It does make a difference

As we prepare for "Clean Beach" day, the world had it's clean volunteer action this past weekend. It's estimated 35 million volunteers went to their local forests, beaches, and parks to clean up what others have left behind. It's sad that one of the major factors contributing to the decline in our ecosystem is trash, junk, anything left behind by us.

The simplest thing to do is to clean up after ourselves. You would think with the national attention giving to losing: losing weight, de-hoarding, losing your self-respect on tv, that America would be foremost in losing the trashy lifestyle. Just cleaning up the cigarette butts, the empty fast food bags, candy wrappers, even tires would stop the killing of many species unseen in our soil and water.

I get pissed every time I see someone throw out a cigarette butt, gum, or any unwanted trash from their car as they're driving. I wonder what their home looks like? Cuz, they are dumping on the the big one--the one that means human survival.

September 22nd

The Active Transportation Alliance is sponsoring the annual "Car Free Day" this Wednesday, September 22nd. Please go here for more info and to sign up:

http://www.activetrans.org/carfree

Leaving a smaller carbon footprint is always a challenge, but hey this one day you participate could be the day you decide to get rid of your car....I'm trying to get to this point very soon.

What will it take?

There's always a disconnect when a natural disaster happens far from where you live. You empathize with the people involved and, typically, go about your normal routine. However, when that disaster hits close to home, you begin to question the safety of everything and everyone around you.

In less than two months, Enbridge Energy Partners have had 2 pipeline leaks in the Midwest: Michigan and now Illinois. The EPA ordered the pipeline shut down until the leak was contained. It's fortunate that a citizen noticed the water and alerted authorities. What would have happened if a huge crisis had developed? Would we have been prepared? Where are the regulations that ensure this doesn't happen?

Perhaps the word in question shouldn't be safety. Maybe we should ask ourselves about the fragility of our environment, fragility of the institutions meant to protect us, and the fragility of our lifestyles that show eminent change will happen either by goodwill or force.

What do we want?

We want clean air. We want the coal industry to stop polluting our streams. We want alternative energy resources. See, that's a nice chant for tomorrow night's coal ash hearings downtown at 5 p.m. (rally) at the Hilton Chicago, 720 S. Michigan Ave. You can even sign up to speak at the hearings at the following times: 10:00 a.m., 1 p.m., and 6:30 p.m.

Here's all the info:
http://action.sierraclub.org/site/PageNavigator/adv_bigpicture_coalash_resources?JServSessionIdr004=pm3uj9gp51.app220a

http://action.sierraclub.org/site/PageNavigator/adv_bigpicture_coalash_hearings

Hard choices

It was/is my intention to avoid driving at all costs. I'm trying to take public trans, walk, or bike to my destinations. Yet, this seems so hard to do. I know I can't or won't be perfect in my endeavors, but it seems that time is the main reason why I can't seem to be consistent in my intention.

By the time I get home from school, I'm exhausted or want to make sure I have enough time to eat, read, exercise, and relax before bed. I could of course exercise my way to my errands, but some of them require eight hands to carry everything. It sounds like I'm whining and making excuses.

I wish there was a support group for eco-addicts who can't stay on the program! How I envy those bike riders I pass in the morning. There is no easy answer......

Foraging

I'm truly amazed at the love from Mother Earth. Yesterday, while foraging for natural food in urban environments, it struck me that no matter how much glass, oil, smoke, or trash lay on the ground there will always be food.

We found the poor man's pepper, hackberrys, huckleberrys, yellow wood sorrel, wild apples, and other things I can't remember right now. In among the concrete, behind fences, and around dumpsters was food. We are never separate from life.

Our guide summed it up well: "We've been living inside our heads for too long, now it's time to live in the stream of sensation we call, life."

Don't drink the water

When we hear the phrase: "don't drink the water", we tend to think of countries that lack the United States level of clean water. For Americans, clean water is a given. Well, what we don't know is hurting us. It's been found that the coal plants have been contaminating our drinking water well above safe levels. At some coal plants, there isn't a federal requirement to report the items leaking into our water system.

Are you drinking arsenic or toxic metals? Find out:

http://action.sierraclub.org/site/PageNavigator/adv_bigpicture_coalash_resources?JServSessionIdr004=pm3uj9gp51.app220a