Every Day is Earth Day
I get asked the question, “So, what are YOU doing for Earth Day this year?” quite often, knowing that my family makes itself out to be the green-thinking kind. My usual response? Nothing. “WHAT?” they scream indignantly, hoping they are catching me giving up on the hopes of a sustainable future. “Why”? Because every day is Earth Day in the Holt household.
Which is why I was thrilled to get this event notice emailed to me today. The Windsor Masjid is holding their “Every Day Is Earth Day” event (coincidentally coinciding with mine!) and I am looking forward to attending. I am not a follower of Islam, yet I see this event as performing two absolutely necessary tasks. One is to learn more about current environmental ideas and technology, and the other is to foster a deeper understanding of Islam. I have never been to an Islamic service before and I look forward to exposing my children to it as well.
I can’t think of a better way to celebrate Earth Day this year!
Wednesday April 22
Every Day is Earth Day event at Windsor Masjid, 6 pmDear all,
This is a first of its kind event in our community, be proud of it and please bring all your family and friends with you including all non-muslims you know. This is a unique opportunity to inform muslims and non-muslims alike how much Islam has for the environment and how distinguished and comprehensive it is to save and preserve planet earth, indeed it is THE SOLUTION. I especially call upon the youth in high schools and universities to bring their classmates and teachers. This is an event you will remember inshAllah and will be proud of.Here is the Program:
6:00 pm: Asr prayer
6:15 pm: Welcome and Intro: “Earth Stewardship, an Iman imperative, Glimpses from the Qur’an and the Sunnah”
6:45: Islamic Schools Students Science Fair projects related to the environment
7:00 pm: Mauro Gatto- Green Tech Energy Solutions: The Home Energy Audit and Real size solar panels and collectors display. Touch them, feel them, ask about them. Also will talk about the first Windsor home totally on solar and independent of the electrical grid
7:20: Farid Ahmed Enermodal: Green Buildings, the way of the future: What is for our Masjid!!! The Windsor David Suzuki School, the first ever LEED Platinum school in Canada and Sisters Church in Chatham
7:45 Energy usage in the Windsor Masjid: The challenge ahead. Find out how much we are using in the Masjid and how much we can save- be involved
7:50: Larry Young - Union Gas: Federal and Provincial Energy efficiency incentives. Hurry up before the funds dry out, also the air recovery unit. Discover the Drain Water Heat Recovery System: A an actual system will be brought for Display.
8:05: Zulfiqar Ali- Union Gas: The Energy saving kit and Canada-wide green initiatives – Get your kit, take it home, and start saving.
8:30 Maghrib prayer
8:45 Further one-on-one interaction with guestsYour presence will be greatly appreciated.
It would be very cool to see many non-muslim folks out for this event with me. We can’t survive in isolation, and for Windsor to move forward we need to join together with as many people as possible.
Tags: Earth Day, event, inter-faith
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Thanks for the info Chris. I’m not one for organized religion but putting that aside it might be a very interesting event to attend. You’re 100% right that we have to bring EVERYONE in the community together to solve problems and make change for the better.
And now for a little rant about energy waste in the workplace, sinse I’m at work at the moment..
My workplace has to be one of the most energy-wasting places I’ve seen. I’m with the Lenovo / IBM tech support program at Sutherland at the 500 building on Ouellette. We are a 24-7 operation but our staffing level varies to match the volume of incomming calls - at peak we have about 15 agents, during the night we have 1 or 2.. We share a floor with an outbound Telus telemarketing campaign who are only here for 8 hours of the day.
To spite this, most workers here leave their computers running 24/7, leave fans blowing air into empty cubicles, leave the AC on 24/7, and leave the lights of every room on..
The problem goes all the way up to management, who are as ignorant as anyone.
I tried bringing it up in a nice e-mail. I didn’t want to sound like I was accusing anyone and I tried to spin it like “Hey! We can save the company some money and go a little greener if we turn off the computers we’re not using”..
I never got a reply, but I know they read it.
Other times I’ve gone around shutting down idleing machines on friday night (most of the floor goes unused for the entire weekend, that’s about 100+ computers) one of my co-workers asked me what I was doing and I told them I thought it was a waste of energy and ultimately someone’s money (possibly even Windsor Taxpayer’s money as I know Sutherland recieves a number of subsidies from the city). The response I’ve recieved from most co-workers have generally been a scoff, and an attitude of “why would you care?” or “what does it matter” or plain outright stigma against being green-minded.
However, lately I’ve noticed a couple co-workers who’ve started putting their machines to “sleep” at the end of their shifts.. I wonder if they’re following my lead, but even if they’re not I consider it a sign of hope.
