Go Green or Go Home
Pictured: Dr. Pfister enjoys the great outdoors of Ohio in early Spring.
The next time you finish a beverage and are ready to toss the can or bottle, you are at a critical point of either the greening or browning of our precious Earth, depending on where that container ends up as it leaves your hand…
Sounds like a simple step, to rid yourself of this plastic or metal formed product, but your choice is partly dependent on how you grew up (city or rural), your feelings about Nature, and your ability to think beyond the present and what value you place on the quality of life for the next generation. Pretty heady right? “Hey man, it’s just an empty water bottle. No big deal!” No, I’m sorry, but that’s the feelings my parents had and how my parents raised me in Hinckley in the 70’s. There was no recycling and, believe it or not, no trash pick-up! Hello! We had party line telephones, septic systems, and well water. You had a burn barrel for combustibles and the rest you buried at the back of the farm. You stacked tires in the woods and you changed your oil on blocks in a field… the grass will grow around it, right?!
Thank goodness times and education have changed and Senator Gaylord Nelson came along.
Senator Nelson, having a strong vision of the future (with a healthy Earth being part of it), forced the issues of protecting our precious Earth to a national agenda by creating Earth Day on April 22, 1970. Earth Day went global in 1990 and last week’s 51st celebration was recognized by over one billion people worldwide, as this year’s theme of “Restore Our Earth” really drove home the various ways individuals can protect and conserve our environment.
This year. Earth Day was expanded from a single day to a three-day focus on various environmental topics. These three days were designed to educate and inspire us to revisit topics such as recycling, energy efficiency, conservation, climate change, and the greenhouse effect. Even more, we were left to reflect on the fact that Nature (and this precious but fragile planet of ours) is integral to our own good health; and the individual responsibility to protect and conserve Earth lies with each and every one of us.
To illuminate all the various approaches to conserve and protect the environment, I would love to see Earth Day become Earth Month.
As humans, we need constant reminding to stay on track and keep our goals in focus. Incidences like the Exxon Valdez oil spill have had severe, devastating local effects on the environment and wildlife. After the Exxon Valdez oil spill occurred in 1989, several species became extinct in the area… and others have slowly made a comeback (with significant environmentalist help).
But have a global nuclear disaster, as was Chernobyl on April 26, 1986 (when radioactivity was sent into the upper air currents), the catastrophic negative health affects spread around the world for years, with measurable radiation still detectable in the Ukraine area 34 years later, according to Greenpeace. This event was four days after that year’s Earth Day celebration!
The Three Mile Island nuclear incident was ten years before Chernobyl. We are such slow learners! To some degree, we have not taken energy education serious, but we love our cars, air conditioning, and lights.
Each of us needs to look in the mirror and say, “How can I reduce my carbon footprint and how can I live more clean and efficiently?”
We are seeing ads on TV for solar power panels to run businesses and homes. If you visit Wolf Brothers Supply, you drive in and past a field of southern exposed solar panels, producing the electricity to run their entire plant. Wind turbines, in the right setting, can produce significant amounts of electricity quite cheaply with no bi-products or disaster potential. All of us can begin using energy efficient light bulbs, turn lights off when leaving rooms, and use cooler water for cleaning and bathing. Personally, we use geothermal loops sunk in our lake for our heating and cooling and, with a chlorinator system, our lake water is used in our house for all our water needs. Yes, we use natural organic fertilizers on our property to protect the ground water and ourselves.
Another simple protection program is to evaluate the types of cleaning products you use around your house. Those with harsh and potentially toxic chemicals such as parabens, formaldehydes, and phosphates can easily be changed out for eco-sensitive natural substitutes like Melaleuca products. We recently made the switch to Melaleuca from a patient’s recommendation and, along with helping the environment, my family’s allergies, skin, and hair are all benefiting.
Natural substitutes are different from you what may be used to. You have to get used to not getting a large head of suds when washing hands and dishes, but everything gets clean. I was skeptical, but natural substitutes do work and, as a first step to helping our environment, it’s a great place to start.
No, I’m not walking to work and I’m not getting an electric car, but I think we can all make a huge difference by doing the little things, which leads me to my final topic on the matter - recycling!
Recycling is a great first step for an individual or family getting into conserving energy and protecting our Earth.
Europe is so far ahead of us when it comes to recycling, it’s not even funny. When I’ve traveled to England or Germany or even South Africa, everyone there recycles; and separation of products is a science in and of itself. Glass is separated by color and production, as are plastics and paper. Aluminum foil and metal containers are separated by types of metal. When you consider the amount of energy and materials that go into our various glass and metal containers, it is a total waste to have them end up in a landfill just because we didn’t want to take a few extra seconds to separate them from last night’s lasagna in the main trash container!
I’ll admit, it wasn’t until the last ten years of my life that I really took recycling seriously, both at home and in the office.
And I’m glad I did. Because future generations are depending on it.
How much is our childrens’ future worth? For them to be able to live in an environment that is as clean or cleaner than when we were growing up… without the threat of toxic wastes in our oceans or air - priceless comes to mind. And yet, it only requires us to rethink our old habits on throwing away trash, using pharmacologically generated products, and just giving a damn about the natural treasures and beauty that surround us every day.
So this weekend, I challenge you to take one small step if you haven’t already - begin recycling in your family with water bottles, milk cartons, and other recyclables. As others take your lead, you’ll see more people recycling on your street, the county, and so on until recycling and environmental protection becomes a way of life. It’s amazing how small steps can yield big results.
Reduce… Reuse… Recycle.
Make every day Earth Day!
- Dr. Pfister