"We are stardust
Billion-year-old carbon
And we've got to get ourselves
back to the garden."
~ Joni Mitchell, lyrics
to Woodstock
In
the classic, An Inconvenient Truth, Earth steward Al Gore
laid out for us, cleanly and with humor, why the way we conduct our lives
matters monumentally — and how we each have a stake in the outcome.
He
wrote, "If denial is not a river in Egypt, despair is not a tire in the
trunk." We're all canaries in the global coalmine: carbon-based life forms
whose carbon footprint now resembles Bigfoot. This telescopes everything else —
such as what to have for dinner, whether we'll contract avian flu, or where the
latest war has erupted — into stark focus.
Gore
says, "We're witnessing a collision between our civilization and the
Earth. We can't just mindlessly continue the patterns of the past. Our moral
imperative to make big changes is inescapable."
He
understands the macro issue from a micro perspective. Gore's family used to
operate a tobacco farm, and his sister Nancy, who began smoking at age
thirteen, died in midlife from lung cancer. For decades we downplayed the
Surgeon General's warning. Today, with the link between smoking and cancer well
established, close to 100,000 young people worldwide still take up the habit daily.
The
same holds true for our planetary body. If we keep "smoking" Earth,
she'll soon be burned out. Then life as we know it ceases. Our planet, given an
epoch, will regenerate, perhaps to support a more symbiotic life form.
"Environmentally
sensitive" people (an estimated 10-40 percent of the U.S. population) are
part of our global warning: a voice for the trees, the oceans, our animal kin.
It's only a matter of perspective — and time — until we can no longer pretend
that climate change isn't altering our reality more surely than any
psychotropic substance. Architects in the Netherlands, which is located below
sea level, have already developed floating buildings.
Re-Sourcing Ourselves
from Life's Well
As
we approach the second coming of Atlantis, we're being called to remember that
we are all resourceful — full of resources — and that we can re-Source
ourselves from the infinite well of creative energy.
Sustainable
technology is within our purview. We need only engage more of our elemental
mind. Solar (fire), wind (air) and hydro (water) power are available, viable,
and affordable. So far we've only tapped petroleum (earth) to its potential — and
this doesn't even include biofuels.
There
is an Aboriginal axiom, "The more you know, the less you need." The
most joy-filled people on Earth aren't the most consumptive. They're the ones
who remember our connection with all life, and live that connection as a prayer
to both the ancestors and future generations. What they "know" comes
not from textbooks, but from ensouled wisdom.
As
Gore reminds us, power without wisdom is extremely dangerous. Einstein said,
"The splitting of the atom has changed everything save our mode of
thinking, and thus we drift towards unparalleled catastrophe." We've created a humongous microwave oven, and our
collective brainpower is cooking inside it.
The
question remains: will we choose to transform our errors of emission into
values of volition? Can we regain a penchant for all species' survival, which
was imprinted in our cellular memory eons before we grew the desire for more
horses under the hood?
In
a sense, it's a collective conscious evolution exam. We've already united as
one planet in a moment of focused emergency: to ban CFCs and begin to close the
hole in the ozone layer.
Now
we're again at a global choice point. Because there is no greener grass, only
greenhouse gas, and no one at whom to point the finger and pass the buck. Our
21st century dependence on fossil fuel, techno-lifestyles — and past
patterns — is only fueling our drive to become fossils faster.
What
You Can Do
Each
of us is simultaneously a cause of and a solution to climate change. One aware
individual can make a small difference. Times 7 billion, the impact is, to say
the least, statistically significant.
Some
sites to help you take action to reduce your carbon footprint:
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