December 17, 2007

Good and Happy Monday to you all.... I was completely ready to sit down and write a new daily this morning relating to Al Gore's acceptance speech for winning the Nobel Prize. However, when I logged on to the computer, I was greeted with the news of Dan Fogelberg's death from prostate cancer. Although I didn't know Dan personally, his music touched my life in ways that are hard to describe. He was able to communicate so much through both music and lyrics... an amazing minstrel...an amazing soul and spirit. It is interesting that Dan's song Face the Fire released in 1980 was a call to abandon nuclear power and "turn to the sun" (explore renewable energy sources). More than a quarter-century later, one of my other personal hero's Al Gore is also sounding the alarm. If you have not yet read his acceptance speech, do yourself a favor... visit http://www.algore.com. In the meantime, here is an inspiration I wrote back in October 2006:

For years now I have been hearing buzz words like “global warming” and “green house gases” but never understood the implications of what was happening and how we were damaging the planet. The full thrust of the issue didn’t hit me until I saw Al Gore’s movie, “An Inconvenient Truth.” (If you have not yet seen this movie, please do. This movie is not an effort to advance any political agenda but rather it is a selfless effort to help heal the Earth.) I left the theater shocked and appalled that I had essentially chosen to bury my head in the sand and deny that we were doing irreparable harm to the environment. I tried to justify my lack of attention by reasoning that the issue was too big for me to impact and that other people would take the lead in responding.

The reality is, if I am not a part of the solution, I am definitely a part of the problem. I had never been taught to think that the way I lived my life had an impact on the environment. I had never been taught how to strive for “zero-impact living.” I had never been taught that living in a “disposable society” where we successfully hide our garbage and mask the pollution that we create contributes to our denial and ignorance. I had never been taught that because environmental issues are “an inconvenient truth” that we have been lulled to sleep thinking that all is right with the world. My hope and prayer is that I, we, all of us are not waking up too late to undo the damage that we have done.

Just for today (and beyond), think about the impact that your lifestyle is having on the planet. Visit the web space “http://www.stopglobalwarming.org” to learn more about the issue and to learn how you can help to heal the planet. I am convinced that it will take a concerted, collective effort to bring about positive change. I also believe that we have the power to rescue the planet and preserve its dignity for generations to come. And so it is.