CrankyBuddhist   the learning never ends …

I often wonder what our collective take on the environment would be if reincarnation were a common belief?

I mean, how would you treat the planet if you knew you had to come back time after time and live on it?

We have a perfect example in The San Francisco Bay Area this weekend, the weekend after the oil spill. Hundreds of people headed towards the bay and the beaches to clean oil from the sand only to be turned away or arrested by local authorities.

Things were more tense Friday in Marin County, where Sigward Moser led a 30-person volunteer group – including 20 monks-in-training from the Mill Valley Zen Center – onto Muir Beach. For his efforts, he was detained and handcuffed.

The little army managed to scoop up nearly 500 bags of gloppy, sandy oil between 2 and 5 p.m. Moser said it was easy duty: “It rolls up like kitty litter, right off the surface of the sand. Went right into the bags with no problem.”

They got almost all the oil they could find – and then a National Park Service ranger showed up.

“He asked us to leave, and we said we needed to do what we were doing, so he put me in handcuffs,” said Moser, a communications consultant. “I told him, ‘Well, there was nobody else doing the cleanup before we began.’ But he just said I was breaking the law and this is hazardous material that I shouldn’t be dealing with.”

Moser was cited for two misdemeanors – failure to obey an official order and entry into a restricted area – and released.

Now he has 500 bags of glop in his yard, and he has no idea how to get rid of it.

It also seems that one of the reasons for turning away the public is that there is big money in cleaning up after an environmental accident. Instead of utilizing volunteers to start cleaning up, officials are only allowing paid and trained workers to clean, thus allowing the effects of the spill to last much longer than it would otherwise. And it’s not giving volunteers the training to go out onto the beaches to help.

Why are volunteers not being allowed to work? Because, apparently, the general public is just too stupid to know how to handle the toxicity of the oil. And these would-be volunteers are the same people that use bleach and ammonia (not together, they aren’t that stupid), which are also toxic chemicals, to clean random stains in their own homes?

SFGate.com Story

KGO News Report: Frustrated Oil Spill Volunteers Turned Away

KRON News Report: Training Session Attendees Told To Go Home

It just makes me so cranky …

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How does this work?

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When they learned that running DreamHost generated as much carbon dioxide as 545 average-size homes they realized they had to do something.

They offset their carbon dioxide emmissions by going Carbon Neutral. Which means that they’ve given up some of their hard earned cash to a third party to invest in carbon neutral projects.

And I’m happy about that!

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May there only be peaceful and cheerful Earth Days to come for our beautiful Spaceship Earth as it continues to spin and circle in frigid space with its warm and fragile cargo of animate life. — United Nations Secretary-General U Thant March 21, 1971

I remember the first Earth Day in April, 1970. In my hometown in Western Pennsylvania, everyone, at least all of us school kids, got together and went around and picked up trash. My hometown had a very strong anti-litter campaign, so in reality there wasn’t a whole lot to do. But we were all out there in spirit and many environmentalists were ‘born’ that day. And I was one of them.

Since then I’ve done a lot in my personal life to try and make a light footprint on the planet. Some of them were amazingly simple. Here’s a list of things you can start doing today, and maybe it will help you in creating a greener life.

Biodegradable soaps for dishes, laundry and housecleaning. These soaps are now easily found in supermarkets around the world. Usually higher priced in the corporate supermarkets, look for reasonably priced ones at Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods. Using brands such as Method or Seventh Generation products can cut toxins such as phosphates and chlorine from being released into the environment and can be used not only to wash dishes and clothing, but also can be used in the day to day cleaning of the home.

Baking Soda is a great household cleaning item. You can use it to scrub sinks, tubs, and toilets. If you mix it with some water to make a thin paste, you can leave it sit on a sink stain for awhile before scrubbing it off.

I’ve tossed out or used up all of bleach and amonia cleaners years ago.

Stop using paper towels for wiping up spills! Use a re-usable towel, or a rag, or an old clean t-shirt.

When using paper products, try and buy recycled paper products, especially for those products that will absolutely be used only one time – like toilet paper.

Recycle! If your town doesn’t have a recycling program then they are way behind the times.

Start swapping out your old light bulbs to highly efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs.

Try going organic and eating local produce. Organic foods keep chemicals out of the ecosystem and out of our bodies. Eating local produce, in theory, reduces the use of gas and oil to ship produce from one part of the country or world to another. Eating locally may be more easily said than done for a lot of people around the world. For me, I live in California where there is abundant produce, for now anyway, all year long.

Eat fruits and veggies in season. It’s actually quite nice to look forward to asparagus season, or peach season, or apple pie season, as it makes the fruits and veggies seem more special.

Consider growing your own vegetables in the back yard. I’ve lived in a number of houses where gardens were one of the main sources of food for the home.

Don’t eat so much fish. Let them fill up the ocean for awhile.

Become less of a consumer. Think about the purchases you make, the impression they leave on the planet, and if you really need them.

Take public transportation whenever possible. Drive less, or only drive when you absolutely have to. Don’t leave your engine running while you go shopping.

Walk more! If your grocery store is only a few blocks from your house, walk to the store! You might have to shop more often, or take one of the kids with you to help carry groceries home, but it’s much easier on the planet, and your neighborhood. Not only that, you get a little exercise while you’re at it.

Demand from the government that alternative fuels be developed for cars and public transportation and then be used.

Taking care of our planet has never been as important as it is at this moment. We are at the make it or break it point that environmentalists have been talking about since the 60s. Lifestyle changes can be hard to make at first, because we have been conditioned to live a certain way, but they are so worth it if you can do it. To take care of the planet is to praise the planet.

Happy Earth Day 2007!