For the record, I have my reservations about Global Warming but with coal-fired power plants as close to us as Brighton Beach, I think we need to take measures to keep our air, water, and soil clean or it will ultimately be our own demise.
I will be in the community picking up garbage and trash that is left behind after the winter melt. I know its a small part, but when added to all the other things we can do, it helps! I hope to see more than just me out there!
ps. One of the biggest energy wasters that I know of is Apartment Buildings with all-inclusive heat & utilities. These buildings jack up the heat so much that people have to have the windows open in the winter to stabilize the temperatures! In the summer, the inclusive (seemingly ‘free’) electricity allows the tenants to blast A/C all day long when they are not there (not to mention that many are using the wrong sized AC unit for their apartment, which is inefficient). We need to lobby for regulation that makes all new apartment buildings include individual utility meters and start a program to transition older buildings to these systems too! This could cut Natural Gas and Electricity usage (and CO2 emissions) by a significant figure! (not to mention lower the rent of many, in exchange for them being responsible for their own energy usage) .. just my 2 cents on how to help on Earth day.
Oh, just something that came to mind I wanted to show everyone. Here’s a great business idea that could be brought to the North American Market;
This isn’t my picture, but this is pretty much exactly what my toilet looked like in Japan:
http://www.myspaceallabout.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/03/15/toilet.jpg
(if the link doesn’t work you might have to copy paste it)
Now putting aside the high tech built-in gadgetry of this toilet, please take note of the simple but innovative green functionality built into it in the faucet which sits on top of the water tank. What happens is the water that will be used for the NEXT flush (ie. this is CLEAN, even drinkable water) is not filled directly into your toilet’s tank but rather comes out of a small faucet and drains through a hole in the basen underneith to fill the toilet tank. This happens automatically whenever you flush the toilet. No more wasting water to wash your hands. Also, in Japan I was interested to find there are 2 flush modes - big if you tilt the handle upwards, and small if you tilt it downwards.. You can guess the respective functionality.
Anyways, the faucet idea would be not so hard to install onto any toilet in Canada, sinse it is simply giving the water a new route to take when filling your toilet tank, and saving some water in the process. Jeeze, I miss Japan (TvT)
Chris - I agree. I don’t do anything differently today than I do any other day. It’s the exact same reason that I didn’t participate in “earth hour”. Evey hour, every night is earth hour.
I agree, Every day should be Earth Day but then not owning a car and walking to and from work and food shopping several days a week, it is Earth day for me, every day.
Not owning a car also means that I have to shop for food several times a week rather than weekly and only purchase enough to fill my backpack, I could buy more and use a taxi to get everything home but I only live 15 minutes away. What I find under this situation, I only purchase what I need not what I expect I will need in five days and vert little extra food stuffs.
In the next month I am purchasing a dual flush toilet for my condo.
Mark I commend you, and you bring up an excellent point - the whole car-culture is really tied in to over-consumption of food, etc. As people are accustomed to stockpiling large amounts of food they don’t neccissarly NEED but simply crave.
Mark, you are so lucky to work close to where you live and thus are able and have the courage to ditch the car.
I’m at the point where I’m going to have to create my own job to be able to end my long commute.
I think there is nothing more important that we can do to help the planet than this. Not to mention, the multiple benefits it has on our community, health, and overall happiness.
Bravo to all those of you that have reached this goal. You are the hero’s of earth day.
Luxury or Necessity?
A new poll from the Pew Resarch Center finds that the recession is altering our perceptions of what we truly need, and what we can live without: some consumer goods that were once widely considered “necessities” are increasingly being viewed as mere “luxuries.”
The biggest falloffs in “necessity” status were in microwaves, clothes dryers, air conditioning, dishwashers, and TVs. A few gizmos (high-speed internet, flat screen TVs, iPods) saw some modest gains as “necessities.” But overall, it looks as if a combination of changing societal norms and troubling economic realities is leading us to reconsider whether we really need all the gadgets in our lives.
Only time will tell if this is a lasting trend, or just a blip. But it’s sure an interesting demonstration of a fact that’s well understood in academic circles, but is perhaps a surprise to a society that’s grown accustomed to plenty: our needs are, to a large extent, a social construction. We need a lot less than we think we do; and much of the time, our perception of need is defined by what our peers and neighbors have, or what they want, and not by what makes us genuinely happy. In fact, we often have absolutely no idea what makes us happy or fulfilled.
http://tiny.cc/irWGO
Pew Research report:
http://pewsocialtrends.org/assets/pdf/luxury-or-necessity-2009.pdf
Gee! I’m ahead of the curve on this one! Imagine, me as a trend setter!