Happy Earth Day!
Today I'm going to become a bit of an EcoGeek myself and tell you some of the things I'm doing to Save Earth as well as what I did today.
First off, today is nice because for once it's really warm outside and Sunny!! That makes me so happy! It's finally Spring. Actually, it's in fact almost Summer because it's almost too hot outside. In fact, today it warmed up to be about 95 degrees! I wanted it to warm up but not this much! It's so hot outside that now it's miserable and literally drains me. I wanted to find a happy medium: be warm but not too warm. It seems to go from one extreme to the other! You think I'd be used to it by now but I'm not.
So anyway, today was still a nice day for Earth Day. I did not realize that there were events taking place on campus until I had gone to my Primary Math class. One of the girls in my class was carrying a kite she had made at one of the booths. She mentioned some other booths as well. After class ended, I decided to go see what was going on for myself. There was a quite a few booths on Library Lawn. Some of the booths talked about animals, some about ecology, and some were selling earth friendly merchandise. Just a wide variety of things to celebrate and bring awareness about Earth and things you could do to make a difference. Of course, there was also the kite making booth. It was fun making a kite! The kites were shield kites and seemed to be made from plastic trash bags. All we had to do to make one was pick a pattern to trace onto our kite with markers and then the people would help us put together the rest. It was a lot of fun! I had chosen a pattern with a fancy star that ended up looking more like a flower after I had finished. We also got to add tails to our kite. I added bright pink and lime green tails to my kite to make it even more colorful. I thought about flying my kite after I had finished but didn't. After I had finished my kite and looking at all other booths, I came back to my apartment. I didn't really do much else for Earth Day other than that but still it was something.
Lately, I've become more interested in doing my part to help our planet. I don't consider myself to be a big environmental person like some other people. Yet, I'm still probably more environmentally conscious than normal. For instance, I took part in Earth Hour 2009 this year. For one hour, I turned off all lights and electronics to show how even one hour can make a difference. It was an interesting experience for me especially trying to read and eat dinner just by an LED flashlight. I've also been using cleaning products that are more earth friendly. I use a lot of the Green Works products. Yes, they are a little more costly than the regular ones but they are more earth friendly. I've also been using reusable shopping bags to carry my groceries whenever I go to Walmart.
When I get to thinking about doing my part to help our planet, I realize I already am without much extra effort. For example, all the lights in my apartment use energy efficient lightbulbs and most of my electronics are already energy efficient because they were just designed that way. I also turn off all lights and electronics when I'm not using them. Now that it's getting warmer, I keep my windows open and use my fans to keep my apartment cooler and to keep the air flowing. I try not to use my air conditioner too much because it uses a lot of electricity which in turn costs me a lot of money. I also save money by not driving my car as much. Since I live so close to campus, I have no need to drive and either walk or ride my bike. This saves my from having to buy gas for my car since I rarely drive it during the week. I can usually go more than 2 weeks before I need to refill since my car has good gas mileage. Another thing I've been doing to help the environment is eating more vegeterian foods and less meat. I've never been much of a big meat eater to begin with so this really isn't that big of a difference for me. I've just been eating a little more vegetarian options over regular options. Plus there's the added bonus that the vegeterian options are more healthy. I also try to recycle as much as I possibly can and use more recycled products. In fact my printer paper my printer paper was made from recycled paper!
Now you know what I'm doing to help the environment. It's not really that much of a difference and it hasn't been much extra effort. Not only by doing things to save energy help save the planet, it also helps to save money. Me being a college student with not much money, anything I can do to save money is good. Really all it boils down to, is putting a little more thought into what you are doing or what you could be doing instead. Just little things such as turning off lights when you aren't in the room. I love Earth and want to help do my part and I encourage you to do the same. Celebrate Earth!
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