After last weeks Friday faux pas, I have pulled out all the stops to make sure I do my Fabulous Friday on time. This week I'm bedazzling my world in shades of green in honour of World Environment Day which is happening on June 5th.
I've always been a bit of a Greenie at heart. It was inevitable really. Green is my favourite colour, I'm a Taurean which is apparently and earthy sign, and I always had a thing for Kermit the Frog, the Hulk and the Green Lantern.
My first act of social activism was to join Greenpeace in my teens. This was a great disappointment to my super conservative parents, who equated my membership to my joining a cult that sacrificed small furry animals in worship of Beelzebub. I progressed to joining the World Wildlife Fund, spouting lectures at the dinner table about the environmental apocalypse that would occur if they damned the Franklin River in Tasmania, and dropping super cool environmental slogans like "You can't hug your kids with nuclear arms" at every opportunity. Man, I was obnoxious.
I listened to Sting's, Dream of the Blue Turtles on loop (well I'd play it, flip the cassette, fast forward, flip again, and press play once more. I loved my pirated copy with it's grey lead song titles and little picture of whales drawn on the lable). I even have a battered cassette recording of me belting out Russians, backing song tapped from the radio (Casey Kasem, American Top 40, of course). I had pictures of Brazilian rainforests tapped up next to my pictures of Johnny Depp and Don Johnson (yes I know that last one is now exceedingly sad, but I loved Miami Vice back in the day and I don't care what anyone thinks. He had a pet alligator on his boat and drove a Ferrari Daytona Spyder 365 GTS/4, you didn't get cooler than that in the 80s). I read everything I could get my hands on about the nuclear arms race, animal friendly beauty products, endangered wildlife and organic vegetables. I still have my over-sized, "Reuse, Recycle, Refill" t-shirt from the Body Shop all those years ago.
I'm pretty sure my parents considered some sort of intervention during my teenage years. Luckily their fear of public shaming, should anyone in our small town find out that they had birthed a lefty, pot-smoking (not that I ever did they just decided I was ganja girl), non-shaving, hemp-wearing, patchouli-smelling, incense-burning, flower-child, outweighed their desire to 'fix' me. Though I do think there was some discussion about sealing me up in the attic, like the mad aunt that nobody ever talks about. But that would have involved some sort of DIY, and luckily my Dad wouldn't know a hammer from a chain saw. Instead we did the dance of denial, of which my family are the current World Champions. I was allowed to wear my hippie skirts and listen to Midnight Oil (sadly Peter Garrett sold his soul, and is now yet another ineffectual politician) and good old Sting, as long as I did these things at my friends' houses, and kept my mouth shut around their friends.
Now I'm older and my permanent state of 'meh' prevents me from any huge demonstrations of environmental activism. I still have a desire to save the earth but I would prefer to do it from the comfort of my couch and preferably with a glass of vino in hand. Now it's World Environment Day and I feel like I should pull my finger out, and do my bit for the planet. As I've mentioned previously I do the "if it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown flush it down" water saving tip, recycled loo paper, environmentally friendly cleaning products, buy local, compost, drink tap water, and recycle and reuse, as much as I can.
Even my garden is a wildlife wonderland of overgrown bushes and un-mown lawns, fertilised generously and naturally, by two large dogs and numerous randy possums. My dog also eats the cat poo, so technically she is recycling too (though when she is trying to give me a puppy kiss with a face covered in kitty litter I am not thinking environmentally friendly thoughts, well except for calculating how many of my plants I could fertilize with her gross poo-eating body). I often wonder what more I can do for good old Mother Earth, and more importantly what more can I/we do with the least amount of effort?
So yesterday I spent an exhausting 5 mins on Google Search, researching exciting, cutting-edge environmental solutions. And what did I find. Poo. Yep, that's right poo, nards, turds, what ever you want to call it (did you know someone has actually complied a poop thesaurus?), is the solution.
Basically, we all need to give a shit about the environment.
Here are a few of the great articles I found:
Scientists discovered that the bugs that eat poo create rocket fuel as a by-product. Go bugs.
In Rwanda, an entire prison is powered by the gas given off from human waste. Now whilst this is a big YAY on the cutting back of wood consumption, and no poo going in the rivers, I really don't know if I'd fancy having my food cooked on a stove powered by farts. Maybe, I could stomach my own farts, but I don't know about other people's farts, ick. But still YAY Rwandan prison officials, making a shitty situation, well....shittier.
Even NASA has spent millions researching poo and come up with a solution. They have estimated that a six man crew would create at least six tons of human waste products on a two-year trip to Mars. Now there's a job to aspire to, poo mathematician. Their solution to a space poo problem, recycled drinking water, fertilizer and poo-generated electricity production. Tang, velcro and a poo-powered battery. Go NASA.
Poo. Saving the environment one odifourous nard at a time.
Alternatively we could go with the Soylent Green (1973) solution. Reading the synopsis, it just seems so appropriate:
"a dystopian future suffering from pollution, overpopulation, depleted resources, poverty, dying oceans and a hot climate due to the greenhouse effect".
Not only does it deal with the problem of over population, but also food shortages. Perfect. And I can think of a few people I'd like to mince, though not necessarily eat.
(Oh Charleton, Moses, guns and cannibalism, you did it all.)
On that note, dear readers, I am off to grab my green sequins and ablute for Mother Earth. What will you do for World Environment Day?
Cheers
Michelle :)
Beds are Burning, Midnight Oil (1987). We all need to dance like Peter Garrett at least once a day.
