Have you done your part?

It's springtime again. The trees are blooming with flowers, the Jordan River is actually flowing and the sidewalks are littered with post-rain worms. I can hear them yelling out in their little wormy voices, begging to be stepped on. They'd rather be squished underfoot than suffer a slow death baking on cement under an 80-degree Bloomington springtime sun. \nMe, I try to ignore the voices and avoid stepping on the worms. I figure it's better to let nature take its course than for me to decide which worms live or die. Too much power. Besides, I like nature. I like walking around campus, or anywhere, looking at trees and flowers and small animals romping around. You wouldn't think so, what with me working at a newspaper and all. It's not made from 50 acres of endangered rainforest, but they're still dead trees, so it's arguably not the most eco-friendly means of communication. \nAnyway, there's a little "please recycle" logo at the bottom of the front page. That's our part. The rest is up to you. \nAnd that really is the whole point of Earth Day: everything is up to you, whether you decide to clean up after yourself or not care. Want a clean Earth? Do your part. Nobody's going to recycle the IDS for you. Don't like the idea of drilling in a national wildlife reserve? Ride the bus. Use the resources we do have efficiently, so destroying an entire ecosystem won't be necessary. Accept that the incredibly high gas prices we pay in the U.S. are significantly lower than the incredibly high gas prices everywhere else in the world. If you still don't like paying them, great. Avoid them entirely. Public transportation may not be classy, but neither is destroying the homes of endangered animals. \nThere is no sweeping legislation, no magic bill anyone can sign to ensure our skies become clean and our ozone layer doesn't disappear, leaving us to fry like so many worms on a sidewalk. Ultimately, it comes down to individuals doing their part to keep the earth clean. You can argue that the government, that someone in power, someone who isn't you, should think of some way to stop our country's gross overconsumption of natural resources, or you can stop leaving pop cans hidden in the flower beds around campus. Some people do both. You and your friends should be more like those people. \nHaving concern for the environment doesn't mean you have to start shopping at leather-free shoe stores and wearing hemp sandals. It doesn't take any drastic changes to your lifestyle to make a difference.\nAll it takes is a little forethought, a little presence of mind. There's no legislation that's going to stop people from throwing their trash into the recycling bins or from shoving pop cans into already overcrowded trash cans, leaving them to spill out later and be blown around campus by the wind. The only thing that's going to stop that is people caring about the effects of their actions.\nSo be kind to the earth, because even though campus is beautiful right now, there's no guarantee it will stay this way forever. Having little worms to squirm around and ooze mucous -- or whatever it is they do -- is a luxury. One we should do our best to keep.