Making a Difference for Earth Day 2014

Every year I ask myself, will this be the year that everyone on the planet will care to make a difference and do everything they can to help our environment? Will this be the year that certain government parties will stop fighting other government parties over green energy and denying that global warming exists – even though there’s overwhelming scientific evidence to support it? While wrapped up in our political affiliations we seem to disregard the fact that global warming isn’t a democratic or republican issue it’s a human issue. Will this year be the year you make Earth Day mean something more?

Earth Day is more than just one day – every day should be Earth Day. What’s sad is that many people aren’t aware that Earth Day is April 22 or simply aren’t acknowledging it or doing anything different even though they know. If it were up to me, I would make recycling a universal law. Of course that’s a difficult and unrealistic task. But how about starting simple by banning plastic bags everywhere in the US? How difficult could that really be? Europeans dropped plastic bags long ago. So the question I ask myself is why are we Americans addicted to plastic? From plastic bags, to plastic bottles to pretty much anything disposal. Why does it seem that so many people just don’t care? Does there need to be an impetus to spark change among us to truly understand why it’s important to be more conscious of our environment?

If so, I think the Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch – a swirling sea of plastic bags, bottles and debris collected by ocean currents that span hundreds of miles across the North Pacific Ocean – would make you think twice about using plastic. You might want to Google it to really understand how plastic is polluting our environment. Once you see the Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch, you might think differently about using plastic especially since it’s not biodegradable – so it will just float there forever. Besides producing an island of trash in our big blue ocean, plastic is also responsible for threatening marine life and birds. The number that dies from plastic entanglement and consumption every year is astonishing.

According to 2013 findings by the American Chemical Society, the amount of plastic produced has increased a stunning 500 percent in the last 30 years, and plastics are now responsible for 80 to 90 percent of ocean pollution.

Besides ending our addition to plastic, we can also reduce our environmental footprint and make our homes more environmentally friendly at the same time by using energy efficient appliances and changing the light bulbs in our homes to energy-saving bulbs such as CFLs and LEDs, which provide an energy savings of 75 to 80 percent. Other ways to reduce our footprint and conserve is by keeping our heat a bit lower in the winter and by not using our air conditioners as often in the summer. Also buying fewer soft drinks and bottled water. Did you know that producing water bottles for US consumption alone for one year requires the equivalent of more than 17 million barrels of oil? And bottling that water produces more than 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide and it takes 3 liters of water to produce 1 liter of bottled water?

There are many simple ways to lessen our carbon footprint all you have to do is start by taking a step. When you think about it, is it really that difficult to take your reusable tote bags when you go food shopping or carry a reusable water bottle or coffee mug? It may seem like a small step and that it really doesn’t make a difference, but every little bit does.

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