We celebrate Earth Day every year on April 22. It is a day to demonstrate and promote environmental awareness. A day for all of us to take a look at what we are doing to protect the planet. In 2019 the theme is “Restore Our Earth”, which aims to draw attention to using innovative thinking that can restore the world’s ecosystems. (Earth Day 2021 | Restore Our Earth™ | EARTHDAY.ORG)
Protecting the earth and celebrating Earth Day can sometimes be cliché. We pick up trash or plant a tree, then we go back to using plastic bags, bottles, and guzzling gas and electricity. I thought I should try to understand climate change and how we can help. My son suggested I use NASA as a resource.
According to climate.nasa.gov, most climate scientists agree the main cause of the current global warming trend is human expansion of the “greenhouse effect.” The “greenhouse effect” is warming that results when the atmosphere traps heat radiating from Earth toward space. There are 4 gases that contribute to the “greenhouse effect”. Water vapor, nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide, and methane. They also say that there is a 95 percent probability that human activities over the past 50 years have warmed our planet.
Burning fossil fuels is the largest contributor to climate change. Fossil fuels are burned in the oil in our cars and trucks and in power stations burning coal, oil, and natural gas to generate electricity. Other contributors are clearing trees that absorb carbon dioxide and burning waste. When we burn garbage, it emits carbon dioxide plus other pollutants. Burning plastic is worse because it emits toxic smoke.
With a population of approximately 7 billion people on earth, more and more resources are being used.
The best way for citizens like us to do our part to slow down climate change is to limit waste and pollution and to limit our use of electricity and water. We need to do what we can to enable the Earth to continue supporting life.
One of my goals in sharing Living Marvelously is to create more beauty in this world. This is another way to do that.
35 Ways to Slow Down and Understand Climate Change
- Walk or ride your bike instead of driving your car
- Fill the dishwasher instead of washing it by hand. A full dishwasher can save 23 gallons of water for every 12-place set washed.
- Plant a vegetable garden
- Grow an indoor herb garden.
- Don’t be so quick to buy new technology unless you have a plan to recycle the old.
- Turn off the hot tub when not in use
- Donate to an environmental or conservation group
- Get a beehive
- Don’t wash your clothes after every wear. Spot clean when you can.
- Use your own reusable bags when shopping
- Recycle, recycle, recycle
- Air-dry your hair when you can
- Donate leftover paint to someone who can use it. Try to only buy what you will use.
- Eat more raw items to save energy from cooking or heating
- Use tap water instead of buying bottles of water
- Use rain barrels
- Throw on a sweater or warm socks instead of turning up the heat
- Unplug appliances when not in use
- Buy more kitchen towels instead of paper towels
- Purchase from the local farmers’ market
- Buy products with less packaging
- Before you throw anything away, ask yourself if you can reuse it or if someone else can
- Enroll in paperless billing
- Vote for representatives that care about the environment
- Use glass instead of plastic for storing food
- Plant a tree
- Pick up trash along the road
- Don’t let the water run while brushing your teeth
- Make double-sided copies
- Print and copy as little as possible at the office
- Don’t overwater lawns, they only need one inch of water a week
- Drive the speed limit to conserve gas
- Find an alternative to using plastic storage bags
- Take shorter showers
- One additional way to slow down climate change is to eat less red meat. This one surprised me, so I researched a little more. As it turns out, the cattle’s digestive system releases methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. If we give up beef once a week in favor of beans, over the course of a year, it is the equivalent of not burning 38 gallons of gas. If you would like to learn more about this, read this article.
Understanding climate change and the effects it has on the earth makes it easier to help where we can. It really does not matter whose fault it is that we are in this situation, but it is all of our responsibility to try to help it.
Let’s make the most of our lives by helping to create a sustainable earth. This helps us and future generations.
What will you do? Do you have other ideas?
“Be the change you wish to see in this world.” Gandhi
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