Earth Day and Earth Girl

Linda aka Earth Girl in her preferred habitat - surrounded by Nature.

On April 22, 1967 Earth Girl was born. I was 6 years old, and living 6,000 kilometres away. Little did I know that our paths were destined to cross 20 years later.

Three years after Earth Girl's birth, on April 22, 1970, millions of people took to the streets on the very first Earth Day. What got people into the streets was a desire to highlight the negative effects of 150 years of industrialization. 

Fast forward to 1987, and we see that fate finally had its way with us. The day our paths crossed represents one of the best moments of my life. I had found a partner that loved Nature as much as I did, and was willing to go to any lengths to enjoy and protect it.

Now, it is difficult for me to separate Earth Day and Earth Girl. It seems that they are one and the same. She would rather live poor in a cave close to nature than reside in a high society penthouse with unlimited wealth. She will not be separated from her source, our source, THE source - Mother Nature. 

Today, both are imperilled. 

Mother Earth and Earth Girl have both endured terrible attacks, perhaps from similar sources. Has 200 years of industrial development caused the disease of multiple sclerosis? No one knows, but I am certain that it hasn't helped. 

Unfortunately, the conventional industrial "treatments" haven't helped either, and they often make things worse. How can you treat something when the cause remains a total mystery? We should be very wary of a system that is causing all the problems offering so-called solutions to those problems.

But Linda has found her own treatment, and that is living close to Nature.

This morning I got up to initiate our morning routine, and wanted to do something special for her as she lay in bed waiting for me to assist her. I opened our bedroom window wide. She listened, and smiled. 

Our room was instantly filled with the sounds of songbirds singing their praises to the Earth, and perhaps to Earth Girl as well. We could hear a woodpecker hammering on a hollow tree trunk in the distance, and some peepers, too. 

I didn't buy anything for Linda's birthday, for what could be better than the ample gifts of Nature? Plus, she doesn't want anything. Just me. 

Next year will be the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. Is the Earth better off than it was in 1970? 

MS aside, I can confidently say that 52 years after Linda's birth, she is better than ever. 

Today I celebrate Earth Day. But I am celebrating Earth Girl even more.

There Is No Planet B

We should quit looking for planets to move to, and fix the one we've got.

Quit something. Start something. DO Something! Anything. Please. There is no Planet B.

Make every day Earth Day. Your children will thank you.

Happy Earth Day 2017

From: The Earth Day Network

Earth Day 2017’s Campaign is Environmental & Climate Literacy 

Education is the foundation for progress. We need to build a global citizenry fluent in the concepts of climate change and aware of its unprecedented threat to our planet. We need to empower everyone with the knowledge to inspire action in defense of environmental protection. 

Environmental and climate literacy is the engine not only for creating green voters and advancing environmental and climate laws and policies but also for accelerating green technologies and jobs 

This Earth Day, gather with your community for an Environmental & Climate Literacy Teach-In or another project focused on education. 

This is also a day to show your support for science-based decision making. Marches are planned globally.

The March for Science is the first step of a global movement to defend the vital role science plays in our health, safety, economies, and governments.

-  www.marchforscience.com 

Happy Earth Day to all Not Buying Anything readers. We are grateful for your support for this blog, and for all things green.

Go Green, and spread the word. Our survival depends on it.

 “We need intense activism along with structural analysis and the building of alternative, sustainable lifestyles. We need wisdom, reverence and creativity that we pull up from the depths of our uncertainty. Author Joanna Macy calls it ‘the Great Turning.’ It’s a shift in consciousness that aligns social healing, economic fairness and an end to war with environmental sustainability. And the time to make it happen is running out. We can’t afford to lose another decade, or another twenty minutes.”

-  Robert Koehler

Mother Earth Is Sick

Yes, it is an emergency.

Mother Earth just called. She's in the emergency ward of the hospital and won't be able to make it to any of today's celebrations.

In lieu of flowers she would like us all to make changes that will improve her health. She said she loves us very much and wants us to be healthy, which can only happen if she is healthy.

Then she thanked everyone that is working toward getting her home in one piece, and reminded us to take comfort in her beauty. And there truly is lots of that left, if one takes the time to look.

"Where is it?" I asked. She responded without hesitation.

Beauty above.
Beauty below.
Beauty before.
Beauty behind.
Beauty all around.

Then she fell asleep and I hung up the phone. Shortly after a pileated woodpecker flew by and landed in a tree in the yard, red crest brilliant in the morning sun.

