This is the second of two Earth Day posts.
I think Earth Day is a cool thing to celebrate. Way cooler than, say, National Jelly Bean Day, which is also today. Who thinks that’s a good idea???!!!
My first Earth Day post today was all sunshine, swans and squirrels, but earth day is about more than loving nature.
Earth Day reminds me that our world is fragile and needs care, and that I should be an agent for positive change.
This year’s focus for the Earth Day Network is ending plastic pollution. They have a great site; I learned a lot about the size of the problem. Here’s one example:
Scientists predict that if nothing changes in our plastic consumption habits, by 2050 there will be more plastic in the oceans than there are fish (by weight).
That’s bad. How to help:
- Reduce your consumption of plastics.
- Properly recycle the plastic you use.
- Remove plastic that is already in the environment.
If you’re interested, there are lots of great suggestions about how to do those three things in the Plastic Pollution Primer and Action Toolkit. The very first thing I’m going to do is to always, always, always use reusable bags when shopping. Easy-peasy! And I’ll be taking many other steps now that I’m aware of enormity of the plastic pollution problem, like finding products that aren’t in plastic bottles or containers.
Don’t get me wrong – Glover Gardens isn’t about lecturing, posturing or sanctimony, but I’m musing today about the delicate balance between the way humans use the earth and its resources versus the way the rest of our ecosystem partners function within it. And resolving to be more mindful and have a smaller footprint so that my future grandchildren can enjoy the world the way I do.
On a lighter note, I didn’t use the photo below in my earlier happy-happy Earth Day blog post because I thought there was a drone in the background, just above the bird and slightly to the right. It made me really grumpy for a few minutes – “really, a drone in my bird picture, for an Earth Day post??? – sheesh!!” – until I zoomed in as far as I could and realized that in addition to wings, it has a stinger. It’s some kind of nefarious flying insect, but definitely not a drone.
Once again, Happy Earth Day.
© 2018 Glover Gardens
Southern Recycling is located in Mid City. You bring your nicely organized recycling and they dump it in one pile which they take to a general landfill which is just what you think it is, an old fashioned dump. Life in NOLA.
The Grill-Meister and I were just talking about that kind of thing yesterday. There aren’t really adequate words.
I suppose I could tell you about the very far 9th Ward. There are two Superfund sites there. One has a fence around it and has never been remediated. The other has, but only four inches of dirt were removed. People live on top of it. They can not eat anything that grows on top of it. Many people have cancer who live there. When I photograph out there it smells like death. If I take people out there, they want to leave after about five minutes. It’s just evil.