Green Christmas

I guess I HAVE to start thinking about Christmas, now that it's almost December and we've actually got snow on the ground and everything.

Sigh.

Okay, so here's the plan...

I'm going to pretend that not putting lights up on the house this year is an effort to be more environmentally conscious. That goes for the easy, re-usable gift bags instead of wrapping paper, too. And the baking of pumpkin bread instead of buying gifts for extended family members. I'm also going to pretend that it's that pesky "evil lead in plastic toys from China" thing that's fueling my boycott on plastic &/or noisy toys this year. Oh, and it's all about saving gas money - that's why we're not going to try to make it to both families on the same day this year. And my live tree instead of a plastic one this year? It's all about the environment.

Riiiiiiggggght.

See, I'm not lazy... or cheap... I'm just... green! :D

Could it Bee Any Worse?

There are a lot of folks out here in the country who keep bees. They jar and sell the honey and also have the added benefit of local bees to pollinate their gardens. I've actually thought about doing it myself. As insects go, I think bees are one of the coolest.

But now the bees are disappearing. Not just a few bees, but hundreds of thousands of them. A woman I was talking to last week mentioned that half her hive was gone. The bees just mysteriously left their hive and never came back.

The PBS wildlife-documentary series Nature premiered Sunday with Silence of the Bees. They emphasize this isn't just a local or isolated problem. It's happened in thirty-five states in the U.S. and has been documented in France, England, Spain, China and Australia as well.

While they're (hopefully) on their way to finding out the reason (possibly some sort of bee virus) and (cross your fingers!) a cure, the reality is, if they don't, the disappearance of the bees will affect three-quarters of the entire world's food crops. If that isn't environmental news to pay attention to, I don't know what is!

Yet there was more media and frenzy around bird flu (whatever happened to that?) and West Nile than I've heard about the disappearing bees--but this will have much more, far-reaching effects than those.

So where is the concern, where's the media attention? I hear it in environmental circles, but not so much in the mainstream media. In fact, I've actually heard it denied in the mainstream, downplayed and explained as a "cycle," a similar argument made about global warming as well.

Should we believe nothing is connected? That melting polar ice caps, California wildfires, and dying bees have nothing in common? Are we really so blind? How can we look around at the mounting evidence and keep denying our human part in it?

If nothing else, we need to pay attention to the message the bees are sending.

The natural balance of the world is out of whack.

Everything is connected, and even the smallest things matter.

Wouldn't it be strangely ironic if the demise of civilization came down to something as simple as the dying out of the honeybee?

It makes me wonder when the mainstream media will start paying this some real attention. When people start starving?

Maybe if we point out to them that Jessica Seinfeld's possible plagiarism is going to be proven completely irrelevent because, without bees to pollinate them, there won't be any vegetables or fruits for her or any other mother to puree and sneak into their kids' food--that is, if her husband's new Bee Movie and the message of the dying honeybees isn't finally taken to heart...

Think that might get their attention?

Perhaps we should point out to them that cartoon bees can't, in fact, pollinate flowers. We can't manufacture CGI bees to do the job, folks.

Or should we just start with this?

"Soylent Green is people!"

Blog Action Day: One More Way To Be Green

An ode to BLOG ACTION DAY:

(Sung to the tune of the "Green Acres" television theme)

Blog Action Day's the place for me!
Green living is the life for me!
Landfills - we have to stem the tide!
Let's make conservation acts worldwide!

Denial is where I'd rather stay!
I'm allergic to Blog Action Day!
I just adore not having a clue.
Earth, I love ya, but I want my Starbucks brew!

Al Gore!
No more!
Fresh Air!
I don't care!

This is our earth!
How much is it worth?

Green living we are there!

*****

Michael and I have always been environmentally conscious and conscienscious. We're Aquarians--apparently, its in our blood. Or, rather, our stars. We lay awake at night and dream together about living off-the-grid in a completely sustainable community somewhere in a very postmodern hippie-like existence. Of course, I want to have running water and electricity, still. I'm a spoiled sort of environmental activist that way.

