By Scott Remer, Staff Writer

Let me begin with an analogy: a man jumps out of an airplane with a parachute on back – one that he thinks will inflate. So, he goes into free fall, confident in his ability to survive. Unbeknownst to him, however, the parachute is defective: it won’t inflate.

What does this have to do with us? Collectively, we have been living in ways that just don’t make sense. Factories spew out toxic gases day in and day out; we consume products like there’s no tomorrow, creating things there’s no need for (bottled water, anyone?) in packaging that requires significant resources (according to National Geographic Kids, the amount of oil used every year to make plastic bottles could power a million cars a year). So, our society is that man – we’ve taken a big, irresponsible leap of faith, assuming that the Earth can support us, no matter how wasteful or abusive we are.

Project GAIA (which stands for Project Green Awareness In Action) is a Beachwood-based effort to solve this problem. (Note: For you mythology buffs, GAIA is a play on the Greek Earth goddess, Gaia.) It is a coalition of the Ecology Club, school officials, City of Beachwood officials, and other groups with the goal of educating the public, organizing, and taking action to reduce our impact on the Earth and make the schools and city more environmentally friendly.

The catalyst for Project GAIA was a $10,000 grant offered by the Beachwood Schools Foundation for a program to make the schools more environmentally friendly. Duncan Rodriguez, a junior and good friend of mine, and I leapt at the opportunity to apply, and we were awarded the $10,000.

Then, we got right to work. Last year, we held art and essay contests with top prizes of $75. To showcase the works of art, we (along with the Art Club and Green Dream) put on an Eco-Art Nite, an event with raffles, food, and hands-on art stations run by notable artists. Also, we’ve installed five new 50-gallon recycling bins, and can crushers are mounted on the walls so you can crunch up your aluminum cans to minimize the room they take up in the bins.

This year, we have many new initiatives. To educate, we’re going to hold movie nights with popcorn and documentaries like Food, Inc. and An Inconvenient Truth; host field trips to the Botanical Garden and Holden Arboretum; and run an after-school class. In terms of action, we’re going to hold protests and concerts to raise awareness and organize “Walk to School” days. The full list is too long to go into here.

Ultimately, we have an obligation to ourselves and future generations to keep the Earth livable. There are only so many resources available on Earth, yet, every year, we throw out enough aluminum to rebuild the entire air fleet of the United States. Clearly, there is something wrong with our mentality, and we’d like to get started changing this thought process in Beachwood.

How can you help? Get educated and get involved! All Ecology Club meetings and events are open to the public, so feel free to stop by our meetings or attend our events. You can keep up with what we’re doing on our Facebook group or on our new website, projectgaia.weebly.com, where we have links to all sorts of informational websites and tips on how to be green. Please feel free to contact us with any of your suggestions.

We have faith that, with your help, we can make a difference. We look forward to working with you to making Beachwood cleaner and greener.

[The writer is one of the founders of Project Gaia]