So what is "the environment"?

What does it mean, and why should we care?

There are those of us who are "tree huggers" who somehow like to romanticize the environment, and although that point of view does not express my sentiments, I respect their approach and would much rather prefer it to that of the industrialists, who just don't give a damn. They see the environment as something to be exploited and taken advantage of for the purpose of ever-increasing profits. Who cares if we destroy a few wetlands while developing that housing project.

As a former biology and ecology student I'd like to take a more practical approach.
I say that we are the environment. Whatever we put in it, we put in ourselves. This is easy to see when it comes to air pollution. Why is it that California has stricter air quality standards than the rest of the country? Are we somehow to believe that the air over California stays over California? Of course not. That would be rediculous. Most likely the air we are breathing today was some where over China yesterday and has been around the world before getting to us. Speaking of China, we have corporations here in the U.S. that move their operations overseas, where environmental regulations are more relaxed and politicians can be bought more easily than the ones over here and at a cheaper price. But this practice will have dire long-term consequences as you are seemingly moving the pollution from one part of the world to another, but it's the same world. Sure you might save a few dollars for your company, but that old way of thinking needs to change if we are to reduce our damaging impact on the planet.

People get the idea that we are somehow separate from our environment and use that line of thinking, what George Carlin calls the NIMBY Principle (Not In MY Backyard), when making decisions and public policy in regards to the environment. Whenever someone wants to put a landfill or nuclear reactor or toxic waste disposal fascility somewhere, the people of that region get together and form committees and demonstrations, shouting NIMBY and waving their fists in the air.

The way I look at the environmental issues is that we ARE the environment. I see no separation between us and the environmental, and I mean that both physically and spiritually. Whatever we put out there, ends up in here (in our bodies). When we produce that air pollution, it will eventually end up in our bodies directly or indirectly through the rain, the plants we eat, the water we drink, or the food we eat.

There really is no "out there" out there.

Everything is in here.

Whatever you throw out, you're actually throwing IN, not out.

Therefore we must be very cautious when it comes to producing new new chemicals, new products, new weapons, new paints, new building material, or pretty much anything that could some day end up in a landfill, which is pretty much everything that we produce. So take a look around you while you're in the house or the next time you go for a drive. Everything from your house, your furniture, your computers and electronics, your cars, cell phones, the office buildings, the malls, and even the roads and the highways themselves. So the question we must ask of ourselves BEFORE we produce ANY product is "how will this item react with everything else that is in the landfill and how long will it take for this product to fully decompose and be recycled back into the earth?"

In the 90's when I was studying at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I wanted to write a book called "The Principles of Nature". I never started writing that book, but here I would like to share with you one of those principles: The Principle of "No Waste".

Ever since I was a kid I was fascinated by the big cats and facts about them and the way they hunted. After I grew up and watched them more and more on the Discovery Channel I realized that let's say on the plains of Serengeti you have 5 lions that hunt down a 2 ton water buffalo and all of them eat their fill. Then you get a bunch of scavengers like hyenas or wild dogs eating their fill and then come a whole gang of vultures. After that zillions of maggots and bacteria do their job and in a matter of hours that 2 ton water buffalo is reduced to a bunch of bones, hooves, and horn. Eventually over time the calcium and minerals in these are broken down and returned to earth to be picked up and absorbed by plants that become nourishment for animals such as water buffalos that become lunch for lions and many other animals to continue the whole cycle of life.

Now the point is this: you have so many animals and birds and organisms feeding and surviving on this huge animal and you end up with lots of full bellies and ZERO waste produced.

Nothing. Nada. Absolutely No Waste.

And after the food is digested by those predators, the fecal matter becomes the building block of a whole variety of organisms.

Now compare that with the end result of a family of four dining at McDonalds or any other fast-food restaurant. Next time you're at such an establishment just pay a little bit of attention to how much garbage you and the rest of the patrons there are producing in such a short amount of time. What happens to this garbage? Where does it go? What happens to it after it gets there?

Do we care?

Or do we not care as long as it's Not In MY Backyard?

This is why I suggest that before a product is produced, its end of life cycle must be taken into consideration and only produced if it can be fully recycled or decomposed back into the environment without any harmful effects.

In other words begin with the end in mind.

And in no time in our history has this been more important, because at no point in our history have we had such an assault on our environment.

The time has come for us as a planet to take massive action to protect our greatest collective resource: Our Planet.

But the biggest impact will come not from governments and politicians, but from YOU!

Here are a few things you can do:

One of the things you want to do is take the time to get educated. There are many resources out there. Even Home Depot has a special section for environmentally-friendly products. It is just as easy to choose one of these products as it is to choose an "unfriendly" product. So please take the time to read and compare labels and choose wisely.

The biggest impact that you can have on the environment is how you vote with your wallet. Every time you buy an Energy Star appliance or an electric or hybrid car or a CFL light bulb or a solar panel, you are telling the world that you are supporting those who support the planet, including you. And these actions come back to us as good karma in the form of cleaner air, cleaner water, less noise, etc.

Take action around the house. You can replace all your light bulbs but efficient light bulbs and save 25% on your electricity bill I have been doing. Wouldn't that create more waste? Sure, if you throw away the old bulbs but you can donate them to a homeless shelter or some where or just replace the ones that burn out with efficient ones and while you're at it, you can still buy a few efficient bulbs and donate them to the homeless shelter.

Spread the word. Educate others.

Take political action by letting your representatives, and senators know that you support pro-environment legislation. You can tell them that you support electric vehicles at ev4me.org. There are also many petitions available that you can sign online at www.ipetition.com.

Environmental charities are at the top of my list and I urge you to do what you can to contribute to the solution. Take the time to find out about the environmental issues facing us and our planet today by visiting the many environmental charities I have listed on that page.

Then take action.

Donate to those groups.

50 Simple Things You Can Do to Save the Earth.

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