Earth Day 2022 theme is “Invest In Our Planet”.
But what can we as individuals do?
Greener energy like heat source pumps and solar panels, insulating our homes better, driving electric cars are all good ideas, but come at a cost that many people cannot afford. I’d use public transport more, but living in a rural location with no close bus route means I am forced into using my car.
So are there things that we can do without draining our bank accounts? Every little helps, and we all know by now that our planet Earth needs all the help it can get. I do my best, as I am sure many of us do, but I am still appalled by all the food wastage, the rubbish in our environment, the disposable society we have created during my lifetime, the number of cars on the roads, the pollution and the casual attitude of many. I’m not advocating gluing your face to a road or stopping people getting to work, but everyone can play a part in investing in our planet, after all it is the only home we are ever likely to have.
- Reduce waste
- Clean up our environment
- Change our diet – less meat, more plant based
- Plant a tree
- Grow wildflowers for pollinators
- Use reusable bags and packaging
- Switch to online billing
- Go organic / pesticide free gardening
- Grow your own fruit or/and veg
- Buy local
- Save water
- Use environmentally friendly cleaning products
- Recycle / reuse / repurpose
Cornwall in Colours 
Happy Earth Day! 🌍😊
Yes indeed Jude. I guess you’re knocking on an open door with those of us who enjoy your blog, but there’s always one thing we can add to our efforts. I have stuck to one of my pledges, and not bought any new clothes since before the pandemic, apart from underwear and footwear. I even got a charity shop dress yesterday to wear to my daughter’s wedding!
I rarely buy new clothes, I wear them to the ground! I was pleased to see that my grandson is buying from charity shops, some around the London area stock some very well known stuff.
I get very attached to clothes and wear them till they’re rags or I’m getting derrogatory comments from my husband- and often beyond that! Bravo on the frock, Margaret. I bet you looked great!
Trouble is, there are some seriously misguided moves when it comes to what is environmentally sound. There’s a bandwagon element whereby one thing suddenly becomes a “must” and we aren’t told, or nobody realises, the wider implications. For instance, I understand that the only country in the world that would be able to produce the quantity of heat source pumps required to hit the UK’s target alone is China, from a plant which belches enough into the atmosphere to undo all the good work. Second, with our own eyes we saw deforestation in Tanzania as natural forest was being ploughed up and replaced with sisal farming. The reason? Because world demand for sisal had rocketed to make “bags for life” for supermarkets. Bandwagon jumping and profit get in the way of joined up thinking, and people get duped by being told half a story.
Sigh… yes, I totally agree with you. We are only ever told half a story and when you think you are doing the right thing, it is horrifying to discover that actually you are not. Profiteering out of this disaster of our own making does not help.
I do try my best. I cannot afford an electric car, but I haven’t bought any new clothes since 2016. Like you, I have no alternative to using my car to get around, except when walking for pleasure, or going into Norwich for appointments at clinics or the hospital. I throw almost nothing away, and have a worldwide carbon footprint approaching zero. (Unlike the Royals and politicians) But I know younger people around here that have two foreign holidays a year, and three or more cars in a small family. Everyone thinks the old people are the problem, but I am certainly not.
Best wishes, Pete. x
You’re not wrong Pete. Having seen the congestion in and around Kingston with the amount of traffic on the road and many of them huge gas guzzlers, I can’t see the electric car solving all our problems for quite some time. And then there is the issue with batteries and the materials to make the batteries, not to mention charging points etc. etc. We can only do so much; what we need are leaders who can actual lead!
Throughout my life, I’ve found that a large number of owners/drivers of superfluously over-powered thus gas-guzzling vehicles consider their machines to be an extension of their phallic ego, and it terrifies them to even contemplate a world in which they cannot readily fuel that extension. And comparatively quiet electric cars are no substitute. I believe this to be true; it’s not solely meant to offend.
