Remember Three Rs of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle? There's much more to it.

Remember the classic 3Rs of environmentalism? Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. These three little words used to make daily sense to millions of us. Of course, I grew up on the heels of Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" and the first blue bin craze. Plastic crates seemed like they were on every suburban curbside filled with people's barely sorted junk.

Something is certainly better than nothing when it comes to making things better for our beautiful, dear old planet. But these days we are all going to magically save the planet instead by buying electric cars, using paper straws and having 2 or 3 steel water bottles wrapped in eye catching vinyl that were bought at a big box store and shipped in from China. Are we heroic environmentalists or what?!

Try this instead, newly offended reader.

Take your life into your own hands. Don't passively wait for big companies or bigger governments to make this an even better planet. Do it today. Why wait? Use the rest of the alphabet letters beyond "the three Rs" however you like to create your own list of practical, actual, meaningful ways to reduce your carbon footprint. After all, less climate change means less severe weather which means less powerful hurricanes so less disruption of ocean ecology. But seriously, the more we take care of ourselves, the less crap we'll want or need. There will be less packaging garbage for that Dutch guy's 'The Ocean Cleanup' junk-scooping boats, eventually.

I'll start us off with my own little list:

A for apples. We rarely buy them anymore. They are often sprayed with pesticides which wash into the watersheds and eventually the ocean. One a day does not really keep the doctor away either, I've noticed. We don't drink their juice either. Not much nutritive value. Plus, teachers likely don't trust them from kid’s grubby hands. Don't get me wrong. Fruit's great. But there's better bits than Granny Smiths. Heard of blueberries? Full of antioxidants!

B is for bunion savers. I don't mean those plastic strap-on nightly toe pullers. I mean not buying four lifetimes’ worth of pointy, cramped shoes that crowd lower digits. How many pairs of shoes do we need anyway? Hikers, runners, work boots, dress casual and a few dressy pairs for dancing, dates or dreaded events like weddings or funerals. More than that and you likely just have a shoe fetish. At that level, they're bad for the planet, too.

C is for cars. Serious. Nobody needs a three-car garage! Cars are cute but impractical. Enough trunk space for groceries but nothing larger. No sheet of priceless plywood, no ladders, no tree from the local garden centre. Get an SUV and have some heft. Go off road if civilized parts of the planet go to Hell. If you do not believe me, at least do this: buy the best car you can and drive it until it is nearly dead. "New in two" is a special kind of madness.

D. D is definitely for donuts. Or "doughnuts" up here. A snack with a hole built in? Already they miss something. This simple fact that is artfully covered up by deep frying, sugar and sprinkles. A donut makes you happy. For a bit. Then more make you fat. Then you must buy more clothes. Bigger clothes. See where this is going? Yep. You guessed it. More consumption leads to more consumption. Have one. But who in their right mind needs half a dozen? At a drive through? For breakfast? Twice a week?!

E is for empty. From the unholy holiness of doughnuts to the emptiness of... empty. Not the nonsense of nihilism. But the better kind. The material purge: "empty"... Empty your house of everything that does not either give you joy or is useful. If you have not touched it, looked at it, listened to it or thought about it in a year, toss it, sell it, give it away. And don't get more of it. That's the real secret. Try empty. It's strangely fulfilling. And good for your favourite planet, too.

F is for fun. Go have some. You deserve it. (We've been going through a global pandemic for over a year, now!) Meet friends. Go to a park. Ride your bike. Watch a movie. Read a book. Write a book. Take a bath. Play a game. Invite your allowed people over for wine and cheese, some flower planting, weed pulling or house painting. Do something. Anything fun. Just don't buy anything. You likely have all you need. Make some crafts from stuff in your junk drawer. You get the idea.

G is for grow some food. Transporting food from far away lands to grocery stores costs a great deal more than mere money. It adds polluting carbon emmisions to our still quite habitable "pale blue dot" called Earth. Millions of tons per year. But you can do your bit. Start a pot garden. Yes. Grow some vegetables in pots on the balcony or window sill if you don't have a yard for a garden. Either way, the more you grow, the more organic, satisfying and responsible you'll be. It's not rocket science. It's lettuce.

H? H is for hardwood. Notice how most people don't have wall-to-wall carpet throughout their homes anymore? Most have switched to environmentally friendly vinyl!? Wow. Fake hardwood. Try real hardwood. It is renewable. It lasts far longer. And looks great, with a range of colours. It feels warm under barefeet in the morning. And it usually gives the house a bit a squeak when you walk across it, like someone actually lives there, like the house is more alive... Just a thought.

. . .

Now that you have begun thinking of your own "new and improved" alphabet for a better planet, I will leave you with just one more. One of my favourites...

T is for toothpaste. We each use about a tube per month, depending on how many people share it and how often they brush their peggers. But do you squeeze it out right down to the very last bit? Have you scraped your toothbrush across the tube to flatten out the last pea-sized dollop? If you haven't thought about that or done it, over a lifetime that's maybe a hundred extra tubes you'll need to buy. Now multiply that by 7+ billion people and counting. All these plastic tubes come from somewhere and go somewhere.

The simplest things really work. There are thousands more ways you can make a meaningful positive impact on Earth. Every day.

Get reading. Get thinking. Get doing. It's your turn.

Do something good for yourself.

Enjoy making a real difference.

"Thanks for reading this. Pease share these words if they've made some sense, hit a nerve or made you chuckle.

I'm a soft but crusty, old but not dead, low-pigment guy named Rodney Ashfield who still does some good. "