Saturday 16 April 2011

Protecting our earth...

I live in a small mining community in North Queensland Australia. Natural resources are ripped out of the ground here and taken for processing and use in other parts of the country and the world.

As I sit here, waiting for a bit of divine inspiration for today's post, the ground shakes, a loud booming noise fills the air. The house is shaking and a big cloud of dust fills the air about a kilometre away. They are blasting at the mine site today. Using explosives to rip the earth open to access her coal.

Attuned to "listening" instead of hearing, I feel the screams of countless of dying creatures and plants, and feel the earth scream inside my head as a wound is blasted open on her surface. I know this sounds melodramatic (and perhaps it is), but I feel like crying uncontrollably and nausea is trying to overwhelm me right now.

I know and understand why the mining companies do this. I am myself, sitting here, using the power generated from this desecration. This makes me feel very hypocritical, and probably look it as well.

I am as dependant on power generated from natural resources as the next person, and I make no judgement on people who make their living by working in these industries.

What I do though, is to minimise my need for these resources as much as I can and seek alternatives when, where and as often as I can. It is simple enough to do. One night a week we turn off all power other than fridge and freezer, at the main switch, we purchase "green energy" from our energy company (this is available in Australia, I am not sure about other places in the world, but I suppose it must be. It is selecting a percentage of your power supply that will come from 'green' sources such as hydro, solar or wind power. This power costs more, but how do you calculate the cost of the lives I just heard destroyed?), we minimise our energy usage between the peak times of 5.00pm til 8.00pm, we use the sun to dry out clothes, a sink to wash the dishes and turn off lights and equipment we are not using.

These are only little things...they sometimes cause a bit of inconvenience (especially having the power off) and they cost a little more sometimes. Being so simple, these are things everyone can do. It is only a little, but the impact of every person in the world doing this little bit would be amazing don't you think?

Please do your part, no matter how small it may seem to you.

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