Earth Day Thoughts

Hanh mitakuyapi. Yesterday was the official Earth Day here in the U.S.A. Here are some of my thoughts on it.

Every day is Earth Day, April 22 is simply a day set aside for official recognition of that fact. Why is every day Earth Day? Because we only get one earth to live on. If we humans foul this one up - and global warming says we are fast approaching the State of Fubar in this matter - we have no place to go. We are literally in a "save the game or die" situation.

I went to the local Earth Day Celebration (in Bismarck, ND) - all 4 hours of it out of the 24 hours that make up any day. There were demonstrations, a proclamation by the governor that we could all sign, and 4 talks. The 2 talks I went to were good; I learned things. This is how I judge the value of a presentation. There should have been at least 8 hours of "celebration" and many more talks.

The "celebration" had something like 20 booths. I noticed that the Sierra Club did not have a booth there. Neither did any of the major conservation organizations, such as Ducks Unlimited, which is headquartered at Bismarck, ND. I cannot help but wonder why not. Preservation and restoration of the potholes where ducks breed is excellent activity for helping our Holy Mother the Earth.

At one of the booths, there were trees being given away. We were offered a sheet with the names of 5 kinds of trees on it. The trees we were given were not labelled, so I have no idea what I got, other than that it was some member of the pine family. Had it been chokecherry, which is the ND State Tree, and holy to my People (the Lakota), I would have been happier, but I will find this tree a home and take care of it and pray that it grows. ND is high plains prairie, so trees are not common here, except along creek- and river-bottoms. This 'pine family' tree is not something we would expect to find growing in a river bottom, so now I have to do some homework to find out where best to put it. I find this lack of attention to detail bothering.

There was absolutely nothing about bale buildings or green roofs. I asked the state forester about green roofs, and he said he had heard of them, but didn't know anything about them or where to find information. Given that many square miles of the earth's surface are covered with blacktop, concrete, and buildings daily, thus taking out many square miles of plants that process carbon dioxide (CO2) out of the atmosphere and so reduce global warming, I believe he should have been knowledgeable about bale buildings and green roofs. Don't you?

I made some good contacts which will enable the organizations I head - one for-profit and one non-profit - to become greener than they already are (and have been for more than 30 years).

I pointed out to the people handing out CFL bulbs that incandescent bulbs are an excellent source of heat in our houses and businesses in the winter time, and that I have made sure that we burn incandescents in the winter to take advantage of this, while burning CFLs in the non-heating months when we don't need to heat. Tain't many such months in ND, but there are some. (They bulb-handers said they hadn't thought of making use of the heat from incandescent bulbs, but realized that this is a good idea..)

I visited at length with the man from Waste Management Corporation, and told him that they need to do more advertising, since I didn't know what to do with plastic bottles, there being no known place to take them for recycling here. I also told him that since we had lots of such bottles and didn't know what else to do with them, I had our people save them in bags and when it got cold in the fall, we fired up a hammermill shredder and shredded the bottles and made packing out of them. It's excellent packing. We continue to look for other uses for it. He liked that we do that, and said he will see about more advertising of the fact that WM takes plastic.

Since I am already greatly overloaded with work, networking is something I don't do tons of. "Should", but it takes time I don't have. Still - there was not one booth that talked about solar heating, alternative energy, insulation, or any other such subjects. This is a major failing in my view. Next year, my company will have a booth at the Earth Day celebration, we believe, and we will talk about solar heating (we make a passive solar heater which can also be used for passive solar cooling in some buildings), bale buildings, and green roofs.

I Sun Dance, and I am the woman who Dances The Four Winds, which is a prayer to heal the Sacred Hoop of the world. My question in this regard is, "What have you done today to help heal the Sacred Hoop, of which you, too, are a part?" Ask yourself this question daily and keep track of your answers. That is what Earth Day is about....