The earth is not your ashtray, please stop littering it up with your cigarettes. What bothers me is when I am hiking and I look down to see a used cigarette lying on the ground.
Here are some of the toxic chemicals found in cigarettes: lighter fluid, cadmium, stearic acid, toluene, nicotine, ammonia, paint, methanol, carbon monoxide, hexamine, anemic, methane, acetic acid and butane.
There are over 5,000 chemicals in cigarettes, so when you toss them on the ground those toxic chemicals can remain in the environment for up to 25 years.
This isn't about asking you to stop smoking, nor am I judging anyone that chooses to smoke cigarettes. I am politely asking that you stop polluting our trails, the water, soil, and wildlife with them.
Cigarettes are the world's single most common litter in our beaches, streets and public places.
An article released in 2013 on the National Institute of Health says that cigarette filters are made from plastic so they do not quickly degrade. Filters are meant to absorb the toxins when people inhale, such as tar- that means those toxins are being thrown on the ground with the filter polluting the environment. Fish, birds, whales and other marine life mistake them for food that can cause severe internal injuries.
When you use the ground as your ash tray, you are poisoning it with hundreds of chemicals. These aren't things that we just think of or even know, that is why it is up to each one of us to do our fair share in doing the best that we can to keep our environment clean.
When we learn that something we have been doing is not right, then we can make an individual choice to either continue, or to at least try to do better. This may seem pointless to some, but it really is not. Changing one mind has the power to change the world.
If you truly are going to appreciate nature and all of its wonders then you must get out in it, experience the beauty of the wonderful trails that we have right here in our backyard. Hiking is my therapy, it keeps my head straight, I get on a trail and I leave behind the noise of the world, I step into a world that does not compete, that does not bully, nature is always kind even when we aren't. I respect it, because I know how much I need it, and how much I want it, it is real to me, and not fake.
The artist painted us a beautiful canvas and we should be honored to be apart of it. Watching the sun rise is watching nature wake up to a new day. When the sunsets that is natures bedtime.
"Man will cause their own destruction". Well, that is not hard to comprehend. The many ways that we are destroying the environment is endless. I guess it comes down to our very existence.
All of this may seem pointless to some, but it really is not. Change one mind, change the world.
Then we have the part that tells us, how all things will be made good again, once and for all. How the earth will be restored back to perfection. So with that being said, what we choose to do now by respecting our creator we can nurture earth back to perfect health never to be destroyed again.
Sounds pretty simple if we stop making it so complicated.
I am sure that if we continue to play the game by our own set of rules, then we are sure to lose. This may seem pointless to some, but it really is not. Changing one mind, has the power to change the world. Just believe in it.
365 Devotions To Embrace Of What Matters Most written by John Michalak is a good read. A Righteous Anger is a anger that longs for what is wrong to be made right. It should ignite in you a fire to see the helpless protected, the brokenhearted healed, and the captives freed. Too often, evil thrives because people aren't angry enough. Channel your righteous anger into doing some-thing about it.
"Is it proper that the wilderness and its creatures should suffer because we came?"
"Man always kills the things that he loves".
"We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect." Aldo Leopold
Tonya R. McBryar