Earth Day Action

If you are celebrating Earth Day, and looking for doable changes you can adopt to make a difference, this list is for you. It comes from the Attainable Sustainable website, and has a pledge for action for everyone.


Kitchen:

• Stop buying fruits and vegetables that have been imported from another country, for so many reasons.
• Buy real food. If you can’t trace its origin, it shouldn’t go into your body (ahem, IMHO) and it’s surely not doing our environment any good.
• Quit relying on takeout food. If you succumb, find a restaurant that uses compostable packaging and say no to plastic straws.
• Learn to cook some really simple, really fast meals so you won’t be tempted by fast food.
• Find a local butcher that uses butcher paper instead of buying your meat cuts on Styrofoam.
• Find a source for local meat and eggs.
• Turn up the temperature on your refrigerator, just a touch.
• In the wintertime, put fire bricks in the oven to hold heat and keep the room warm.
• Switch to glass storage containers instead of plastic.
• Get rid of your Teflon coated pots and pans.
• Use a dish cloth instead of a sponge.
• Bring fewer containers into your home. Be sure to recycle those that you can’t reuse.
• Compost your food waste.
• Make your own salad dressing, mustard, mayonnaise, and other condiments. It’s not that hard. 
• Cook double batches. Eat one lasagna tonight, freeze one for the crazy busy day that’s tempting you to turn to fast food.
• Switch to bulk teas that can be made with a tea strainer. No bags, no packaging, and no risk of ingesting plastic.

Bathroom:

• Nix the chemical cleaners.
• Take shorter showers. Less hot water used, less energy used.
• Switch to less chemically laden soaps and shampoos, or try your hand at making your own.
• Still using disposable razors? (Stores are still stocking them; somebody must be using them!) Switch to one with a replaceable blade.
• Use your bath towel more than once.
• Try a fabric shower curtain instead of a plastic one.

Home office or at the office:

• Switch to padded envelopes that don’t have a plastic bubble liner.
• Stop junk mail before it gets to your house.
• Consider online banking. You’ll eliminate the envelope as well as the use of much fuel to get your payment where it needs to go.
• Opt to receive your monthly statements via email. Again, you’ll eliminate paper waste as well as fuel usage.
• Use public transportation. Not an option? Find someone to carpool with.
• Transform the water cooler at work: request paper rather than plastic cups. Better yet, encourage fellow employees to bring a cup from home.
• Refill your ink cartridges instead of buying a new one when you’re out.
• Not using your computer? Turn it off or put it to sleep.

Laundry room:

• Wash only full loads of clothes.
• Switch to a more eco-friendly laundry detergent. Or make your own.
• Get clothes out of the dryer as soon as they’re dry, so you’re not tempted to “give them a little fluff.”
• Better yet, set up a clothesline and hang your clothes to dry some of the time.
• Install a timer on your hot water heater.

The rest of the house:

• Find out where your power comes from. Is it generated by diesel? Coal? Wind? Knowing that your energy usage is tied directly to environmentally unfriendly sources might make it easier to cut your energy use (good for the planet and your bank account).
• Say no to products that come in plastic clamshells.
• Keep a blanket on the sofa.
• Turn down the thermostat on your heater, just a touch (with that blanket, you won’t notice).
• Next time you need to buy linens and blankets, skip the man-made materials.
• Turn off the TV if you’re not watching it.
• Install window blinds to help keep the house cool in the summertime and warm in winter.
• Shop second hand.
• Wash your windows with newspaper instead of paper towels.

Outside:

• If you have an arbor, plant a deciduous vine that will shade you in the summertime and allow sunlight and warmth in during the cold winter.
• Grow your own food. If you’ve never done so, start small. Plant radishes. Or lettuce.
• If you’re a gardening veteran, consider sharing your knowledge with amateurs.
• Plant an extra row for the food bank.
• Collect some of your rainwater and use it to water the garden during dry spells.
• Stop using chemicals on your lawn.
• If you regularly forget to turn off your porch or garage light, set it up on a timer.
• Deal with pests and weeds without chemicals.
• Mulch. It will help hold moisture in, and mean less water used. It will also help keep the weeds in check.
• Compost your kitchen waste. No space? Get worms to do the dirty work with a worm composter. (You can make your own for less than $5.)

