Earth Day 2011
Today is April 22nd, Earth Day. At first I wasn’t sure if Earth Day really fits with the Girlyfight mission of “inspire, empower, connect and support women who want to create a positive change in their local and global community” but then I saw this year’s theme, “A Billion Acts of Green.” That’s such a key part to how Girlyfight approaches changing the world.
Lately, I’ve been on a real kick about doing what we can with who we are right now. Maybe we aren’t in a place in our lives that allows us to journey to a far-off land to help clean up pollution. Maybe we can’t donate large sums of money to help stop deforestation. But what can we do?
Beyond the usual suggestions of reusable shopping bags, turning off unneeded lights, and recycling, I found a few “new” ideas on the Earth Day site:
- A little girl pledged to draw on BOTH sides of her paper
- Celebrate Earth Day with a dinner of local/organic foods
- Wear green or brown
My husband and I recently participated in a neighborhood yardsale and had a conversation with a neighbor about all of the junk we buy because we want it at the time but now we can’t get rid of it. As I looked at all of the things we were trying to sell (most of which went to Goodwill the next day), I started thinking about ways to reduce the amount of stuff we bring into our home.
An easy place to save money, space, and all of the resources involved in production and delivery is to stop purchasing so many physical cds, books, and movies. Why pay for a cd and wait for delivery when I’m just going to load it on the computer as soon as it arrives? It’s much more direct to just download the music (legally) from the start. The same can be done with movies. And with the popularity of e-readers, books can also be downloaded quickly. And of course there are always lending services, like Redbox, Netflix, and libraries. I’ll admit sometimes a book or album or movie is special enough that I want a physical copy. That’s fine – but I’m becoming more thoughtful about what I bring into my house and how long it will be useful or wanted. These particular items are just a simple place to start because there are so many other ways to obtain them.
Whether you’re a dedicated environmentalist or a global warming skeptic, I think it’s hard to argue that it’s a bad thing to take care of our planet. So what small thing will YOU do to observe Earth Day?
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I also try to write on both sides of the paper. Being a letter writer, I don’t always seek out new stationery, but will use whatever I can find. It’s recycling in a way.
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