Happy Earth Day

Earth (Photo credit: stef thomas)

Today is Earth Day.  I will be honest.  I usually harbor negative thoughts towards Earth Day.  The idea behind Earth Day itself is noble.  I think we should do what we can to keep the planet clean.  It is a good thing to recycle and to try to preserve our natural resources.   The main reason that I tend to have negative thoughts about Earth Day is what the environmental movement has become.  Rather than focus on conservation, it has become more of an attack or capitalism and the American way of life.

When I was a young and wide eyed innocent, I was very conscientious about the environment.  In junior high school, I was a member of the ecology club.  One of the things that we did as members of that club was to travel to local tributaries and collect water samples.  We would then test those samples for various chemical levels.  One of my favorite awards from those school days was a certificate from President Gerald Ford for our work in the environment.  We also took a field trip to the Eastern Shore where we paddled canoes through some waterways enjoying nature.  That was simple awesome.

My interest in things environmental waned considerably over the years.  It is not that I was going around doing things intentionally to harm the environment but rather I just lost interest in conscientiously paying much attention to it.  When the news media started their hyping of man made global warming, I paid some cursory attention to the stories.  As more and more coverage of intense storms received coverage, I started to wonder if there was something to it.  However, a few years ago, I read a story that indicated that several other planets were also showing signs of warming.  Since there were no humans on those planets, I started to believe that any warming was primarily caused by natural forces.

Crystal earth recycle icon (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

These days, I am trying to do what I can to conserve resources.  I prefer to think of myself as a conservationist rather than an enviromentalist.  I am trying to recycle a lot more items these days.  In the past, I would only recycle cans and bottles, but now I am also adding more boxes and other items to my recycling bin.  I have gotten better about taking my reusable tote bags with me to the grocery store, partly because I have too many plastic bags around the house and my grocer gives a nickel back for every reusable bag I use.  Today, I went to Target and they gave me a small reusable tote in honor of Earth Day.  I discovered that they also give a nickel discount for using reusable bags.

The company that I work for is very big into trying to implement sustainable policies.  I do get a sense of pride in working for a company that also wants to be a responsible citizen.  They have switched a lot of our lighting to more energy efficient LED lighting.  They have also installed energy efficient hand dryers in the restrooms.  Since Earth Day was today, my company decided to celebrate on Friday.  They gave each of us a new, reusable bag.  They also decided that they were going to turn out the lights in the common areas of the office for one hour.

Personally, I am not a fan of turning out the lights for an hour.  Usually, we all end up having to turn the lights on that we have in our cubicles in order to see, which kind of defeats the purpose of turning out the lights.  I think a more meaningful gesture would be to switch from our traditional 5-day, 8-hour work week to a 4-day, 10 hour work weeks or to allow more telecommuting.  Both would take a lot of cars off of the road and reduce the amount of energy used in the building.  Still, the company has their heart in the right place.

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This Blog is NOT Carbon Neutral

Today is the 40th anniversary of Earth Day.  I celebrated by burning fossil fuels on the Beltway for about 3.5 hours during my commute to and from the office today.  Normally I only spend about 2 hours on the Beltway, but today was special.  This evening, I plan to celebrate a little more by promising to Save Water and Drink Wine instead.

Let me get more to the point of the title of this blog post. Over the weekend, I was visiting several other blogs in the blogging networks that I belong to.  I came across at least a dozen blogs that proudly proclaimed that their blog was carbon neutral.   Each of them also had a button similar to this one:

Essentially, the button leads to a website that promises to plant a tree if you register your blog with them.  The planting of the tree is supposed to offset carbon emissions of your blog.  I considered registering for a moment or two, but only because I like the idea of planting trees.  I like trees.  However, I decided against it because I find the whole idea of carbon offsets to be a bit suspicious at best and reprehensible at worst.

The idea of buying carbon offsets to compensate for your carbon footprint has been compared to the old Catholic Church practice of selling indulgences for the forgiveness of sins.  Al "I invented the internet" Gore emits a hell of a lot of carbon, but proudly proclaims that he purchases offsets to neutralize those emissions.  What he doesn't tell us is that he purchases them from a company that he helped found.

Instead, I kind of like the program that I read about in the Daily Caller today.  They have launched the Daily Caller Offset-Offset program.  For a small donation, they will help you to offset the offsets purchased by your liberal environmentalist friend. For example, if they buy an offset to neutralize their carbon, the Daily Caller will start a tire fire to offset that offset.  To close out this Earth Day post, here is the late great George Carlin expressing his views on the environmentalists and their desire to "Save the Planet."

Win a Hybrid Automobile with Giant Food and General Mills

I confess, I am not the "greenest" guy around. If you have been a regular reader here you might have come to the conclusion that I am anti-environment based on my stands on global warming and cap & trade type legislation.  That would actually be a faulty conclusion.  It is just that I would rather see people rewarded for positive behaviors rather than punished for using energy.

As I said, I am not the "greenest" guy around.  I do, however, try to do what I can.  My recycling bin tends to be a little fuller each week when I take it out to the curb with the rest of the garbage.  For a while, we were using CFL bulbs, but to be honest, the brand we were buying at BJ's has not been in stock lately, so we have switched back to the old fashioned bulbs of late.  We have accumulated several reusable grocery bags, and I try to remember to take them with me when I go to do my weekly shopping at the local Giant store.  They give me a nickle back for every reusable bag I bring in.  See, that is the reward thing I was talking about.

April 22nd is Earth Day.  Usually, I do not do anything special to commemorate Earth Day.  I am not any  more environmentally aware or active.  However, this year, I plan to take advantage of a promotion that Giant will be running in conjunction with General Mills for Earth Day.  For the two weeks of April 16-29, any time you purchase five participating General Mills items, use a reusable grocery bag, and use your Giant loyalty card, you will be entered to win a new 2010 Hybrid automobile.

How simple is that?  I probably do about 90% of my grocery shopping at Giant as it is.  I already try to use the reusable bags, and General Mills has such a wide variety of products to choose from that buying five items on one grocery trip should be simple.  I will probably pick up some Green Giant veggies, Yoplait yogurt, Pillsbury dough products, and Wanchai Ferry frozen entrees.  There will be different qualifying items each week of the promotion, or you can simply enter without a purchase in the store.

For telling you about this promotion, I will be receiving a $20 gift card courtesy of General Mills and Giant Food stores through MyBlogSpark.com.  In addition, they have made an addition $20 gift card available to readers of this blog.  To qualify, leave a comment about what you are doing for the environment or what General Mills products you would buy to qualify to win a new hybrid vehicle.

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