I have never, ever considered myself to be a tree-hugger. But I have now prepared myself to be labeled such. My mother taught me decades ago that littering was the behavior of lazy, ignorant, uneducated people and it engrained in me a great disgust for litterbugs. So much so that I have been tempted in the past to follow a driver and give them their trash back. It's irritating to me when people can't even bother to spit their chewing gum into a garbage receptacle. I mean, come on, do people do this at home? But I digress... It all started with a library book...Chandler, a voracious reader and compassionate soul, whom also shares with his mother a distaste for litterbugs, brought home a book from school entitled "Why are the Ice Caps Melting? The Dangers of Global Warming" by Anne Rockwell. This book did a phenomenal job explaining what exactly global warming is, the causes of and the effects of. It paints a fairly bleak picture for a children's book, at which one point Chandler cried out "Oh, no..oh, no.." with such heartbreak that tears swelled up in my eyes. THANKFULLY, the next few pages.. started out "Sounds, scary, huh? Here's what you can do..." And at this moment, passion ignited in Chandler. We now recycle everything that's possible, use less electricity, do full loads of laundry, run ceiling fans until the a.c. must be turned on, turn off the faucet when we brush our teeth, employ reusable canvas shopping bags at the market, etc. I have sought out and signed numerous petitions for the environment, called companies and complained about their wasteful packaging and called and complimented companies that are going green! A BIG thank you to Quaker Oats for offering their chewy granola bars in "rip n' go" packaging instead of using boxes, thus saving trees!
Seriously, everyone. The U.S.A. constitutes less than 5% of the world's population, but we make 40% of the waste. That's disgusting. I refuse to be a part of it. Since we have been recycling at home, I went from walking a full 13 gallon trash bag to the dumpster every other day, to once a week. We break down cereal boxes, poptart boxes, rinse out milk jugs, shampoo bottles, recycle homework, junk mail and the like. Try it. You'll be amazed at what you've been throwing away. BTW, you can recycle old print cartridges.. they even pay you $3 each at Staples if you bring them in.
Make a goal. Try just one thing at first. Our new goal? No more paper plates. Now this is gonna be hard, because I don't like dishpan hands and I get enough handwashing in the NICU, my hands are desert dry already.
Sort of moving on... Disney's movie EARTH. Excellent. And who doesn't love listening to James Earl Jones narrarate?! Chandler quickly linked the starving polar bears' hunting struggle (ice is melting away, thus no hunting forum) to the book we had read and he whispered to me "We are hurting the animals!" and the sniffles and eye tearing began.
I don't think EARTH could have been better. It very subtly got it's eco-friendly message across. And because we saw EARTH the first week it was in theatres, Disney planted a tree for us! EARTH also broke the box office record for opening day for a documentary! I guess there are people out there who care!
For those of you who think global warming is a conspiracy, the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) publically announced the week of April 20, 2009, that global warming does exist and it is a threat to our earth. (They had been denying the existence of global warming for years).
Lastly, a GREAT website to get you started... http://www.care2.com/
Peace, out!
