For nearly 30 years, Shelley Essaunce and her family have used cloth grocery bags when shopping, cloth gift bags at Christmas, and picked up garbage all over their street.
The family efforts come from a desire to preserve the environment through responsible living, and on Saturday, Essaunce was out marching to take that message to the community.
“The Earth provides us with everything we need to live a good life,” she said. “The way we live in this capitalistic society, we’re consuming at a higher rate than the Earth can provide. We need to pause and give some thought to the Earth and what we’re doing.”
Essaunce was one of more than 20 demonstrators who came out of Earth Day to protest the lack of action on climate change. She wants to see governments and businesses give incentives for customers to be more environmentally conscious, and media and entertainment outlets promote sustainable living.
Changes needs to happen at the local level she says, and if people are given proper solutions, they can deal with the problem.
“There are lots of things we can do,” she explained. “We just need to get organized and do it.”
Those were common sentiments among protestors who showed up at the Earth Day demonstration on Saturday.
For the rest of this story, please see the April 25 online or print edition of the Daily Herald.
