Earth Day (April 22, 2011)

What are you doing on Earth Day to better the planet?

Are you going to bike, carpool, or take public transportation to school/work instead of riding individually in a car? Take the stairs instead of the elevator? Recycle that bottle of water instead of leaving it by the curbside? Eat a plant-based diet to lower your carbon footprint?

What are you going to do to help the planet (and inadvertently help yourself) this Earth Day?

If you aren't sure what you're going to do yet, this thread is the place to start brainstorming ideas with others--I've already thrown out quite a few ideas that anyone could easily implement or expand upon and do for the day.

Stop thinking about yourself so much and start thinking about the Earth--It can't help itself!

i am celebrating bicycle day as i typically do every year. earth day usually is recovery day from that for me.

every day is earth day to me. my purpose is that of all of mankind - to be a good steward to life and all organisms on earth. i feel it is a trivial commodification to celebrate the natural harmony of mankind and the cosmos on a specific day, this should begin the moment one wakes every day. its like people who get real religious for christmas or easter but could give a damn the other 364. people used to ask me why i carry recyclables up 46 floors after lunch only to stick iti n my backpack to take home after work, that is, until they realized it was like asking Socrates for a discourse on the agora. i despise civilization for its schizophrenic split from universal harmony, and despise myself for having bought into its deception for over two decades of my life.

there is no greater place for a human being than among the infinite complexities of life, in the sun, to harvest the vibrational energies of one's surroundings. to not live this way is much like living one's whole life in a tin can. dont be a genre, live life as the universe intended. sometimes its hard to deal with the fact that i was born at least 15,000 years too late. celebrate earth day by guerrilla planting compost bombs filled with seeds in any vacant lot in your city. plant vines and other invasive plants along the sides of any building with a patch of grass. sneak into a dairy farm and video tape their practices and post it on youtube. celebrate earth day by destroying the forces in this world which seek to eradicate life.

addictivepersona said:

What are you doing on Earth Day to better the planet?

Are you going to bike, carpool, or take public transportation to school/work instead of riding individually in a car? Take the stairs instead of the elevator? Recycle that bottle of water instead of leaving it by the curbside? Eat a plant-based diet to lower your carbon footprint?

What are you going to do to help the planet (and inadvertently help yourself) this Earth Day?!

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I do all of that everyday anyway. Hopefully this thread will give me some further ideas (guerilla gardening in the city is a good one, thanks rm-rf). I'm not sure if I'll be doing anything too exciting for the cause on the 22nd as it's a work day, as is bicycle day this year unfortunately. I've taken 'cid and gone to work the next day before and it's not pretty...

I am participating in a protest against animal use in the cosmetics industry on the 23rd though! :D

^ +1

My school's having "Earth Week" this year and has won the award for most "participants" for three years now (in my area, of course). I'm planning (as long as it's not pouring / snowing) to ride my bike to and from school a couple days during that week. However, I currently try to cut down on resources I'm using by reusing the same containers (whether they are old coffee containers from other people in the house, or my own bought containers) over and over again until they break. Also, by making your own food from scratch, you really save on money and resources.

Currently, I make rice, barley, wheat berries, beans, peanut butter and have attempted to make bread on my own. I also hand wash and hang dry all of my clothing and bedding. I think, in the long run, it saves us money AND gives us the opportunity to connect with our natural surroundings more if we do things the old fashioned way.

Edit: I have been using the same water bottle for a year and a half now (20 oz. to bring to school in my backpack) and use an old 2 litre pop bottle (family drinks soda) and an old half gallon apple juice bottle for biking.

Long live the Earth.

Glad to hear that you three already partake in Earth Day activities each and every day! Maybe something in this thread will inspire someone to do something small, even if they don't post about it--Though hopefully they will!

I don't know what I'm doing for Earth Day as of yet, as I don't think I'm in good enough shape to make the 40ish mile round-trip bike ride to school. :-/

Simply_Live said:

Edit: I have been using the same water bottle for a year and a half now (20 oz. to bring to school in my backpack) and use an old 2 litre pop bottle (family drinks soda) and an old half gallon apple juice bottle for biking.

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Watch out for the BPA! Though it's all probably gone (and into your body) by now. :-/

Hopefully I'll have my brake levers installed by then, so I'll living practically car-free from then on. I can walk to the market and ride my bike to work, the bars, friend's houses, etc... Living in a large city really does cut down on your environmental impact.

