America Has Been Too long in Creative Retirement--It's Time for ALL of Us to reFIRE. Former Vice President Gore Challenges Us as a Nation to Go Green

We boomers have led the way for a long time AND we have made BIG mistakes--namely, NOT pressing for a national Green Economy more strongly sooner. 

Baby Boomer former Vice President Gore has issued a challenge to us, to all national leaders, and to us as a nation to get off the Global Energy Grid within the next 10 years. http://www.wecansolveit.org/

If there was ever a country that could do what he is calling for us to do, it is America.

Americans are the original bootstrap, can-do folk, creative people.

I don't know about you, but I got tired over the last several decades. With school, parenting, crummy marriage (well, not always and I did my share), aging and dying parents, and many years of activism in the preceding decades, I just felt I didn't have the energy and sometimes just the time to look larger than my family and school/professional demands.

I can remember seeing covers of Time Magazine in the 1990s, ablaze with the Amazon Rainforest burning--depleting the  atmosphere of fresh oxygen, sending pollution into the sky, ravaging acres of old growth forest daily and all for cheap beef to feed us here in the north with our fast food burgers. I knew it, understood the implications, felt powerless to do anything--just too big a problem, felt guilty, literally turned my head away, flipped over the magazine so I would not have to see the devastation, and did another load of laundry, while reading the next 60 page article for tomorrow's class.

I think lots of us Boomers were in a similar situation--kids, jobs, commuting, parents, marriages, a little "me" time--maybe...and where was the time and energy to fight for the environment either here at home or anywhere in the world?

Well, we MUST do it now.

And we can do it, even if we only do a little something each day ourselves. OK, so this afternoon, I seasoned an old rusty cast iron skillet I bought for $1.00 from a road side junk dealer. (YES, I did clean the pan of its rust first.) And instead of using a paper towel to wipe it down with vegetable oil before sticking it in the oven for several hours on 150 degrees, I used a crumpled sheet of scrap typing paper. Yeah yeah, I know, it was ONLY one sheet less of paper towel and ONLY one reused sheet of used paper, but it was something...and if all of us...well you know the drill.

GOING OFF-GRID

Here in the Upper Upper Upper Peninsula, some of us are talking about taking the Keweenaw Peninsula off the grid--completely off and figuring out how to power this small population--county wide only about 36,000--completely from some combinations of water, solar, geothermal, and wind. It's only a discussion of about 3-4 people now, but as Lil Abner said, from aching corns grow mighty oaks.

Years ago, in the late 60s, when I was married for the first time, living in NYC and working at Columbia U. Lib, I clipped a NY Post article about how the dyes in colored toilet paper and facial tissues polluted the water. At that time it was almost impossible to find white products.

Bathrooms were to be color coordinated from toilet er on...But I searched diligently for white paper and began using only white TP and nose blotters. It felt silly in a way and useless. Could my solo effort not to pollute the ground water by using white TP and facial tissue make any difference? But something did make a difference...do you see any colored tissues for sale now? Or colored TP? Rather it is more and more common to see Green TP.

SO, let's put our feet with our aching corns on a new path and from these little steps plant the acorns to grow some new mighty environmental energy oaks. VP Gore has issued the challenge and set a reasonable timetable. It is our turn to answer the call and change our ways even if only one sheet of paper at a time! 

Let's reFIRE our collective imaginations, rather than retire from the challenge.

 

Comments

[Nancy Mehegan]

Correction: it is the Kogi Indians, an indigenous people living in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountains of northern Colombia. In 1988 the Kogi allowed a BBC journalist, Alain Ereira to film a documentary about their culture. This was a historic event. No western journalists has been allowed to return since and the Kogi remained silent observing the ecological destruction of their sacred mountain. The reporter wrote a book about them "The Elder Brothers"
Read more: http://www.sharibillger.com/kogi.shtml

http://www.labyrinthina.com/kogi.htm

[Nancy Mehegan]

I agree wholeheartedly. I really feel "sheep-like". I had a vague awareness but seemed to be waiting for someone to tell me what to do. Or motivate me. THE TIME IS NOW!!
I saw a documentary a few years ago about Indians in the high mountains of South America, the "Corgis" who asked for a journalist to visit them. They told the journalist they saw changes in the environment that concerned them. They asked the reporter to return to their "little brothers" (the white people) and WARN THEM. (also not to return,ever, to the Corgis) How much more do we need to know??