After thinking on the nature of friendships, people who affect us, and not being the same afterwards.... I saw David Suzuki on Saturday.
WOW wow wow wow. What an incredibly dynamic speaker. You feel like he is speaking directly to you, with you, engaging you. His message was dark and dire. MOVE OUR ASSES AND MAKE SOME CHANGE!!! I agree. What I found most interesting was how he spoke about our skewed perception of "Economy" and how it has become something feared, worshipped and placated not unlike the demons/dragons/ghosts of old. He reminded us that the 'economy' is a post-war planned economy- we created it! We placed the values on items. We created the obsession with growth, and never counted the environmental costs -- they were externalities. But how can you discount the costs associated with natural resource use, or dealing with the given product at the end of its life cycle?? How can an apple from New Zealand cost less than a $1 when it is picked, graded, flown for almost a day, then handled yet again at a depot and sent out to stores. That is simply impossible. Is the true cost calculated? What about the impact of shipping? Who pays for the fuel's impact? Truly that apple should cost closer to $50.
His message was clear... we need to act now. We are teetering on a precipice. Never in history has change occurred this quickly-- it is not normal. His analogy was that we have partied without care for costs or clean up for decades, guess what? Pay up and clean up time. Parties cannot be afforded to go on and on....
I took away that I need to make some plans to:
1. Make personal changes and decisions
2. Make committment to activism within my own immediate circle
3. Make strides towards impacting change within my direct community
4. Get involved politically to force what needs to be the most important topic in the front.