Thursday, March 27, 2008

When will we see the light?

Did you catch this? A 160-square-mile chunk of ice broke off Wilkins Ice Shelf in Antarctica and now glacial ice is just floating around in the ocean. Scientists believe global warming is the likely cause and are worried that the ice shelf is in danger of breaking apart even more. Stuff like this has always bothered me but it bothers me even more now that I have a kid. I mean, what is the world going to be like when Jonah is my age? It's scary and I feel guilty that we as a society are not doing more to fight global warming. I feel bad that I'm not doing more personally. I recycle and all that, but I know I am sometimes wasteful because it's easy to be and harder to conserve. It's nothing at all really, but I did make a small effort today to save energy. I was nursing Jonah in bed and hoping that he would fall asleep so we could take a nap together. But, as I lay there I remembered that I had left three lights on and the radio in the living room, as well as a radio in the bathroom. (Now more than ever, I gotta get my NPR fix in the morning or I'd feel totally out of it.) It would have been so easy to just drift off to sleep rather than get out of the warm, cozy bed, and I almost did. But, I couldn't get the thought or the photos of that ice shelf out of my head. I know one could argue that my electricity usage has no direct link to the ice shelf melting and breaking apart, but doesn't it at some level? I mean when do we wake up and start holding ourselves accountable for the state of the earth we live on? As Jonah drifted to sleep, I slipped out of the bed and went around the house turning off everything and then joined my tiny boy for a nap.

I read Mothering magazine and I also get weekly emails from them. This week, the email had information on something called Earth Hour 2008. To be part of Earth Hour, you commit to turning off your lights for one hour starting at 8 p.m. on on March 29, 2008. You can even register your intention to do so online. It's a small thing, really, to turn the lights off for an hour on a Saturday night. It seems merely symbolic, really. Except it does have a major impact. The first Earth Hour was held in Sydney, Australia last year and 2.2 million people and 2,100 Sydney businesses participated. According to Earth Hour's website, if the greenhouse reduction achieved during that one hour in Sydney was sustained for a year, it would be equivalent to taking 48,616 cars off the road for a year. And, we all know that cars are a major polluter and source of greenhouse gases, which scientists believe are contributing to global warming. And, that's why we have polar bears swimming for their lives these days and giant masses of thick glacial ice falling to pieces. This year, Earth Hour is world wide. It may be a symbolic thing to turn of your lights, but it's worth thinking about. And, maybe, just maybe, we can help save some of this world for our babies. ~ Nicole

2 comments:

Dani said...

Remember when I cried about the baby seals when I was 6? Well, I also cried, at age 33, about the polar bears having to swim and swim looking for land.
We were all at work talking about the ice shelf yesterday. I thought about Jonah. I think about him not ever seeing a real polar bear or elephant or tiger after age 10...
I will be doing earth hour tomorrow, for sure!

Anonymous said...

Love the blog. Found it on Tina's computer.

I often think about how human progress has most always afforded children the opportunity to have better lives than their parents. I'm not necessarily defining better by affluence, but that's certainly part of it. I think we missed that, born 30 years too late. Now, our children, like us, are in decline. We've got to make the most of it while we still can. Education is key.