Earth Day 07

Each and every year, around the world, 22 April marks Earth Day. It is a day to inspire environmental awareness and appreciation. According to Santa Barbara, California Community Environmental Council:

The story goes that Earth Day was conceived by Senator Gaylord Nelson after a trip he took to Santa Barbara right after that horrific oil spill off our coast in 1969. He was so outraged by what he saw that he went back to Washington and passed a bill designating April 22 as a national day to celebrate the earth.

The first Earth Day was celebrated in 1970 by 20 million participants.

We, as human beings, may be the greatest specie to have roamed on this earth but let us not forget that we are nothing without this earth. The pressures to live a more glamorous life, buy expensive things, have large houses, drive sexier cars, and whatnot, leave us completely wrapped up in our day-to-day goings and unaware of the damage we are doing to the Earth and indirectly to ourselves, our children, and future generations.

I know, I know. I bet you're thinking, "Yeah, great! I cannot afford to buy an electric car. I don't have time to go plant a damn tree. And, after this winter, like hell I'm giving up my snow blower"? I'm not asking any for any of these things because I feel the same. What I am asking for are small changes.

In Elizabeth Rogers' The Green Book, she writes about "little things that make a big difference" in changing the environment. One of those simple things you can do is to reduce your use of paper napkins to just one a day. "Napkins make a huge difference. We use 2 200 of them a year, per person on average. Six a day. So if we all gave up one napkin a day, we could save a billion pounds of paper waste … from going to landfills a year." She also says, "If everyone left their receipts in the machine, it would save a roll of paper more than 2 billion feet long—enough to circle the equator more than 15 times."

There are so many things that we can do to save energy as well as money. Friday, on the Oprah Winfrey Show, Simran Sethi presented several money-saving/energy-saving options we can switch in the house. Simran explained that most people don't know that plugged-in appliances and electronics use energy even if they're turned off. "We're spending all this money to power things that are in the off position," she says. "We call it vampire standby power." To cut your electricity costs, Simran suggests plugging in your electronics to the Smart Power Strip, which retails for 32.95USD. Then, when you turn off the power strip, all the items plugged into it will also power down. She says, "I love this thing."

[And I love you, Simran. This woman completely blows me away and I have so much respect for her and her work. Simran Sethi is an award-winning journalist who produced and anchored the news for MTV Asia, co-created the MTV India news division, and developed programming for the BBC and Doordarshan through her independent production company SHE TV. She hosted Ethical Markets and is a contributing author of the book Ethical Markets: Growing the Green Economy. She is currently the host of TreeHugger News. Love 'er.]

To celebrate Earth Day, I hope you'll all try to make some small changes in your daily habits. Here are ten ways www.earthday.ca recommends to help the environment:

1. Park It: Leave your car at home for a day (or a week or a month) and try walking or biking. If work is too far away to walk, take public transit or carpool.
   One city bus eliminates the emissions of 40 cars.
2. Shut Down: Turn off the lights, the computer and the TV when they are not in use.
   Using only highly efficient and money saving appliances can reduce the electricity consumption of an average household to one tenth of the US average.
3. Where's The Beef At?: Try eating meat-free at least one day a week.
   A meat-based diet requires seven times more land than a plant-based diet. Livestock production is responsible for more climate change gasses than all the motor vehicles in the world.
4. Eat It: Choose foods produced organically, locally and in season.
   Support your regional farmers & farming industry: buying locally and in season is better for the environment than buying foods that have been shipped hundreds of kilometers to your local market.
5. Let It Rot: Put a composter in your backyard or use your green bin to reduce household waste.
   Composting organics has two key benefits: it reduces the amount of waste going to landfills and when added to your garden, helps nourish soil and plants.
6. Don't Be Idle: Turn off your car's engine if stopped for more than 10 seconds.
   If every driver of a light duty vehicle avoided idling by five minutes a day, collectively, we would save 1.8 million litres of fuel per day, almost 4500 tonnes of GHG emissions, and $1.7 million in fuel costs each day (assuming fuel costs are $0.95/L).
7. Keep Your Eye on the Temp: Set your thermostat above room temperature in the summer and below room temperature in the winter.
   For each degree you adjust, you can save five per cent on your utility bill and one per cent on your energy use.
8. Brighter Ideas: Replace incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs).
   A CFL uses only 25 per cent as much energy as an incandescent bulb and lasts 10 times longer.
9. Don't Dump It: The simple act of recycling has more impact on the environment that the average Canadian thinks.
   The amount of wood and paper North Americans throw away each year is enough to heat five million homes for 200 years.
10. Tell Someone: This is a great opportunity to brag.
    Tell someone what you're doing to make the world a better place. Support the cause. Encourage them to get involved too!

Happy Earth Day!