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* Does Earth Day mean anything to you today? Explain.
posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, Apr 22, 08 @ 11:09 am
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Nope! LOL!!! Well I try to do my part to keep the environment clean but there’s only so much I can do.
Comment by Levois Tuesday, Apr 22, 08 @ 11:26 am
No. Should we send a card somewhere?
Picked up trash on my road, same as every day.
Comment by North of I-80 Tuesday, Apr 22, 08 @ 11:37 am
Our college had an earth day celebration one year. Sen. Simon appeared at the festivities. I had an opportunity to shake his hand and talk to him for about five minutes. What a gracious guy. I think of that conversation every earth day.
Comment by Jake from Elwood Tuesday, Apr 22, 08 @ 11:49 am
It’s earth day today?
Comment by Agricola Puer Tuesday, Apr 22, 08 @ 11:50 am
Nope. I drive my Camry hybrid and use flourescent light bulbs, but today is no different than any other day.
Comment by Fan of the Game Tuesday, Apr 22, 08 @ 11:51 am
Usually on Earth day I invite everyone over for a backyard tire fire and let my 76 Grand Torino run in the drive way for 8 hours. Then I buy $400 worth of gasoline and throw it on wasp nests.
Comment by Speaking At Will Tuesday, Apr 22, 08 @ 11:55 am
On the first Earth Day, gas was 30 cents a gallon, who even knew what kind of mileage their cars got, glaciers were still glaciating, you could and probably did smoke anywhere you felt the urge to, the human population was about 3.7 billion compared to 6.4 billion today, white folks worried more about suntans than low-ozone sunburns: so yeah, Earth Day means something. It means the same as Christmas. That is, a day to remember “this” is all we have, and maybe living my own life more judiciously is better that ignoring it. Some things have changed for the better, some things have made it worse. But since we foul our own nest, we should be reminded to clean it up.
Comment by anon Tuesday, Apr 22, 08 @ 11:56 am
We used to pick litter off of the roadways to celebrate Earth Day. It was a lot of fun. We always enjoyed discovering discarded liquor bottles, beer cans and ephemera.
Today it seems that Earth Day has become a day where some folks one-up the other in some kind of self-righteous display of environmentalism. I liked it better when you proved your worth by getting dirty and doing something to help the environment. Not by buying ‘green’ items and wearing them around your neck like an icon. These people fool themselves and others.
Hybrid cars are not recyclable and flourescent light bulbs contain dangerous amounts of mercury. Every environmental ‘gimmick’ impacts Earth regardless of it’s popularity among supposed ‘Greens’.
Comment by VanillaMan Tuesday, Apr 22, 08 @ 12:08 pm
Rich, sorry if my last post offended you. I saw it in an earth day cartoon. I thought it was funny. My bad. Seriously, I drive a flex-fuel vehicle. I walk as much as possible. I recycle. I use flourescent bulbs. I was dishes by hand in two dishpans, refusing to run additional water or use a dishwasher. I discourage the use of paper plates. I have changed both toilets to 1.5 gallon models and I also bought a front loading washing machine and an energy efficient dryer. I have seen a huge reduction in water usage. I buy mostly organic, unprocessed foods. I THROW NOTHING OUT OF MY CAR! Earth Day is not limited to one day for me any more than Valentines Day or Mother’s Day.
Comment by Say WHAT? Tuesday, Apr 22, 08 @ 12:24 pm
Not really. Once something becomes institutionalized as a “day” I tend to fade out.
I leave a small carbon footprint. I ride the rails to work. Live in a small house. Enjoy a walk to the Kwikee Mart for a slushee. Fly only when I absolutely have to. One car, one TV, recycle. Enjoy the outdoors and camping. Spend less, consume less — simpler is better for peace of mind and the environment.
Beware of Green marketing, though. Believe me, it’s the biggest trend out there and it has very little to with environmentalism. Kind of like Al Gore flying in private jets around the world to warn of CO2 emissions….
