Reflections

PRACTICE RANDOM ACTS OF ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP

It’s the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. I dedicate this column to rethinking what that public holiday can mean in our own lives, not one day a year but 24-7.
–Teach the children well. Environmental awareness begins in the home. To this day, my Mom remembers the time one of us kids heaved a wrapper out the car window and Dad stopped to make us pick it up. We never found that wrapper, but in the process we sure took care of cleaning up a bunch of others Families are in the best position to recognize and use “teachable moments” that make us better environmentalists throughout our life-span.
–Pick honest targets. Too often environmental education programs for kids aim at pointing out the polluters out there—instead of the one in the mirror. I will never forget the aggressive campaign waged by a rural Michigan elementary school teacher to “shut down” a local industry as an Earth Day “project”. Meanwhile those self-same students were dumping their mini mart wrappers and drink containers all over the neighborhoods on their way home from school. To paraphrase the cartoon sage Polo, if we truly want to meet the enemy, it’s us.
–Become a stealth weeder. On the walk from car to office or on our neighborhood strolls, we can stop and bend long enough to root out the interlopers—a weed or two at a time. No one but us may ever notice that we are modeling environmental citizenship at its best, but it is heroic nonetheless. Change begins not with grand gestures, but simply personal actions that say, “I am responsible.”
–Be prepared to bag it. Carry a litter bag, not just for your own trash but everybody else’s. One of my favorite environmentalists of all time was an elderly neighbor. The man no longer drove, but he made it his personal mission in life to pick up every candy and gum wrapper, discarded soda can and other scrap of garbage between his house and the supermarket. He walked the route almost daily. His passing at ninety was a loss to each and every one of us.
–Pass it on. Landfills are full of yard “waste” that could be beautifying our world. A neighbor once stopped to admire my iris garden—an instant clue when it came time for me to divide and thin out one of the clumps. I give thanks to all the gardeners who left bags of discarded plants at the curb with a simple sign, Free for the Taking.
If we look around us, those opportunities to practice random acts of environmental citizenship are out there. We can beautify the landscape and lives in the process. Our own is one of them.