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Volume 40, Issue 13
April 22, 2003
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April 22, 2003
Legend's
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Celebrate Earth Day
Earth Day has made its annual appearance leaving many environmentalists
wondering “Why’s it just one day?”
For one day out of the year the world is supposed to stop and take notice
of growing environmental concerns.
Every year these concerns appear to only be exacerbated from the year
before.
This can be attributed to the lack of environmental concern in daily life.
This year’s Earth Day is focused on water issues.
The campaign titled “Water For Life” hopes to bring attention
to problems with water access and use in addition to the alarm surrounding
health problems caused by unclean water supplies.
Water is especially a problem for desert dwellers as we in the Valley
of the Sun should know.
How can the general population be expected to worry over the worsening
state of the natural world when our leaders appear to not take an interest?
President Bush caused considerable outrage by choosing not to attend the
World Summit in 2002.
The Bush Administration has done little to improve our anti-environmentalist
status.
If the government chooses to ignore these issues, greater importance is
placed on the individual’s responsibility to the world around them.
The Earth Day Network wrote, “The campaign aims to inspire action
to improve access to healthy water for these children, and millions of
others like them.”
That sounds like an admirable mission, but what good is one day of environmental
conscientiousness going to do to improve the state of the world’s
water?
Not much.
In order to make a serious change in the environment, a serious change
in lifestyle must first be implemented.
Simple acts of social responsibility can add up to big change.
The Water Conservation Alliance of Southern Arizona offered a number of
ways to conserve water, including:
Fix leaks immediately.
Landscape with low-water-using plants such as those native to the desert.
Wash your car with a bucket of water, saving the hose for the final rinse.
Insulate all hot water pipes and the hot water heater.
Cover your swimming pool.
Do only full loads in both the dishwasher and washing machine.
Scrape, do not rinse your dishes before loading.
Use your garbage disposal sparingly, or start composting your kitchen
waste.
Thaw frozen food in the refrigerator or microwave, not under running water.
While shaving and brushing teeth, turn off the water.
Remember the toilet is not an ashtray or wastebasket.
Install a low-flow showerhead.
Take shorter showers.
One of the biggest water wasters in Arizona are the swamp coolers many
residents install for protection from the sweltering heat.
But steps can be taken to ease the water waste of these as well.
“Be brave. Delay turning on your cooler until the outside temperature
reaches 85 degrees rather than turning it on when it is 79 degrees. You
will use 50 percent less water.
Turn on the water pump a few minutes before turning the fan on. This saturates
the cooler pads making your cooler more efficient when the fan is turned
on.
Open a or crack a window in the rooms you are cooling. This will draw
the cooled air through these spaces.
Use ceiling fans to circulate air within your home.
In the evenings, operate your cooler fan without the water pump. Cool
air will be moved through your house without using any water.”
Perhaps slowly intergrading changes to protect and preserve our environment
will eliminate the need for Earth Day, because everyday we should seek
to save the world.
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