Earth Day 2008

For Earth Day this year, I'd like to recommend to everyone to pick up trash around the neighborhood, install some energy-saving light bulbs or make sure to recycle your cell phones - but I'm sure I'd get some excuses why these tasks couldn't be done.

So instead, I'll recommend the easy assignment of watching entertaining and informative TV.

Check out "Human Footprint" on the National Geographic Channel. It's been playing all week since its premiere last Sunday and the next showing is 1 p.m. Sunday, April 20.

The show's subhead is, "Everything you eat. Everything you drink. Everything you use. Your entire life's consumption in one place at one time."

The two-hour show illustrates Americans' lifetime consumption of different materials - food, water, clothes, furniture, appliances, energy use, trash and waste - by laying representations of these items out on about an acre of land.

"Human Footprint" shows that Americans are the Bigfoot of human global footprints. The population of the U.S. is 5 percent of the world's population although we consume a quarter of the world's energy.

Rubber ducks - 28,433 of them - represent the average number of showers taken in a lifetime. A field is filled with 43,371 cans of soda, and we're told that if all these aluminum cans were recycled, we could save enough power to run a TV for 14 years.

We're shown that the synthetic materials and leather that go into our sneakers travel 20,000 miles before we put them on our bodies.

"A brand-new pair of sneakers will have traveled farther than we will ever walk in them," said the show's host, Elizabeth Vargas.

Each American owns an average of 12 cars in a lifetime. We use a quarter of the world's oil and half of that is fuel for cars.

"Cars are our symbol of freedom - they have transformed our landscape in the United States," said Vargas. "We have 30 percent of the world's cars."

Parts of a typical Ford vehicle are made from materials manufactured from around the world. Our footprint is global.

The show is great for someone like me who needs visual aids to get an idea across. Besides being an eye opener, "Human Footprint" gives suggestions on how to save resources and conserve energy.

More information is given on National Geographic Channel's Web site. The site gives links to resources on recycling electronics, cell phones - almost anything.

Another fun way to become enlightened on Earth Day is to grab six to eight of your best friends, hop in your hybrid Hummer or Expedition and carpool to Idlewild Park for the Earth Day 2008 celebration in Reno.

-- People Editor Sharlene Irete may be reached at sirete@recordcourier.com or 782-5121, ext. 210.