The Little Thing You Can Do To Help Save The Ocean
I want to continue to support female activists, and hope that by starting with a small, singular task like refusing straws, I can encourage each one of you to embrace your inner environmentalist.
Adrian Grenier is an actor, producer, director, and founder of the Lonely Whale Foundation. The views expressed here are his own. This story was originally published on May 18, 2016.
I’ll never forget my first breath underwater. I was 27 and living in Bushwick, the middle of industrial Brooklyn, when I decided to escape the city and head to Mexico with my friend and producing partner, Lucy, to shoot a documentary. She was an Australian water baby and I was a New York City kid, so she suggested I get PADI certified so we could dive together. Our instructor used the scuba gear as tools to help us understand the cycles of the ocean, connecting our breath to the tides and natural rhythms of the sea. He also explained that monitoring the levels of carbon dioxide and nitrogen in our blood was just as critical as understanding the ocean’s own careful chemistry. In those 48 hours, we learned to become guests of the ocean, to observe and wonder at our underwater environment, not to dominate or master it.
In those 48 hours, we learned to become guests of the ocean, to observe and wonder at our underwater environment, not to dominate or master it.
With your voice, you have the power to start a conversation about plastic pollution at every meal, on every date, and at every happy hour.
We have the tools in our hands to create and share the changes we make.
In the U.S. alone, we throw out 500 million plastic straws every single day.