Living Car Free - Happy Earth day

What out of the ordinary are you doing today ? Today I'm going to do a complete sweep of the house and unplug anything unnecessary .

I am walking to the bike shop to pick up my repaired bike so I can ride it to work once more instead of mooching rides from coworkers.

At work I will print out every email I receive.

After I get done riding my bike home.
I am going to turn all my light on, turn all 3 computers, 3 pinball machines, bartop game machine and maybe even turn the heat up to 90 with the windows open.

I plan to eat a big lunch of mex food and then dedicate the flatulent side effects to the day.

Not doing anything special. Tho I'm taking special joy in my sister *finally* figuring out that she won't die if she rides her bike in Portland traffic. She's car free, but had been sticking to mass transit and walking because she was so intimidated.

Nothing out of the ordinary. I don't own a car, I pick up garbage outside around my house daily (or at least every other day)

I suppose I live a fairly "green" lifestyle, although it's not something I go out of my way to do. Things that happen to be "green" are just natural to me.

*Side-note* Two of the major grocery stores in this province have officially started charging for plastic bags.

I am helping my kids use my daughters new to her easy bake oven (she just had a birthday) to make an easy bake birthday cake for my wife (it is her birthday).

I guess that's not what you were looking for though.

-D

What out of the ordinary are you doing today ? Today I'm going to do a complete sweep of the house and unplug anything unnecessary .

That's an everyday occurrence at household, annually, we save enough that we get a month's worth of electricity free.

This is unfortunately a day when I will use more than my share of energy, since I'll be taking a 200 mile bus trip. I will be reading and studying about our beautiful planet and what we're doing to it. I'll also bend the ear of anybody who will listen to me. People need to know more about what's going on, especially with GHG emissions,

I'll be riding home through a bunch of tornado damage from a couple of weeks ago when mother nature got revenge. :innocent:

This is unfortunately a day when I will use more than my share of energy, since I'll be taking a 200 mile bus trip.

If you were like most Americans, you'd be complaining that your bus trip wasn't an airplane or car trip, rather than complaining that your bus trip (which is much 'greener' than car or airplane) is not as eco-friendly as you would like.

It's Earth day today?

At work I will print out every email I receive.

After I get done riding my bike home.
I am going to turn all my light on, turn all 3 computers, 3 pinball machines, bartop game machine and maybe even turn the heat up to 90 with the windows open.

Why the sarcasm?

*Side-note* Two of the major grocery stores in this province have officially started charging for plastic bags.

That is good news indeed.

I'm going to turn off my computer and head outside to admire my garden, which now features a bunch of inch-high lettuce and spinach. I am also plotting some zucchini mounds in my front yard, so I won't have to mow as much. My wife has also helped cut down on the front yard mowing by planting even more perennials.

[later: my rhubarb patch, which disappeared last summer, is suddenly up.]

Vive la terre.

What out of the ordinary are you doing today ?

nothing out of the ordinary - although i guess not owning a car isn't "ordinary" in the US, so i have that going for me.

let's see, every day i feel guilty for polluting (the little that i do, copared to some)...

every day i hate everyone driving themselves around...

every day i think about how humanity really doesn't deserve to live on this great planet that we're trashing.

and few care about the earth, at least not enough to change anything, and that kills me, every day.

so today is biz as usual, but yes, happy earth day!

Wooh... Earth day...
Just another "day" to appease the "whiners" in the world.
*sigh* If people took the same effort making fake days dedicated to some cause they don't care about and instead did something decent with it we wouldn't have earth day...
We'd have a decent little planet to live on.
-Gene-

Wooh... Earth day...
Just another "day" to appease the "whiners" in the world.
*sigh* If people took the same effort making fake days dedicated to some cause they don't care about and instead did something decent with it we wouldn't have earth day...
We'd have a decent little planet to live on.
-Gene-

I disagree. I still remember the first Earth Day back in 1970 and the special events at my junior high school where we were taught about environmental issues. It was an eye-opener for me. Nothing "fake", no "whining", just straight talk about very serious issues.

Well, I did what I would have done if it wasn't earth day,
I hooked up the trailer and headed for lowes, got Tomato plants and a bag of dirt.
Went home and planted them.

I disagree. I still remember the first Earth Day back in 1970 and the special events at my junior high school where we were taught about environmental issues. It was an eye-opener for me. Nothing "fake", no "whining", just straight talk about very serious issues.

That was almost 40 years ago...
Nowadays Earth Day gets breezed over like most other "days" in the public school system. I've only been out of public school for a few years now, and still have some friends in it. It may have been great back then, but people just seem to care less nowadays. At least in my experience. Maybe I'm just bitter and cynical in my youth...
-Gene-

I'm riding my bike today instead of driving ;) . It's what I do everyday, though. I like to think of every day as Earth Day, which is getting easier now that Spring is here in full force.

I wore a green shirt today. Does that count?

That was almost 40 years ago...
Nowadays Earth Day gets breezed over like most other "days" in the public school system. I've only been out of public school for a few years now, and still have some friends in it. It may have been great back then, but people just seem to care less nowadays. At least in my experience. Maybe I'm just bitter and cynical in my youth...
-Gene-

That's too bad. Maybe it's just that way in your neck of the woods. Anyway, we need to Make Every Day Earth Day (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-redford/making-every-day-earth-da_b_190119.html).

I'm going to turn off my computer and head outside to admire my garden, which now features a bunch of inch-high lettuce and spinach. I am also plotting some zucchini mounds in my front yard, so I won't have to mow as much. My wife has also helped cut down on the front yard mowing by planting even more perennials.

[later: my rhubarb patch, which disappeared last summer, is suddenly up.]

Vive la terre.

Our spinach & lettuce did really well through the winter & early spring. I have one more flat of spinach seedlings ready to go into the ground. The weather may be getting too hot for them but I'm going to try for another crop anyway. I think our strawberries were probably very excellent this spring, I'm not really sure, I'd have to ask the dog how they tasted, ha.

Well normally I am car light but I went totally car free for the day which included running errands for the first time. Also I watched the sunset which I have done for almost a week straight now:).

I met with members of the Baton Rouge Advocates for Safe Streets (http://www.brsafestreets.org/)(BRASS) to swap stories and compare notes on their activities and those of Little Rock's advocacy group Bicycle Advocacy of Central Arkansas (http://www.bacar.org/) (BACA). :D

I also drove 360 miles to get to Baton Rouge. :eek:

I also drove 360 miles to get to Baton Rouge. :eek:
Don't worry I drove 300 miles to a college visit for Columbia College Chicago. I completely forgot it was Earth Day :o.

Don't worry I drove 300 miles to a college visit for Columbia College Chicago. I completely forgot it was Earth Day :o.

In my defense, I did attempt to check out the alternatives. Flying was more expensive. The bus was cheap, but only had one bad route via Memphis per day so it took too long. But it was better than the train which required a connection in Chicago to get from Little Rock, AR to Baton Rouge, LA. I also checked out renting a bicycle for my time in Baton Rouge.

That is what led to the meeting with the Bicycle Advocates there. I found the link to the bicycle rental service at LSU via one of the advocates websites. :) And I wrote to him to thank him for the information.

But once I decided to rent the car, renting a bike was redundant, and I could have even brought one of my own bikes instead.

I considered bringing my bike, but all the events at the Festival were close together, and my hotel was very far away. So it wasn't a good fit.