Around town:

• Stop accepting the bags that stores offer (plastic OR paper) and bring your own.
• Switch from plastic to glass bottles when buying goods at the grocery store. If it’s only available in plastic, skip it (bonus points for writing to the manufacturer to complain).
• Choose fruits and vegetables that are sold loose. There’s absolutely no reason for peas, peppers, or tomatoes to be wrapped in plastic or strapped to Styrofoam.
• Seek out local produce at the supermarket or (better yet) farmers market.
• Eliminate excess baggage in your car. If you don’t need to carry it around, don’t. You’ll use less gas.
• Take your own insulated mug for your coffee stops.
• Combine errands so that you use less fuel.
• Live near town? Walk, sometimes!
• Seek out one wild food source in your area. Maybe it’s dandelion greens. Or maybe you’ve got a source for wild asparagus or blackberries.
• Go meet your neighbors. Having a friendly community means a chance to share equipment rather than everyone owning the same snow blower or tractor.
• Those same neighbors? May share their garden surplus or help you tackle all of those excess zucchini.
• Think about needs versus wants. We’ve become a society of shoppers. Do you really need that new pair of shoes?
• Choose to live with less stuff.

Earth Day Monday

Happy 43rd Earth Day.

Let's celebrate our Mother, our life support system, and the only habitable planet that we know of that isn't inconveniently very far away. It is our only chance for survival, unless a sterile moon base is your idea of a good time.

While working toward changing this planet for the better, we would be wise to heed the words of indigenous people, some of whom continue to live sustainable lifestyles.

Who better to judge the state of our environment than the people that have been caring for it for thousands of years? Are they saying everything is fine? Hardly.

But they do have some excellent ideas for creating better, more sustainable ways of living on and with Mother Earth.

The following is from the World's People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Nature that took place in Bolivia this time of year back in 2010.


"Today, our Mother Earth is wounded and the future of humanity is in danger."

"We confront the terminal crisis of a civilizing model that is patriarchal and based on the submission and destruction of human beings and nature that accelerated since the industrial revolution. 

The capitalist system has imposed on us a logic of competition, progress and limitless growth. This regime of production and consumption seeks profit without limits, separating human beings from nature and imposing a logic of domination upon nature, transforming everything into commodities: water, earth, the human genome, ancestral cultures, biodiversity, justice, ethics, the rights of peoples, and life itself. 

Under capitalism, Mother Earth is converted into a source of raw materials, and human beings into consumers and a means of production, into people that are seen as valuable only for what they own, and not for what they are. 

Capitalism requires a powerful military industry for its processes of accumulation and imposition of control over territories and natural resources, suppressing the resistance of the peoples. It is an imperialist system of colonization of the planet. 

Humanity confronts a great dilemma: to continue on the path of capitalism, depredation, and death, or to choose the path of harmony with nature and respect for life. 

It is imperative that we forge a new system that restores harmony with nature and among human beings. And in order for there to be balance with nature, there must first be equity among human beings. 

We propose to the peoples of the world the recovery, revalorization, and strengthening of the knowledge, wisdom, and ancestral practices of Indigenous Peoples, which are affirmed in the thought and practices of “Living Well,” recognizing Mother Earth as a living being with which we have an indivisible, interdependent, complementary and spiritual relationship.  

To face climate change, we must recognize Mother Earth as the source of life and forge a new system based on the principles of:

• harmony and balance among all and with all things; 

• complementarity, solidarity, and equality; 

• collective well-being and the satisfaction of the basic necessities of all; 

• people in harmony with nature; 

• recognition of human beings for what they are, not what they own; 

• elimination of all forms of colonialism, imperialism and interventionism; 

• peace among the peoples and with Mother Earth;

The model we support is not a model of limitless and destructive development. All countries need to produce the goods and services necessary to satisfy the fundamental needs of their populations, but by no means can they continue to follow the path of development that has led the richest countries to have an ecological footprint five times bigger than what the planet is able to support.  

Currently, the regenerative capacity of the planet has been already exceeded by more than 30 percent. If this pace of over-exploitation of our Mother Earth continues, we will need two planets by the year 2030. In an interdependent system in which human beings are only one component, it is not possible to recognize rights only to the human part without provoking an imbalance in the system as a whole. 

To guarantee human rights and to restore harmony with nature, it is necessary to effectively recognize and apply the rights of Mother Earth." - source

We can ensure that the Rights of Mother Earth are respected every day in a perpetual celebration and practice of the principles of sustainability and harmony.

What Do We All Have In Common?

Boreal forest in northern Alberta, Canada is sustainable indefinitely if cared for properly

"The Earth is what we all have in common." 
- Wendell Berry

Canadian tar sands where Boreal forest used to be - not sustainable
 Garth Lenz photo

We should take better care of it.

