Tree Huggin' Dirt Worshipper

I admit that I am more "green" than a lot of my family or friends, but I also acknowledge that in the realm of "green" many, many people have me beat. I mention that because I’m not a total granola, earth-loving, hippie freak….although personally I happen to love granola, earth loving, hippie freaks. However, the way people treat our environment, especially as of late, has me all hot and bothered. The fact that sooooo many refuse to acknowledge the negative impact we have on our earth bothers me more than I could clearly articulate.

I do my part to contribute to the pollution and waste, don’t get me wrong. I also like to think that I do at least as much to counterbalance my family’s waste. I’m not saying we should all give up our cars and walk, but would buying a car that gets more than 7 miles to the gallon kill ya? I am ashamed to admit that I drive an SUV (a small one, but an SUV nonetheless). I drive this more out of necessity than true desire. I would love a prius. A prius won’t hold 2 kids and all the crap that goes with two kids and a possible third kid at some point. I also understand that a larger family requires a larger car. What bothers me is the people who drive these HUGE SUV’s when they have 1 kid, or even worse, no kids. Is that car truly necessary? Aside from the environmental impact these massive cars have what about the dent it is unnecessarily creating in their pocket books?

Water waste also has me irked these days. Why does it seem like everyone feels the need to water his/her lawn or wash the aforementioned SUV’s at 2:00 in the afternoon? Can it not wait until 6 in the evening or 7 in the morning? It is such a waste. I wish people would be more conscious of the carbon footprint they are leaving on our earth and the amount of resources they waste daily and take steps to reduce pollution and waste and unnecessary misuse of our resources.

People assume the cavalier attitude that these resources were given to us to use and abuse for our own benefit with no regard for future generations. We live in a time where if this continues our children and children’s children will not live in a world of plenty. I think it is our responsibility to leave this world in better condition than it was when it was handed down to us. If we continue in this direction we will not be leaving this world in good condition to our children. We are a nation of gluttons. We take and take and use and use and just assume that there will always be enough. I have news for the masses. There will not be enough if we continue to waste at the ridiculous rate we currently waste our resources.

I went to CarbonCounter.org and typed in my family’s possessions and uses. We use 18.46 metric tons of CO2 a year. In the realm of things we are pretty low on the waste meter, but we could do more to reduce our footprint. We could trade in the SUV for starters. If everyone did just a little bit more we could make a huge difference. I’m not asking people to forgo the lifestyle they’ve become accustomed to or abandon all the little luxuries they’ve acquired, but little changes here and there add up and would mean the world of difference for this earth and it’s future inhabitants.