“Our attempt to subordinate all of nature to human use — has led us to the brink of collapse of the Earth’s life support systems”— Judi Bari, forest activist”

Yet, as we’re coming up on Earth Day, this is not the time to be pessimistic, it’s a time for hope. Hope inspires us to take action and our actions ripple out, inspire others, and before you know it, we’ve created a wave of action.

Jane Goodall said, “Hope is often misunderstood. People tend to think that it is simply passive wishful thinking: I hope something will happen, but I’m not going to do anything about it. This is indeed the opposite of real hope, which requires action and engagement.”

“Even as we face global climate disruption, it is crucial that we know this:

We can meet our needs without destroying our life-support system. We have the scientific knowledge and the technical means to do that.

We have the savvy and the resources to grow sufficient quantities of real, unaltered food. We know how to protect clean air and water. We can generate the energy we require through solar power, wind, tides, algae, and fungi. We have birth control methods to slow the growth of, and eventually reduce, human population. We have the technical and social mechanisms to dismantle weapons, deflect wars and give everyone a voice in democratic self-governance. We can exercise our moral imagination to bring our lifestyles and consumption into harmony with the living systems of Earth. All we need is the collective will.” (Lester Brown, environmental analyst)

I see the collective will all around me.  More people realize that we are not separate from the earth.  The Earth gives us food to eat, air to breathe, water to drink, and medicinal plants to keep us healthy. We breathe in what trees breathe out, and they breathe in what we breathe out. We are a living, breathing, conscious part of the earth. We are one with nature.

Young and old are standing up and saying no more destruction of our planet. 

We’re fighting for a world where we no longer allow corporations to operate when they harm people and nature. 

We are working to get Congress to hold corporations accountable.  We’re taking companies to court, organizing marches and protests, and shining spotlights on companies so we can all vote with our wallets on who to support and who to boycott. 

Maine just introduced a bipartisan bill to shift the cost for collecting and recycling from taxpayers to companies who produced the waste. This will incentivize corporations and manufacturers to create packaging that is less wasteful and easier to recycle. (PS most European countries already do this, as does Canada.)

In Colorado, Boulder and San Miguel Counties, have sued Exxon Mobil and Suncor (a Canadian Oil company) over the devastating wildfires, saying that they should “use their vast profits to pay their fair share of what it will cost a community to deal with the problem the companies created and then spent decades covering up and misrepresenting the warnings from climate scientists.” If companies are held responsible, they’ll rethink how they do business.

General Motors announced Thursday that as of 2035 it hopes to go all-electric for its light-duty vehicles, no longer selling gas cars. Experts expect most new cars sold in 2030 to be electric.

Eighteen countries have cut their emissions for 10 years straight. 

Change is coming. 

There are so many innovations and bright ideas helping to fight our climate crisis.  From high school students restoring streams for salmon spawning to non-profits finding ways to reduce food waste and recycle unused food, to entrepreneurs finding ways to pull water out of the air, to farmers building vertical farms (condensing 700 acres of farmland into a 9,500 square foot warehouse) to engineers developing plant-based packaging and architects building homes using 3-D printers.  

It takes all of us working together to create the solutions our world desperately needs. 

This includes you and me, doing small changes that don’t seem like much but when one becomes twenty, then 1,000 before you know it, your little act contributed to change.  Things as simple as switching to products that reduce the use of plastics, such as Earth Breeze laundry sheets, that come in a thick paper envelope which eliminates the need for large plastic bottles.  Using bars of shampoo soap instead of liquid shampoo in plastic bottles – give it a try, I did and yes, it’s weird at first, but it’s easy and it worked just as well.  Or starting organic gardens at home or in the community and even composting, keeping food waste out of landfills.  We can all make a difference, we just have to act.  

“We can change the world and make it a better place. It is in our hands to make a difference.” Nelson Mandela

Happy Earth Day, (April 22, 2022).

 

Is there someone who inspires you with their kindness?  Nominate them for the Matt Kurtz Kindness Award of $250.

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