Earth Day

I remember the first Earth Day in 1970, when I was a teenager living in New Jersey and a bunch of us decided we would walk to school that day instead of riding the bus. It was not a short walk since we lived on an Air Force base and our high school was a good little stroll out into the countryside. We were fairly politically active already and understood the meaning of the day, but it still seemed like more of a party than anything else. And we got to show up for school late.

Although I try to be cognizant of my "footprint," I have to admit that I have never been the most environmentally conscious person around. I am always finding things that I could do differently and should be more diligent about, and living in the beautiful Aleutians makes me think of all that we have to lose if we don't take better care of our planet. And yet, we go about our days and don't put much thought into the damage caused by our presence and our habits. Sometimes I think we are just blind and deaf to the ramifications of our lifestyle and we are in denial that anything truly terrible will ever happen.

Our location also makes it harder in some ways to be environmentally strong--we have no recycling, we have no local farmer's market for fresh food, getting in and out in most cases requires airplane fuel. But there are still lots of things that we can do, even in a remote location, to take better care of our home. Turn off the lights, keep the thermostat at a reasonable level, don't leave the water running, take a canvas bag to the Eagle store instead of bringing home more paper or plastic, take care of your vehicle, walk, ride a bike, catch your own food, pick berries, reduce your waste. I am always amazed at how much trash just Rich and I seem to generate, and I am the world's worst at getting a "to-go" cup of tea instead of carrying my own re-usable container. I think I am always looking forward to "someday" when we might live somewhere with public transit or where we will recycle or go to farmer's markets or have our own garden but I need to be thinking about what I can do in the present instead! It's Earth Day.

On a related note, we had some wild weather yesterday. In the morning, it was raining and blowing like crazy and by afternoon, the sun was out again. I was soaking wet and nearly knocked over by the wind just walking from the parking lot to the door at work. It reminded me of Rich's comment in the past that winds like this would be given a name anywhere else. I heard Daniel say something funny on the radio along those same lines, "In Florida, they call this a hurricane; in Unalaska, we call it Tuesday."