| A Strategy of Hope for the Future | |
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18 Dec 2007 @ 16:43, by Annie Warmke
During this holiday season I find myself bowing out of the common life of America...most days it feels hollow and bankrupt. Each morning I seem to wake up to the WOUB radio just as they issue the war report, and even less hopeful the global warming report. Over my morning tea I try to make some sense of it, but I find there isn’t any sense to be made so I decided to put together my own credo for the future. Here’s hope for the future – for our precious children and their children…Annie
1. Politicians, I repeat "POLITICIANS" (American ones anyway) are not going to stop what is happening with global warming. There are no big companies representing global warming, solar or wind renewable energy in a position to pay for their causes in the halls of Congress. AND if the person in office has been there for any time at all they are owned by corporate America so it is absolutely fruitless to waste one ounce of energy in their direction.
2. We must work on our local elected officials – the ones who haven't had enough opportunity to become politicians. Focus on township trustees - most folks don't even know who they are in their area. Focus on city council and county commissioners. They control your life!
3. Many reports say to change your household light bulbs to compact fluorescents but doing that alone is like spitting into the wind. That's not to say we shouldn't change out the old light bulbs, but it isn't the message we can promote and expect change. Folks change their light bulbs, then they drive their SUV to shops 10 times that day for something made in China, something they forgot on the first five trips or another electric-guzzling appliance.
We need to focus on those locally elected folks to get them to make town centers where it is possible so that transport by car isn't necessary, and show them how to work towards community gardens, rehabbing existing buildings instead of tearing them down, and on and on and on.
4. The Earth has the ability to heal itself if given the opportunity. I'm hanging onto this mantra for dear life.
5. We owe it to our children to teach them through our example about peace with our land, our homes and our relationships. In order to do this - THEY must hang out the clothes on the line, THEY must do the dishes by hand (dishwasher is a job description, not a machine), and THEY must sit down with us at mealtime and talk about their day.
6. We must never stop visualizing in our minds and hearts that there is hope for the earth because right now everywhere we turn we are saying there isn't any. Our children are the ones who will suffer from this thinking - and most of the rest of the adults aren't really listening. They are too busy shopping for those new-fangled light bulbs or buying that cheap food that has ingredients no one can pronounce.
7. So just for today (and tomorrow and all the days after that) I am going to visualize a world of peace, filled with trees, and bees and flowers and people who aren't shopping, but instead are savoring what they already have.
Annie Warmke is the co-owner of Blue Rock Station Science Center, a writer, a scientist and a grandmother who milks goats and never stops talking about how much she loves the Earth.
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Category: Environment, Ecology
1 comment
23 Dec 2007 @ 11:15 by : Thank You For This Important Post
WOUB is an NPR station out of Athens, Ohio. I'm glad you put up these important suggestions Annie, and hope you try your hand at a Log here real soon!
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