ne'er-do-well

I really like that word. I heard it last night while watching the first hour of An Inconvenient Truth. It took all of my willpower to turn it off in order to go to bed at a reasonable time. I just kept saying "oh. my. god" and "you have got to be kidding." and "good lord." over. and over. and over.

in the process I realized...

-I forgot how much I want Al Gore to be our President.
-I forgot that "W" had promised to regulate carbon. And that he didn't do it.
-I forgot how much I hate it when people think the environment isn't a high-priority issue. People, those other things you're bickering about? Don't you see?!? They won't even exist when the world is more than 5 degrees hotter overall and we lose 20% of our landmass from the ice-caps melting and we all have to move north because the vegetation won't grow.
I forgot how much I can do.

and part of it made me want to cry.

I do not understand how a)people refuse to make even the tiniest effort to combat the problem or b)how people can be ignorant. How? You can see environmentally friendly things at target. Organic cotton is all the rage. People complain because these things are more expensive, but they don't realize that buy purchasing the enviro things now they're doing themselves a favor--because otherwise down the road it will cost you so, so much more.

It's like signing up for ten different store credit cards to get that 10-20% off. It saved you all that money now, sure. But when you go to try to get a mortgage you're going to be kicking yourself.

ten easy things YOU can do.
1. replace your lightbulbs with CFLs. they have them for basically every fixture.
2. reuse bags and/or buy reusable bags.
3. walk. don't drive around looking for that space for five minutes. walk to the store a couple hundred feet away instead of driving.
4. turn off your car while idling. even in the drive-through (though going in is more enviro-friendly, but hey, baby steps here). if you're stopped for more than 10 seconds, it's worth it to turn off the car.
5. use tupperware instead of baggies. try to eliminate baggie use altogether.
6. turn off lights you don't need and when you leave a room. this will quickly become a habit!
7. use as little packaging as possible. buy a 2 liter of soda instead of a can. don't get the bag for the oranges or apples. drink draft beer instead of bottled. this reduces waste AND it means less polluting in transportation. but you've got to take into account #9 when you do this, too.
8. if it's yellow let it mellow. the toilet uses FAR more water than any other appliance in your house.
9. get what you NEED. don't get a gallon of milk when you know half of it will go bad before you drink it. only get a small bag of grapes. don't replace your two-year-old-still-perfectly-fine toaster with a new one just because it's prettier.
10. unplug your appliances when not in use or install a surge protector--if it's plugged in it's using electricity.

and for goodness sake, RECYCLE.

I'll get off my soapbox now and ask--what else do you think we can do? There are so many I've forgotten, I'm sure. And? The only thing in this that will actually cost you money is investing in those reusable bags and CFLs. After that, it's saving you cash and saving the environment.

I think I'm in a mood. I think I'm aghast at what people believe is okay. And it's really on my mind right now.

This probably has a lot to do with my new job. I feel like I'm thinking about enviro stuff all the time. Which, um, is what they pay me for. It's kind of dawning on me that by complete happenstance I landed a chance for this environmental policy-related position, and it might just be almost exactly what I wanted. I mean, it could pay me more, but I also have nothing to complain about. In theory, I have more chance to impact environmental policy here than I would if I'd gone into environmental law.

At this very moment I feel like I finally reached the first stop on the trail up the mountain, dusted myself off and took a moment to take in the view.

and I am pleased.
and refreshed.
and excited to go to the next level.