Seedlings
Each month we will publish a letter which we call a seedling. A seedling, by definition, is a young plant that has all that it needs to blossom: root, shoot and leaves. It just needs to break through the surface to reach the light. I am hopeful that with your work, care, wisdom, and inspiration the seedling will break through any resistance, reach the light of day and spread like wildflowers.
The letter will include an idea, a theory, a thought to pique your curiosity, to inspire you to delve deeper, to think in new ways, maybe even to imagine a new way of living. As I was exploring various fields I felt myself waking up, paying attention, and being more mindful. It was a though the light had shifted and what was in shadow was clear as day.
The letters may also include a poem, a Bible verse, or other reading. I am hopeful there will be words to inspire, enlighten, and renew and that you will share your insight that you may become a leader and a teacher in a quest to save our planet from ourselves, and for all of its inhabitants.
But we cannot forget action, for action can speak louder than words. Each letter will include a practical action we can take, some larger than others. And those actions can becomes habits, and they can teach others, inspire others to do likewise. And maybe most importantly, they can teach our children and grandchildren mindful and hope-filled ways of living on this beautiful planet for generations and generations to come.
Our Uphill Battle
Dear Partners in Green, We try to be good stewards of the Earth, to conserve, reduce, reuse, recycle, and live responsibly, but it is an uphill battle. As much as we do for the betterment of our world, there is a force that is working against us. And that force is the...
Beef
Dear Partners in Green, I’m going to get right to the point. There are so many ways we can mitigate Climate Change, that is, reduce its effects by changes in our lifestyles: reduce use of plastics, limit our shopping, flying and driving, conserve water, plant a tree,...
Time
Dear Partners in Green, It was in 2007 that Al Gore warned us in his book, An Inconvenient Truth: The Crisis of Global Warming, that the Earth was in peril and that we were running out of time. Action was needed immediately. And he certainly was not the first....
The Greatest Threat to Our Planet
Dear Partners in Green, In 2006, Bill McKibben, a distinguished scholar at Middlebury College and leader of the climate campaign 350.org (whom I have mentioned in previous posts), wrote the book The End of Nature, one of the earliest warnings about global warming,...
What Will Be Our Response?
It seems from day one, from the beginning of our awareness of the negative effects of what has been deemed to be progress, one looming concern with unmitigated climate degradation was immigration. Today, as was predicted, more and more areas of the globe are unable...
We Are Still In the Game
Dear Partners in Green This morning, as I was sitting down to write another Seedling, baseball came to mind. I was thinking about the clubhouse and dugout, where a team gathers, goes over the plays, reviews strategies, cheers each other on, and ultimately runs out...
Enthusiasm
For a long time now, I have been a Ralph Waldo Emerson “enthusiast.” There is something about his views on life that just “strikes a chord” with me. I have read a great deal about him, and by him. He is not the easiest person to read, much like other 19th-century...
What Should Be Our Response?
I don’t know whether to rant or just throw my hands up in the air. What the heck! “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” An unforgettable line from the movie “Network.” The train derailment in Ohio and the subsequent “controlled” burn reminds me...
It’s About Time
Dear Partners in Green It came to me the other day that a major problem with our approach to Climate Change is our concept of time. We tend to think in the short term. Today and tomorrow, maybe even next summer, but ten or twenty years out? But we have been warned...
It’s A New Year!
Dear Partners in Green The fact of Climate Change has the ability to alter our worldview. We may see a storm as not just a storm, a hurricane as not just a hurricane, a hot day, as not just a hot day, but rather as warnings, as reminders of the reality of our troubled...
Let’s Talk
Dear Partners in Green, Here in the northeast, winter is fast approaching. The last leaves have been raked, the gardens have been put to bed, and the warm clothes have made their way to the front of the closet. We are preparing for the hunkering down associated with...
Thank You, Captain Kirk
Dear Partners in Green, I recently came across William Shatner’s reflections on his journey into space on October 13, 2021. They appear in his recently published book, which is cited below. I do think they should be read often and shared with family and friends. This...