Raising the bar

I was sitting here drinking coffee and trying to remember when I first learned about taking care of the environment.   I was in the 4th grade and the teacher was telling us why we shouldn’t throw stuff out if the car window. That was sometime around  1959.

When was your first lesson with taking care of the environment?

I can't remember.  It must have been when I was very young and I suppose it was taught to me by my parents.  Before moving to central Illinois, my parents lived in the mountains of Colorado and hiked/camped a lot.  I grew up on stories about their hiking adventures.  They emphasized to me that they brought back everything that they took in.  Maybe that was my first "don't litter" lesson.

Eric

I feel from an early age my parents taught me to respect nature.

Though the one thing that really helped to call attention to the environment was living in Texas.

For more than 30 years, the Don’t mess with Texas campaign has been dedicated to educating the people of Texas about the real cost of litter.


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Before the Texas campaign, I remember the Keep America Beautiful campaign.




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Hi Anne,

The pictures you posted reinforce what was on my mind when I named this thread.   It seems that while in the 50’s protecting the environment meant putting trash in trash cans, we have raised the bar on our expectations.

The world is a different place than when the Keep America Beautiful campaign started in 1953.

I doubt that the words green, regenerative, or sustainable meant what they mean today. And maybe no one had heard of them.

I had never heard of permaculture until one day in 2016 when I was trying to identify a plant or flower.

That is the day I found this forum.  

I don't know if my life has changed much since then though how I look at the world might has changed.

One year, we moved several blocks away from a Dairy Queen.  Looking back at that year, I can see how folks have changed, at least by putting stuff in the trash cans instead of throwing the trash out the car window.

Those campaigns have succeeded to an extent.

We soooo.... need to move from "don't litter" to "don't buy the crap in the first place"!

I don't drink pop, so I don't buy pop cans or bottles. If I want a drink, water or an herbal tea are healthier choices for me.

If I take a reusable "hydration bottle" with me, or tea mug, then I don't need throw-away ones.

I have a pair of collapsing chopsticks in my purse. It's amazing what I can eat with chopsticks!

Let's raise the bar even higher... This weekend I'm mending pants for people. That will be 4 pairs that will get a bunch more use instead of going to the landfill this week, which delays the need for buying new ones. If everyone delayed the need for a new pair of pants by 3 months, think of the ripple effect?

Instead of worrying about which type of lightbulb you're using (in the winter in my area, many house heat with electricity so a bulb heats with electricity - duh!), build a clothesline/clothes rack so you don't use the dryer. But better yet, think of all the lint that comes out of your clothes in a dryer - you clothes will live longer if you dry them on a rack, so that delay by 3 months could be a delay of 6 months maybe?

Yes - it's time to raise the bar. But you permies all knew that already. The 6 million dollar question is, how can you influence your families and neighbors and work-mates, to raise their bar??? I did it with the pop issue years ago, but insisting my work-mates stop putting their pop cans in the garbage, and put them in a separate bag for me to recycle. When they realized just how much pop they were drinking, (by the mountain of cans) they realized what it was costing them in both money and health, and they stopped. Pop became an occasional treat.

Yes permies - we *can* make a difference.