I also wash my laundry by hand, maybe once a month, and air-dry it.

Living with no air-conditioner in the summer can suck in Baltimore, but it makes you enjoy the coming-fall/winter that much more.

I store all my water in a glass bottle (bought from Ikea) to prevent any plastics (both getting into my body, and being strewn around the earth).

addictivepersona said:

Glad to hear that you three already partake in Earth Day activities each and every day! Maybe something in this thread will inspire someone to do something small, even if they don't post about it--Though hopefully they will!

I don't know what I'm doing for Earth Day as of yet, as I don't think I'm in good enough shape to make the 40ish mile round-trip bike ride to school. :-/

Watch out for the BPA! Though it's all probably gone (and into your body) by now. :-/

Click to expand...

The tag said "BPA free". So there's none there, or in my body... Well... From that water bottle, at least. I can't be so sure about the average 2-liter soda bottle.

And Changed, isn't there any worry that the bottle will break if dropped? I know I've dropped my water bottles and thermos before.

In my early-morning haze last Saturday, I dropped the bottle from the fridge all the way to the floor (completely full of water), and it just bounced. I should have qualified my post: the glass bottle is a large one that stays at home, and serves as a vessel for all my drinking water, not a travel-bottle. I just drink tap water or water-fountains when I'm out and about...

^ That would hardly be enough to keep me going. I typically bring half a gallon of water with me to work on the days I'm on the floor. And that's for 4-6 hours at work. Eight hours? I go through almost a gallon of water.

Not sure what you're doing, but at work I'm constantly running and lifting for 10 hours... I drink water from those little cone cups whenever I feel the urge, and I haven't shriveled up yet.

^ It might just be the dryness of the store I work in.

I used to drink about 200 ounces of water from midnight to six when I did custodial work--Granted I was doing a lot of stimulants (mainly caffeine, coke, "coke" [mmcat, perhaps 8)]), but that couldn't have accounted for the majority of my intake, as on sedentary days I drink ~100oz. I don't know how you do it on such little water, Changed.

Here's what you could do, Changed, if you work on Earth Day: Take your own refillable cup to work instead of wasting all those paper cone cups.

^ She got you, man. Bring your awesome glass bottle to show off (not really) to your buddies there. It might help you drink a little more wah-wah, too. Precisely why I bring the half gallon bottle with me to work.

The paper cone cups are made of recycled material and are recycled... but if we're going to nitpick, I guess you're right. I don't own any 'on the go mugs' or shit like that, so I might just have to go without water for a day for the sake of the environment!

Bump!

What are you doing for Earth Day? Nothing?! Why? There are so many small things you can do to help the environment. For instance: Do you really need to use that napkin at dinner? Try going one day without using any paper towels/napkins.

If you are reading this, please respond with what you are doing for Earth Day, even if it's something as simple as making a conscious effort to use less toilet paper when wiping. If you're not doing anything for Earth Day, tell us why not.

^ I use my hand to wipe. I then proceed to lick the excess off and eat it for re-digestion.

In all seriousness, I'm going to not use lights on Earth Day. In fact, I think I might bike ride to work also, even though I'm working a late shift. Ohhhh, the types of things we can do for the Earth. Moreover, I'm gonna go the rest of this week with no junk food or foods processed heavily.

I placed my order for the inline brake levers, but they won't be here until after Earth Day. I guess I'll just make up for missing it by biking to work for the rest of the summer (save for rainy days).

Suggestion: go on a week-long raw (vegan) foods diet for Earth day.

At least superficially, it seems obvious that eating raw would save on the energy used to cook your food, but due to the fact that you're consuming slightly different foods than you would on a cooked diet, I'm not 100% certain.

Regardless of whether raw foods are a perfect exemplification of what it means to celebrate Earth day, I think it's an experience that everyone should have. Not that raw foods are necessarily the best long-term diet for everyone (I burn a ton of calories, so I personally benefit from cooked foods in tandem with lots of raw).

BUT, I and many others seem to agree that the raw foods diet is a powerful tool for awakening a mind-body connection on an entirely new level. You'll discover so much about how foods and food combinations work with your body, it's crazy. Some people even discover that they're allergic to foods that they've been poisoning themselves with their entire lives!

C'mon, I dare you.