Poor Earth and Poor Us

I've been thinking lately about how toxic our earth has become. In Jenny McCarthy's book, Mother Warriors, she quotes this story about how back in the day miners used to take canaries with them into the mines. The birds were far more sensitive to toxins in the air, and so when a canary kicked the bucket, the miners quickly got out of the mine. Her conclusion is that occurrences of autism should be a 'toxin indicator' for us. If you are like me and believe that autism is often triggered by toxins in genetically prone people who reach their "toxin tip" earlier than most of us, this all makes sense. (I was persuaded to believe in this theory by Dr. Bryan Jepson in his book, Changing the Course of Autism.) For example, when I was a junior in high school, I did a pretty big report on autism for biology. (Well, ok, so it was big for high school.) My sources then said that autism occurs in 1 of every 300 children. Now if you follow studies of any kind, you know that most sources nowdays state something around 1 in 100. Granted, my sources in high school may have been dated at that time, but the change in occurrences is still phenomenal. I did not graduate from high school all that long ago!




So in view of these facts, I was going to write a blog about how frustrated I was when I looked at my kitchen garbage container one day to see what is pictured above. Yeah, a garbage can full of recyclable items. I was alittle shocked to realize that it was mine! For awhile there I could not find a recycling drop off site in this new city I have moved to. I tried the phone book and looking it up online. I was getting pretty frustrated and was wondering where the local pro-earth friendly groups were. Then I discovered www.earth911.com. I recommend it! I now will be doing some of my shopping at a grocery store that isn't that convenient, but they take recycling, and I support that.
Not that I think that just recycling is going to solve our problem, but it is a small step that many of us can take, and I hope to discuss many more earth friendly ideas here in the future. Just think of the things that would happen if everyone made earth friendly tactics more of a habit.