David Goss: Earth Day has helped make a difference and you can too

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This Monday is officially Earth Day. If I was still a Recreation and Parks employee, I’d likely be leading some sort of outdoor program today so children could be exposed to ideas about taking care of the planet we live on. I’d likely begin the day with a quote from Terry Swearingen, winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize, who said, “We are living on this planet as if we had another one to go to.”

I first heard this quote from a new friend, Gary Bennett, who got me thinking about Earth Day when he delivered an essay to a men’s literary group I belong to, the Fortnightly Club. It was part of his presentation of how, in 2019, he wanted to build a livable home for his senior years and chose to do so using two shipping containers.

He told the group, “In the construction of my container home I made good use of all my construction experience and additionally tapped into my experience with a local Environmental Engineering Consulting Company.” He also stated, “A sustainable home is one built in a way that conserves resources, optimizes energy and water use, has improved durability due to well thought out planning, and careful consideration of quality materials and systems.”

In his essay he gave detailed information of how “every inch of material was utilized efficiently,” “and that by “careful planning, materials are repurposed and made useful again.”

His essay gave me much food for thought. I believed I had a good track record toward the environment. A recycler of papers and pop tins since my Boy Scout days, a lifetime walker, still cycling as my eighth decade approaches, having build an R2000 home in 1987, and knowing this choice saves me $100 a month in winter over neighbours in energy costs, were certainly on the plus side.

But on the troubling side just as I was hearing Gary’s story was my backyard where a storage shed holding many items I thought I’d be able to recycle had given up the ghost and had to be torn down. Almost $50 worth of scrap lumber and roofing and dozens of items I could not reuse had to go to the landfill. I was certainly feeling down about my contribution to the mess we now find our world in.

During this period, two other quotes came to mind. Gary had written, “The Earth is in the midst of a biodiversity crisis, far too many species are being lost globally.”

And he included another, “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed,” which he attributed to Mahatma Gandhi.

His talk, and his actions were certainly lessons for me, and they added to my resolve to do a better job of taking care of the world that has taken such good care of me for such a long time.

What can you do? Give the messages you will hear on Earth day due consideration. Take an active role in conservation projects. A motto from my Scouting Days comes to mind that might be useful. It was Reuse, Recycle, Reduce.

Earth Day promotions have added to this since it began in 1970, so that now it reads, Reuse, Recycle, Reduce, Repair and Rot, the later in reference to Kitchen Waste.

I’ll leave one other quote Gary shared with me that is worth thinking about on Monday, and really at any time following Earth Day. It is an adopted motion from the United Nations General Assembly in July 2022, that reads, “The mission is founded on the premise that all people, regardless of race, gender, income or geography, have a moral right to a healthy, sustainable environment.”

Gary would prefer that it read a “human right” rather than the “moral right,” it states.

His words, thoughts and actions certainly have given me food for thought, and I hope you can say the same after reading today’s column.

Together, we can make a difference.

David Goss is a local tour guide, story teller and author. He appreciates comments on these columns, and suggestions for topics he can explore at gosswalk@nbnet.nb.ca.