The Future We All Love - And Must Save Earth For

Sometimes it is not clear what we live for - is it for the latest new brand of apparel, a new car, more money, prestige, that publication that would give fame, the party we have to make a success of ... the list can go on and on, everyone knows. One has little time to think of our planet, Earth, and it is only an irritant to be reminded we are not just a small scale innocent user - that we can make a difference. But life is just too busy and those who remind us irritating - we have other, more pressing concerns, that new spreadsheet and slide show for the presentation that is so important for the company, now ... oh, well, ok, later we will do a speech, maybe even a lunch for this global warming or whatever.

It takes very little, if persistently done by a large number of people adding up to large savings and helping ecology. And just as a hint - often personal economy is what helps global ecology. There is no need or reason to feel embarrassed or shy about it - it is about everyone's future, about the future of humanity and of our home, the Earth we live on. And there is no option in sight.

Something so small as switching off lights and appliances not in use at the moment, switching to CFL lights, avoiding using AC by using other means to cool in summer (look at the next blog entry), using a smaller and more fuel efficient vehicle or even changing to public transport, buying local produce and holidaying closer to home to avoid the huge fuel spent on transport, all of these can help a lot - you begin now, and soon others catch up. Just give it a try (and if necessary have an attitude about it - you are doing good after all).

We did see this - we bought and used CFL lights extensively and exclusively in every home we lived in in the last decade and more, and we began as soon as they were in the market; then, they were expensive too, which today they are not quite so much; soon others caught up, family and relatives, and now we see them everywhere, public places, hotels. It is considered smarter.

On another tack, for a similar phenomena - we asked our driver to stop honking (a way of life here) and amidst all the surrounding noise, we insisted on it. To our surprise in so little as less than a decade the cacophony is reduced considerably, and amidst the drove of surrounding vehicles in traffic (very thick crowd here with no one believing in lanes) few now honk, even fewer go with the ear-splitting, heart-attack producing, brain damaging loud stereo sounds! It has been a completely unexpected, very pleasant surprise. It has become a little more pleasant to go for a drive, though other bad habits are not so easy to discourage in others. Everyone still tries to take every inch available on the road and lane markings are just decorations for most drivers.

Still - that was a digression - the point is it is easy to forget what we all live for, what we work hard for - and in a word most people would agree it is for the future, (few could bear to live if told future ends tomorrow, even personally) only most think of it as one's own future, or at most the future of those who one cares for. The two are not so different and neither is the future of the earth separate from any of it. Trouble is few believe that future of the planet is really in jeopardy, much less that of the humanity. But if one can only really remember what is at stake here - one might not risk the huge disaster - however small the chances one thinks - just for the little pleasures or the little inconveniences (which actually are imaginary) that would help a huge amount.

So take a look. This is the future we all love to bring into the present, that makes us smile, that we live and work for, and we have to leave an Earth that is viable for.

Resources Thrown Away And Wasted Are Hurting Our Planet

A consciousness about environment involves a commitment that is not only lifelong but encompasses more actions and takes a lot more thinking. From simple everyday actions to major decisions. A good beginning has been made with people discouraging use of plastic and polyethylene in for example shopping bags, which can be easily made with old newspapers for convenience of customers and can create a small scale industry with poor or enterprising home workers making extra money and supplying it to neighbourhood shops. That is on an everyday scale and doable by everyone around.

There are many such small things people can do on small scale and they can add up to worldwide huge scale to save the planet. One of them is not wasting food, or anything that can become food. It sounds obvious but in practice it is not done in the richer nations at all. For example when vegetables are bought a lot of parts are thrown away, either by the consumers or by those that are providing consumers with ready packets with the throwaway parts already thrown away. And of course there is the contrast of animals for slaughter being fed what humans can eat while whole nations - at least one continent, Africa, too - has major problems feeding people, which is to say people have been starving for well over two decades. It is good but not good enough to send a cheque - change habits so you lose little and they benefit.

In India all throwaway parts of food are fed to animals - preferably cattle of course, but when you have pigs they can pretty much clean out your kitchen garbage, which is actually not garbage in the sense of absolutely must throw away, only in the sense of most people being unable to eat such things. Stems, peels, hard parts of various raw things, stalks. Why feed grain and other perfectly good human consumable food to pigs and other such, if they can eat stalks of farm products and grain can be separated for humans need and use?

Of course it might need a little more thought and management and logistics - when things are on large scale. On small scale it is easier to make a self supporting system this way, as there existed all over the planet when we were not using quite so much fuel for shipping and wasting food on huge scale on one hand while pigs were - quite unnecessarily - fed what humans could eat and need it across the planet.

This would be a good way to manage the escalating food prices too, within the nations that do produce food.

And while one is about it, why waste resources and money on throwaway packages when one can avoid it? Attractive packaging is a moment's temptation weighing down the planet and wasting precious resources including your own sweat and blood. Try saving it - go with mostly large scale shopping and minimize packaging that is only throwaway.