Inspiration

I was recently watching Oprah’s show on TV. It is not a common practice of mine to watch that talk show, but I believe I was meant to see this short episode where Laurie David was on talking about the environment and what we can do to take better care of our world. I can’t explain what happened, but I got inspired. All it took for me was to learn one thing and that thing changed my life. I can’t say many things I see on TV have changed my life for the better. What I learned was that “one” person can actually make a difference when it comes to the environment. I used to think that it didn’t matter. Why put in the effort? The problem is too large. What can just one person do? I found out I was thinking wrong. One person can make a difference. My perspective on life has changed. What we do right now will affect the next seven generations on this planet. It really does matter. We should take care of what has been entrusted to us, for as long as we are here. I can no longer use the excuse that it doesn’t really matter. Everyone can make a difference, but if they don’t, then you can.


Laurie David is the wife of Seinfeld co-creator Larry David. She says they’ve made small environmental changes in their home that anyone can follow. “One thing about helping the environment is it’s not about being perfect,” Laurie says. “I’m not perfect—I don’t bike to work and I don’t read by candlelight—but it’s about doing something. Everybody doing a little bit in their day-to-day lives to make a difference. And it does make a difference.” I just love that quote. Laurie says there are some simple changes anyone can do to help the environment: “Listen to the statistic from the EPA report,” Laurie says. “If every American household changed five regular light bulbs to compact fluorescent bulbs, it would be like taking 8 million cars off the road.” I have already started converting to these bulbs before I saw the show, but that is because I work at an electric company and I know that the conservation of electricity is imperative. People just think that electricity is their given right, but it is not. It must be conserved or lost.

Use compact fluorescent light bulbs. “Listen to the statistic from the EPA report,” Laurie says. “If every American household changed five regular light bulbs to compact fluorescent bulbs, it would be like taking 8 million cars off the road.” I have already started converting to these bulbs before I saw the show, but that is because I work at an electric company and I know that the conservation of electricity is imperative. People just think that electricity is their given right, but it is not. It must be conserved or lost.

Bring your own bag. If you bring clothes to the dry cleaners, bring along a garment bag instead of having them wrap your cleaned clothes in plastic. Also, these plastic bags are known to have suffocated small children and animals, so I always try to not use them. They are just plain dangerous. Also, use your own bags at the grocery store. Just pick up a few canvas bags and you would be surprised how much more can fit into them and how much easier they are to carry then the paper or plastic you get normally. Also, there are places that recycle the plastic bags, so look for those opportunities.


Unplug appliances when you’re not using them, even though you may think they’re off. “For example, when you take your phone off, if the charger’s still in the wall, it’s sucking energy and that’s costing us money and costing us emissions,” Laurie says. “Everything needs to be pulled out of the wall: your coffee maker, your toaster, your hairdryer.” These being another electricity issue made me relate to it even more. My company recommends that you unplug everything when not in use as well. The best example I use when explaining this to consumers is think about your remote control on your TV set. That light and sensor stays lit all day when you are at work not using the TV, so that when you come home you can just pick up your remote and turn on your TV. You would be surprised how much electricity this uses when you are not even there. The same thing goes for cell phone chargers, etc. Just unplug and save on your electric bill as well as save the environment. It is easy. Buy toilet paper made from post-consumer waste paper—that’s recycled paper!

Plant a tree. “Trees are like natural air filters: They absorb the carbon dioxide and release oxygen back into the air. The average person is responsible for emitting 94 pounds of carbon dioxide every day. It takes at least four trees to offset the carbon dioxide you personally generate in a one-month period. If you want to do something about that, log onto www.americanforests.org There, you can buy a tree and they will plant it for you.”

Don’t use disposable diapers. “Americans throw away 49 million diapers every single day. But what happens after the garbage truck takes them away? The diapers end up in landfills and could take 500 years to decompose. Styrofoam takes 2,000 years to decompose. And plastic bottles—such as all of those water and soda bottles—will never decompose. So what does that mean for global warming? Landfills emit toxins such as methane and carbon dioxide, which just so happen to be the two main greenhouse gases that some scientists say cause global warming.