Celebrate Earth Day with action
Celebrating Earth Day today might reward you with a sticker or even a steel water bottle, but the real impact will result from your decision to make small life changes that help us all live in a clean, healthy environment.
And then you’ll celebrate the rest of your life.
Forty years ago, Wisconsin Sen. Gaylord Nelson proposed the first national day for environmental action. His intention was to bring the issues to light and join those who fought for preservation of land and cleaner air and water.
In the 40 years since the first Earth Day, one thing has become increasingly clear: We all desire the improvement of our natural recreation spots, access to energy, food systems and business practices.
At Clean Wisconsin, we are fortunate to work daily on such tasks as protecting the Great Lakes from mercury contamination, reducing our energy bills, and providing jobs for Wisconsin citizens by making energy from biofuels and renewable resources. But we realize our world couldn’t operate if this were everyone’s job.
So what can you do as someone who isn’t a full-time environmentalist? There are many easy ways you can achieve big impacts for our environment that don’t require quitting your day job.
First, pick something you care about. Have no idea what your carbon footprint is but really like riding your bike? Make a goal to bike to work 3 days a week and encourage the construction of bike paths and lanes in your community.
Maybe you can’t live without your dryer but could do with no air conditioner. Do a little research on things such as energy-efficient light bulbs (CFLs) and low-flow showerheads. Finding the impacts of your lifestyle may result in the discovery of easy ways to cut back on energy use.
Also, keep in mind that participating in politics is not as scary or demanding as it may seem. Sending an e-mail or calling your legislator to express your support of clean energy does not require hours studying in the library and takes only a couple minutes of your time.
Finally, keep an eye out for other ways to make a difference once you’re settled in with your new eco-friendly habits. Setting the printers to a double-sided default or asking your friend to quit accepting all those plastic bags at the supermarket can save you money and help you sleep better.
In this spirit, we should all take the 40th anniversary of Earth Day this year as a type of New Year’s resolution. Today, pledge to make small changes in your life to benefit our environment.
Together, these changes will improve the health, happiness and the vitality of all of us in Wisconsin. We don’t all need to be full-time environmentalists, but we can all be green.
Jenny Lynes is communications assistant at Clean Wisconsin, the state’s largest environmental advocacy organization, founded on the first Earth Day in 1970. Readers can reach her by e-mail at commintern@cleanwisconsin.org or call (952) 210-7095.
Apr 27, 2010 at 8:35 a.m.
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I was going to encourage everyone I know to pray on our National Prayer Day that Earth Day be a huge success and that those of us in the world become more environmentally concerned - every day. But sadly, our National PRAYER Day has been banned by a misguided judge. So Earth Day is on its own......
Apr 23, 2010 at 7:13 p.m.
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Plant a tree. Clean up the garbage (and the 3 rusted out cars/farm implements/household items) sitting on your property. Remember the earth is the only home you have.
Apr 22, 2010 at 2:55 p.m.
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To me it's disappointing people don't do the simple things. Once you do these it's easy to look at some of the larger projects that can save you REAL money.
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