Tuesday, April 22, 2008

In Honor of Earth Day

Happy Earth Day everyone! On this particular day I plan on doing nothing out of the ordinary. This just happens to be one day out of the year where the rest of the world's actions lines up with my own.

I recycle, conserve energy, am in the process of planting my own garden, try to get roommates and others I know to follow my example. Now that the weather is nice, I'll be taking the bike in to work instead of the car.

The area where I fail the earth is work. My chosen profession is directly linked to the world's deforestation. We also create a lot of sawdust, with is particulate matter pollution. And we aren't the most energy efficient shop either.

All of these things are hard to change in an automatic shop environment, especially one as large as ours that has been running for so long. For myself, in my future endeavors, I can change that. Running equipment only when needed and turning it off when not in use is easy with a one man shop. Moving from power tools to hand tools can cut down on the amount of sawdust created. Harvesting local trees has less impact on the world's forests, and making sure to replant or working with mills with replanting programs helps renew the forests.

Until then, I'll just keep doing what I can.

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