A Vision Through Rose-Colored Glasses
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'Til now man has been up against Nature; from now on he will be up against his own nature.
~Dennis Gabor, Inventing the Future, 1963
It's easy to get into the mindset that things will only get worse with our earth. We're bombarded with bad news: population is growing an alarming rate, diseases are resistant to antibiotics, there's not enough food, too much waste, forests are being cut down, species are becoming extinct, water is polluted, the polar ice caps are melting. Surely, with more time, and more people, things only can get worse… The earth has a finite amount of resources; something has to give… It's in the news, the movies, social media: do something. Or else.
I'm guilty of it myself, here on this blog, in my head, in my words. I look at my Goodreads bookshelf - some of my favorite literature is dystopian. I've felt before - why even try? The fate of our earth can't be good; not with the amount of damage we've done, the slow pace we've taken to action, the tremendous pace of population increase. I remember before having children, truly contemplating NOT, because why would we want to bring children into an if-not-now-then-soon wasted earth? I know of childfree couples whose choice has been, at least in part, dictated by the gray murkiness of this seeming eventuality.
But, what if we stopped looking at our future through grease-colored glasses? What if our vision of our future earth was not of destruction, disaster, disease, but rather of innovation, harmony, renewal? Isn't there reason to believe with time we can make of our world a place more like The Celestine Prophecy and less like The Road?
If we can change our outlook from disaster to promise, we can encourage our children to see a future of possibility. I believe an earth respected, will return our consideration. I'm teaching my children a love of the earth, of all she provides us, and of what we can give her - care, compassion, kindness - both for the earth itself, and all her inhabitants: human, plant, animal. I trust what I believe, they'll carry on. And that their carrying on will reverberate, unmuted by the greyness of "doomsday". I'd like to think that if our vision as a human race is one that can be crafted, shaped, and directed towards our oneness, our mutual need for earthly redemption, then we have hope for our future.
What better can we leave to our children, if not an earth full of hope?
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We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.
~Native American Proverb
Earth Hour is tonight - 8:30pm - 9:30, in whatever time zone you are living.
What is Earth Hour? It's one hour in one day out of 365, where, around the world, as many people as possible will turn off their lights as a symbolic commitment to make changes in their lives which positively effect our environment in the year to come.
Globally, our population is increasing, our electricity and fossil fuel consumption is increasing, and so too is our amount of trash and waste and pollution. This one hour is a time to focus on what you can do as an individual to make a positive change, then take that change beyond the hour .
Two images showing lights at night in Europe - in 1992, and then again in 2010.
Maybe you can… stop buying bottled water? Take shorter showers? Plant an organic garden? Pack your lunch in resuable containers instead of plastic? Decide to walk somewhere instead of drive? Go vegetarian? Lower your heat in the Winter and use less air conditioning in the Summer? Unplug appliances & electronics when not in use? It's up to you.
How will you go beyond the hour?
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Today is World Water Day.
Here in the suburbs of New Jersey in the United States, water isn’t something I think about much. It runs clean from my sink, my shower, and my hose. It rains often here. Our general area is criss-crossed by myriad lakes, streams, creeks. New Jersey is known for its wetlands. Water, here, is never an issue. How fortunate am I?
Very.
Some stats:
Worldwide…
- One out of every eight people lack safe drinking water. 884 million people total. That’s nearly three times the population of the United States. (source: UNICEF/WHO. 2008.)
- Approximately 1.2 billion people don’t have adequate sanitation; two in five. It’s the world’s biggest cause of infection.
- 3.575 million people die each year from a water related disease (every twenty seconds, one of these dead is a child). (source: WHO. 2008. Safer Water, Better Health: Costs, benefits, and sustainability of interventions to protect and promote health)
- 200 million collective hours are spent in one day by women collecting water for their families; and they walk an average of 3.7 miles to do it. For water; so basic and necessary. Hours that could be spent caring for family, working an income-generating job, or going to school.
For more staggering facts… http://water.org/news/resources/
It breaks my heart to believe so many people are suffering and dying in this world for something I barely give a thought to in my own life.
So what can we do?
Be more conscious of our own water usage:
- Take shorter showers. In the US, a 5-minute shower (and really, who takes just a 5-minute shower) uses more water than a typical person in a developing country slum uses in a whole day. (source: 2006 United Nations Human Development Report)
- Don’t let the water run when you brush your teeth.
- Stop eating meat. It takes TEN TIMES as much water to make one pound of beef as it does to grow one pound of wheat (Really. Check it out.).
- Stop buying bottled water (Why not? Watch this film.).
- Don’t wash your clothes after every use, unless you really need to (think jeans, sweaters, towels – usually they just aren’t that dirty after one wear).
- Use cloth diapers instead of disposables. I wish I had.
AND you can…
- Write a blog post, tweet, update your Facebook status, or just tell someone about World Water Day.
- Read about water.org and what they are doing to help the global water crisis, and donate to their cause to help bring clean water to more people. It can change, or save, a life.
Wordless Wednesday: Spring Awakening
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Springtime is the land awakening. The March winds are the morning yawn.
~Lewis Grizzard
Yesterday was the first day of Spring - the equinox - the moment when the sun crosses directly over our earth's equator - a time when day and night are equal in length. It's a time of awakening, balance, renewal, promise.
The turning of the seasons grounds me. Spring, after the cold and bare of Winter, is always so welcome, necessary, a gladly received reminder and assurance of time and life continuing. Even after this, the most mild of Winters I can remember in New Jersey, I still was grateful to see that first daffodil poking up through the soil several weeks ago.
My heart lightened. And, each day since then I have anxiously searched my garden for signs of new life, never to be disappointed - as Mother Nature delivers new wonders with each moment.
The weather has been so bright, and the sun so warm this week, that we've all been outside as much as possible; taking in the new season, breathing Spring and all it's wonderous new life... awakening.
Wake. Breathe. Start fresh, as each moment in your life is as new as the Spring buds on the trees. Happy Spring, readers!
