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April 22, 2007
The curse of convenience: an Earth Day sermonette
by Sylvia S Tognetti
I'm always somewhat cynical about the encouragements we hear every Earth Day, for individuals to conserve and recycle, when these are not accompanied by any mention of policies that needed to cap total consumption, to create more choices, and ultimately, to make sure we aren't just becoming more efficient producers of greenhouse gas emissions and other forms of garbage. The cars we drive now are certainly more efficient than the ones that were around before the gas crisis of the 1970s, but it sure doesn't seem to have reduced consumption. Here is Maryland, as the state joins in a Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, preparations are also underway to build another highway, the Inter-County Connector, which not only doesn't go anywhere, but would preempt funding necessary to expand mass transportation and create more alternatives to driving. But that is not to say that, we shouldn't conserve as much as possible.
So in honor of Earth Day, here are some words about water conservation I came across in a collection of writings by Guido Ceronetti, "La Fragilitá del pensare" (The fragility of thought) in my own rough translation from Italian:
Go ahead and waste words and occasions, but not water.
...Turn on the faucet and down comes water.... It is the curse of convenience.... Go get it with a bucket and a botle, when there is a breakdown, and immediately you are reminded that water is precious, that life requires effort. Pouring it from a jug is an educational act: "after soaking the feet, there is enough left, tepid enough to shave". "After shaving, enough remains to cook an egg." "After the egg is cooked, after the water has chilled, I can soak my dentures." This is civilization.
Herbicides, pesticides, chemical fertilizers, agricultural chemicals, travel, penetrate, slide down, insinuate themselves, nourishing their petrified pseudo-life on the death of water. And water is the absolute biological frontier. A supernatural blindness is needed to continue in this way, with such anger, to destroy its potability...
Now don´t forget to carry a cloth bag next time you are out shopping and running errands. On my shopping list is a rain barrel, which won´t fit in a bag but it can save tremendous amounts of water by capturing water than can be used in the garden, but, if everyone in my neighborhood did it, we could reduce stormwater runoff in Muddy Spring as well as to the Chesapeake Bay.
In other news, in The GreatTurtle Race, from Costa Rica to the Galapagos, Stephanie Colburtle has so far managed to avoid mistaking any plastic bags for jellyfish and is back in the lead. But I´m also cheering for Drexelina and Sundae, who stayed behind on beach patrol.
Posted by Sylvia S Tognetti at April 22, 2007 6:44 PM
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