Frequently enough, I observe parked vehicles idling for many minutes, even in very warm weather. Sometimes I’ll also see the exhaust spewed by a vanity vehicle, a metallic beast with the signature superfluously very large body and wheels that don’t at all appear used for work or family transport.
They’re the same gratuitously huge monsters that when parked roadside hazardously block the view of short-car operators turning or crossing through stop-signed intersections; and they look and spew thick exhaust as though they might get about 25 gallons to the mile.
Inside each is the operator, typically staring down into their lap, probably their smartphones. I couldn’t help wondering whether they’re some of the people posting complaints onto various social media platforms about a possible gas tax/price increase, however comparatively small. Here in Canada, the carbon tax, though it’s more than recouped via government rebate (except for the high-incomed), induces much pastime complaining.
Meanwhile, mass addiction to fossil fuel products undoubtedly helps keep the average consumer quiet about the planet’s greatest polluter, lest they feel and/or be publicly deemed hypocritical.
Great advice. We can all do our bit.
In an interview with the online National Observer (posted Feb.12, 2019), linguist and media-analyst Noam Chomsky noted that while the mainstream news-media do publish stories about man-made global warming, “It’s as if … there’s a kind of a tunnel vision — the science reporters are occasionally saying ‘look, this is a catastrophe,’ but then the regular [non-environmental pro-fossil fuel] coverage simply disregards it.” …
And it’s not just Fox News but rather pretty much the entire mainstream news-media spectrum, including the ‘progressive’ New York Times, that are complicit — especially in regards to human-created climate change.
Every day of the year desperately needs to be World Earth Day — but a serious effort rather than just brief news-media tokenism. Clearly, too many mainstream-news-media CEOs and editors remain unfazed by manmade global warming and its resultant extreme weather events.
Particularly disturbing was an editorial a local newspaper (The Surrey Now-Leader) printed, headlined “Earth Day in need of a facelift”. It opined that “some people would argue that [the day of environmental action] … is an anachronism,” that it should instead be a day of recognizing what we’ve societally accomplished. “And while it [has] served us well … do we really need Earth Day anymore?”
Varied lengths of the same editorial, unfortunately, was also run by some sister newspapers, all owned by the same news-media mogul who also happens to be an aspiring oil refiner.
Until reading this, I had never heard anyone, let alone a mainstream news outlet, suggest we’re doing so well as to render Earth Day an unnecessary “anachronism”. Considering the sorry state of the planet’s natural environment, I still find it one of the most absurd and irresponsible acts of editorial journalism I’ve witnessed in my 35 years of news consumption.
Happy earth day to you too and good tips! The gateway photo brought back memories too as my late father lived at the next house up this lane on Trencrom Hill!
Great ideas in here Jude. Every day is Earth Day at my place 🙂
I’m sure it is BB.
Those gorgeous flowers and death defying roads which I am pleased to say I didn’t have to drive down. Locals always made us laugh how fast they zoomed around them. Here’s to us all doing our bit for our earth everyday and a good list to work on.
Locals terrify me on the narrow lanes! I always crawl round corners fully expecting a tractor or a haulage truck to be heading towards me!
There were a few times Les had to put two wheels up on the bank so a huge tractor could pass. Me, I closed my eyes and was thankful for car insurance 😉
A good job it wasn’t a Cornish hedge!
On the side of a bank I should’ve written 🙂
Every little bit helps. Now that I’m retired I have no need to buy new clothes and I’m gradually wearing out the ones I have. We have very little food waste and grow some of our own too, which is always a treat.
We can only do our bit, but sometimes even that feels pointless when you look at the world around us. It seems like a very wasteful society. I suppose being brought up by parents who lived through WW2 with rationing made me conscious of food waste, and a make do and mend mentality. I have always tried to use every scrap of food I buy and I never go shopping without a list of ingredients required for the week’s menu! 😄
But if we all do our little bit it’s got to be better than doing nothing.