Mountain Gorillas and Polar Bears Endangered: Human Energy Needs to Blame

OK, you say, now I'm supposed to feel guilty about polar bears AND gorillas?
What has that to do with me? Nothing directly...if you are in the developed West, you didn't pull the trigger that brutally murdered--some execution style--10 of a family of 12 Mountain Gorillas in Virunga National Park in Central Africa last summer. Moms and dads, teens and kids--leaving the babies to starve to death. A warning to all to back off from investigating illegalities in the park. http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/07/virunga/jenkins-text.
You are not part of the $30, 000,000 illegal trade in charcoal that is decimating this most stunning national park--a park that for its environmental and ecological diversity and sheer beauty many scientists and environmentalists call the jewel of THE PLANET.
You are not one of the many 1,000s of families that have been displaced due to the wars in Rwanda. Due to the decades-old (several century-old) conflicts between The Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, all that border the park. You are not a Tutsi or a Hutu. You are not desperate for the life-giving charcoal that will heat the water to cook your mealie meal to feed your hungry kids.
Nor are you purposely running your car on oil, wearing oil based clothing, heating, cooling with oil, drinking water out of oil-based bottles, walking on oil-based carpeting, sitting on oil-based furniture, bringing home food packaged in oil-based wrappings and bags, right? That's just all there is to choose from, right?
You are not directly responsible for the carbon emissions that are melting the ice floes at the North Pole and shrinking the ice pack that normally sits about 50 miles off the northern coast of Canada to more than 200 miles? SO...you are not responsible for the loss of PLANKTON that is locked up in the ice and feeds all the subspecies that feed the Polar bears and larger polar creatures, are you?
Humans have an insatiable NEED for energy--whether it is charcoal the production of which is descimating the old growth hardwood trees in Virunga Park: No trees=no habitat. No habitat=no gorillas.Or whether it is oil to power our "modern" comfortable life.
And yes, I do believe we are all responsible--not in a guilty way--guilt paralyzes and causes us to turn away. But in a way that is a Global Wide Call to Action and on our own selfish behalf. We are selfish creatures--well, really we have a basic driving inner force to LIVE. Each of us has this need, this drive--all creatures do. But now we must realize that unless we are selfish together and take selfish action together for our own benefit, we will all go the way of the dodo. And our beautiful Blue Marble will be a smoking empty desert hulk.
DO the Change you want to BE. SOmeone out there invent a little portable and cheap solar cooker that can be GIVEN to all the displaced families around Virunga Park. And SURELY we are not that lazy, worthless or stupid to not be able to invent cheap and easy wind turbines and solar or human powered and CHEAP means to power our needs.
I recently received a sampler from the Sundance Channel about a new environmental program called "big ideas for a Small Planet." As I view that sampler, I' ll share with you.






Some years ago, I realized that I was not being active in environmental organizations because I felt OVERWHELMED by the magnitude of the problems. 
Some years ago I started working on a book called, "Garden for Life." It was inspired by volunteering in my daughter's kindergarten class with a gardening project, making planting pots out of newspaper and planting lettuce and cuke seeds.
Those burbs are mostly not like my town which is old and filled with lots of mature trees, dotted with little shopping areas you can walk to (but I mostly don't, I confess! I'll TRY, I promise. I need to for my health!), but they are new developments that have hungry lawns and few trees. They require a car to get to shopping, because they are what are called pod and corridor developments. Imagine a line with little circles off to the sides. The line is the corridor highway/road where stores are, and the circles are "pods" of housing. You must drive to get anywhere. 



