avatar and earth day

a couple of weeks ago, i was in a car heading downtown with some friends of mine.  as we pulled up next to another car at a traffic light, we watched a lady open her window far enough to stuff her burger wrapper out the window.  needless to say, we were quite shocked and horrified.  do people really still think that is acceptable?  i thought we had enough education out there for people to be aware of the evils of littering.

even our kids are being trained and educated very early about reducing, reusing and recycling.  zoe has come home every day for the last week with a new fact about waste and the importance of recycling.

we'll be casually talking over supper and all of a sudden she asks if we knew that it takes 1,000 years for a glass bottle to break down.  while at first her unexpected bits of trivia were a little disconcerting, i appreciate now that our children are going to grow up with a mindset regarding waste and the environment that many in my generation are still learning.

watching avatar with bill helped me to see how important it is to train up our kids with an attitude of respect for the earth and for people.  i think that the movie takes an old story, similar to pocahontas and john smith, and puts it in a futuristic setting.  when we see that old story in a future context, we realize even more strongly how sad it is to have a mentality of us versus them, civilized versus savage, want versus need, rape versus love.

while watching the movie, i found myself incredulous that there could still be people who share the attitude of colonel miles quaritch, that certain people are able to be written off because they are "savages."  i know i am incredibly naive; there are lots of people who are willing to sacrifice both the earth and people's well being for their financial gain.

i, for one, look forward to a day when we will no longer need institutions and movements like this one, or this one.  until then, our family wants to do all it can to move us forward to take better care of our planet and the people who live on it.  we will keep recycling, reducing our use of waste-producing products and reusing whatever we can.  we will participate in events like this one to help take care of people who suffer.

if you want to do something to make a difference, you can actually buy a copy of avatar.  twentieth century fox home entertainment has teamed up with the earth day network to plant 1,000,000 trees worldwide in celebration of the blu-ray and dvd release of the film.  if you purchase the film you will be given a unique access code that allows you to go online and actually adopt one of the million trees being planted, charting its location and progress.

when zoe and the other kids are old enough, i hope we can use movies like avatar to help teach them the value of a human life and the importance of taking care of our planet.

i received a copy of the movie avatar from 20th century fox in exchange for sharing this information with you about the earth day initiative connected to the release of the movie. nevertheless, the opinions expressed here are purely my own.