As the World Turns: Earth Day Celebrates 40th

With this issue we are celebrating the 40^th anniversary of Earth Day. We are surely dating ourselves, but Donna was in high school during the very first Earth Day Celebration (Bob in college). We helped organize a day-long event for our community. Hard to believe 40 years have gone by. Lots of questions to be asked: Have we made significant changes in those 40 years? Are we any closer to creating a more sustainable world? Do we use less natural resources, have we saved more forests? Is our water supply or air cleaner?

The answers to those questions range between a strong yes and no. We see more hybrid cars on the roadway than ever before, many waterways are flowing cleaner now – brought back from near death. There has been increased legislation on industrial pollution, recycling is growing by leaps and bounds, consumer awareness is at an all time high and being green is becoming not only mainstream but a requirement. Demand for sustainable energy is growling like a rumble across the land. However, we still have things like the Great Pacific Garbage Dump, destruction of forests and farmland around the globe, a growing world-wide dependence on fossil fuels. Making progress? You bet. Are we there yet? Not quite.

Donna was cleaning the bathroom the other day and picked up an empty shampoo bottle. In a hurry, she was about to toss it in the wastebasket instead of walking out to the garage to place it in the recycle bin. “It’s just one item, it won’t matter in the grand scheme of things.”

Then it hit us, there are roughly 120,000 people in our home town of Fort Collins, 4,939,456 in the state of Colorado; what if each one of us put just one recyclable item in the trash today. That’s 4,939,456 items, amazing how things can add up! It’s often easy for us to think that our little bit of trash doesn’t really have an impact on the environment, but if we all think that way, wow, we are talking billions of pieces of trash every single day. Sure makes you think when you look at things that way.

Wishing our Mother Earth a beautiful Earth Day, today and every day.

Blessings,

Bob and Donna

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