In this post, I am participating in the Silicon Valley Moms Blog book club. We read National Geographic's "Green Guide for Families: The Complete Reference for Eco-friendly Parents." Our book club does not do book reviews but, rather, enjoys books as a springboard for blogging topics. This is my tribute to Earth Day on April 22.
Around here, Earth Day is a pretty big deal, mostly because of Petunia. Since around age 3, she has been an environmental activist versed in earth-friendliness well beyond her years. I blame Scholastic for this, as I ordered some books on the topic of Earth Day with the preschool book order her first year, and, ever since, they've been among our favorites: books like The Lorax by Dr. Seuss, The Magic School Bus and the Climate Challenge, the Little Critter series' "It's Earth Day" by Mercer Mayer, and MathStart's Earth Day -- Hooray! (and many, many more -- I'm a bookaholic!).
Since my mother was once arrested for environmental activism (I was a teenager at the time), I guess I can also say that the apple didn't fall far from the tree; I've always been eco-conscious, too, and sought to instill in my children some basic good, green habits: things like turning the water off when brushing their teeth, turning off lights, and re-wearing some clothes (like PJs and jeans) rather than launder things unnecessarily.
Petunia has increased our desire to live this way simply by her passion for it. Example: The girl refuses to use paper towels or hand dryers after washing her hands, and she can tell you exactly how many trees it takes to make a roll of paper towels and exactly how much energy a dryer uses -- and why dryers are no more environmental than towels. Instead, the girl asks that we wave our hands around or use our pants(!). I'm old school, and I view the wiping-dry process as part of the cleaning process, but I'm trying to acknowledge her efforts by giving her some "people towels" on Earth Day this year; they are personal, portable, reusable, organic cotton handtowels. I'm not sure she'll love the idea, though, because a) I bought something, which is not green, and b) they'll need to be washed sometimes, which is not green, and c) she likes making a statement about green-ness.
In any event, why, as a family, do we bother to think about these things?
We bother because our family is educated and does believe that global warming is a truth. (If you don't, please, go and join the "birthers" and other buffoons on someone else's blog. I can't handle ignorance of scientific fact.) We bother because we inherited an Earth dirtier than the one on which our parents were born. We bother because China and India won't bother anytime soon, and, even if we absolutely hate the weak-willed way America has been handling that global crisis, we acknowledge a need to do what we can to offset bigger polluters. That's why we bike and walk wherever we can as often as we can: to work, to school, to dinner in town; and the benefit of that beyond the "green" factor is our health.
And that, health, is why I bother a little more these days. This past year has revealed some significant, chronic health issues for me, specifically in my lungs. The genesis of these issues is still being investigated, but a number of factors are likely contributors: smoking households, growing up in a valley with air inversion, and exposure to toxins from coal and steel are all strong possibilities. I can't look backward, though, and get bitter about the places and way in which I grew up. But I can look forward and do a little more so that someone down the line might breathe a little easier, literally.
For me, looking forward means continuing to improve our household's eco-consciousness because we can always do better in that regard. But it also means taking on some bigger things. I'll be paying a little more attention to legislation surrounding Big Tobacco, and I'll also be paying attention to climate and energy legislation. I'll be researching Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s fight against mountain top coal removal, perhaps the worst environmental travesty ever in America and one to which President Obama has paid little attention. In general, I'll be asking a little more outloud why America is so coal-dependent. I may be West Virginian by birth, and I know coal is at the heart of the state's industry: but how many mining disasters do we have to see, how many people need to die of mining-related ailments and suffer lifelong debilitating health issues before we realize that there are other, better ways to fuel the state's economy (more training for a knowledge, not labor, economy, and nuclear energy are some examples).
And I'll do these things because I care about the Earth, but more because I care about its people. I never smoked so much as a puff of a cigarette in my life, yet I know what it feels like to be suffocating. And that feeling, rather than make me sad, empowers me to want to say: You do not have a right to smoke around me. You do not have a right to pollute my air or my water with your industrial waste. You do not have a right to rape the Earth by whatever means necessary to access a fossil fuel on which our dependency must wane.
To that end, every day has to be Earth Day, because shaking our heads and wondering about how change is going to come isn't going to make any kind of a difference. And I refuse to leave my kids with an Earth dirtier than the ones my parents left me.
*****
This post was inspired by National Geographic's Green Guide to Family Living. I was given a copy of the book for the purposes of inspiring the above post; I was not compensated in any other way nor required to write anything specific.
While participation in the Silicon Valley Moms Group Book Club specifically does not involve reviews, I always add a note regarding whether or not a book is worth reading or purchasing. In this case, my answer is: maybe. Since it's a "green" book, I don't think you should buy it; I think you should borrow mine or check it out of the library -- unless you're a family who really isn't green at all yet, and then it's probably good to have around as a constant reminder. I learned some new tips from it, like ways to encourage my Petunia to take meaningful action (letter-writing campaign opportunities, etc.), and it's always good to learn something new.
Happy reading, and happy Earth Day!
Recent Comments