Febraury 3, 2021

It’s on the later side than when I usually blog. It’s 6:16AM and I’m sitting at my kitchen table drinking instant coffee out of my Unicef Mug that my Girl Scout Co-Troop leader gave me. She is a friend and we have a long and strong relationship. The mug like that friendship is complex. Today, I added a bit of vanilla to my coffee for the first time. I don’t need to drink instant coffee and prefer real coffee now. But we have instant, and being green and sustainable is about being flexible. I’ll need to recheck on our coffee buying habits again soon. I thought we had decided to switch over to a rainforest friendly brand? The instant Nestle keeps on popping up?

But it’s Wednesday and I haven’t posted a Hopeful Wednesday post in a long while. [PAUSE] Just checked and it looks like it’s been a good two months since the last post https://drplasticpicker.com/12-2-2020-five-reasons-to-be-hopeful-this-wednesday/. It wasn’t that I was not feeling hopeful, but I think I just didn’t need to gather news pieces at that point and there was the presidential election which took up a lot of blog space.

Well it is Wednesday and I need to clear my iPhone photo cache. I take screenshots of hopeful news items, so let me tell you what’s on my iPhone and I can clear the memory at the same time!!!

Five Reasons To Be Hopeful This Wednesday, 2-3-2021

1. AAP-CA3 Climate Change and Health Commitee Made AAP Coastal Currents!!! This blog is about my tangential environmental work, and wandering around the world trying to save it from plastic. I publish most days on this blog. But because it’s my blog and it’s “semi-anonymous” it doesn’t seem quite real? Eventhough I know we get plenty of internet traffic. Anyway, the upcoming film screeening for Gather is real and it made the AAP newsletter that goes out to a lot of pediatricians.

2. Gardening Can Be Done!!! Home-gardens and school-gardens and community-gardens. We need to spread this and make it happen! I’ve been amazed that I’ve been able to grow my own beets and radishes. Supposedly these are the easiest vegetables to grow, and ours turned out great. We had it on our home-made pizza dough, and my children loved the organic radish and beet greens that were crispy and lightly seasoned. Plus, they were delicious and more nutrient packed than the monoculture vegetables at the store. This gives me hope that we can increase home gardens throughout all our communities.

3. Get It Done App!!! I picked up my fifth bag of trash around the HMO Parking lot. But my goal is not to clean it up by myself. There is a homeless encampment right next to the Palm Avenue 805N onramp. It’s horrible. I didn’t know you can actually just report it to the city of San Diego. [PAUSE] Hah, I did it!!! I’m super proud of myself. I even have a ticket number.

Report Category: Illegal DumpingIssue: Bulky ItemsIllegal Dumping in Public Right of Way: YesAddress: 4604 Palm Ave, San Diego, CA 92154, USADescription:Next to the 805N freeway onramp on Palm, there is a huge amount of plastic pollution and homeless campment debris.Location of Incident:It’s right next to the AM/PMImages: None

4. San Diego Becomes Largest County in the US to Commit to Zero Carbon Emissions by 2035. On January 27 this happened. 1500 San Diego County residents signed a petition urging the county to take action. I know I signed it and I have to believe the cascading effect of all our activism has made a difference. And then it has cascading effects to the rest of the country as we are not blue nor red, but we are representative of much of how the country thinks (I hope).

5. Pancakes For My Kids: And what gives me great hope is that we can all balance and do this together. I will finish this post knowing I did all the above which was doable for anyone, and I will now walk about and make organic pancakes with acai syrup that is a food waste project for my children. Because I’m a normal mother and a pediatrician, and if I can declare to save the world and make some difference than anyone can. But remember to feed your kids breakfast first. And hopefully plant-rich (I’m going to put some bananas on tne pancakes).

Have a wonderful Wednesday!!!

Like this post, click to read the last one which was two months ago and also featured a coffee picture ! https://drplasticpicker.com/12-2-2020-five-reasons-to-be-hopeful-this-wednesday/