One woman's search to find greening in the world today …

Category Archives: Oil spill

Definitely a Worthy Cause

“Worthy causes are worth not giving up on.” ~ Joe Ryan

A wise and wonderful colleague shared his wisdom with me last week, when he noticed that I was feeling discouraged in my green efforts. It seemed everywhere I looked, I got the feeling that people weren’t willing to change, and that I couldn’t make a difference. Now, I know that’s not true, but it certainly can feel that way sometimes. I was struggling to get a couple of my own green projects moving forward, without much success.

So, what shifted my thoughts and beliefs? 3 little blue recycling bins, strategically placed beside every regular garbage can in the backstage area of the theater where I have worked for years. Those 3 bins look like hope to me. You see, those bins have not always been there, In fact, there has been a battle to have any recycling at all for the longest time. And now, 3 bins!! And even better,  people are using them – all the time!

Sustainability IS definitely worth not giving up on! I will do better, starting right now! I hope we all will…

Healing from the “big spill”

For the past three months or so, we have all been painfully aware of the gulf oil spill. The magnitude of the injury the earth has suffered is incomprehensible, unimaginable and unthinkable. It seems like the whole world is going through a painful grieving process. I know that I have felt pretty helpless at times, and I imagine many others have as well. What is there for us to do?

Some people want us to boycott BP for putting us in this mess. I would hope we can see the bigger picture. BP only owns about 100 gas stations out of 100,000 BP stations worldwide. so a boycott would hurt the small independent BP gas station owners the most. And, playing Devil’s advocate for just a minute, BP just might need all the money it can earn to help pay for this mess, right? What if, instead of a BP boycott, we could take another, more positive approach?

A few  ideas (some are really simple, some you may already be  doing) to get us started::

  • Drive less, carpool, group errands and make every trip in your car count
  • Use public transportation more
  • Walk more
  • Donate to a charity that is helping with the relief efforts
  • Roll up your sleeves and volunteer to help
  • Focus on the solutions instead of complaining about the problems
  • Educate yourself – what products contain oil made from fossil fuel?
  • Use less of those products
  • Ask yourself – “what can I do to help?”
  • Send positive thoughts to BP to create a permanent solution
  • look for things to be grateful for

OK, I know the last one is a bit of a stretch, but recently, Environmental Leader Insights reported that the commercial green building industry is really growing, and is expected to see an increase of more that $100 billion in the US in the next five years. The main reason for this growth? You guessed it – the oil spill!  There is opportunity all around us if we just look for it.

It’s time for us to begin the healing process –  we’re all in this together.