Comment by wordslinger Tuesday, Apr 22, 08 @ 12:25 pm
“I fought for the poor people of Chicago, not the millionaires.
In the district bounded by 22nd Street, Chicago Avenue and Halsted live more than 250,000 persons, mostly poor….Here is park frontage on the lake, comparing favorably with the Bay of Naples, which city officials would crowd with buildings, transforming the breathing spot for the poor into a showground of the educated rich. I do not think it is right.
Perhaps I may yet see the public appreciate my efforts. But I doubt it.”
- Montgomery Ward, Chicago Tribune interview, 1909
I think that part of the reason that many people feel disconnected from Earth Day is that the environmental movement — at least as it is perceived through the media — has lost touch with the concerns of most people.
I’m all for the Arctic National Refuge, rain forests and humpback whales, don’t get me wrong.
But most Americans will never leave our country’s borders, never see the Grand Canyon, Yosemite or Yellowstone.
The motto of the environmental movement used to be “Think globally, act locally,” but there’s very little grassroots organizing going on when it comes to protecting drinking water, clean air or open spaces, and when there is it is usually short-lived around a single issue like BP Amoco, and then dies out.
We need movement-building, and that requires organizing people around local issues, and then building sustainable leadership from the grassroots up, along with a broader vision that can tie people in their various silos together and help them understand that they all have something in common.
My friend’s fight for open space in her neighborhood is my fight. The fight of strangers in Pilsen for clean air in their neighborhood is my fight. Etc, etc., etc.
BTW, just because I know it ticks them off, here’s another great quote from the environmental movement’s Sell-Out-Of-The-Year, Lois Wille, who recently announced her support for building a Children’s Museum in Grant Park:
“In the last 50 years there have been disastrous developments that severely damaged the park system. Every one of them was the result of government action. It wasn’t big business and cold commerce that robbed the people of their land, but the people’s government, acting in the name of expediency….The tragedy of the lakefront story is that each of these government moves could have been defeated by an alert, organized, tough-minded public….When citizens did organize and protest in strength, they succeeded….They forced the Park District to drop plans for a huge music bowl on the Grant Park lawns….That kind of forceful citizen action will be needed in the coming years to save the lakefront from a number of potentially catastrophic projects.”
Comment by Yellow Dog Democrat Tuesday, Apr 22, 08 @ 12:33 pm
No. It would be a lot more significant to me if I got the day off (with pay,of course)!
Comment by Bill Tuesday, Apr 22, 08 @ 12:37 pm
Sniffle…it did used to have meaning before it became the cause celebre for too many bored rich people. Soon we’ll be hearing about all types of fraud schemes promulgated under the guise of going green.
George Carlin said it best - “The planet has been here four and a half billion years. We’ve been here, what, a hundred thousand? Maybe two hundred thousand? And we’ve only been engaged in heavy industry for a little over two hundred years. Two hundred years versus four and a half billion. And we have the CONCEIT to think that somehow we’re a threat? That somehow we’re gonna put in jeopardy this beautiful little blue-green ball that’s just a-floatin’ around the sun?”
Comment by The Doc Tuesday, Apr 22, 08 @ 12:37 pm
I sit around with my family and get drunk on cheap beer and reminisce about the good ole times, you know, like before the Clean Air Act cost my brother-in-law his coal mining job and that damn owl took away my uncle’s logging job.
Comment by Huckleberry Tuesday, Apr 22, 08 @ 12:48 pm
Nothing man could do to destroy the earth comes close to what God promises to do to it in Revelation. However, the good book does not give man a mandate to speed up the process. Rather, we are encouraged to be good stewards of the space we occupy, and leave things a little better for those who follow us.
Comment by Six Degrees of Separation Tuesday, Apr 22, 08 @ 1:02 pm
- VanillaMan - Tuesday, Apr 22, 08 @ 12:08 pm:
Hybrid cars are not recyclable and flourescent light bulbs contain dangerous amounts of mercury.
