for 40, and then continue the self abuse for another 325 thereafter.

I think Earth Day is great for raising awareness (so what does a mythical figure disappearing from a cave raise awareness of again?), but the key is to not just change the behavior for one day, which these fabricated holidays have a tendency to induce. A lot of people will take public transportation to work today (a little more motivation with $3.50 gas?), or plant a tree, or recycle something they normally don’t and then tomorrow comes and it’s right back into the SUV and off to work (I really wonder how many SUV drivers actually pay attention to earth day anyway).

The biggest joke was this thing a couple of weeks ago where everyone was supposed to turn off non-essential lighting for one hour on a SATURDAY NIGHT!!! Not much going on in most businesses on a Saturday night, and besides, what are lights doing on that don’t need to be on ANYWAY??? I loved how all these big companies came out and said they were going to participate in that. What a feeble attempt to position themselves as green by changing behavior for 1/8760 of the year!!!

Well anyway. Nobody wants to just listen to somebody bitching, so below is my short list of permanent behaviors I’ve changed or am changing in the interest of Mother Earth. 365 behaviors.

1. I’m done with bottled water. Got by fine without it 20 years ago. And yeah, I’m replacing my Nalgene fleet with stainless or aluminum bottles. I read something last week that in some cases it takes 3 parts water to produce one bottle of water. Being in the beverage industry that seems completely plausible to me.
2. I’m kicking my teenage boys out of the shower. What could they possibly be doing in there for 20 minutes? At their age, IT doesn’t take more than 30 seconds.
3. I’m human. I do forget to bring a bag with me to the Supermarket sometimes. But, what I have been refusing to do for years is accept bags when I go to another store and buy just a couple of things. Why do I need a plastic bag for things I can carry comfortably with my own two hands?
4. I re-use the plastic bags in my kitchen trash and kitchen recycling bins. The trash man has yet to complain or stop picking up my trash.
5. Those who know me well know I’m not a slave to fashion, but I wear my clothes out. Even if I had more free time, I wouldn’t buy more clothes. Of course, the Christmas sweaters I wear once do end up at Goodwill.
6. I simply try to consume less. Do I REALLY need to purchase that? Ask yourself that question daily. Make it an ingrained behavior. You might be surprised at how your bank account grows.