Earth Day

Today is Earth Day. I saw a video that highlighted an Earth Day celebration last year – could have been the previous year. People were partying at a park, listening to music, drinking whatever, eating, having a good time. Then the video showed the overflowing trash containers. When you go to a park, environmentalist or not, apparently you eat and drink in containers and don't recycle them.

So I was wondering how to spend this Earth Day. There is a movie coming out today from Disney called Earth. I don't know if watching the film is Earth friendly.

There is all of this talk about carbon footprints, a term we did not even use a decade ago. I remember hearing an article about an actress who took 3 minute showers and unplugged the power strip to her entertainment center. This was a well-known actress, and I was thinking "You live in a 10,000 square foot house and you talk about unplugging a power strip." It is about perspective, about making choices.

I understand this actress – she probably wants to feel like she is doing something good, so she takes three minute showers and unplugs a power chord.

While I am not going to downsize my house, I do look at ways to recycle. I read something that states that we should recycle about half of our trash. Well, I have been recycling like a mad woman, and my recycling is about at the 50% mark. Maybe a little less, but still more than I was doing 5 years ago.

I have a passion for a specific beverage – San Pellegrino-brand mineral water. This sparkling mineral water is bottled in Italy, so these bottles have to be sent over the Atlantic Ocean, placed on trucks, sent down an interstate, and arrive at the local supermarket. The carbon footprint for my bubble water is probably really large. I never really thought about it, but I was entertaining a friend who suggested that my drinking habit was not consistent with an environmental stance.

I still drink San Pellegrino-brand mineral water, but not daily or weekly. I drink it on occasion, but only on special occasions. I know it is a little thing, but it reduces my carbon footprint a little and it makes me feel better.

When I read about Earth Day, I sometimes think we are just deluding ourselves with some of the things we have been asked to do. Things that make us feel better but don't really change our environment. I helped clean up a patch of highway one time. I wore gloves and had one of this sticky-thingies, but the whole experience was completely gross. People are pigs, and I was cleaning up after the pigs.

I don't have an answer for Earth Day. I guess I should bid you to do a pointless thing today that makes you feel better about helping the environment. After all, isn't that the point of Earth Day? Oh, that, and profiting from the commercialization of environmentalism.