Yesterday, we celebrated Earth Day a day early. I put money down for four new Energy Star windows. They should help conserve gas usage for heating in the winter and electricity use for cooling in the summer. These four windows represent the beginning of a ten-year plan to eventually redo the entire house. In conjunction with the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act, we will leverage the purchase of these new windows and the future new windows yet to come using the act’s tax credit. Other nice aspects of these new windows are their tilt out design for easier cleaning and their vinyl cladding that eliminates the need for future painting. This action is more substantial than attending the annual Earth Day festival in Forest Park, where we usually go, to shop new windows at some of the various vendor booths. Instead of going to the festival, I plan to spend the day working in the yard. That sounds greener.
New windows…for sure, a win, win.
Looking forward to getting them
Every day of the year really needs World Earth Day attention — with a genuine, serious effort and not just brief news-media tokenism or dismissal.
Obstacles to environmental progress were quite formidable pre-pandemic. But Covid-19 not only stalled most projects being undertaken, it added greatly to the already busy landfills and burning centers with disposed masks and other non-degradable biohazard-protective single-use materials.
Also increasingly problematic were/are the very large populace too tired and worried about feeding/housing themselves or their family while on insufficient income to worry about the environment, however much it’s much needed.
Meantime, consumers continue throwing non-biodegradables down their garbage chutes, or flushing pollutants down toilet/sink drainage pipes. Then there are the toxic-contaminant spills in rarely visited wilderness.
Societally, we still discharge out of elevated exhaust pipes, smoke stacks and, quite consequentially, from sky-high jet engines like it’s all absorbed into the natural environment without repercussion. Clearly it isn’t, but who’s noticing (i.e. out of sight, out of mind)?
As developed nations, we are rightfully expected by the non-developed world to make the first meaningful moves on decarbonization, since we’ve done the most polluting thus environmental damage.
Many people are fleeing global-warming-related extreme weather events and/or chronic crop failures in the southern hemisphere widely believed by climate scientists to be related to the northern hemisphere’s chronic fossil-fuel burning, beginning with the Industrial Revolution. … Thus, every day really needs Earth-Day-like action.