When you think of the next generations, do you think about the quality of air that they will breathe? Or what about the water that they will drink, and bathe in, what are we willing to do today better that we did not do yesterday?
If these aren't thoughts of yours, please start thinking about them now.
If you have not been doing your part to care for Earth, then today is the day to start something new. We can not always be at our best, but we can all do better.
I started out running the trails on Stringers Ridge in 2016 and then I realized that I was missing out on so much, so I started hiking the trails instead and that was when my love for nature blossomed.
I knew then that I had to at least try to do better in caring for nature in a way that I could be pleased with, and I still have a long ways to go to be pleased with my efforts.
If you are a smoker, then I ask that you do not get offended by what I say next, because I am not attacking anyone that chooses to smoke, that is your right, what I am asking is that you do not litter your used cigarettes, because it is not your right to poison the environment.
According to an article on the National Geographic, "Smokers buy roughly 6.5 trillion cigarettes each year, trillions of cigarette filters are left over when smoked and only a third actually make it into the trash." Cigarettes are the single most littered item in the world.
When you toss your cigarette ends on the ground, one cigarette releases toxic chemicals into our air, they pollute the waterways, the wildlife, and our soil to only name a few. They can last up to 25 years in the environment, and cigarettes have over 5,000 toxic chemicals in them. At some of the Circle K stations you will notice on the counter pouches for used cigarettes, and if you are a smoker, or if you know smokers, then these would make the perfect gift, a gift that keeps on giving.
Last but not least are the used faced mask we are all seeing in parking lots, and we also see them on the trails. All of which is litter, and they are polluting our environment. Do not toss your fast food bag out of the window, do not empty your ashtray on the sidewalk, and please do not throw your face mask on the ground, and when you make your next cigarette purchase please consider buying a cigarette pouch to put your left over filters in.
One of my favorite songs by John Denver, "It's about time".
"Earth was created for all of us, not some of us." - Anthony Douglas Williams
"The most patriotic thing that you can do is to take care of the environment and try to live sustainably." - Robert Kennedy, Jr.
Happy Earth Day 2021
Tonya Rhea McBryar
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Robert F Kennedy Jr. would not be the person I would encourage young people to model for patriotism.
His brother Joe and two sisters, Kathleen and Maeve denounced his stance as an anti-vaxxer in Politico Magazine, May 8, 2019. They strongly admonished him for contributing to the growing fear and distrust of vaccines. Now in a time of pandemic, the siblings words could not be any more appropriate.
As for his environmental positions, talk is cheap. So how does he conduct his life? He lives in mansions, travels freely around in private jets and SUVs and then lectures the rest of us about the way we abuse the environment. When he spoke at UTC, how did he get here, by horse drawn carriage?
September 22, 2014, Junior, in an interview at the People’s Climate March, said he would like to jail energy company CEOs. He stated people who say global warming (yes, he said global warming) doesn’t exist are contemptible human beings and he wished there was a law that allows them to be punished. It’s on YouTube and it’s not faked. Can you imagine if he were writing the laws?
In an Op-Ed in The NY Times dated Dec. 5, 2005, Junior labeled himself an environmentalist. He boasted about his support for wind power farms, just don’t, he said, put one in Nantucket Sound. He failed to say the proposed site was off shore near the vast and lavish coastal estate owned by the Kennedy family in Hyannis. Noisy wind propellers are fine for others, just not in his family’s proximity.
That’s not patriotism, that’s pure progressivism. I choose to do my part for the earth in other ways than Junior’s way.
Ralph Miller