Wednesday 21 April 2010

Corner View: Earth Day.




These days, when the weather is so nice and the sun so generous, we often go with Little G. to see the ducks, swans and other birds the name I don’t know. They live in the channels nearby. They have just had their off-springs. G. always gets very excited about them but I get quite sad. I look at not so clean water and at their nests, built with straws, plastic bags and other litter. Once again, we managed to interfere with the innocent beauty of nature…

When I was in secondary school, I remember that on Earth Day we didn’t have any lessons. We would spend the whole day celebrating our planet and spreading awareness about future of the world. We would go to the nearest parks and forests and collect litter. We would have lectures about eco living and we would do lots of other activities, like painting posters on the subject. It was fun.

To me, Earth Day is every single day of year. One of my teachers in my high school used to say: “You want to change the world? Start with your backyard”. I believe that looking after your nearest surrounding can really make a difference. Do small things around you- it will all add up to a big thing for the world.

We do try hard to do our bit for the Earth. We segregate our rubbish and when we were still living in Genoa we also kept bin with compost in our “backyard”. We buy eco products for cleaning, sometimes it’s enough to use vinegar and soda bicarbonate. We try to use water wisely (“if it’s yellow…” rule for example). Cloth nappies, organic cotton clothes, organic food. Re-usable bags for shopping as I can’t really stand plastic ones and if it happens that I’m forced to take one- I feel very guilty. We don’t buy any products that contains vegetable oil- usually it is not specified what exactly is this “vegetable oil”; in many cases it is palm oil. By buying products containing palm oil you support the killing of orangutans and downfall of forests (be aware, read more: here, here and here). Another big NO in our family are cosmetics tested on animals. We do not want to be a part of cruelty. In our household you will never find products that belong to big brands like Procter&Gamble, for example. We go for ethical, organic, natural, fair trade goods. We read labels before buying things.

We all have reasons to care for our planet. Let's make Earth Day every day. Let's make it possible for our children to see the beauty of the Earth, our Mother. Let's care for Her because "when the last tree is cut down, when the last river is poisoned, when the last fish is caught- only then we will understand that we can't eat money".

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For some more CV, please visit lovely Joyce who's hosting CV this week. Thank you for coming up with this beautiful theme about Earth Day, Joyce!

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PS There would be a reason why we called our daughter Gaia... ;)


7 comments:

  1. You are a woman after my own heart! Thank you for being an evolved human being :^) and so enlightened - I appreciate you and this informative post. Eco friendly and cruelty free is what we need to teach. So important now. Thank you so much! xoxo

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  2. You chose your daughter's name well! We also always read labels and think about what we're buying!

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  3. A lot of those things I do too... reusable bags, eco friendly cleaning products, not tested on animals stuff, and I didn't know about the vegetable oil...Thanks!

    Happy Earth Day!

    From Canada

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  4. oh, trop mignon... a new life on earth !

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  5. This is the most beautiful Earth Day post I have read. I just love the way you talk about things, and it's very informative. Thank you so much for this post - and for carring about our planet =) we have the best reason of anyone to do all that we can!

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  6. I love your daughter's name! We don't have children, but I do have nieces and nephews and I'm trying to do my part of leaving behind someday a better earth.
    Some of us do our part in a big way, some in a small way but as long as we do something we can make it all happen. Thanks! xo

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  7. Great photos! You must have a good camera in order to taks such up close photos of the birds. Have a great week!

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