Tuesday, April 16, 2013
“Each of us feels some aspect of the world’s suffering acutely. And we must pay attention. We must act. This little corner of the world is ours to transform. This little corner of the world is ours to save.” Stephen Cope
Each day, every one of us chooses who we hang out with, how we live our lives and what are our most important values and how we live those. Earth day is coming and it is a reminder to me that we each have some responsibility on a daily basis to make choices that will leave a planet for our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. All beings rely on fresh air to breath, clean water to drink and healthy soil to provide good food. Our daily actions can support and make a difference for the planet. Our actions teach our kids what is important. Our actions teach our friends what we believe. Our little corner of the world, Haliburton County is worth working for. We are so lucky to have such a high quality of life. We are surrounded by clean lakes, fresh air, wildlife and good company. We can never take it for granted. We chose to live here and we all share some responsibility to act on it’s behalf. It is easy to become pessimistic about the state of the planet. A friend of mine went to hear David Suzuki speak at her son’s University of Guelph Science graduation and he was very discouraged. David basically said to the students, “you have to do a better job than me. I have failed. The environment is worse off than when I started years ago. “ Suzuki spent his entire career advocating, learning and being passionate about the natural world. And what he said is, many people/ governments still don’t make good choices. When I first talked to my friend about Suzuki’s speech, I felt sad and kind of hopeless. And then I turned back to the people that I hang out with and the values they have the choices they make and I realized that while there are lots of issues, that are so many people who do a lot and that we can each make a difference. It’s the little things that we can do to help our county stay healthy and moving in the right direction. We can each choose to support local farmers, even by something as simple as going to the Farmer’s market this year. We can support organizations like help us stay connected to the natural world like the Haliburton Field Naturalists. We can each plant something. If we don’t have a garden a pot will do. Last summer my mother grew all of her lettuce in a container on her deck. We can stop using store bought plastic water bottles and start using our stainless steel ones. Last year I decided to stop buying store bought cookies and eliminated all that packaging from our house. Then I added store bought cereal to the list. One thing at a time. Little things make a difference. And then I added in more homemade cookies and cereal. I’m trying to drive less and walk more. It all helps. What are you going to do to help the planet this year? I hope you’ll stop me in the street and tell me.