My last partner encouraged me to become more environmentally conscious.
She was a vegan. Although I was never ready to go that far into the naturalistic mindset, she did have a lasting effect on how I think about pollution in the world and humanity’s role with it. Even global climate change aside, the hordes of wrappers, empty bottles, and ciggarette buts that litter the edges of highways from coast to coast is enough reason to get passionate about putting an end to rampant human pollution. I also used to think highly of burning wood as a source of winter heat, but the scientific article she sent me on the damage from excess carbon dioxide in the air and the effects on the natural environment made me start to change my mind on the practice a bit. It’s particularly hard in my case—I was raised lower middle class in an ancient two bedroom farmhouse in rural Michigan. Even though most of us had propane gas furnaces to supplement, essentially everyone I knew up there burnt wood through a fireplace or woodstove as a primary source of heat in the winter season. It makes it even harder to pass up when you live on acres of wooded land and can come across several dried out dead trees within a stones throw of each other, supplying you with several cords of wood from a such a tiny patch of land. It’s as hard to dismiss the practice as it is to praise it, since a lot of the people who burn wood for heat have little money and need that resource to survive in fatally harsh conditions. I think my former partner never understand the socio-economic side of the practice and only ever focused on the environmental effects.