That's right! ME!
It will be at CU in Boulder at 7pm tonight. If you're interested, you should go! And look for me! I'll be the one with the crazy look in her eye because I'll be out of the house without children!
So yeah, you should go. Maybe we can all learn a little something more to help us reduce our impacts on the environment. That's my plan, at any rate.
On a related - yet separate - note, I just weighed our week's worth of trash today and we came up at 15 lbs for our family of five. Unlike Julie, though, I didn't weigh our recycling. It's compost week over here, so the recycling is half in and half out of the house. Next week, maybe I'll have a look at that weight as well. We're cutting down and cutting back partly due to the economy and partly due to my environmentalism. It's really nice to look back and realize that by baking my own bread since February, I've kept ~96 plastic bread bags out of the trash (~40 English muffin bags and another ~40 bagel bags as well). Although we would have put cat littler into them before tossing them anyway, not using them in the first place is even better. We still have plenty of cereal, cat litter, oatmeal and assorted other plastic bags to use instead.
When you think about the fact that every single one of the plastic items ever created is still on this Earth, it makes my changes seem infinitesimally small in comparison. However, not trying to make a difference is not an option for me. We're poisoning ourselves, our oceans, our wildlife and our children.
We must step up and take responsibility for our actions, demand change from industry and our government and fix it before it's too late. Hopefully it isn't already.
For a detailed breakdown of the garbage patch, click this link to view the illustration by Heather Jones, from Plastic Oceans.
I'm not suggesting we all become pioneering monks. What I am suggesting is that there's a better way to live. That if we demanded stronger environmental protections of the government (Make those calls! Vote! Write those letters!) and demanded change from industry (Buy wisely! Vote with your dollars! Write those letters!), we'd see changes in packaging, new choices in the marketplace (e.g. the boom in organic food) and a reduction in pollution. Why am I responsible for disposing of all the plastic waste that every damned thing comes packaged in these days? Why isn't Industry responsible for their product from cradle to grave? Do we really need those crazy blister packs surrounding every small techie device made now?
There has to be another way.
We just have to look for it, demand it, strive for it.
So yeah. I'm going to the movies, but it's about a whole lot more than entertainment.
Updated to add: Believe it or not, after all the run up, we didn't get to see the movie. The projector at CU broke. We went all that way, waited around, at 7:35 pm they called it and said they'd refund our money. Now I have to wait until it comes out on DVD. If any of you get to see it, tell me how it was. I'm so bummed.
2 comments:
While I applaud you, do realize that a large part of the problem comes from the developing world as well. Here in Saudi, for example, they still have those styrofoam Big Mac containers the US got rid of 15+ years ago. Everything is simply thrown away, with almost no regard for recycling, the environment, or any needs past the moment. Consumerism at it's finest.
Can't wait to hear about the film and the crowd that had to be huge in Boulder!! You are going to share your experience with us, right? Regardless of the Consumerism in the developing countries of the world, and a 15 year lag time, we must start somewhere and we must start today! Your motivation is inspiring. Keep it up!
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