How much do you care about the environment?

And what are your personal contributions to help it?

I brought this up since I want to have an idea around what percentage of the population really cares about the current state of our environment, and if they even make any humble efforts to make it a little less worse than it is.

I'm...

 

an environmentalist at heart since I was a kid. I discovered the elegance of nature from reading colored science books entitled 'The Young Scientist', and at an early age I became aware of the impacts of harmful human activity towards Earth. At home, I was dubbed the 'energy conserver' since I'm the one who checks every room if lights and/or appliances are left on without being used. Also, I never, ever threw litter anywhere but the trash bin, and I'm always furious about people who mindlessly throw their garbage just anywhere.

I took Chemical Engineering because I wanted to know how to alleviate the surrounding pollution. Ironically, the chemical engineers are actually the ones who made quite a lot of mess in the first place. Nevertheless, the said field is a very broad field, and this includes environmental engineering. What I'm doing now, as a bachelor of science graduate, is raising people's awareness, because I believe that we can't bring forth change if we don't know how or what really is going on; thus my blogs will be mostly about environment and stuff (so please understand me ^^).

next time i'm sober i'll give you a long reply.

I don't try to go out of my way to help the environment, I probably make it worse because I tend to throw my trash on the floor without really realising what I am doing.

I care about the environment. I don't do all that much, but we (my bf and I) have solar panels, compost all our green waste, recycle as much as we can etc...I think that's really the MINIMUM that people should do. I also do thing like use newspaper to wrap all my christmas presents and we are slowly working towards a more sustainable home; Grey water system, growing our own food etc.

The only thing I actively do is avoid unnecessary paper products like paper plates and napkins. I also conserve water when I brush my teeth. XD
I plan on gardening and supporting local businesses by attending farmer's markets and things like that.

I suppose I care about the environment to some extent, but would agree that I could do more.

Some things I do to protect the environment include:

> Recycling (cans, paper, glass etc.)
> Never litter (However, I will throw things such as apple cores or uncoated paper onto soil since they are biodegradable and probably cut down on recycling costs so help the environment that way)
> Avoid wasting paper: I will fill each sheet, if I can. I tend to write alot, so usually that's not a problem. I do also write on the computer, but that of course means using electricity
> Use energy-saving lightbulbs
> Avoid using outdoor urinals (public toilets); I believe it's better to use nature than man-made urinals to do your business, since the latter adds to water pollution, whereas depositing urine onto soil helps plants to grow, much like manure (i.e. which includes animal feces) helps field crops to grow
> Avoid buying food with excessive packaging
> Use my backpack instead of relying on plastic bags (because the latter takes 1000s of years to decompose)

There are some other things I do as well, but they depend on circumstancial energy demands. For instance, since I own a plasma TV (which of course draws more power than a typical modern LCD TV), "off-setting" is one thing I do to ensure that my energy consumption is within a footprint that's sustainable for the environment.

In the future, I'll be looking to install solar panels on my roof.

 

Scientific Fact: Did you know: if everyone adopted the western lifestyle as a standard of living, we would need 4 Earths to support us?

I'm not an environmentalist, but I don't like it when I take a dive in the river and hit broken glass bottles at the bottom.
My contributions are passive, and without any acquired sense of self-righteousnesses:

- I always make sure to take a crap or piss out in the open if I can. To feed a tree or water some mushroom.
- I don't buy pre-made junkfood wrapped in plastic when I go for a barbecue in the woods, only tasty slaughtered animals, mmm. So I don't have many wrappers to throw.
- When the grill is done, I don't put it out with a fire extinguisher like a wuss. I spread the ashes around the ground. Fertilizes and keeps my grill clean.
- When I smoke, I take 70% of the CO, the sky takes lesser than me.
- I walk or bike if I need to go somewhere within 2 Km in 10 mins, because the gas prices are killing me.
- I do laundry/house cleaning with detergents seldom, because I'm lazy.

I got a hippie side to me, I recycle everything - even bringing home bottles from work since they don't have means of recycling there. I compost all kitchen scraps. But I'm not really a tree hugger either - I have a native, or tribal (for lack of better term?) side of me also that uses what nature can provide. I heat with wood I cut from my families own land, I hunt from the same woods for food. I believe its part of the circle of life and can be sustainable except for the fact that population is increasing too much. So long as only a small amount of us do it currently. I do respect the trees, trying to only take what has already fallen, and respect the animals too. I give my thanks when I take a deer, and make sure it goes to good use, and shoot just as many or more with the camera than the bow and arrow. I garden as well and planning to plant a whole orchard of fruit trees and berry bushes.

im glad there are people helping our rock insted of complete insanity. i usualy walk instead of drive. small town. Dr. LeDoom! is awsome