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ETCETERA

NIGHTCAP

My Earth Day Pledge

Good intentions don't always translate to everyday ecological living.

By Harry Kirsbaum

was there at the beginning, you know.
April 22, 1970.
I was a sophomore at Flint Central High
School, and I had just completed an ecology
report for my biology teacher, Mr. Sharp. Yes,
ecology in the 1970s was considered a part of
science, not a political stance. And our lesson
was to do some research for the first Earth Day.
I wrote a report about the population explo-
sion, dwindling resources and, although gasoline
was selling at 36 cents a gallon, I wrote how gas
prices could quadruple in our lifetime unless
we did something to regulate oil consumption.
I copied a pledge from the back of a pamphlet I
used as a resource that said I would try to limit
my consumption of fossil fuels as best I could to
save the planet. I urged Mr. Sharp to do the same
and left him with a blank pledge sheet stapled
to the back of my report. I got a B+ on the report
and probably would have gotten an A had I not
put him on the spot. He left his pledge unsigned.
My pledge lasted all of two days, ending when
I decided to walk to Dunkin' Donuts six blocks
away in the rain instead of having Mom sit in the
car while I drove there on my learner's permit.
With soggy donuts that afternoon and a head
cold later that week, I bailed on my pledge and
reintroduced myself to conspicuous consump-
tion.
It's been more than four decades, and I'm not
as ecological as I could be, but I'm not like Tony
Soprano, who in season one bribed someone at
his garden center to get DDT for his landscapers.
I'm using the recycling bin, eating some
organic fruits and vegetables and wishing that
oil prices would still be on their way to only
quadrupling in our lifetime. Imagine paying $1.44
for a gallon of gas. And now that ecology and

living organically is part of corporate America — Whole
Foods Market, Inc. (NASDAQ:WFM); United Natural Foods
(NASDAQ:UNFI) — it's become easier to purchase organic,
locally grown apples for $4 each that are free from preser-
vatives and rot as you eat them. Numerous local markets
around town compete against Whole Foods and other
chain stores to sell food of varying quality and price.
Clothing is also being manufactured to those who
want to save the planet. Hemp. Now there's an odd
choice for clothing — it's a substance that many of us
chose as our major when we were college sophomores.
Back in the day, it was easy to spot the vegetarians and
seed eaters. They were the ones who ate healthy but
looked sickly and drawn.
Now they wear yoga pants, drive hybrid cars and look
as sickly and drawn as the rest of us meat-eaters who
own underwater mortgages.
Several years ago, Whole Foods opened a
40,000-square-foot store in Washington, D.C., in the
middle of a crack neighborhood near Logan Square and
turned it into a thriving hip neighborhood within two
years.
Now the company is planning to build a store in
Detroit's Midtown that is slated to open in spring 2013.
Some residents of the neighborhood surrounding the
Mack Avenue and John R store location are familiar with
recycling, as the lack of copper wiring in the streetlights
will attest, but I wish Whole Foods luck selling organic
fruits and vegetables, homeopathic remedies and hemp
clothing.
I will reconsider my decades-old pledge when the
weather becomes nicer. I will eat healthier, be nicer and
make the world a better place. Starting next month.
But when April 22 rolls around, I won't expect coverage
of the 42nd Annual Earth Day in the news if there's still
an upcoming Republican primary — or Kim Kardashian is
getting married, engaged or is just awake and talking to
the press about her dinner plans. iT,7

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