No, not Eric Banner style, what I am talking about is how all of a sudden green thinking, technology and ideas are in. My question is; are they being put out. With everyone talking about saving our planet it’s time we start seeing some real action. Yes raising awareness and events like live Earth is a start but I want to see some numbers like fewer brownouts, lower electricity and vehicle use, reduction of waste…etc. It’s time to turn the public reaction into some real action.

I started thinking about building a website like this when I was 18 (2003). At that time not a lot of people were concerned about climate change or the effects on the environment. Looking back now it’s kind of funny to think that when I launched the first version of the site in 2005 only 2 years ago the climate change skeptics were about as numerous as the environmentalists. How far we have come since then, the increased awareness, consensus among scientist that global warming is happening and we are causing it, and everyday people thinking about how they can make a difference for their children or grand children. The only thing that worries me is that this will all be talk with no follow up.

I have found some parallels to this in my own life. Even though I consider myself an environmentalist and I made / write on this website and generally do my part to help. I have noticed some idiosyncrasies with what I practice and what I preach. I was doing the laundry the other day when I first began to think about this, I started off washing my clothes in cold water…good so far, but then on a day it was 30 degrees Celsius out and I was using an electricty hogging dryer. Despite all my other conservation activities I had been too lazy to implement one of the easiest and cheapest energy savers of all, a rope and some clothespins. I also noticed that my commuting to work had become less often by Bike or transport and more often by single occupant car. I had begun to slip and I need to personally account for my lack of action by changing the way I do certain activities.

When I was in high school my business teacher told me about a man who had put advertisements in a number of magazines advertising a solar powered clothes dryer with a cleverly written description and an amazing one time price of $200 USD. After getting hundreds of orders the “lucky” buyers were shipped a plain old $5.00 clothes line and some clothes pins. A law suit was filed and favored the man because he had not lied or stated that he was selling a machine at all, the assumption was made by the buyers and therefore they were liable. This story has always struck me as pretty funny and reminded me to not always take things at face value. Just because people are now talking about the environment and many are very concerned this does not mean that we will act in time for future generations.

All I can do is quit talking about it, pick up a clothesline on the way home and hop on my bike tomorrow morning. A little less talk and a whole lot more action is all my unborn child can hope for.

Jeff Radecki