There she is. Isn't she beautiful? So big, so powerful, so full of life and so ready for humanity to take notice.
Look real close at this picture. Enlarge it if you like. Zoom in using whatever tools your technology allows. I promise you, you will not be able to see a human from this angle. We are that small. However, in a sick twist of fate, we are having an enormous affect on that beauty. We, in our masses, are changing the scope and landscape of our Mother Earth.
It is time to get real about the situation. It is time to STOP wondering after all of these natural disasters, Why is nature turning on US? and start figuring out How can WE stop ABUSING Nature.
Many of you are doing this already. Many recognize that every little thing each one of us does right is a step in the right direction, but tonight, there is a call to action for the MASSES. Tonight begins the 24 Hours of Reality:
Will you join me? It begins at 7PM Central Time there will be 24 different presenters in 13 different languages. Let's get real about this, let's not be victims of green washing anymore, let's heal our world together.
Sometimes when you read someone else's blog you are left saying, "Now there's someone who gets it." Such is the case for me when I read the blog of this week's Stumble Buddy, Brenna at Almost All The Truth.
If you just started following my writing since I've started the Rivera Runs Through It blog, then you may not be aware of my obsession with living a greener lifestyle, becoming a more conscious consumer, or, most notably, my obsession with good, natural foods.Brenna's blog, Almost All the Truth speaks to each one of these topics and more spreading an amazing amount of important information for all of us to stay attuned to every single day.
Most times when I write about a Stumble Buddy I say "You'll thank me," for this introduction once you start readng, while this remains to be true in the case of Almost All the Truth, it also goes one step further: I'll thank you for taking the time to think about those things that are truly important in our world. Brenna's got a lot to share with you: sje's going to make you think, she's going to make you question and, if we are all lucky, she'll get us to change for the better!
Here's a quick tour of Brenna's blog to give you a taste of what kinds of truth she has to offer:
That's just a bit of a teaser for you. There is so, so much more. Please take some time this week to check out Almost All the Truth and truly think about the words she offers us.
On December 26, 2010 we were hit with an amazing blizzard here in Staten Island. Snow came in from every direction. The winds howled, siding blew off my house, our cars were buried, the roads were blocked and my garbage was not picked up.
I understood, I mean New Jersey had declared a state of emergency, who was I to complain about garbage? It's just that it was the day after Christmas. Our trash cans were overflowing. There was wrapping paper, bows, boxes, discarded parts of assembly for Christmas toys, scraps of food from our feast, and all of the stuff from the preparation of that feast. There was no room for more garbage in any of our cans... and there was no talk of sanitation from the NYC officials as they worked overtime just to get emergency vehicles and mass transit back up and running.
I had to keep my trash. So did everyone else. And then we all kept adding to it.
I had already been thinking a lot about how to lead a less wasteful life, how to be kinder to my Mother Earth, but this situation made me realize how fast our trash builds up. I started to think about and learn new ways to slow this all down.
Here are some of the things we can all do to reduce our trash:
Composting. I started this in March when I challenged myself and others to "Do Something" for the entire moth of March thanks to "Do Something Day" March 4th. This is the easiest thing to do if you have a backyard, and is even possible if you live in an apartment (I was surprised by this!). Even if you don't want to keep your own compost, there are plenty of farmers' markets and community organizations looking for contributions of food scraps for their own compost heap - see if you can find one!
Donating. I actually have a pickup scheduled for tomorrow. This is just about the best feeling ever! Knowing that your stuff may get a second life with new owners? Awesome. Here in the US, I call the Salvation Army (1-800-SA-TRUCK) if I have a furniture donation and I go to www.vva.org if I have household items or clothing to donate.
Yard Sales. Yes, these are a big pain in the butt, however, you would be surprised how much of that stuff you were just going to throw away, someone else is willing to pay for! Reduce your prices as the day goes on, remember - you were going to throw this stuff away, so , really, who cares if you give it away by sundown??
Go Retro. Enough with these new-fangled cleaning items like the "Swiffer" or those handy-dandy "clorox wipes" - have you ever thought about how much extra trash that causes? Why not switch back to a mop that you can wash and reuse, and cleaning rags that have the same fabulous feature?!
Shopping & Packaging. First, let's think about food shopping: composting can take care of the food scraps, but what about packaging? Un-packaged food is better for you and the planet. I spend nearly all winter blogging about healthier food choices on the Searching for Sustenance blog. In terms of all of our shopping - what bags are we using, what packaging are we accepting from distributors, in short, how much trash are we actually paying for?
My husband and I talked about this after going on a mini shopping spree at some outlet stores. I asked him (as we were both bagged down with new purchases), "Now, really... how would this have gone differently if we had to keep our own trash?" We agreed we would have brought or bought reusable bags for the trip. We also said we would have made a stink in each of the stores about all of the labels all over the clothing and the use of plastic that had no chance of ever biodegrading.
And then I thought about it for a moment...
Why aren't we doing that?
Let's face it, we already all keep our own trash.It just might not be in our own backyard (YET).
Here's the deal - I grew up next to a full-blown New York City landfill. For a large part of my life I felt like my garbage was being stored in my backyard. Now I just feel horrible that it's being shipped off to someone else's! I've always heard of the three Rs: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle, but it is one thing to know it and to live it. Those three Rs are in exactly the right order of preference, so if you're doing them backwards (like I tend to do), then you've got it all wrong.
First Priority: Reduce
Second Priority: Reuse
And if you still have stuff left over after that, THEN
Third Priority: Recycle
If you need some more convincing, or if you think it's not that big of a deal until it is in your backyard, then I invite you to do two things:
There's not much more I can add to that. That's our Earth... we are already keeping our trash. Let's do something about it!
This post is written as part of the What IF? Project hosted right here on the Rivera Runs Through It Blog. Each week a new "What if?" question is presented, and, if we so choose, we respond to the query. (If you have a What IF? question you would like to submit as a possible future prompt, please do so in the Rivera Runs Through It Community What If discussion.) This week's "What if?" was What if you had to KEEP all of your own trash? Follow this LINK to see what others had to say.
This post is an invitation to you to think about the word in the middle of life: IF (L-IF-E). Each week the Rivera Runs Through It blog will present a different "What If...?" question for you to explore. Some will be serious, some will be silly, some might be political, religious or historical.
You can either write a response of your own, or just tune in to see what everyone else has to say about it. At the bottom of this post will be a place for you to link up your own post about the question, so feel free to share. If you have arrived at this post and the inlinkz tool is closed, or you don't have a blog, then please leave your response (or link) in the comment section below using DISQUS.
Thanks to our respective sanitation departments, most of us get to bundle up all of our trash, toss it on the curb, in a dumpster, or down a shoot and never, ever worry about it ever again. As a native Staten Islander, born in the seventies and child of eighties and nineties, I think it is safe to say that I had a little more exposure to trash than the average citizen. You see, I live less than one mile from the Fresh Kills Landfill (now closed, thankfully) which was, at one time, the primary resting space of New York City's trash and once even laid claim to the title of "largest landfill on Earth."
Trash builds up quickly. It smells. It's messy. It attracts all types of animals. It doesn't always break down as quickly as we would like...
So what if the nice men and women in the sanitation trucks never came? (I happened to be visiting Naples, Italy on my honeymoon in the midst of a sanitation strike, so some readers may have a real life experience with this to refer back to while writing this.)What if there was no landfill? What if society decided the only way to fairly deal with trash was to make each citizen responsible for their own? How long would it take before you were overcome with trash?
For readers without a blog of their own, I'd love to see your response here in the comments section. If you have a blog, use the in linkz tool below to write your post and link it up!
