It’s Earth Day and another time to remind ourselves about what we can do to be kinder to our environment. I actually asked my 8 year old about Earth Day and what suggestions he had in mind, to take care of our planet. He said: consume less, don’t throw bottlecaps and plastics in the wrong bin, recycle more. Pretty good answers! As for me, here’s my favorite thing to do: grow trees. I’ve done a bit of this as I live in the country (e.g. wooded area), and I’m pretty happy about how well my greening efforts have worked out around our house.
Other things we’ve done, you can read about here:
- Fuel Efficient Cars In Your Future? Watch For The MPG Illusion
- 10 Simple Ways To Save Money and the Environment
- See Our Lower Utility Bills! Save Money, Energy and Water With New Appliances
- Use Energy Star Appliances To Save On Utility Costs
If everyone did just a few of these things, our environment would likely be in better shape. Awareness is key!
There’s also something I’ve written on this topic, which you’ll find as a guest post over at the PerkStreet blog. I wrote it a while back, but I hoped to share a timeless message. It’s on how we can work to save money while saving the earth. I gave my response to the question: what is it that we can do to cut down on our carbon footprint while also being kind to our wallets?
Here’s a quick aside though: while you visit the PerkStreet blog, you may also want to check out what PerkStreet Financial is about. They’re an online bank that offers an online checking account with a twist: while they’re not an interest bearing account, they give you 2% cash back for the first 6 months of being a customer, then 1% cash back thereafter through their rewards debit card. You’re account is also FDIC protected and their ATM network is the largest one around that’s free of charges.
Created April 22, 2010. Updated April 22, 2012. Copyright © 2012 The Digerati Life. All Rights Reserved.
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
I try not to buy junk.
If your kids only have a few quality toys that they love, that helps the environment. If you get books at the library, that helps the environment. If you get clothes at the thrift shop, that helps the environment.
Also, I don’t think it hurts for people to get out and see the environment from time to time. I love cities. But you have to go hiking every now and again to fall in love with the mountains. And, if you fall in love with the mountains, you are going to care more about protecting the environment.
Rob
I print duplex. Not only is this environmentally friendly, but it’s just easier.
For my job, I support a document management system for a very large company. We encourage capturing of documents at the source whenever possible to avoid being printed. There are a lot of good reasons for this, including the environment. I didn’t actively seek out this work, but kind of fell into it a dozen years ago.
I planted a bed of flowers in the front of the yard.
I have adopted a “save the lettuce” policy. Akin to saving trees by not using excessive paper, my dedication to avoid salads results in fewer wasted green vegetables and a significant benefit to the environment.
Not sure I like your approach Mogden. You’ll be needing prescription meds if you don’t keep up with your health. 😉
I rarely drive. I hate driving so whenever possible I walk. (Seriously–my car is 17 years old and has less than 100k miles on it…) Good for my health–good for the environment! I try to recycle where I can (probably could do way more in this area) including buying semi-used off Craigslist or donating still usable stuff to Goodwill instead of throwing away. I’ve replaced my bulbs with CFLs (which are somewhat of a pain because they take so long to reach “full-strength”).
Choose not to have kids or adopt.
Paolo Coelho commented on Earth Day that we should really stop being so egoistical about it. The earth doesn’t need saving, WE DO.
That’s his opinion though. For my part, I plant trees in my yard because I like it. I like the shade it provides. And the benefit offshoot of helping the environment is nice too.
April 22 is Earth Day every year: we must protect our earth. As you can see, more and more visits from Providence has happened recently. Nature is punishing us, we must love our earth, the nature and our environment around us. You can plant more trees, avoid using plastic bags, do some recycling. Do not throw rubbish, do not waste water and power.
We’re definitely wrecking the Earth when mishaps like THIS happen. When most of us as consumers do the little, simple things to try to protect what we have, these big oil companies and rigs can set us back significantly in just a few short days or weeks by simply having a nasty accident.
I always cringe whenever I catch wind of news on oil spills. I find it devastating. What kind of precautions are made to avoid major accidents like oil spills and mining blasts and factory explosions? They don’t just end up wasting human lives but also create some extremely serious consequences to the environment.
In my opinion, forest preservation is the first priority. I know that we need wood in our daily life and a great number of industries need it as a source of materials as well. That’s why there’s a lot of illegal logging in tropical countries such as Indonesia. Our governments should enact strict rules to protect the forests.
Planting trees would be a great solution to help save our Earth.
As great an idea as Earth day is, I think that for the most part, it’s a lost cause. We’ve really done a good job of destroying everything and I don’t think we’ll be able to drum up a reliable and good replacement for our fuel. Most likely, we’ll run our fuel sources dry and go through a second renaissance.
@WP Bonds,
I agree with you, I think we’re about due for a reboot (as tough or ominous as that may sound).
We reuse the water from bathing to fill the toilet tank every time we flush. We hang our clothes to dry so we don’t have to use the dryer.I wash clothes I try to do it during none peak electric hours. I use less electric with the hubby and child not home, so the lights are not in use. We try to bundle our errands to we don’t have to use a lot of gas. We take our reuseable bags with us to the grocery store or any store so we don’t bring home plastic bags, but we do reuse the plastic bags we do have. I try to get clothes and some toys from garage sales and then after we are done with them pass them on to the teachers at school or the school nurse.
Maybe the bankruptcy attorneys have changed a bit since 2010. People and their problems will come and go, but the earth will remain (if we don’t screw it up). And even if you care nothing about the planet, everyone should care about poisoning kids and the poor people around the world who have to deal with our waste. Google “guiyu, china” and see what we do to others.
People often mistake that earth day is similar to all other holidays which isn’t correct though. Sometimes people also celebrate Earth day with such disturbing items, which is very sad! In fact, Earth Day is a great day to remind ourselves of our collective home and that we need to take responsibility for it. Kids can spot irony a mile away.