Our guild wants to save money and the environment by having each person bring their own mug to use, that way we can avoid using the nasty Styrofoam cups, and do good at the same time. I have a plastic cup with an embroidered insert that I made several years ago, so I went looking for it. Of course, I could not find it, but I ran across this:
It is a tin enameled cup (the kind you would use for a camping trip) covered with beads in the Ndebele or herringbone stitch. It was a gift to me from a former director from South Africa, and was made by a Ndebele woman in that country. I was fascinated by it when I got it, and could not figure out how it was made until I got a herringbone stitch bracelet to make, and then I could see the stitch. The beading is done across the narrow dimension by stitching two beads on at a time. That is what makes each row tip in a different direction.
Keeping from throwing away one Styrofoam cup a month is not going to save the world, and at this point I'm not even sure climate change can be reversed. There are even people here in the Mid-West who wouldn't mind several additional degrees of heat in the climate, at least during the fall and winter. But I read today that soon there will be no ice at the north pole during the summer, and things will begin to accelerate. Ice melting leads to oceans rising, warmer oceans lead to more tropical storms (think Katrina!). The most disastrous change, in my opinion though, is that land the currently provides a living could become desert. Think dust bowl on a world-wide scale.
So I will bring my cup to guild meetings, and cut down on my driving as much as I can, and will do my best to act locally. If you are interested in helping, here's a website with suggestions, and there's even some good news there!
Thank you!
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2 comments:
I wouldn't mind a bit warmer weather here in the north, either, but unfortunately climate change is not all about warmer but mostly about more unpredictable: more storms, drought periods, floods...
We need a lot of drastic actions, but it's good to keep the hope up with little things as well. Even styrofoam cups can be inspiring!
good on you - every small change helps, and it inspires one to make bigger changes too, Ive found. it does seem a bit pointless when Governments are doing nothing much at all, but grass roots movements have been important in the past.
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