Taking Care of Business (In a Natural Way)

“The wildlife and its habitat cannot speak. So we must and we will.” - Theodore Roosevelt

Indeed, we must speak for the environment and its conservation. If we don’t who will? As important as speaking on its behalf is, the rubber hits the road when we do something. It is not what you say…it is what you do that really matters.

Bottled water…can we talk? I am putting a plea out there to run yourself down to your neighborhood outdoor store and spend seven dollars on a Nalgene bottle that you can use again and again and again and again. For less than the price of a case of bottled water at the local grocery store, you will have a lifetime supply of good water. The instructions are difficult to understand, but here goes: Fill…Refrigerate…Drink…Wash…Refill…Repeat…If you live in a place where the water supply is good (St. Louis has some of the best water quality in the United States according to some) then you really have no excuse, other than whatever excuse you might have. I am requesting you to consider conserving water. In the past 10 years, sales of bottled water have gone up to $10.6 billion. Those bottles are made from petroleum derivatives and it takes a whole lot of diesel fuel to ship that stuff around the country. In other words, the majority of the cost wrapped up in a bottle of water is packaging and freight. You can save money and help the conservation effort all in the same gulp. Your call…

God forsaken shopping malls…is it my imagination or have they paved paradise and put up a parking lot. I was driving through town this morning and I could not believe the amount of development of new malls on top of the old malls. Shop here, shop there…it all began with the original outdoor shopping mall at The Plaza in Kansas City. Then we had strip malls everywhere. Then we went to the cutting edge indoor mall capped off by the world’s biggest indoor mall – The Greater Mall of America in Minneapolis, Minnesota including a roller coaster and ice rink indoors. People would actually vacation there…are you kidding me? Now we are back to outdoor lifestyle malls (a lot like the original in Kansas City). If we evolve far enough, maybe there will be no malls again. One can only hope.

Cigarette trash…Hey, I have no problem with people that want to smoke…they are your lungs. I have been known to puff on a cigar with my single malt…to each his own. However, I have a news flash for you smokers – that filter at the end of your cig made from space age materials (cleans out that tar and nicotine so you don’t get quite the buzz…Camel unfiltered were my choice back in the day) is not biodegradable – it is trash! Please don’t toss it someplace that it shouldn’t be – the woods, the stream, the street, the grass, my driveway, and on and on. I see more empty packs of cigarettes and butts lying around than just about any form of litter and it really grinds on me. You don’t know what to do with those butts, you say. That is your problem…don’t make it mine.

Okay, enough ranting for one column. What can you do about it? A great place to start is the Mill Creek project – The Bohigan Conservation Area in the beautiful Missouri Ozarks. You can donate your time and you can donate your money. You can’t afford it? I challenge each and every one of you who have not given to the cause to give FIVE DOLLARS. Just one fin.

You think about that. TL