for those of you in my immediate surroundings, you'll know i've been getting more and more aware and active about environmental issues lately. i've even written a few times about it on my flickr and on the blog.
well, i feel like the momentum is building. two years ago, my new year's resolution was to start recycling. we lived in texas at the time and our apartment complex didn't offer recycling as a part of the regular trash pick up. so i did it. i got online, found out what the recycling center took and started sorting our garbage into various plastic bins and taking them bi-weekly, or when they were overflowing, whichever came first.
we noticed right away that we took out our regular garbage at least 50% less often than we had before the recycling started and we enjoyed that, plus it felt good to be doing something active for the environment.
around the time we started recycling, i saw cloth grocery bags at HEB for sale. i remembered how in germany, everyone uses cloth bags, or pays for the plastic ones at the grocery store. they are not free and you have to sack all the groceries yourself. anyhow, we got 2 cloth bags and started carting our groceries about in the cloth sacks to cut down on plastic bag consumption. plastic grocery bags are a really prolific source of land and ocean pollution and aren't really necessary for our lives. they are convenient, but at a cost.
this brings us to florida. since being here, we've been shocked at how little miami recycles, not just people, but actually what is accepted at the recycling center. they don't even take cereal boxes! or yogurt containers! i feel like there is still so much ignorance about the environment and the impact our trash has on our own future on this planet.
lately i just feel like i've been surrounded by environmental issues being discussed, explored and shared. it's been inspiring and motivational. first, i listened to the "god is green" series that rob bell's church did. it changed the way i think about driving, eating and all the choices i make when i buy things. then i heard barbara kingsolver give an interview about her new book, "animal, vegetable, miracle" where she writes about her family's experiences in living off of food that they grew themselves for 1 year. her stories were incredible and what impacted me most was her sharing that their number one surprise in doing it was an overwhelming sense of gratitude. that at first, they had feared for all the foods they would be missing out on, but in the end, they had a "what do we HAVE" attitude about their meals, and they felt such a gratitude for the daily provision.
last weekend russ and i went to celebrate our 3 year wedding anniversary in key west. as you'll see from our photos, we had a lot of fun. two of our adventures really stuck with me. first, we got to go snorkeling and kayaking with a group of guys that are environmentalists and ecologists. we learned so much about ocean life and the delicate ecosystems of the sea. we also learned how it is intricately woven into our own food chain and how drastically our choices affect us even one decade later, when we over-hunt certain animals or kill others.
second, we got to visit a sea turtle hospital, where volunteers rescue, rehabilitate and release sea turtles. all but 1 species of sea turtle (there are 7 total) are endangered and the other is threatened. most of the injuries we saw were related to trash in the ocean and the turtles eating other things than their intended food because the food just isn't there.
so.......
i think that there is a misguided sense of entitlement that most americans have... like that we own this place and we can do whatever we want with it. i believe that we are stewards of this earth, which is God's, much like we are stewards of our lives and our money and everything else. we do have free will, but choices have never been without consequences.
it's easy to think this is another nebulous global problem... like eradicating poverty or aids, in fact.. i thought this way for a long time. in reality, i've found it is our own indifference to the small, daily choices we make to not recycle, to not walk or bike to nearby destinations, to not demand electric cars from automakers, to not buy local produce... these choices all speak to a larger apathy in our culture.
we should set an example for other developing nations, not to do as we have done and toss plastics into land fills where they won't biodegrade anytime in this century. we should show them about re-use, about recycling. we should tell them that a recycling facility creates 8 times more jobs than a landfill. we should help them get reconnected with the earth, with the land. we should show them a greater respect for how the earth produces ALL the food we eat every day and ALL the water we drink. it just comes out of the soil, or out of rivers. it's amazing. and we are so disconnected from that. we leave our air-conditioned homes and run to our air-conditioned cars and drive to an air-conditioned store and buy any fruit and vegetables we want (do we know who grew them? where they're from? how the farmer and workers were paid? are they even in season? are they genetically modified?).
since we have the knowledge on these things, we should lead the way and i think we can. we can all make a difference in our own little ways and we can, together, bring about a shift in our culture. to save the planet and in the process, to save ourselves.
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if you made it through that diatribe, congrats. like i said, i don't know where all these thoughts and passions will take me. this may just be a hobby, a personal soapbox, or it may evolve into something else entirely. please let me know if you have any "green" questions that i might be able to answer. i'm still learning too, but i'm all about doing this together.
cheers everyone!
sam
