Hope for December

Earlier this month I attended a sustainability conference at the University of South Florida to speak about green technology. I'm a strong proponent of green tech for anyone who can afford it, having spent the last 40 years working toward achieving a smaller and smaller eco-impact for myself. (I've lived a slower and less expensive life going off the grid, and I'm happier because of it.) While I was there, a class of first-graders from a neighboring school gave me a book they'd made called "Earth, Earth, What Do I See?" On each page, they'd written and illustrated ways to go green. It was powerful for obvious reasons: here were twenty-some children who wanted to affect the world in a positive way. But it was also incredibly inspiring, because it was symbolic of the kind of shift that's happening right now in the environmental arena, a clear illustration that "going green" is not just a trend or something for the elite, that it's a reality that people are increasingly embracing.

The generation that is coming of age right now is gaining insight about environmental issues that was foreign to generations before them. They're taking action to make a change because they are growing up with an understanding of the magnitude of their decisions. In their book, these kids weren't presenting state-of-the-art innovation or suggesting radical life change; they were proposing small-scale, individual actions--the kind of minor adjustments that we can all make in our everyday lives. And that's the exact kind of mindset we need to change course on climate change--one that views "going green" as a natural course of action. It's moments like this that give me hope that the world is making a shift.

In December, the Copenhagen conference has the potential to do what the Kyoto Protocol couldn't--because of an increasing urgency to solve the problems at hand, but also because of this changing awareness about what climate change means, and how it will affect our world--on an environmental level and on a humanitarian level. We have reason to celebrate already, because leaders from countries all over the world are uniting on an international scale. But time is of the essence. Some of the sharpest minds in the world will head to COP15, and we must come together as global citizens and tell them that we're doing our part; now it's their turn. If a class of first graders in South Florida can make a difference, just imagine what world leaders can accomplish.

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Help turn Copenhagen into Hopenhagen at hopenhagen.org.

 

Comments

[timetomoveon]

Thanks for the post! I'm looking for hope anywhere I can and it is heartening to see children getting the message......it's also hopeful to see the native garden businesses picking up in So. California and even the DWP is encouraging us to go without out lawns. It's like turning a huge freighter around and it will take time....but again....I'll take hope anywhere I can find it! By the way I love, love your Begley's Best Spot Remover.....a little plug there :) Can't believe how it removes spots on my carpet! Thanks!

[jsarets]

The so-called "limousine liberals" have the wrong idea about ecological sustainability.

They manifest this misunderstanding every time they use phrases like "green tech". Or when they preach about the virtues of their vegan diet while eating processed foods made from soy grown in clear-cut Brazilian rainforests.

They think we can "green" the industrial paradigm with cool gadgets and marketing gimmicks.
They think this is a problem of carbon dioxide and global warming.

This is primarily a problem concerning the management of land, water, and waste. It's about the locations and layouts of the communities where we live and work. It's about how we produce food and how we get it from farm to table. It's about how we minimize, reuse, and process waste.

And, yes, it's about conservation and renewable energy But the civilization we built with petroleum cannot be sustained without petroleum.

I guess it's hard for wealthy "citizens of the world" to wrap their heads around a future of increasing localism, but that's the only way humanity can sustain itself.

The children get it. They are subconsciously adapting themselves for a civilization driven by network relationships as much as by market transactions.

Al Gore probably doesn't realize that the most important contribution he ever made toward a sustainable future for humanity was ensuring that the Internet would be openly accessible to the public. A lifetime of "green tech" advocacy can't possibly compare to that.

[hoosier96]

Yeah, I see it everyday. When Nick Jr. tries to brainwash my kids about "going green".

[LMPE]

The next challenge will be to not let wing-nut ideologues interfere.