EaRth Day 2012 - The Four R's

I thought about Earth Day pretty much the same as I usually do until I put 2012 after it. Now it sounds special - ominous even.

Today is an important time to remember the R's of resource use, sometimes inflated to 5 or more, but commonly limited to a very useful 3. Listed according to effectiveness they are (from most - least effective) - Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.

To the essential three I would add a 4th that is the most effective of all - REFUSE.

Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

I was teaching grade 4 when a parent told me her daughter started sobbing one evening at home when she saw a tin can in the garbage. "But mom", the daughter cried, "that can be recycled."

I don't want any students getting that upset over the state of our planet, but it would be more effective to cry when the family gets a third car, a second home, or when they fly frequently. Refusing and reducing are the most effective of the R's.

The curriculum was recycling/reuse-centered because they are more active. You can't see, touch, or manipulate resources you never use. Recyle/reuse are also more business-friendly because you don't have to cut consumption in order to participate in them.

Despite obvious environmental breakdown, it is still considered radical to propose that people cut consumption and buy less, do less, or live less resource-intensive lives. It doesn't matter that both they and the planet would be happier. We are trained to consume, and that is after all, what is best for the all-important economy.

But we can be more gentle on the earth, and break free of dead-end consumerism and waste by following the 4 R's:


Refuse:

    * to believe that infinite economic growth is possible or desirable.
    * to be programmed by advertising.
    * excessive packaging.
    * luxury and extravagance.
    * things that are toxic or can not be recycled.
    * instant gratification.
    * to buy things you don't need.

Reduce:

    * the amount of energy you use.
    * your reliance on brown corporations only concerned about the bottom line.
    * factory farmed foods in your diet.
    * the amount of waste you produce.
    * your desires, and therefore your ecological footprint.
    * time spent indoors in front of the TV and computer.

Reuse:

    * clothes - treat them gently so they can be used over and over (Dolly Parton does not wear any clothes more than once... why do I know that?)
    * leftovers - they are food, too.
    * whatever resources you can (collecting belly button lint for pillow stuffing is going too far).

Recycle:
    * whatever can not be reused.
    * at recycling facilities that are provided in most population centers.
    * but understand you get more bang for your eco-buck with the previous 3 R's.
    * includes composting.


Every day is Earth Day.

Make Every Day Earth Day

If we forget, in the busyness of our manufactured lives, the endless gifts of the earth, today is a great time to pause and remember. We are born of the earth, survive by it, and return to it in the end. It deserves more respect.

Living small footprint, more sustainable lives puts the health of the earth as the number one priority. It honours the bounty of the environment, and vows to use it wisely. It is developing a new relationship with each other, and all of nature.

Living more gently is the best gift we can give the earth today, and every other day.

We Can Make Earth Day Obsolete

I celebrated Earth Day for most of my life, but no more. I am finished with it, and I think that the planet is getting a little sceptical, too.

Earth Day began 40 years ago with grand intentions, but did Senator Nelson and the 20 million Americans that participated in that first year really intend it to be around 4 decades later? Surely they wished to make such an obvious and critical day obsolete as soon as possible. They were responding to a perceived environmental crisis, after all, and time was of the essence. A TV show that first year called Earth Day: A Question of Survival, would not be out of place on our wide-screen plasma TVs today.

The goal was to increase awareness in government and corporate board rooms of the importance of sustainability so that environmental crisis could be averted. Now here we are 40 years later trying to do the same thing, except now we, the people, are co-conspirators in the environmental mess. We vote with our dollars, and since 1970 we have been voting for consumer items and luxury rather than for appreciation and respect for the planet and its other life forms.

Earth Day has been a positive force for change, but it has ultimately failed to wake us up to any truly meaningful change. Not to say that there haven't been worthy changes since 1970, but most of them pale in comparison to the devastation that we continue to inflict. Our environment is in as much of a crisis as it was in 1970. Earth Day is unfortunately as necessary today as it was 40 years ago.

Let's do what Senator Nelson and the initial organizers of Earth Day must have envisioned in their most optimistic moments - that their special one day a year would soon become obsolete as changes were made and the planet healed itself. We can do this thing.

Let us make it obsolete by immediately becoming as non-destructive and sustainable as we can possibly be at this time. Let every day be a day that we focus on our appreciation and respect for the planet that sustains us. Let this 40th Anniversary be the (B)Earth of a new way of living more gently in cooperation with each other and everything else.

Let's give Nelson and the Earth something to celebrate.