Today marks the 35th anniversary of Earth Day and events are being held across the
country and throughout the world this weekend to mark the occasion. The truth is that we have all
become earth advocates over the past 35 years and the first Earth Day was a milestone for much that has
changed the way we think about the earth and its resources.
If you have ever recycled glass, newspaper or aluminum cans you have been affected by Earth Day. If your
children have attended school in the past 30 years, they can name endangered animals and describe remote and
different habitats, thanks to Earth Day. Most people under 40 grew up knowing how and why to recycle/reuse
just about anything for art projects. If you spend leisure hours hiking or fishing or traveling in local and
national parks or near the streams, rivers and lakes in this country, your pleasure is
enhanced by knowing that clean air and clean water are precious and fragile resources.
The successes of the environmental movement should be credited for teaching us better daily habits. The
motto "reduce, reuse, recycle" still works. We form carpools for ourselves, not just our kids. We are
thoughtful consumers: we read and compare labels on our foods and our appliances. We try to remember to
take last week's grocery bags back to the store for this week's shopping. We reuse, sell or donate gently
used items that can be used again by others; we view things as less disposable, more reusable.
There is always more we can do to conserve limited resources, to live harmoniously on the land we love, and to
protect it for future generations. To understand the impact of our efforts to conserve resources, I pulled out
my calculator: if everyone getting this newsletter could use (and therefore buy 5-10%) less gasoline every week,
and had 4 friends do the same, our little 30 second vacation network would consume 1 million fewer gallons of gas
each year. You may be making a 50-100 gallon annual decrease
in your consumption, but together we start to make a big difference.
This would be a good time to pat yourself on the back for the many things you do every day to improve the environment.
Spend some time outside this weekend, hug your favorite tree, and celebrate the earth.
Best wishes!
