Earth Day

[greg334]

How are you celebrating Earth Day?

I am taking the holistic approach.

I am letting my truck and reefer idle for 21 hours. an hour for each day in April up to Earth Day.

I am dumping my used synthetic oil down the drain so it ends up in the Rouge river.

I am making sure that all the batteries I have in the house that I have been saving for the last five years get chucked into the garbage can so it ends up in a land fill.

I am making sure that I collect as many plastic bags as I can and see how many I can get caught in the trees around here.

I am cutting down trees on my property, I am also driving my Pickup over to the park and mowing down the newly planted trees.

OK maybe you get what I am driving at?

I am limiting my idling as much as I can. Tomorrow I have a reefer load, so it means I have to start it an hour before I pick up, but I am start it 30 minute before. I replace the fans I had in the sleeper so not to run my truck for the A/C.

I can't burn the synthetic oil, but I can send it to my local industrial oil recyclers who specialize in Mobil One reclamation.

I discovered about 200 D, C, AA, AAA and 9 volt batteries, all are dead so I am bringing them to get recycled. I am also changing over to rechargeable batteries, starting with my camera, remotes and all the clocks in the house.

I took about a thousand plastic bags out of my truck and brought them to Kroger's the other day. I figure my average trip to the store results in 5 bags, so cleaning it out was not biggie.

I took what money i had left from my cash stash and gave it to a friend to buy a few hundred saplings. He and his family will be planting them on their farm and my property. I also told him to give 50 of them to the park up where my property is, they are having a tree planting event for the kids.

It really isn't about the earth day for me, I am cheap and I see that I can save by spending a little more up front, like on rechargeable batteries. I go though a lot of them here so why not. I want to put up the solar panels I got in storage and get a new furnace. it is not about saving the earth but money.

Because I will be on the road again, I can't plant a garden (yea right my wife actually pull weeds?). So maybe when I get off the road, I will tear up the backyard and plant a small garden. It will not only save me a lot of money by canning and eating veggies, provide the dogs with something to do (chase rabbits) but also make in a away save me more fuel (gas) so I don't have to make a trip to get groceries.

 

[LDB]

I plan to celebrate earth day by thinking about it being the day after San Jacinto day.

 

[Turtle]

I'm going on a road trip to the North Pole with a blow torch. I'd like for Al Gore to be right about something before he dies.

 

[Tennesseahawk]

Turtle... care to join me for a polar bear hunt while you're up there?

 

[Turtle]

Absolutely

 

[greg334]

What are the drinking, Tradewinds tea?

 

[OntarioVanMan]

The same outdoor lighting kit with a 3 spotlight SOLAR system I use with the van I now have rigged in the house for nighttime lighting...kitchen, bathroom, frontroom...

 

[Xpediter]

I'm drinking light beer. Thats good for for the enviornment. right?

xpediter

 

[dcalien]

I will continue driving empty so I burn less fuel.

 

[Moot]

Turtle... care to join me for a polar bear hunt while you're up there?

Can I join you guys. We could do some clubbing! Baby seals that is. White gold. Polar pekoe.

 

[greg334]

Well I just got off the phone with one of these parents who is fed up with the schools teaching their kids about how we are destroying the earth.

Two weeks ago, they had to cut down some trees in the yard and they were going to plant some more, the trees were dying and would fall into the house. So Saturday morning, the old man (grandfather) comes over with one of those huge chainsaws for the large tree trunk and a smaller one to trim off the branches. The parents help him get everything ready, they go rent a shredder and so on. He climbs up in the tree and starts cutting, here come the kids. They start screaming at him that he is killing the tree and the birds, the daughter who is 16 start crying. He stops and the parents try to explain what is going on. So there is no compromise at all with the brats, they don’t want to see dying trees cut down because according to ALGORE it destroys the earth.

The old man comes down from the tree, tries to explain to his grand kids and the kids in the neighborhood who now joined in that this is part of nature, trees die and have to be replaced. But they are not buying it, one pops up and said that cutting trees down is killing the polar bears, another says Bush has a weather machine and we need trees to protect us and another said “my teacher says that we must be like those in other countries who don’t have things and food and stuff”. So the grandfather tells the parents he will be back to finish.

The parents are fed up with the kids, the oldest screams at them when they run the water, the youngest wants to only buy organic food. They already went through the change the light bulb, sign the petition banning the bulb routine, but the parents had enough.

So they called the teacher, who force the high school kids to watch ALGORE’s movie and filled their minds with BS. They asked her what she thinks would be a proper way of saving the earth, and the teacher explained to the parents about global warming, about how man is destroying the earth and so on. Then they said that they have come up with a plan because drastic action needed to be taken right away to save the earth so they explained to her that their kids will not ride the bus to school and if they catch them riding the bus, they will punish the kids severely because this is a serious subject - 4 mile walk to high school for the older kids. The younger ones will be taken by bike in all weather. Then they inform the teacher as of that morning they will be without a computer because of the destruction to the earth not only making it but using it, so all homework can not require a computer if she is serious about saving the earth. Then to finish it off, they told the teacher that they are going on a program of reducing their overall carbon foot print by not using A/C, not having TV in the house, taking all cell phones away from the kids and the iPods, no video games and the clothes will only be washed on Saturday by hand. They already recycle and the parents work within 2 miles of the house so they will be biking to work.

They told the kids what changes are being made and why. The kids bikes were old and they asked if they could use them to go to school and the parents said “no” because they need to be repaired and in order to be repaired new parts from China will be used so the kids first have to figure out how much damage those parts cost to the earth before they can repair the bikes. If it is too much, well they walk. They have to reuse their clothes, get shoes that already have been used to reduce Earth damage and so on. They told the kids after May, they will have to have a garden in place because they figured out that most of the food is trucked in from 1500 miles away and it has too big of a carbon foot print, so they have to learn what a rake, hoe and shovel are – as they told the kids, if you don’t know, ask the teacher.

These guys even went so far as to pull the main house fuses, use hand charging flashlights to see and turn off the water heater and the stove to prove their point with the kids. Their point is that if the kids need to hear all the cr*p by someone who is unqualified to speak about it, and think that this is really happening, then the parents need to show the kids what it is like to live like ALGORE and others want them to.

These kids are cracking, after their first cold 5 minute shower, they started to see the point but so far after 10 days of this, they are really feeling it and want to go back to the way it was…..

 

[Moot]

Greg, don't give up hope for our young people yet! I am making a movie, "Bowling For Carbon Credits: An Inconvenient Truth." It is a sort of Michael Boore/Al type flick. In the movie I follow Mike and Al around showing their humble and green lifestyles. Yesterday I shot 6 hours of Mike slogging between the buffet spread at Bosselman's and his table.

I can't seem to locate Albert. With snow across western Nebraska and extending into the Dakotas, Minnesota and Wisconsin I'm sure Albert is probably out of the country. Kinda hard to peddle global warming to the good people of this part of the country on April 26th.

I have to report to Bowstring Lake in Northern Minnesota for the fishing opener in exactly 2 weeks. Boat or auger?