Looking Back on Earth Day - Where my passion for sustainability came from (repost)

By Dr. Don Haas, Director of Teacher Programming

April 16, 2025

For Earth Day, I am updating a post from Father's Day 2010. The post reflects on where my environmental ways come from and gives a big tip-of-the-hat to my dad, Roger Haas. Earth Day 2025 would have been his 100th birthday, and he was certainly the first environmentalist I knew.

Why am I (philosophically) green?

Roger Haas, the author’s father in about 1951, around the time he proposed to Marilyn Loomis, the author’s mother.

My dad, Roger Haas, who died in May of 2004, was a very quiet man. He was unexpressive to the extreme, virtually never, to my recollection, teaching anything explicitly, yet he taught me a great deal. Most of his teaching was by example.

It gives me the willies when a friend or colleague leaves an engine running while chatting in a driveway or parking lot. That comes directly from Dad. He got the willies too.

He built things -- there was the solar thermal panel that pre-heated hot water in the form of copper pipe painted black inside a glass covered box leaned up against the southern side of our house (the inside of the box was also painted black). There was a windmill in the backyard made from oil drums cut down the middle. I don't think that ever actually generated any useable power as was the goal, but he did get it to spin in the wind.

The windmill the author’s dad had constructed in the backyard of the author’s childhood yard, when it was still under construction.

It’s mostly about hating to waste

He turned things off and made sure we did too. Lights left on in empty rooms were one of a few things that made him visibly irritated, and we knew not to run water while we brushed our teeth.

I have passed down the tooth brushing water conservation habit - my daughter (now 20) recently relayed to me that as a middle schooler she was shocked to learn that some people let the water run while brushing their teeth. She learned it from a joke told on a late night show (perhaps Jimmy Fallon) poking fun at the likes of us.

My siblings and I also knew that little scraps of metal or wood, or interesting pieces of broken things, could be made to serve some later purpose.

These things have been passed on -- one brother has a geothermal heating system. I'm not the only one of my siblings who mows the lawn with a reel-type mower (Dad used one too) and has insulated his or her home far more than the average American.

In the 2025 update I will confess that I no longer mow with the reel-type mower and now use a battery-powered electric mower. If my yard was a bit smaller, I’d return to the old school mower.

I know Dad did these things largely because he couldn't stand to see things wasted. What good does it do leave a light on in an empty room? Why should I use natural gas to heat my water when the sun can do it free? Why would we want to squander our resources? Thanks, Dad, for passing this along to me.

Almost anything we waste, except time, also wastes energy and produces greenhouse gas emissions. As a favor to me, my dad, and the Earth, figure out how to waste less stuff. And make a habit of it. Please.

What makes you green?

Don Haas