————————————————–
Exactly. I drive a hybrid because it gets better gas mileage. I use flourescent bulbs because they last longer and pay for themselves. It’s about economy, not environment.
Comment by Fan of the Game Tuesday, Apr 22, 08 @ 1:23 pm
WHEW==I thought 6 degrees was going to go James Watt on us.
While we have controlled the most visible signs of our pollution (rivers on fire, toxic waste dumps, acid rain), it is harder to rally people about other, vital issues (ozone, endangered species).
What is visible on I-55 near the Gateway Arch is a monument to America: a huge vertical landfill which now dwarfs the Cahokia Mounds native American historic site. I used to get angry about it, but now I want them to build it as big as they can so future generations can wonder what the heck it was!
Comment by Trapped In The Metro East Tuesday, Apr 22, 08 @ 1:30 pm
Yellow Dog, you’re right about Lois Wille. I was astounded when the museum people trotted her out. All those years of self-righteousness — does Pulitzer have a category for sell out?
Comment by wordslinger Tuesday, Apr 22, 08 @ 1:45 pm
some day we may even provide the earth a whole month
Comment by Ghost Tuesday, Apr 22, 08 @ 3:38 pm
Metro-
Watt, Me Worry?
Comment by Six Degrees of Separation Tuesday, Apr 22, 08 @ 3:49 pm
Rev. 16:2 So the first angel went and poured out his bowl on the earth; and it became a loathsome and malignant sore on the people who had the mark of the beast and who worshiped his image.
A little worse than those lead-paint toys China sent us.
16:3 The second angel poured out his bowl into the sea, and it became blood like that of a dead man; and every living thing in the sea died.
Makes the BP Whiting refinery expansion seem a little less threatening.
16:4 Then the third angel poured out his bowl into the rivers and the springs of waters; and they became blood.
And you thought the Ship and San canal was bad!
Comment by Six Degrees of Separation Tuesday, Apr 22, 08 @ 3:59 pm
- Fan of the Game - Tuesday, Apr 22, 08 @ 1:23 pm:
“Exactly. I drive a hybrid because it gets better gas mileage. I use flourescent bulbs because they last longer and pay for themselves. It’s about economy, not environment.”
Good point. High energy prices are creating new conservationists and environmentalists. Everyone benefits from smarter energy consumption regardless of their views on global warming.
The oil crisis of the 70s should have been a wake up call for promoting conservation and alternative energy. Hopefully the high prices today lead to a more concerted effort.
That being said I think our ethanol program is part of the problem. Ethanol produced from corn takes almost the same amount of energy from petroleum to produce as we get out of it, doing little if anything to reduce our reliance on oil. It helps raise food prices and has led to deforestation in order to grow more crops.
Comment by Independent Tuesday, Apr 22, 08 @ 6:01 pm
Indy 6:01:
And, ethanol is not such an economic bargain using today’s production technology - especially if the incentives are removed. THAT, as well as anything, makes it a less attractive “green” choice than the above-mentioned energy efficient cars and light bulbs, where saving “green” and being “green” are one and the same.
Comment by Six Degrees of Separation Tuesday, Apr 22, 08 @ 8:28 pm
The Doc,
It’s not the planet we have to worry about…it will go on with or without us.
The question is whether we and other plant and animal species can adapt and survive in far more rapidly changing conditions than in the past?
The Earth’s atmosphere is proportionally as thick as the skin of an inflated ballon. In other words, there’s really not much air compared to the size of the Earth. Air also changes temperature far more quickly than land or water and it’s heated first by green house gases resonating with sunlight.
It would really help if people learned more science in school, so they could better analyze competing claims.
Comment by Anonymous Wednesday, Apr 23, 08 @ 8:31 am
VanMan, the amount of mercury in a CFL is less than the amount involved in the manufacture of a regular incandescent. Just save them up for your county’s collection day (if your county is not doing this now, IMO it will by the time your bulbs wear out).
~Enviro Woman
Comment by yinn Wednesday, Apr 23, 08 @ 8:41 am