Mark Katrick faith column: During the dog days of summer, how can we be more sustainable?
It’s August! So what ever happened to the dog days of summer? No one ever seems to talk about them anymore, not that it matters to my two cats. But it matters to me.
With climate change, seasons are overlapping seasons. These days a person can’t tell if summer is going or fall is coming. There was a time (Yes, this is one of those “When I was a kid” stories) that when school started, there’d be one more hot spell and it would turn cooler, then sharply colder.
What was as predictable as the forecast for tonight and tomorrow has become as unpredictable as 10-day and extended forecasts. So since we’re as likely to have a 90-degree day in late September as we are in late August, what are you and I to do about it?
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Prayerfully consider with me some of these actions from the United Nations:
Save energy at home by reducing heating and cooling, using LED light bulbs and energy-efficient appliances.
Walk, bike and use public transport when you are able.
When it’s time to trade in your car, prayerfully consider electric and hybrid among your options.
Reduce, reuse, repair and recycle — I keep a schedule for pickup of recyclables at the Cherry Valley and Church Street locations.
Eat more vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts and seeds and less meat and dairy. It not only reduces your environmental impact, but it’s better and healthier for your mind, body and soul.
Throw away less food. (Do you remember when they did ORT counts and weighed the leftover scraps and morsels from each table at church camp?)
Clean up your environment by properly discarding garbage.
If you’re wondering about the derivation of the idiom “dog days of summer,” it has nothing to do with dogs trying to keep cool in the sweltering heat, according to theidioms.com. This phrase originated from the belief of early Romans, Greeks or Egyptians that the hot summer days were caused by the Earth’s proximity to the dog star Sirius during the summer months.
And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years.” God also made the stars. God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good.
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As spiritual beings, it gives us a certain sense of security that during these rapidly changing times (in a climatological sense), our Creator still and always will dearly love the whole of creation, all people, creatures and things (dogs and cats included).
But that does not give us free license to take all these good gifts sent from heaven above for granted. One of the first things God asked of people was to take good care of the earth (Genesis 2:15) during all the seasons of the meteorological year, even and especially when they overlap.
Mark Katrick is a pastor and spiritual guide.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Mark Katrick: Becoming more sustainable during the dog days of summer