We need to treat every day as if it were Earth Day
If we did, perhaps our world wouldn’t be in so much peril
Every year on Earth Day, we celebrate this amazing, life-sustaining planet we are lucky enough to call home. Then the next day we go back to killing it again.
It’s hard not to be morose about the future of our Earth — not to mention our future on Earth, especially that of our children — with climate change, species going extinct at an alarming rate and the rise in severe weather events.
It’s also hard not to be cynical about what one day of awareness can realistically accomplish given our dependence as a society on fossil fuels and the impact of the individual choices we make as citizens. So much of the harm we are inflicting on the planet is a product of mindless consumerism and mass industrialization. These forces seem impossible for a lone person to stop; only a change in our collective way of life will make any difference.
Still, we have to start somewhere, which is why the theme of this year’s Earth Day in Quebec is “on porte tous un peu le chapeau,” (as in, we all have to do our part). The social media campaign on the French side is #1actionconcrète.
One concrete action. One thing you can do as an individual, a family or an organization to truly take the Earth Day message to heart. What could that mean for you? And what might it achieve? Here are a few ideas:
We are frequently urged
■ to drive less. Transportation accounts for about 20 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the World Bank. So the more of us who ditch our cars and walk, bike or take public transit, the better for the planet. (And the better for traffic congestion and our health, too.) But let’s face it, we’re still a car-centric society, even if a shift is underway. It’s not practical for suburbanites, rural residents or many families to do away with the automobile. There are still things we can do to contribute. Sell the personal car and join an autoshare program. Get a more fuel-efficient, hybrid or electric vehicle. Or try driving only when you absolutely need to. Walk or bike to the corner store or when running errands in your own neighbourhood.
Still need your car to get
■ around? Try eating less meat, or better yet, no meat. Agriculture accounts for about 15 per cent of global emissions, with half coming from livestock. But the world’s growing appetite for meat is going to send greenhouse gas emissions soaring and gobble up more and more of the world’s so-called “carbon budget” — the amount we can pollute without sending the planet’s temperature to catastrophic levels. A study from the U.K.’s Oxford Martin School found more people becoming vegetarian or vegan could have a huge impact on preventing climate change.
If you want to be strategic, forgo beef. Another study from Bard College in New York showed raising cattle consumes 28 times more land, 11 times more water and causes five times more emissions than pork or chicken. The author suggested cutting out burgers and steaks would make a bigger dent in the fight against global warming than parking our cars.
You know what else is made
■ from fossil fuels like petroleum and natural gas, (though mainly their byproducts?) Plastics. They sure are convenient and many of them are recyclable, but the reality is that an absolutely sickening amount of plastic is ending up floating in our oceans. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, as this island of detritus is not-sofondly called, is now three times the size of France. Turtles are being found with drinking straws in their nostrils, dead whales with bellies full of trash and the fish we eat laced with traces of microplastics. So chew on that the next time you buy bottled water instead of pouring a tall glass from the tap.
Buying things with less packaging ■ — and avoiding altogether things like avocados or apples that shouldn’t require packaging in the first place — is another way to use your influence as a consumer to help save the planet. Push for your grocery store to set up an aisle of plastics-free products, like Dutch supermarket Ekoplaza recently did.
Reduce, reuse but don’t just
■ count on the city’s recycling programs to solve the excessive waste problem. Sadly, Quebec’s recycling industry is outdated and in need of a major investment to deal with new types of materials and China’s recent decision to close its doors to the rest of the world’s refuse. And why not help create demand for products made from recycled materials to help speed this modernization along ?
Our smartphones are our
■ whole lives, these days. But do you really need that shiny new one with the bigger screen? Research from McMaster University has found the mining of rare raw materials used in the production of batteries and touchscreens is behind smartphones’ disproportionate share of the growing emissions from technology. They have risen from one per cent in 2007 to 3.5 per cent in 2010, and are on pace to hit 14 per cent of global emissions by 2040. So maybe hang on to the smartphone in your pocket a little longer.
Our individual actions will only get us so far. We must also hold government to account for decisions that affect us all and push for policies that help get us where we need to go together, whether it’s Montreal’s plastic bags ban to Quebec announcing a new sustainable mobility plan or joining the cap-and-trade market.
It is within each and every one of us to take a step, no matter how small, how tentative, to reduce humankind’s crushingly heavy footprint on this planet and save the Earth for all creatures, great and small. We can’t let the magnitude of the challenge leave us daunted. We can’t let our inevitable slip-ups prevent us from trying. Nobody is perfect.
No one can do this all on their own. But baby steps can make a difference.
Earth Day is a time for reflection, appreciation and action. But if we truly want to show our love for this beautiful planet, every day must be Earth Day.