Happy Earth Day!

Well, I didn't chose April because it happened to contain Earth Day, but it is kind of a nice side effect since this blog is, in its own way, about conservation. Today's and yesterday's commute were fairly uneventful, although yesterday I did have to deal with a temperature swing of around 30 degrees. Had to bundle up in the morning, wear mesh in the afternoon.

So I thought I'd post a few thoughts about Earth Day and environmentalism. A lot of Earth Day stuff seems to be about boosting awareness of environmental causes. But do we really need more awareness? At this point, it's safe to say that nobody is for pollution or extinction (except when it comes to germs), and everybody is either against global warming or doesn't believe it exists. So it's easy to say, "Yeah, we get the message. Wildlife good. Pollution bad. Conservation good." And does it really take an official day to boost awareness that we ought to conserve gasoline? I get my awareness boosted every time I drive past a gas station and see their prices.

There are a few more environmental causes where I would say we need more awareness, cases where people genuinely don't realize they're doing environmental harm. How many people who keep their cats outdoors, for example, realize that their kitty is out eating native songbirds?

There are a few sorts of awareness I would like to encourage, though. One is an awareness that claims that something's environmentally friendly aren't always to be taken at face value. Sometimes they're more motivated by corporate greed (the corn-based E85 ethanol industry comes to mind) or sometimes brought about by putting the wrong principle too high (there's some cases of organic farming causing more environmental damage than using chenical fertilizers and pesticides; just because a treatment for a farm is natural doesn't mean that artificial treatments may get the job done with less environmental damage). So study issues a bit more deeply. Am I benefiting the environment by using less gas, or making things worse for the environment by driving a vehicle that is built to less stringent emissions standards? That's something you'll have to research for yourself. My main aim was to conserve gas. And it's working - I'll have to crunch the numbers later, but compared to using a car for everything, I estimate I've cut my gas consumption in half.

The other kind of awareness is an awareness of proportion. If you make a change to benefit the environment, it may be a drop in the bucket compared to what society is doing, but a good test is how big that drop looks in your own bucket. For example, if riding a bike cuts your fuel consumption by one half to one third, if everybody adopted that strategy, society could cut its gas consumption by the same level. Or another example criticized in The Skeptical Environmentalist: the recycleable toothbrush. If you throw out four toothbrushes a year, just how much is that compared to a week's worth of garbage? If it's a tiny drop in your own bucket, it's not going to make much of a difference in the world if it catches on in society as a whole.

If you're planning to take an action to conserve natural resources or help the environment, see if you can measure its influence by how much it changes your own life. Because, when you get down to it, your own life is the one you're best able to change.