Like New Year’s Day, Earth Day has become a time to take stock of how we live and to make plans for the future. This year, the need for change feels more urgent than ever. It’s easy to become overwhelmed, depressed or cynical when confronted with the scope of our environmental challenges. But we truly no longer have time for such distractions.
As the news about climate change (from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change and other sources) grows more dire, as forests, coral reefs and countless species disappear, as toxins from consumer products and food continue to expose us to daily harm, as pollution from fracking and industrial sources continues to upend lives in both urban and rural landscapes, as the protections we once believed would save us prove too little and too easy to undo, it has been left to us to push back.
It’s scary and, yes, pretty overwhelming. But I don’t believe it’s beyond our ability. No one person will fix all of this on her own. But when a lot of us are moving in the same general direction, good things are possible…perhaps even likely.
sustainablechoices.net 