Earth Day 2020
“Earth Day should encourage us to reflect on what we are doing to make our planet a more sustainable and livable place.”
I feel closest to God when one of two things happen, when I’m being creative and/or being outdoor in nature. I’ve come to realize in recent years that I’m not doing my part to take care of the planet. I don’t think we should put the Earth in the place of God’s but I know he also calls us to take care of it.
I’m on the email mailing list for the Lincoln Park Zoo and their most email included a post to their blog. They were talking about Joe Exotic from the Netflix series Tiger King and the fact that he had 4 chimpanzees. The person writing the blog() was creating a census to see how many chimpanzees are owned by private owners. The chimpanzees were not well taken care of because two of them died while in Joe Exotic care and the other two ended up at a chimpanzee sanctuary in Florida. Watching animals going extinct breaks my heart. I love animals and thought for a hot minute when I was a kid about coming to a zookeeper. I struggle with science so I don’t think it would have been possible but I want to find ways to take care of animals in the best way that I can.
The mistreatment of animals and nature makes me angry, the blood boil kind of angry. When trash is all over the ocean and when an animal is drugged so tourist can take a photo with it for the gram just makes me want to scream. It makes me want to yell at people(which is very unlike me) and just sulk about it at the same time. I end up just sulk about it and shoving down my anger and nothing gets done about it. I want to change that and actually do what I can do to change what’s happening on this planet.
I know I haven’t done my part to take care of the planet. I use straws when I’m at restaurants and plastic bags and create trash that goes into landfills and into the oceans. I want to do and be better for the planet God created. It’s a beautiful place and I would love to leave it better than I found it. I did a quick Google search and found 25 ways to do my part. I have listed them below.
1Reusable Bags
2Recycle
3Use Less Electricity
4Use less Water
5Use More Public transportation when I can
6Combine errands
7Shop virtually
8Record your trips
9Learn to love leftovers
10Take food home from parents home when offered and at restaurants
11Forego the plastic silverware
12Go to the Farmers Market
13Dine locally
14Use reusable cups
15Using Less Paper products
16Slow down while driving
17Buy and use a used bike
18Only flush toilets if really needed
19Using my platform to share about taking care of the earth
20Use my talents and time to help organizations
21Turn the faucet off when washing dishes and brushing my teeth
22Shorter Showers
23Use Cruise Control while on the high way
24Use e-Tickets
25Download Software
