A Three Hour Tour

Just sit right back and your here the tale, OK I am kidding, but I really was on a 3 hour boat tour the other day and I could not get that song out of my head.  Yeah that is just how my brain works.  Anyway the 3 hour tour is the reason I write today.  It was a whale watching tour, and it was awesome (for the most part).  We actually got to witness some very active eastern Pacific grey whales, and that really did make my week.  And even though these particular whales are doing better than most, with numbers in the low 20 thousands, it was still very revealing to think how much humans have affected their populations.  There are many types of whales whose numbers are in the low 100's, and to me that just does not make sense.  But I do not write to depress you with those numbers, different post different day (get excited).  I wanted to depress you with some other numbers now that I learned during the tour (I know I am a giver like that).  On this particular tour, our boat collected 4 Mylar balloons from the ocean.  Now I am no mathematician, but that is slightly over 1 balloon per hour.  This was the not so fun part of the trip for me.
Now I openly admit that on most things I am a slow learner.  But I have seen enough images of dolphins or sharks, or insert any other marine wildlife here, to know that human trash, no matter what it is, in the ocean (or other places it is not supposed to be) is bad.  But when you see first hand what the researchers, and the scientists, and the people who actually know what they are talking about,  have been warning us about floating (less than 5 miles from shore) in the ocean, it can be a sober reminder of how destructive seemingly small actions can be.
And so on the flip side of that there are small actions that can be very positive.  So lets work on those actions.  Lets make sure we put all of our stuff in the right place.  I was able to start only a day or so after the tour.  We were walking the dogs in the park and we found 2 inflated and 2 deflated latex balloons entangled in a bush.  Easy peasy, I was able to take them home and throw them away.  I made sure to cut up all the string and the balloons and then put them in the trash.  Now just because I am boring with how I do stuff, don't let that stop you from being creative.  I am sure that there are other ways to reuse or recycle balloons if you put your mind to it.  The main goal is just don't let them get into the wrong places.  The amount of pleasure that the people on the tour got from viewing the whales was unbelievable, all the ooohing and aweing was proof.  I know they would be sad if all that came to an end because of something like trash.  I know there are so many people who really do care.  So trust me when I say I will not be offended if the number of balloons in the ocean decreases, but I will be if the number of whales, dolphins, sea turtles (insert any other animal name here) does.  So keep that in mind :) because I know no one wants to offend me (wait, what it is not all about me, oh loud sobbing noises start now, wahwahwah).  Please don't let my crying stop, go out and save the world!

I know you mean well

For the sake of everyone involved I am going to keep this post short.  But there is something that has been bugging me for a while now and I witnessed it first hand the other day, and that was the straw for this camel.  Please please please stop bagging your recyclables.  I have noticed a few people doing it recently, and I even noticed someone borrowing our recycling bin, which I do not mind at all, except all the recyclables were in plastic bags.  No, please stop.  Now I will not speak in definitive terms here, but most municipal recycling programs do not accept plastic bags.  The other part of this is that most of the recycling is still sorted by hand at some part of the process.  And bagging your recyclables runs the risk of them either not being sorted and thrown out or just making more work for someone.  We can avoid all that.  Make sure you read up on your local recycling program.  Most of them say what they accept and what is not accepted and most will tell you to keep the items out of bags.  There that was not so bad was it.  Please make sure you are doing everything you can to help.  

Thanks bunches.

Nothing outside of you

Can I say something for a moment, this post may be a bit of a stretch, but in my crazy head it makes perfect sense, so lets just go with that for a second.  Yes nodding and smiling is acceptable, just no pointing and laughing :).  I think I may have said this before, I was reading the other day :) something totally unrelated to what is normally discussed on this blog.  But it struck a chord and just seemed to make so much sense to me, and in my mind was very easily able to be applied to the environment.  Basically it said "there is nothing outside of ourselves"(Momma Zen Miller).  The way that this spoke and the way that is made sense to this blog was that there is nothing outside of ourselves, we don't need anything to help us save the world, because we already have all the tools me need right now, us and our warm bodies.  Which sucks for me because I had a brand new list of excuses ready to go (kidding of course, but they were good ones ;) ).  So let me skip to the point that I TRYING to make here.
Save the world, sure not with magic powers (I am saving those for a really big surprise) but with all those small actions that you are able to do everyday right now.  It can be an overwhelming thought, a good one nonetheless, but overwhelming to think about wanting to save the world.  And I do, I want to save the world for the planet, for the people and animals on it, I want to help and I want to do so much.  Most of that is way out of the scope of my influence and probably not likely any time soon, but it can stall me a bit when I get overwhelmed.  But stop, take a step back and think about what you can do, right now, and remember you have exactly what you need, you DO NOT need anything else to get started except you.  Keep recycling, taking your own container for your leftovers when you eat out, organize or participate in a trash clean up in your area, anything, I mean the list is infinite.  And it all starts with you, no one else, it all comes from your efforts from within your world.  There is nothing outside of us, we already have what we need to make stuff happen.  So do those small actions, because the more that I think about it, it is all those small actions, that might seem insignificant, that will one day save the world.  We cannot expect huge results right away, but don't let the big picture overwhelm, look at what you accomplish when you motivate you and take it one step at a time.  Here we come planet, there are millions and millions of awesome fans working for you every day.  We have everything we need right now to start making a difference.