50 Simple Things You can Do to Save Earth

I found a book today. Apparently it’s a book I own because it was in my house, but I have no idea how it came to rest in the basket of children’s board books beneath my coffee table. But then, there are lots of things moving mysteriously around my house these days. Thanks to my one-year-old daughter, the TV remote is in the fridge and the yogurt is under my bed. So it is possible, I suppose, that she picked up this book from, like, a box in the attic and brought it downstairs and put it in this basket full of other books. Although, such straightforward classification of an object would be somewhat out of character for her.
The book is called “50 Simple Things You can Do to Save Earth.” It caught my eye because I very much enjoy (some might argue am only capable of) doing simple things, and it has long been my life’s ambition to save the earth (But usually in my fantasy I have an impressive combination of super powers that enable me to do this. Or I am a transformer).
However, when I opened the book and saw that it was older than dirt, I experienced disappointment. It was published in 1989 by the Earthworks Press (Berkeley, CA). This, I realized, was a list of things people could have done to save the earth back when computers stored data on cassette tapes and telephones were large and attached to the wall by squiggly cords. It was obsolete. A waste of time. What could such a book have to offer to us future-living folk?
Funny I should ask, because while yes there are a few obviously dated suggestions (snip your six pack rings, don’t use leaded gas), there are many that make me wonder just a little bit what the hell you grown-ups have been doing for the past two decades.
Like for example, the very first page of this book breaks down the greenhouse effect and explains the importance of carbon dioxide and chlorofluorocarbons and methane and ozone. Here is a little quote: “For the first time in history, human activities are altering the climate of our entire planet.” Umm, hello? This was written back when Bon Jovi was popular. The first time. Robin Yount was playing outfield for the Milwaukee Brewers. Hawaii wasn’t even a state yet. It was the Sandwich Islands. You got there by steamer. Mark Twain was filing humorous dispatches about hula dancers.
Anyway, “50 Simple Things You can Do to Save Earth.” goes on to outline the problems of earth circa 1989 – air pollution, ozone depletion, acid rain, vanishing wildlife, groundwater pollution, inadequate citizen input into local planning decisions (Ha! Just kidding about the last one. Nobody ever cared about that). And because you didn’t seem to be paying attention way back when, here are a few of its suggestions:
- Stop Junk Mail (the average American, in 1989, spent 8 months of his life opening it). If a million people stopped their junk mail, 1.5 million trees would be saved per year (and 999,989 people would have no reason to check their mail boxes each day).
- Use a clean detergent, one that doesn’t have phosphates – they cause algae blooms, which aren’t pretty, smell-good “blooms” like the ones on your Mr. Lincoln roses. They stink. They kill fish. They bad.
- Set your water heater to 130 degrees – hot enough to kill Legionnaire’s Disease, cool enough to save the planet.
- Buy efficient appliances – stop wasting gas, electricity and water you lazy bums.
- Replace (get this!) incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs (a suggestion from 1989? Really? Really? Really? Al Gore? Really?)

Boy, what a helpful list of suggestions. It’s a good thing we made all of these changes back before things got really bad. Thanks a lot baby boomers. Do you feel that? It’s called guilt. Or maybe it’s regret. Or maybe it’s that special irritation you get just before you crumple up a pain-in-the-neck newspaper column. Wait! Wait! Recycle it.