Category: Life

Pain in the butt

The last day of May is World No Tobacco Day.

Luckily I am too young to have to quit smoking because I’ve never started – but I know it’s a really hard habit to kick.

Truth is that smoking‘s bad for you. Not only can it cause lung disease, it can also cause heart problems and can cause cancer almost anywhere in your body too.

Luckily it’s now illegal to smoke with your children in the car – because second hand smoke is almost as bad for you as the real thing. At least people who smoke choose to do so. The kids who get to breathe their parental agents smoke have no choice. That’s just nasty!

Not only is smoking bad for people, it’s bad for environment and the animals.

Lately scientists have figured out that cigarette butts are one of the most abundant types of litter found around. That means there are plenty of butts out there. (Studies estimate that 4.5 trillion cigarette butts find their way into the environment each year.)

Worse, it’s one of nastiest, deadliest forms of waste.

People who would not dream of pitching a cool drink tin out of the car window will happily chuck a burning butt out. Not particularly caring that it can set fire to something. And they do too – burning butts are often the cause of serious veldt fires.

People also drop them on pavements or into gutters, where the wind will blow them into storm waters and all sorts of other places.

Beaches are ideal for putting out butts. One huge ashtray – right? Wrong.

Or… they flick butts casually into water – dams, the sea and rivers.

Cigarette butts are tiny little bundles of toxins. In other words… poisonous. They get into our marine ecosystems and cause havoc with the wildlife and the quality of the water.

And we all know that water is extremely precious – right?

You know what is also really scary – even those people who put their cigarettes out in the designated places have no guarantee that their butts won’t also end up in the water. The bins get emptied. Butts are chucked onto rubbish dumps. Then they get blown around and it’s highly likely that they also end up where they shouldn’t.

Take care where you put those butts please people.

Sibo

 

Celebrating Life

The 22nd of May is International Day for Biological Diversity.

Huh? I hear you say. Those are long words and what do they have to do with me?

Well… they have a lot to do with us all. If we break up the words – starting with diversity – it means is that there are different types of things. Like there are different… colours, opinions, shoes, people, dogs, cats, birds, buildings, houses, clothes… you get the meaning.

Biological diversity, simply put, means that there are different variations and types of all things living. Everything single thing – from humans, animals, vegetation, aquatic life, insects – anything that you can think of that is living, falls under this category.

Imagine if we only had one specific type of tree that grew everywhere. Or there were only grey cats. Or there was only one kind of flower.  Imagine if everybody looked the same. Life would be horrendously boring don’t you think?

So, in actual fact, the 22nd of May is really one of the most important days because we are celebrating LIFE!

We are inviting everybody to join our world-wide event and read “Sibo Likes Life” free of charge on the website.

It’s really easy – all you do is click here   or you can simply visit Sibo’s website on the 22nd or 23rd of May (the book will only be freely available for these two days) and click on the cover of the book on my bookshelf.  If you find it does not download, you might have to try using a different browser.

It might also give ideas of what you can do to help celebrate life, not only on the 22nd of May but every single day.  We’d love to hear from you.

You could plant some flowers or veggies or even a tree. Or get a group of people together and help clean up a messy area. Or if planting or cleaning is not your thing, you could volunteer at the local SPCA or animal shelter and play with the cats, or talk to the dogs that are homeless and would adore having some love and attention. You could make a bird feeder for your garden and enjoy watching all the different types of birds that start using it. Or just go for a walk and enjoy looking at all the different trees, shrubs, bushes, flowers, birds, and insects that you see along the way.

Life is precious – take time to stop and sniff the daisies!

Sibo