What will you do to try to conserve our planet?

Personally I will destroy some unhealthy weeds and attempt to add to global warming with noxious smoke.

I'm a bad boy.

Or we can smoke some earthy flavor cigars.

You bring up an interesting subject.

I would love to get myself a 4-WD vehicle like I used to drive 30 years ago. Something I could go into the bush with. On the the rutted dirt roads and slippery terrain. Fishing, camping, etc.

But... most of the time the thing would be on asphalt in town where all it would do is take up more space, make more noise, make more CO2 and guzzle more gas than something more reasonable.

Do I want to be like a soccer mom or a suit where the only time time they go off road is when they back up into some driveway side rose bushes or when they have to around some 10 yards of road construction?

Do I want to brag about burning fuel just because I can?

Do I want to be one of those that cries because the price of gas went up?

Do I want be some nut that says let's get the oil from those rag heads?


Remember that we are borrowing the earth from our children!

This actually IS a topic I care about, so this is what I have done / plan on doing today:

- Called my electric company to make sure I was getting the maximum amount of green power available. I was.. (I pay extra to get power that is generated by Sun, Wind, and Landfill gases - they only let me have 900 KWh though)

- I plan on planting 10 trees via arborday.org. (all the carbon reducing benefits of trees for lazy people!)

- Will pay to offset the energy I use this month (Non-green electric, Natural gas, and car fuel) by buying renewable energies on https://www.greentagsusa.org/GreenTags/index.cfm. A carbon-neutral month is only $50! I want to start doing this every month (being carbon neutral is a really nice thought!)..

Then I may go kick around a hackey sack, hug a tree, eat some granola, and start a drum circle .

This probably isnt best forum to be eco-friendly, huh?

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This probably isnt best forum to be eco-friendly, huh?

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Probably not but it probably isn't the worst either. I think most people on this forum know that "being green" is important but they also acknowledge that it is more important to some people than it is to others. If someone wants to go all out ecologically on Earth Day (or any other day for that matter), that's fine. It's also fine to encourage others to do the same. The problems start when encouragement doesn't produce the desired results and coercion is used. That tends to hack people off. By the way, this tendency is certainly not limited to environmentalism and can be found in almost any "ism" you can name. So, if you want to be especially green today, knock yourself out. You can take whatever measure of satisfaction you want but don't be surprised if not everyone shares your enthusiasm.

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Originally posted by Doodface:
This actually IS a topic I care about, so this is what I have done / plan on doing today:

- Called my electric company to make sure I was getting the maximum amount of green power available. I was.. (I pay extra to get power that is generated by Sun, Wind, and Landfill gases - they only let me have 900 KWh though)

- I plan on planting 10 trees via arborday.org. (all the carbon reducing benefits of trees for lazy people!)

- Will pay to offset the energy I use this month (Non-green electric, Natural gas, and car fuel) by buying renewable energies on https://www.greentagsusa.org/GreenTags/index.cfm. A carbon-neutral month is only $50! I want to start doing this every month (being carbon neutral is a really nice thought!).

Me too! My wife and I recycle everything we can. We have two trash cans for recycling. One for aluminium, glass and plastic containers, bags, cans, bottles, etc. and the other for newspapers, junk mail and magazines.

I'm sure there is more we can do but every little bit helps and if everyone did just a little bit, then maybe it would make a huge impact.

I'm also trying to get my company to recycle paper. We waste so much of it here, it is insane!

Great ideas and web sites by the way.

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Then I may go kick around a hackey sack, hug a tree, eat some granola, and start a drum circle .

HA! HA!--great stuff Brian! I have some home-made tie-dye shirts I can send for the group!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: jlaker,

There are some simple things to do that really add up. I replaced most of my lightbulbs with compact fluorescent lights - they save me money, and use much less energy.

We recycle as a matter of course - the city provides recycling bins, and picks them up each week.

I traded a V8 Dodge truck for a MINI Cooper - a lot more fun, and twice the mileage. If I need a truck for a specific project, I rent one - there's no need to drive one 30 miles each way to work when I only need the capacity about once a month.

And... I'm considering turning the MINI into a weekend car and getting a hybrid for the commute during the week. Twice the mileage of the MINI, plus a tax credit, an additional credit from my employer, and I get to use the LEV-reserved spaces in the parking garage at the office.

