What to do on Earth Day?
April 22nd, 2010 by Zachary Shahan
What can we do on Earth Day to help the planet? Change our lives.
I have read articles from and communicated with many leading environmental bloggers in the past week or so about Earth Day. As many are right and eager to say, Earth Day is not enough, not anymore. Today should still be Earth Day, perhaps, but it should also be the beginning of Earth Week, Earth Month and Earth Year. And Earth Year should be an annual thing.
It is great to make a little more effort to be green on this day. But, as I wrote over on Green Living Ideas recently, it can also be a New Year’s Day kind of holiday, a holiday where we can examine our lives and see where we can improve, where we need to improve, and where we are determined to improve, for the long-term (not only this single day of the year). It can be more useful in that way than any other way, I think.
In concluding this post, I am following that theme by re-posting what I wrote for a Sustainablog/Dancing Rabbit blogathon recently, originally titled “Daily Habits — Is Anything More Important, Is Anything Harder to Change?” and posted on one of my personal blogs, lightngreen.com:
Our daily habits seem smaller than they actually are, because (by definition), they are something we do not give as much thought to. They are things we often do without thinking about why we do them, if we should do something else, or what their true effect is.
The truth is, our eating habits, transportation habits, recreational habits, and even simple flip-the-switch habits probably have a bigger impact on our lives, our health, the environment, the economy, and so on than anything else.
Nonetheless, if we ever do think about changing a habit, it is still a very difficult thing to do… or is it?
Changing a habit feels so hard, because we feel comfort in what we are used to. Most people, and maybe even everyone (even people who love new things, adventure, etc.), crave comfort and naturally feel more comfortable with what they are familiar with.
But if we give it some deep thought, we can look beyond comfort and look beyond what we are used to and can identify ways that we can make a huge, beneficial impact on ourselves, on our society and on our planet by changing at least some of our habits.
I think if we get into the habit of reflecting on our lives, on life in general, on our habits, it can become easier and easier to make wiser and wiser changes to our lives. It can become easier an easier to achieve the ideals that we only dream of when we are trapped in habits that do not lead to those ideals.
I suggest, make a habit of reflection & see how it changes your life.
In addition, surrounding yourself with people who will continually give you new ideas and encourage you to improve your life is probably a good idea as well.
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About the Author
Zachary Shahan is the director of CleanTechnica, the most popular cleantech-focused website in the world, and Planetsave, a world-leading green and science news site. He has been covering green news of various sorts since 2008, and he has been especially focused on solar energy, electric vehicles, and wind energy since 2009. Aside from his work on CleanTechnica and Planetsave, he's the founder and director of Solar Love, EV Obsession, and Bikocity. To connect with Zach on some of your favorite social networks, go to ZacharyShahan.com and click on the relevant buttons.
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