Earl Blumenauer: “this week, we celebrate Earth Day, Thursday, April 22. Many will use this occasion to highlight major policy issues, as…”

“this week, we celebrate Earth Day, Thursday, April 22. Many will use this occasion to highlight major policy issues, as well they should, issues dealing with greenhouse gases, the effects of global warming, and the pollution of our world's oceans. However, I feel that the real power to be demonstrated is at the other end of the spectrum, dealing with individual actions. Many of us here on Capitol Hill will celebrate Earth Day with a bike ride. People from the Capitol, commuters, business people from all over the region, will converge on Freedom Plaza on Pennsylvania Avenue, illustrating the impact that people can have dealing with this very simple and efficient mode of transportation. Yet, we do not need to have everybody trade their car in for a bicycle. If people in our community will choose to take just one less trip a week, whether that is by foot, by transit, by bicycle, or simply consolidating their other journeys to produce that one trip reduction, it can have a phenomenal impact in terms of reducing air pollution, congestion, and the requirement for more investment in infrastructure. The most important thing is for people to think about their behavior and think about the little things we can do to make things better: Shopping locally, or treating their own yard like they would like farmers and industry to conserve their property.”