April 22nd is Earth Day. And what will I be doing?
Umm . . . I’ll be at work from 7:00 A.M. – 7:30 P.M. I’ll be driving the 18 mile round trip by myself, then picking up my friend who’s flying from New Hampshire to spend a few days visiting with me.
Not such an impressive Earth Day.
I can’t carpool because my hours and days are erratic, and I can’t stand the thought of taking public transportation because the idea of adding an extra hour to my already long work day makes me want to cry.
Luckily, I feel that the big picture of how green my life is evens out this high impact day:
- I rarely drive more than a mile or two on my days off from work.
- I am very conscientious about my family’s energy usage.
- I’m growing my own veggie garden.
- I’m part of The Compact, and only buy used.
- I recycle, compost and my family of four only produces a 20 gallon can of garbage per month.
- I always bring my own bags to the store.
- I cook from scratch, which minimizes packaging.
- I line dry as much of my family’s laundry as possible.
- I vacation close to home and haven’t flown anywhere since 2005.
Because every day is Earth Day for me, April 22nd doesn’t have to be anything special.
Are you celebrating Earth Day? If so, how are you marking the occasion? Or do you make sustainable choices throughout the year and not need a holiday? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.
Katy Wolk-Stanley
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”
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You don’t need 3 million climate change activists to achieve major reductions in human greenhouse emissions.
All you need is a bunch of nuclear power plants and a few millions of vehicles powered by Lithium Ion batteries.
Oops… I forgot. It was the idiots at Greenpeace who killed the nuclear option a couple of decades back. Guess they don’t want to go there.
In celebration of Earth Day, I am planting my tomato seeds. I think I might be a bit late, but I going for it anyway. I’ve never grown tomatoes from seeds; I dug up all this nice composted soil (composted from leaves over the past two years) but then learned I need to sanitize the soil before I plant the seeds. I’m not sure how microwaving the soil contributes to Earth Day, but I’ve learned a great deal about starting my garden at http://www.zipharvest.com. We’ll see how it goes! Happy Earth Day!
Like you, I’m not doing anything too special today…but I do a lot of green things every day, and those little things all add up.
I did batch several errands this morning. 🙂
I ‘m not doing anything special either.
Today I did my errands on the way home from work, stop by to see my mom every morning.
Hung up laundry this afternoon, and the dog took me for my afternoon walk.
Not watching any t.v. this week, this week is national no t.v. week.
This is my average day.
This was the first totally gorgeous, perfect day of Spring where I live. I chose to drive 20 minutes to the lake and enjoy the outdoors with my daughter. I cut the grass in part of the yard with our non-engine cutter, whatever that thing is called. I did a 2 mile trail walk with my husband. I cut the first blooming irises in my yard to put on the table. Basically, I spent all day and evening outdoors enjoying the beauty of the Earth. That is what I call Earth Day!
What I love about Earth Day is not that I do something different, but that everyone is being more conscious about it. In our country (Israel) they are turning off all the electricity for an hour (I know that was done worldwide a while ago, but done voluntarily, but now people aren’t having a choice) at 8:00 p.m. – but the silly thing is it’s only in the big cities, I live in a smaller village. I like that idea – some people may resent the inconvenience, but it certainly brings eco thoughts to people’s minds.
to Lewis, I never ever heard of nuking my compost, just seems anti-natural. Seems like you’d be killing all the good stuff along with any weeds, etc. Anyway, I don’t possess a microwave, and wouldn’t want to.
Hubby and I transplanted tomatoes, took the dog for a walk, ate leftovers for lunch, and hung the clothes on the line. But last night we drove 4 miles to our church to share in an organic, vegetarian local foods dinner, then watched a new documentary on Thoreau’s last 2 days at Walden Pond. Very satisfying day. Did anyone see Oprah? I hear her show was filled w/earth friendly tips for living.
I quit eating meat a couple of years ago. According to an article I found in the New York Times, Rosamond Naylor, a researcher at Stanford,
says that compared to producing vegetables or rice, beef uses 16 times as much energy and produces 25 times the CO2. A study on U.S. consumption from the University of Chicago estimates that if the average American were to reduce meat consumption by just 20 percent, that would be the equivalent of switching from driving a Camry to a Prius.
Kate–I bicycled to work; ate my home-made bread for breakfast; had vegan lentil soup from Basha’s cart at Neuberger Hall (Basha was my student back around 1981, so I keep it in the non-corporate family). I slept on a futon to conserve the energy required to climb up onto a bed; wore used Birkinstocks (worn by Vincent Price in his film “House of Horrors”); tied strips of paper to my bicycle helmet to see which way the wind was blowing for efficient pedaling; taught Shakespeare with a whisper; wrote a scene in my novel about the woman who hears voices, thereby not necessitating a Fido (or whatever the electronic thing is called that plugs in your ear and talks and sings to you); did not speak on a telephone or listen either. I could go on endlessly, as you might guess, but that would be to consume all the energies in the universe. Hence I’ll add the word STOP. Dad
Your dad is hilarious. I can see that some of your charm and talent is inherited.