June 24, 2020

by drplasticpicker

Above is a screenshot of an instagram account by an environmental advocate in Nepal. Harish Joshi was interviewed on our blog several months ago https://drplasticpicker.com/introducing-harish-joshi-thursday-trash-reflections-from-nepal/. He is busy with his environmental advocacy and I find his account inspiring, as I find many teen environmental activist. This image he created reminded me that those everyday voluntary actions on behalf of a greater good, whether it be the environment or another cause, are incredibly powerful. I have written before about the power of agency and free will, and that although I believe society needs to systemically change and enact laws that benefit the environment – right now we also can help determine our future https://drplasticpicker.com/you-have-agency-you-have-free-will-you-are-your-own-determinant/. And this Hopeful Wednesday post is a voluntary act of gratitude and hope. I have a great sense of wellbeing this morning, that as a small person in a chaotic world – I am helping to calm the winds and reduce the heat and suck up more carbon than I am producing. By refusing a plastic bag at the store, this is a powerful first step to combating global warming.

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June 3, 2020

by drplasticpicker

My paternal grandfather told me something toward the end of his life that I will never forget. I believe I was actually in medical school already and home for a brief visit. By then he was already older and weaker, and had suffered one or two strokes. He was intermittently lucid but even for a beginning medical student I knew that he had dementia. But during one of those early morning visits when he was lucid he told me that he had returned to his home village at some point in the Southeast Asian country he had left unwillingly because of political ubheaval. At this point he was no longer a strong man in his mid 40s but likely in his late 60s. He said someone from the village offered him something that was morally repugnant for money. He had returned to the village to give help build a school. And he told me, his oldest granddaughter, with fierce convinction, “Until the day you die, you do not know if you have lived a good life.”

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March 11, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I start these Hopeful Wednesday posts usually a few days earlier, and add bits and pieces of good environmental news that I see over the week. I never know what the actual Wednesday will bring. This Wednesday morning I had thought we were going to be hiking in the Grand Canyon and having coffee at a local lodge there. Instead, COVID-19 happened and I was able to get an almost full refund on Hotels.com and I’m pretty sure Razelle who was behind hotels.com chat box is now an Instagram friend https://drplasticpicker.com/covid-19-and-curtailing-travel-razelle-m-from-hotels-com-helped-us-save-over-345/. Instead this morning, I am sitting at home and Mr. Plastic Picker is making his first coffee with a new small French Press that is plastic-free and sharing a cup with his mother. We will go on a hike this morning when the kids wake up.

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February 19, 2020

by drplasticpicker

We are getting there. I am at 153 bags of ocean bound plastic collected, 590 items salvaged. I have written 133 blog posts and 134 Instagram posts, and have passed 450 Instagram “followers.” The Instagram is more for fun and motivation and I am not seeking more Instagram friends, but somehow everyday there are more. About 200-300 people click onto the blog every day, so some folks are seeing the less-plastic-please help ocean plastic-pick message.

But what gives me hope are the tangibles, the changes that I know are happening in the real world. I know I picked up a lot of plastic, and I know that we are close to getting our organization to agree to bring in Eco-America training to our HMO. I see more and more reusable coffee mugs and water bottles at work. We actually cancelled all the single-use water bottles for all the MD meetings, and will just send a reminder out for everyone to bring their own water. We also changed our lunch order to half vegetarian, and for everything to be in large trays and not individual plastic clam-shell containers anymore. That way there is less food waste and less plastic waste in general. And a father in clinic told me his daughter’s school has asked all parents to avoid single use plastic items and moving toward zero-waste lunches.

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January 29, 2020

by drplasticpicker

Usually the Hopeful Wednesday posts I have been slowly working on throughout the week, and adding bits and pieces and will publish right when the new blog day arrives. This week, my Facebook and instagram feeds did not have as many positive wins. I think it’s probably that I have more instagram “followers” – up to 328. I’m trying to follow more individuals who are litter picking, plogging, plalking and doing beach clean ups rather than newsfeeds. Also I’ve been living in the real world trying to make more changes and organizing more as a climate leader, so maybe it’s a good thing I haven’t been on facebook/instagram as much. So it’s 240am on a Wednesday morning, and I’m starting this post. But my body feels good and I have many reasons to be hopeful.

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January 1, 2020

by drplasticpicker

Today is the first day of a new decade. The last decade that I actually knew what to call was the 1990s. The decade of my youth, when we were all into techno, dancing that Roger Rabbit and “raising the roof.” My children cringe when I show them the dances we used to do in college! The 2000s and 2010s, what were they called? I don’t think any of us really knew. But now it is the twenties, and it has a definite name and a definite goal. Our goal is to save ourselves from mass extinction and to rewild our earth. So on that note, I am truly hopeful because as famed anthropologist Margaret Mead said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world, indeed, it is the only thing that every has. ”

Five Reasons to be Hopeful on the First Day of The Year 2020.

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December 25, 2019

by drplasticpicker

I am sitting at 610 AM and our two children are safely asleep in their rooms, and Mr. Plastic Picker is probably in stage 3 REM as well. I have always been an early riser and enjoy these quiet mornings to blog. It is time for Hopeful Wednesday and it is also Christmas. Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas today, and also Happy Holidays to those who celebrate other traditions. I think we can all agree to love the Earth. I included a picture of Aspen Trees we snow-shoed through yesterday. Aspen are living connected trees, one large organism that are clonal and share a root system. Walking among them yesterday, I saw them dance and sway together. It was beautiful and I am renewed to continue this journey of plastic picking and environmentalism for as long as I have left on this beautiful planet.

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