FIRST DATE, WORST DATE EVER!

Earth is our everything — the air we breathe, the water we drink, the gravity that keeps us anchored.  We can’t live without it.

Scientists have predicted that by 2030 climate change will be a runaway train . . . unless we change our ways starting right now:

1. We stop using straws and throwaway containers.
2. We stop buying cases of bottled water or other drinks.
3. We stop eating red meat (which takes a lot of energy to raise, transport, market, etc).
4. We stop buying anything that has excess packaging (which is pretty much everything at Costco).

Recycle, reduce, re-use.

Repurpose.

Don’t throw away stuff – donate it.

Don’t buy retail – shop at thrift stores.

Don’t waste anything. Get the smallest garbage can and concentrate on recylcling more and wasting less. Get a composter.  Put your fruit and vegetable peelings in there to make rich soil.

Long ago, back in the nineties, I had a friend who would take her own paper grocery bags to the store. Then after she took home her groceries in the bags, she would put a mark on the bag, keeping tally of how many times each bag was used. Some of them had thirty or more marks on them. She was well ahead of her time as far as recycling goes. I am too forgetful.

Now, when I shop in Monterey where paper bags cost a quarter, I am happy to buy one and then save it for my local thrift store.  Thrift stores always need bags.

Those K cups have got to go. Ocean animals keep washing up on shore, their stomachs filled with plastic.  We have a huge swirling Pacific Ocean garbage patch where the ocean currents converge into a swirling dump of trash. Wikipedia says it covers twenty degrees north to south and eight degrees east to west.

As animals become extinct, we need to pay attention. Every time we lose a species, it’s a canary in a coal-mine moment. The universe is warning us humans that our time is coming to an end.

Laugh on, disbelievers.  For someone who has been in California for 34 years, I have never seen such violent fires as we’ve had the past two years.  I used to live in Nebraska, and today I saw a five-minute video of the flood destruction there, the towns shown in alphabetical order — my old town of Ashland, Nebraska, as the first one.

The planet is getting hotter, the storms wilder, the fires getting closer and closer to urban and suburban areas.  Many older people choose to disbelieve the mounting evidence. The thing is, they are on their way out, so they are not invested in believing it.  It won’t matter to them in the end.

When a young Swedish girl named Greta Thunberg stood up and said that her leaders were stealing her future, she was able to get young people engaged. She just led a world-wide school strike walk-out to protest climate change and the lack of concern on the part of our governments. She has been nominated for a Nobel peace prize at the tender young age of sixteen.

If you are still reading, you probably do believe in climate change. What small thing can you do about it?  Could everyone in your family do the same? It will take a village, or in this case, a planet of people to stop the runaway train before it leaves the station.

Eleven years.  How old will your children or grandchildren be in eleven years? Do it for them.