Monday, January 24, 2011

Climate Change

The term Global Warming got us off to a bad start in comprehending our Earth's distress. "If the Earth is warming, why is it so cold??" etc. Climate Change, much more accurate, is real and really scary. Also, if you think we humans aren't causing it, I wish you'd attended the Brookline Climate Week kick off event yesterday. I was there to sell books by one of the heroes of getting this story out (years ago now), Ross Gelbspan. His seminal book is The Heat Is On, followed by Boiling Point. He and numerous other Brookline citizens are passionate activists on the subject. Please go to www.climatechangeactionbrookline.org to see what one town is doing to educate and move us forward. Each person doing one or more small things can make a difference, trite but oh so true. Here's the "one thing" takeaway from the event. Go to www.nstaronline.com/residential and sign up. This one action will reduce your carbon footprint by 25%. That is a big deal. It will cost you very little money. It will help save our planet.

On Sunday, Jan. 30 at 1:00 p.m., come by the store to hear author Vivienne Simon and editor Martin Keough discuss and converse about Hope Beneath Our Feet: Restoring Our Place in the Natural World. The book is a compelling anthology including such environmental activists and writers as Barbara Kingsolver, Alice Walker, Bill McKibben and Howard Zinn. This event is co-sponsored by Climate Change Action Brookline.

For those blog readers who are not residents of Brookline, find out if your city/town has any environmental orgs. you can join. If not, find something as close to your home as you can or join an online org. Basically, do something, do anything. As with other important movements (think Civil Rights) grassroots can ultimately prevail over special interests and big money.

I'm being bossy. You may not like that. Sorry. This is too important to be demure.

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