Little steps help the environment

Local events for Earth Day aim to inform, encourage

By Connie Cartmell, ccartmell@mariettatimes.com
Save your flags, posters, banners, and bands to proclaim to the world the importance and significance of Earth Day 2008.

Just do something—anything—to get involved in saving the Earth, says Washington County resident George Kesterson.

It’s Kesterson’s belief that if each person gets involved in some small way, the overall impact will be significant.

“It’s the little things you can do to handle your own economy that will make a difference,” Kesterson, 82, said Friday. “You see folks out on all these marches and parades, but all that won’t make a difference.”

Kesterson has been paying close attention to environmental issues.

“I’m on board,” he said. “I drive my vehicle as little as possible, and most of the light bulbs in my house have already been changed out for the new (compact fluorescent) ones.”

“Going green” means many different things to many different people.

With Earth Day on Tuesday, Marietta is celebrating the day Saturday with displays, exhibits and exhibitions on the lawn of the Marietta armory. It’s all aimed at education and encouragement.

Kesterson hasn’t made up his mind about the issue of global warming, but he’s willing to listen.

“I have mixed emotions,” he said. “These things cycle. All you have to do is go back to the 1700s when there was a quick freeze and no summer.”

Like many others, Tiffany Holmes, 30, of Watertown won’t be doing anything specific to celebrate Earth Day, but she is doing what she can to help solve environmental problems.

“I’m probably getting ‘greener’ a little at a time,” Holmes said. “I don’t use as much electricity as I used to use and I do recycle, even though we live out of town and don’t have recycling.”

Holmes believes paying attention to the environment is important for the future.

Naturalist and environmental activist Marilyn Ortt of Marietta hopes people will help preserve farmland by supporting local farmers, get involved in water and air quality issues and join groups that volunteer with recycling and other programs.

“Be a ‘local-vore.’ Grow your own garden,” Ortt said. “Most of the food we see at the supermarket has traveled 1,500 miles to get here.”

She asks people to take an interest in non-native invasive plant species, the greatest threat to local plants.

“Vote,” Ortt said. “Find out what the environmental issues are and vote on local, state and national levels for people who support these issues.”

Brent Wood, 35, of rural Washington County has been a member of the Arbor Day Foundation for three years. He’s been interested and active in environmental issues for about a decade, he said.

“I live in the country, and every night when I drive home I see people throw stuff out of car windows on the back roads,” Wood said. “If we don’t start working on all this now, we’re not going to have anything else left for future generations.”

Wood will plant a tree for Earth Day.

While Earth Day isn’t until Tuesday, today is National Hang Your Clothes Out to Dry Day.

Really.

Nobody has to tell Sabrina Gray, 26, of Newport twice.

“The only time I use a clothes dryer is in the winter,” she said. “I hang my clothes out to dry all summer. It saves electricity.”

Gray, the mother of one child and expecting another, is very concerned about fuel costs. She drives from Newport to Marietta to work every day and has no option to car pool.

“The only place I ever go in the car is to work,” she said. “I just watched the price of gas rise to $3.63 today. It’s crazy.”

Everyone should do his or her part by only using energy when it is needed — and no more, Kesterson said.

“For example, do you really need to go to the store every day?” he said. “Shop once and stock up. Right now, if we didn’t have to go out of our house for three months, except for milk, we would have enough. We have our own stock.”

The high cost of fuel is a concern to him.

Raised in the Great Depression era, he remembers his first job paid 25 cents an hour. He recalls pumping gasoline at 7 cents a gallon and paying 6 to 8 cents a quart for milk.

He would like to see Americans boycott using their cars—stay home one day—to let the government and oil companies know the public means business.

“If we ‘shut her down,’ if people would wise up, you would see the oil companies come around in one day,” Kesterson said.

For Cliff Canfield of Marietta, there are real doubts about global warming, but he is aware of the importance of conservation.

“I’m conscious of the earth but don’t buy into the global warming idea,” said Canfield, owner of MKB Leasing, 118 Second St. “I don’t believe it. Not all of us are convinced. If they can prove to me there is global warming, I’ll get on board.”

But saving fuel, conservation and recycling are all worthy goals, he said.

“If we do sign onto global warming and try to do something about it, that doesn’t mean the rest of the world would,” Canfield said. “We are one of the largest polluters, but we certainly are not going to change the world.”