Matt’s Cuppa

It’s April 23rd, 2008. Yesterday was Earth Day. I find myself wondering if the Earth is any different. I imagine that it’s sort of like having a birthday. The celebration and the attention are nice, but do I feel any different? No, not really.

I’m certainly not discounting any Earth-related accomplishments of the day. A quick search via Yahoo! News reveals a wide spectrum of Earth Day activities. But, now what? I think that it was on a bumper sticker that I saw the slogan, “Every day is Earth Day.” But, what does that mean?

I think that I saw the answer tonight. Near our house is a sunken drainage area that empties into a small pond. In the summer this sunken area is filled with tall grasses and reeds, but now it’s littered with trash that blew in over the winter months.

Most of that trash is gone now. It was picked up by a mother and her two small children who wandered back and forth dragging plastic garbage bags and laughing. Seeing this act of caring brought me more hope than any number of “Earth Day” events could.

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Look for Wildflowers, Track Climate Change : Planet Green

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Going Green — Small Steps Can Make a Big Difference in Your Health and Home

If you’re trying to go completely green or just make small green changes, sometimes it can feel a bit overwhelming. I know that when I started making changes it did, but I found breaking my “greening” into 3 distinct categories made a huge difference.

This really great article from the beYou.tv blog is a “quick start” guide to becoming more environmentally conscious. What I like about this particular article is that it gives us a structured answer to what can be a rather nebulous question: “Where do I begin going green?”

Be sure to check out some of the links, especially Earth911.org, which is an absolutely awesome site!

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Blue Planet: an underwater lake

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I spent a ton of time today watching video clips of the presidential candidates talking about global warming and energy policy. After watching this video of Hilary Clinton, an idea began to dawn on me. Maybe this whole climate change thing is the biggest opportunity that the human race has ever had. Could we possibly have a better excuse to turn our minds toward innovation than global warming?

Today, when we hear the word ‘innovation’ we think of big companies and people running around in white lab coats. While that sort of innovation is going to necessary, if we just let the big companies to all the innovating,
we’re letting them down. We’re not doing our part.

Listening to The World: Technology report today turned me on to the website Afrigadget.com, a site devoted to “solving everyday problems with African ingenuity.”
The site highlights ways in which regular people are innovating to solve their everyday problems. This is what I mean by doing our part. It’s identifying an everyday problem and solving it with the earth in mind. And then telling the world about it.

Now THAT’S innovation!

This article was originally posted on my blog at Greenopolis.com.

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League of Conservation Voters | The Heat Is On

At the end of her address, Clinton took questions from the audience and one of the questions was by a Grinnell College student who was concerned about the long-term effects of green house gases. Clinton made note that most of the questions she gets around the country about global warming come from college, high school, and middle school students that express concern about their future and the future of the planet.

It’s awesome that young people are up there asking the challenging questions when it comes to climate change. It won’t be all that long until we’re handing off this planet to them, and they have legitimate reasons to be concerned.

But why aren’t the rest of us asking those questions, too? Why aren’t reporters and talk show hosts asking these questions? And if we’re not asking the right questions, why aren’t the candidates talking more about our environment?

It’s pretty obvious that we need to make the shift from an industrial economy to an green energy economy. Some candidates have made mention of this already, but it’s not enough to wait until something good for the planet falls out of our politicians’ mouths and onto paper where it might be turned into law someday.

I’m beginning to think that we’re looking at the whole environment thing the wrong way. What we hear is nearly all negative. Which makes sense, since climate change is a huge problem. But it’s also a huge opportunity. We could very well be on the edge of the next wave of innovation. Remember how the the microprocessor literally changed the world? Could green energy be the next microprocessor? I believe that it could, if we shift our thinking from ‘problem’ to ‘opportunity’.

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Opinion Polls & Market Research

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The following plea was written by jujulaxgirl, a seventeen year old high school student and ‘citizen’ at Greenopolis.com.

 
We need to help this environment. We have one Earth there are no second
chances at this. The entire East Coast of The U.S. could be under water
if enough of the glaciers melt. People will have to move inland and
could cause even more damage to our economy. When you are voting this
year in November think about who is trying to make our country a
better place to live.

Thank you, jujulaxgirl, for reminding us that an important part of working for sustainability is taking part in the political process. It’s Super Tuesday. Do you know who your candidate is?

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GreenPrint - new free edition saves you money and saves the trees - Download Squad

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I am in the midst of reading the book Ethics for the New Millennium, a book by the Dalai Lama, which I highly recommend. In it, he talks about taking time each day to reflect on one thing we’ve done for someone in a spirit of compassion.

Following this line of thinking, I am challenging myself to come up with one thing each day that I’ve done for the environment. I’m certainly not talking about setting unrealistic expectations. However small our contribution to what is important to us, we have to begin someplace. So, every day, somehow, I will give something back.

My contribution today? Instead of running the dishwasher, we hand-washed our dishes and let them dry in the dishwasher racks. We saved water and electricity this way.

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