Comments on: Why our grandparents didn’t have an Earth Day

By: Condo Blues

Condo Blues — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 23:25:57 +0000

I was a historical reenactor for 8 year so like Brigid, I understand that not all of the old ways are the best greenest ways. I KNOW what it’s like to live without electricity and that’s not something I’d like to do full time but like BusyWoman I DO want to learn how to use it less of it to get more done. I love my electric bread machine

By: BusyWoman

BusyWoman — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 21:14:59 +0000

I love the idea of looking backwards in order to obtain wisdom. I always say that these people ‘invented’ green – i.e. most of the ‘green’ ideas we have today are simply old fashioned living tips! Having said that, if you look too deeply, they are spraying their homes with DDT and other chemicals and as the comment above outlines, there was no respect for the environment.

Our family are on a quest to combine the best of then and the best of now. I like to make my own bread, but I like to ‘google’ the best recipes! LOL

By: Cheap Like Me

Cheap Like Me — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 19:36:14 +0000

Brigid, great points! I would say I was speaking firmly in the “micro.” And I suspect a lot of that is economic … the poorer among us have always reused and made do; the richer have the luxury of buying our way to whatever trend we see.

By: Brigid

Brigid — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 16:55:11 +0000

Actually, our great-grandparents probably needed an Earth Day even more than we did. There were a lot fewer environmental constraints on industry in the 19th and early 20th centuries, so factories, tanneries, mines, and slaughterhouses just dumped their waste. Coal was the default fuel, and it left a deposit of soot everywhere; as late as 1952, London had a “killer smog” due to coal smoke combined with unfortunate weather conditions. When I was growing up, in the 1960s and 1970s, my family in Ireland still burned coal in their kitchen stove and in open fireplaces, and I will never forget the smell.

Also, people were not as aware of the dangers of lead, mercury, and asbestos, and tainted food was common—remember, The Jungle was published in 1906.

Today we have much more regulation of air, water, and ground pollution (even if enforcement is not aways what we would like), we have less heavy industry in this country (although much of it has been outsourced to other countries), and we have more energy-efficient cars, furnaces, and factories.

On a day-to-day basis, our grandparents may have had fewer things, but on the macro level, our lives are much greener than they were 100 years ago, and even on a day-to-day basis, we no longer use lead paint, burn coal, or dump our waste water into the river, so we may be living greener now as well.

By: Cheap Like Me

Cheap Like Me — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 16:30:03 +0000

@Patricia – Great idea to use laundry soap as toilet bowl cleaner! I haven’t tried that.

As for the chickens … that’s a good question. I had decided against, mostly because I want to be able to travel and not worry about them, and I don’t want to find fox-created carnage in the yard one day, and what will we do with them when they stop laying? Now we are paying a fortune for organic eggs from our CSA, and we no longer have the dog that was bigger than a chicken to worry about. And the idea of chickens keeps popping up. So: The jury remains out at this point.

By: Patricia

Patricia — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 15:28:08 +0000

For me, everyday is Earth day. I have a front loading washing machine and I don’t own a dryer but I do own a hybrid car. I have begun making my own laundry soap which works extremely well with no chemicals at all, and it is the best toilet bowl cleaner I have used. I make my own toothpaste and I use vinegar in the rinse cycles of my clothes and dish washers. I wash my hair with a “no-poo” shampoo and when all the other chemically laden cleaning supplies currently in my home are used up I will make my own new supplies. I am growing a vegetable garden and will be using as much harvested water from my roof as I can,and am considering keeping chickens. Ms. Cheap, have you decided for or against keeping your own chickens?