We're also re-doing the insulation in our attic and upgrading the attic fan - again, it's green, and it saves us money every month in utility bills.

So what's my point? Only that going green is actually saving me money every month - in gas and utility bills, and with tax credits if I buy a hybrid.

I won't be any more "green" than i normally am. If i could somehow be more eco-friendly, i certainly won't wait for Earth Day to do so. So, I'll continue to recycle, turn lights off when i leave a room, not drive like a maniac to conserve gas, etc.

Hopefully one day, the US will join the 21st century and start developing and building bullet train routes to supplement our overtaxed freeway system.

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Originally posted by Doodface:

- Called my electric company to make sure I was getting the maximum amount of green power available. I was.. (I pay extra to get power that is generated by Sun, Wind, and Landfill gases - they only let me have 900 KWh though)

I was going to divest myself of coal stocks, but lately they've been climbing so high thanks to the price of oil that I think I'll wait a while.

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Originally posted by Doodface:- I plan on planting 10 trees via arborday.org. (all the carbon reducing benefits of trees for lazy people!)

And I'm planning on cutting down eleven trees.

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Originally posted by Doodface:
- Will pay to offset the energy I use this month (Non-green electric, Natural gas, and car fuel) by buying renewable energies on https://www.greentagsusa.org/GreenTags/index.cfm. A carbon-neutral month is only $50! I want to start doing this every month (being carbon neutral is a really nice thought!)..

Buying carbon offsets is the new purchasing of indulgences.

Earth day is the only day where dirty hippies can try to make everyone feel bad. I don't beleve in celebrating earth day and "going green". One day will not make a difference. Earth will take care of itself, humans or no humans.

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Posted April 22, 2008 12:42 PM Hide Post
Earth day is the only day where dirty hippies can try to make everyone feel bad. I don't beleve in celebrating earth day and "going green". One day will not make a difference. Earth will take care of itself, humans or no humans.

Well, I certainly was of hippie tendency, although always pretty cleas. And don't want today to make anybody feel bad. But I spent a major part of my life in Albuquerque which gave my sense of how beautiful the earth really is. I will celebrate Earth Day today, as a symbol and a reminder, but really every day should be a day we recognize our place in and our rersponsibility for the earth. Especially in light of a certain agricultural product we all enjoy, provided generously by the Earth

I'm Irish and proud of it. That's all the green I need to be.

I just finished planting some grass seed on the bald spots of my lawn.

Ignorance is bliss.

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Originally posted by Rockhound:
Earth day is the only day where dirty hippies can try to make everyone feel bad. I don't beleve in celebrating earth day and "going green". One day will not make a difference. Earth will take care of itself, humans or no humans.

Now that the warmer weather's here, I guess I could start riding my bike to work again.

It only takes 10 minutes to get there on a bike so I have no real excuse. The jeep is horrible on gas too.

Gonna ride the bike and try really hard not to release any methane gas.

Here's what I did first thing this morning for earth day. I educated my daughter. She's a 6th grader and was off to school dressed in "earth tones", as her school asked her to do to "celebrate" earth day. I took a few minutes and explained to her that is exactly what's wrong liberals' approach to the environment. What difference is she making by wearing certain colors?

I would have been much more pleased if they had asked for a donation or had the kids out back planting trees or something. I explained that the showy talk is just that, talk, and won't do a d&mn thing to help the environment.

Instead of talking about it, or trying to keep some poor &ss farmer from selling a few trees, maybe we should live it and buy some land out in the country and let it grow up, or set it aside forever as a conservancy, or give it to Ducks Unlimited (pioneers of conservation).

She left for school with a real-world outlook on things.

I hugged a bicycle person and took a dump in someones lawn.

Don't need no stink'n glaciers.

I suspect the Earth will 'take care' of the humans, the same way Tony Soprano takes care of 'the humans'.

quote:

Originally posted by Rockhound:
Earth day is the only day where dirty hippies can try to make everyone feel bad. I don't beleve in celebrating earth day and "going green". One day will not make a difference. Earth will take care of itself, humans or no humans.

I'm working on an energy star computer. That, good enough, right?