Tuesday, April 22, 2014

earth day 2014


Following up on my last post...thank you all for the wonderful comments assuring me that the universe is not that mean. I don't really believe that my little bit of magical wishing was the cause of my fall. Or even the cause of the guy backing out of his contract even though I do believe that thought is energy and the more energy put into an idea the more likely it will become manifest. But I also don't believe in coincidence all that much either though that doesn't mean the two things are connected, but you have to admit it made a good little story.

Also, there are definitely baby wrens in the bird house. The parents have been calling loudly and flying back and forth with little tidbits in their beaks.


So, today is Earth Day, the day we think about, focus on, this beautiful blue marble spinning through space. Of course, every day should be Earth Day because we are not, on the whole, doing much to preserve it. Climate change is upon us most likely propelled by human activity.

It's getting extreme folks. Bigger fiercer storms, hotter dryer summers, colder wetter and prolonged winters. We poison the water, we poison the ground, we poison the air. We poison our food. We frack, crack, the very bones of the planet to extract it's marrow. The oceans are filled with trash. The oceans! In all those weeks of trying to find that missing plane, what they found instead were masses and masses of trash.

photo by Zak Noyle

My heart bleeds.

Now they want to geoengineer the atmosphere by releasing toxic metal oxides like aluminum into the stratosphere, if they aren't already, in an effort to combat climate change.

God forbid we should just alter our behavior. But we won't. We won't because human beings have the ability to adapt. While we are destroying a vibrant diverse ecosystem (we are currently in the middle of one of earth's great extinctions fueled by human activity) we are, at the same time, adapting to it as this new scenario of Easter Island suggests.

What a sad diminished future we face.

But change is still possible if we will just give up this notion that whatever we want is good, that we can do away with whatever bothers us to no ill effect.

The simple re-introduction of wolves into Yellowstone Park, for instance, completely changed a degraded and denuded ecosystem in just a few years into one that was healthy and thriving.


While most of us don't have the power to make big changes, we do have the power to make changes in our personal environment.

Refuse, reuse, repair, recycle.

Don't use poisons...herbicides and pesticides also kill the good things.

Grow a garden and support organic farmers.

Plant flowers, especially milkweed, for our butterflies and bees.

Don't kill something just because you can because that creature has an important job.

Provide a water source for birds.

Keep a bit of wild space if you can.

Go green.






12 comments:

  1. I try. Every day. I do try. And now I'm going to go hang my clothes on the line on this beautiful day.

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  2. i do try to compost what i can. i recycle plastics. i leave our place as natural as can be. we humans - greed and waste are our spin cycle.

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  3. Earth Day always makes me cringe- like Mother's Day - it is such a guilt fabrication.We can do all of these little things , living honestly and thoughtfully, but in the scope of things it matters not. We are just tidying up the aisles of the runaway train we are riding. I LOVE your yard, I hope that you get some of this rain during your summer months! It would be good to trade some sunshine for rain about now.

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  4. If Chernobyl taught us anything, it is that you really don't want to try fucking geoengineering the atmosphere.

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  5. I agree with you that everyday should be Earth Day....and for some it is. If there was a way to convince folks that it is "profitable" to be sustaining and green....but there seems to be a disconnect. Funny because, making your own soap and lotions and not polluting with chemicals is profitable to the user...it's called saving money. But...we are a globe of want everything, waste most everything,instead of the other way around waste not, want not.
    We just need to endeavor to persevere....keep on being the one and hope the many catch on.
    Fabulous looking "wild flowers". Happy Earth Day...it is because we care

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  6. I can't bear to think of the big picture I can't control, so I stick with the little picture I can. To the dismay of some, I move paper from the trash to the recycle, sitting right next to the trash. They just don't get it.

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  7. You're right, of course. I do think you're preaching to the choir but it never hurts to be reminded of how much we can do with so little.. and how much damage we can so easily do.

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  8. Today I picked up trash on my walk. Little vodka bottles and empty cigarette containers were the biggies.

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  9. So true, but I think those working so hard to put food on the table, pay for the babysitter, get the car repaired, do not have time or energy to realize this and they live lives of pollution.

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  10. Bravo! I can't go green on quite the same scale as you (since we have only a balcony) but one of my favorite things about our horseradish plant is all the bugs it gathers every year! (This year it is a bit too overrun with aphids, but oh well.) That photo of the surfer is shocking!

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  11. Amen from me too. I did my part the other day - I rescued a spider out of our tub. Of course it was right back in there the next day...

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I opened my big mouth, now it's your turn.