And come to think of it... why can't we eat our cake and have it, too? Listen, humans aren't stupid, for the most part. There are ways to make it happen. Green building is possible. Green cars. Green EVERYTHING. I long for the day when I reach for a product and I don't have to wonder whether it was created with slave labor or may contain lead.

I'm know rather Al-Gore-ish when it comes to this: I want to live in a completely Green World, and this should be our number one priority above any other concern. Education, taxes, immigration, health care, sure, all important political issues--that completely disappear if we have no planet to live on in the first place!

Alarmist? Crazy? Noah building an ark perhaps?

Maybe.

I know there are folks out there with their heads stuck in the sand. Or, to be generous, they don't "believe" there's such a thing as, say, global warming. Welcome to the Flat Earth Society, would you like a cookie?

I don't understand how, as a nation, we can be so self-involved that we want to maintain the outrageous levels of denial we've managed to cultivate over the years. I don't know about you, but when someone says, "The sky is falling!" I look up. Perhaps the sky isn't falling. That's certainly a possibility. But maybe... just maybe... the sky is falling.

Wouldn't it be better to be safe, than sorry, as my grandmother always used to say?

Speaking of grandmothers, we can take a lesson from the indigineous peoples that lived here long before Columbus "discovered" this land and proved (yes, he did, Flat Earth folks... it really happened...) that the earth was, indeed, rather roundish. They had a custom they called "seven generations." Any time a decision was made that would impact the environment (and what decision do we ever make that doesn't impact our environment, I would argue!?) they would take into consideration the impact it would have for seven generations--both forward and behind. In other worlds, they asked themselves, how will this effect my grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren? And... What Would the Ancestors Do? (WWAD?)

It's not a bad policy. Think we can make it global?

Since we moved from the suburbs, I've been even more aware of our environment. Everything is so much more in-your-face when it comes to daily existence. You have to plan and think about rubbish pickup, for example, and have a limit on the amount of garbage they're willing to pick up. You actually count your bags of garbage. We take our recycled items to a center.

Whether you "believe" in global warming or not, conservation in and of itself is really a "better safe than sorry" proposition. It just makes common sense. Tell me, why wouldn't you conserve? I'd love to hear a really good reason.

Because you're lazy? Because it's too hard? *whine* Because you're too apathetic and what difference does it really make, anyway?

The reality is that we don't know what kind of impact we're going to have on future generations. But what it comes down to is this: do you care about what will happen on this planet after you're gone? If you do, then you can't do anything but try to be as much a conservationist as you can manage.

And (I'm so weird like this!) I'm always so excited when I find one more way I may possibly be able to impact the future--one more way to be green.

So when I ask: what are you doing to make your life more "green?" I really do want to know! The more ideas we share, the better. Because every little bit counts. Yes, it really does.

Here's a list of what we do:

**We consume as much local and organic food as possible

**We recycle and avoid buying things in non-recyclable packaging

**We don't use incandescent lightbulbs (and we recycle the energy saving ones we do use!)

**We conserve water

**We use rechargeable batteries

**We donate our old glasses and cell phones, recycle car batteries, etc.

**I use cloth menstrual pads

**We use cloth napkins

**We use cloth grocery bags

**I don't use toxic cleaners or herbicides (vinegar is a great cleaner, and it makes the house smell like Easter eggs!)

**We compost

**We're planning on installing solar panels next year

**We live as unplugged as we can

**We plant trees with the kids every year

**We refill printer cartridges

**We use energy efficient appliances

**We replace our heating/cooling filters every year

**We take community showers :)

**We hardly ever fly

**We freecycle and cheapcycle and hardly ever buy anything new, from cars to clothes

**We BookMooch

**We're working on the eating less meat thing :x (Michael isn't thrilled about that part.)

**Before we moved, Michael was carpooling, but now it's only six miles to work. Maybe some day he'll ride his bike ;) I'm pulling for telecommuting!

We've also signed hundreds of petitions, written lots of letters to Congress, belong to several conservation groups, etc...

So tell me... what do YOU do? I really want to know!

* * * * *

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