One Great Way You Can Help Stop (Or At Least Reduce) Global Warming

I just love it how ‘coincidences’ work out in life. At the beginning of July I wrote a post in which I was whining about the wasted paper from financial institutions. It’s almost the end of the month and while doing my every-other-day blogs browsing I found through ProBlogger a post called 7 Ways Writers Can Help Stop Global Warming. With the exception of point 7 (because not everyone writes), they apply to all of us.

Since at the end of the post we are encouraged to bring our own contribution to the topic and since there are a couple of things I see around me every day that just drive me nuts (which I was going to write about anyway) I decided to use the opportunity and do it today.

Reduce Your Own Waste.

In any possible way and whenever you get the chance. I’m going to come with a couple of examples that might sound pure awkward and out of line. But before you decide to leave this page, I want to ask you to do me one huge favor: just imagine what would happen if everyone would follow my advice. As a matter of fact it’s not even necessary to have everyone do it. Even a mere few million people would make a difference.

So here we go…

Before you decide to throw away that sheet of paper on which you printed something two weeks ago and which you don’t need anymore, stop for a second and think if you could use it for anything else. For example: have you used both sides or just one? Since you don’t need the information printed on it anymore, don’t you think you could just cross it out and use the other side on another occasion when you only need something for a limited period of time (until you gather all the information you need and your report is ready to be handed to your boss, just to give a simple example). Or lets say you printed out a map to help you get somewhere. Once you’re done with it I’m quite positive you’ll throw the paper away. Don’t you think you could use the other side to print out another map some other time? Not only will you help the environment, but you will reduce your expenses. Your paper for your printer will run out a lot later. I can already hear you: “Who cares about a few extra bucks?” Why not use those extra couple of dollars to buy your kid a chocolate or yourself an extra cappuccino? And, depending on how much paper you use (for personal or business related reasons) these dollars can really add up.

I want to make something clear. I don’t expect you to use such “recycled” paper for a contract or for the report you have to give to your boss. I do understand there are situations which require nice clean paper. I’m suggesting you follow my advice for personal reasons or sketches which do not necessitate a certain “formal” look.

And again I ask you to not look at the effects of just you doing so, but try to imagine how things would be if millions and millions of people would do so. Look into my eyes and tell me you don’t believe it could make a difference for the future of our planet.

Another thing I would like to suggest is stop throwing away your clothes. Unless you have some real skin diseases which can’t be killed by boiling your clothes (and as far as I’m concerned, there’s not really that many folks with such problems), try giving them away to charities. I don’t think I need to point out that you’re not only helping the environment, but also doing a good deed. You could even deduct these. However, unless you have a bunch of growing kids for which you have to buy hundreds of dollars worth of clothes each year, the amount you could deduct it’s probably not worth the trouble of figuring out the thing. But that’s not the point. The point is that, again, if millions and millions of folks would be doing the same, it would make a huge difference in the world.

From the way I’ve seen people think about such issues, I admit one more time that I may have sounded out of line. You might think I have serious issues and that you should stop wasting your time here.

And I say that I am just a guy who believes in the idea that every single little thing each of us does for the environment counts as it adds up and on the whole makes a difference.

If you just get a little more open minded you will see that there’s so many things around you that you could do to join those of us who really care about the environment. And given my personal experience, once you start doing so, it might make you feel better. Knowing that you’re putting away your comfort and selfishness and give a little out of you for the benefit of us all and of our planet, should give you a sense of usefulness and content.

If you wonder what you could do, I want to point you back to my words from above: Reduce Your Own Waste. Keep that in mind and get yourself to the point where thinking about ways to do so becomes a habit (pretty much like going to bed) and you’ll see how many things you’ll find around you that you could do to bring your own little contribution to the preservation of our environment. It won’t happen at once, but if you really want to, it will happen.

Lets all of us be a little less ignorant and we can change the future of our planet.

P.S. Anne, I love your 2nd point: turn off everything you can.

P.P.S. This post is not encouraging clutter. Things that need to be disposed of need to be disposed of. Period. How you do that, it’s a different story. I’m just encouraging a recycling system on a personal level.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 26th, 2007 at 10:36 pm and is filed under Environment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.