Get your hands dirty to combat climate change
This morning (June 20), I watched a large crowd of young people marching through the streets of Dunca carrying signs and yelling at the top of their voices about climate change. I have to applaud their efforts as this world will certainly be theirs in a few short years and if they want to see a difference, they have to act now.
Marching and peaceful protest is definitely a very good way to get involved and make yourselves heard. I would also like to point you to a web site you may or may not know about: 4ocean.com. This is an organization started by two young surfers from Florida, Alex Schulze and Andrew Cooper. They had gone to Bali to surf and watched as fishermen pushed their boats through piles of plastic that had washed up on shore.
As they continued to speculate how such devastation in the oceans could be resolved, they formed a company called 4ocean. Their mission is to clean up the oceans of the world “one pound at a time.” If you go to their web site you can physically watch the amount of change pound by pound. To date, they have cleaned up nearly 5 million pounds of garbage and plastic from oceans and shorelines around the world. Alex and Andrew, themselves, have made diving excursions to the ocean beds and picked up garbage from the floor.
I would like to suggest to these young people here that such an organization could be formed on Vancouver Island. We are surrounded by ocean and have miles and miles of shoreline. We have rivers and lakes where people have camped and fished and left their garbage behind. I’m sure you have seen stories the paper about people discarding their garbage in the forest. Sometimes, to make a difference, you have to get your hands dirty. Marching and protesting will make people aware, but it’s not going to change things physically. If you want to become a part of the solution, organize cleanup crews and go to places that are littered. You might be amazed at the incentives you will produce in other people. Good luck, and here’s to making a difference.
Danette Schutte
Duncan