Think Green...

Earth Day is this Sunday and it brings to mind thoughts of how we can perhaps recycle more, reduce our waste, and help the environment. We need to think about more than planting a tree or recycling some extra cans and then moving on until the next Earth Day.

The environment is clearly a fragile thing and we have seemingly affected more change on it in a short period of time than has happened in twice the time. Global warming is rapidly changing environments and things are changing in negative ways. Water levels rising from melting icecaps is going to reduce land and probably just eliminate many island nations that are around today. If the water levels rise as predicted, some countries, such as a number of Polynesian countries in the South Pacific Ocean will just not exist in the future. Are we going to try to stop this?

I think it's a real coincidence that I was earlier talking about recumbent trikes and I had a building interest in these and now, I'm getting one this weekend. I've bid on one in an auction on eBay that actually ends on Earth Day! This is one thing that I figure that I can do to reduce the pollution that I create, as I've been one that's always had a number of cars and many of them have also been older cars that have no emissions restrictions set for them. I've also had quite a few that have definitely put out more than their fair share of pollution as a result of this. Now, I can use this recumbent trike to at least reduce (for now, possibly/hopefully elimintate later?) my usage of fossil fuel-burning automobiles. I'm getting rid of my cars now, one at a time, and I'll probably keep one for some uses, but I'm going to try to eliminate all of the rest. For me, eliminating even all but 1 car is a big step. I've had at least 4 cars at any given point since at least 2000. Now, I'm already down to 3 as of last month! I've donated one and sold one since the beginning of the year! So, this is one step I'm taking in an effort to do a little bit for the environment. I don't have any illusions, though, and I don't think it's nearly enough.

Aside from switching to an alternative method of transport (human-powered vehicles, electric, and alternative [hopefully cleaner-burning] fuels), one thing just about anybody can do is just reduce the usage of your vehicle(s). There are plenty of ways that most people can reduce their driving. Carpooling is one that can split fuel used and driving in half, but is really not "in fashion" in Seattle. I read an article last year and it was right around 10% of people that are carpooling in the Seattle area. One in ten! Look around you as you are stuck in traffic on I-5, parked waiting to get across the 520 floating-bridge, or stuck on I-405 or in the southend. Usually, as far as the eye can see, each car/truck/SUV contains just 1 person. If everybody carpooled with just 1 person, 1/2 the cars now wouldn't be on the road. How about that for a traffic solution? Imagine if 1/2 the cars you're commonly stuck in traffic with weren't there at all. You're commute would surely be shorter, you'd use less gas as you drove instead of sat and let the engine idle, and there would be a stress reduction from reduced traffic worries! That also equates to 1/2 the car emissions, 1/2 the smog in the air that you can see in the summer after a number of rain-free days, not to mention sharing the costs of gas with someone.

Reducing waste can really help out as well. We put out SO MUCH waste each year it is absolutely ridiculous. In the US, we generate on average about 4 1/2 pounds of waste a day per person! Imagine that multiplied by each person by 365 days and try to visualize just how much waste that is! Just try to think about packaging as one simple source of reduction. There is so much packaging in typical products that goes straight from store shelves to our garbage (or hopefully at least the recycling bin) as soon as we get home and open up the package. Try purchasing items that don't use so much packaging. Items that are pre-packaged into individual servings use far more packaging than items in larger quantities that you can separate yourself. Some simply have less packing material in general. Use reusable grocery bags and reduce those wastes. Every little bit we can reduce helps. Fortunately, the Seattle area is pretty good about recycling as well, but we need to stay vigilent.

I can go on and on about other methods of reducing, reusing, and recycling (yeah, I stole it from the recycling slogan), but I probably shouldn't. A few other things to look up, though, are compact florescent lightbulbs which use far less (2/3's less, I believe) electricity, public transit, and Earth-friendly products that cause less harm to the environment. If everybody helps a little, we'll all help a lot in the big scheme of things!