Everyday People Talk about Their Moments on Earth
Monday’s the day that “This Moment on Earth” is officially released and there’s lots planned for the day. JK and THK will start it out with an appearance on the Today show and JK will wind up the day talking with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show. Get your VCRs and DVRs ready if you can’t be there to watch.
One of the other things that we’re inviting people to do, is tell their own stories and submit them to the website. Some people have already sent in stories. We’ve picked some to share on this page and I wanted to highlight a couple on the blog today.
Sounds like fun, Bob. <!Bob C. from Niles, MI
One warm autumn day in Michigan, around 1959 when I was about 12 years old, I was mowing my parents’ front yard. I happened to see a sprouted acorn poking its pale green cotyledon up through the grass and decided to mow around it rather than over it. This acorn became “My Tree.” Today “My Tree” stands nearly 40 feet tall and is so big around that I can no longer get my arms around it—a magnificent living thing, a mighty black oak spreading its limbs over its corner of Mom’s front lawn and spending its days tirelessly scrubbing the air of carbon dioxide.
The following June my father obtained several hundred pine seedlings from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, and we planted them along the edge of the oak forest at the back of our 7 acres. Not all of them survived, but those that did are now giants too, giving shade where there had been none and shelter to all sorts of birds and other animals. My father, rest his soul, loved Nature in all of her forms, and he set an example that I still try to follow.
About a year after Dad’s tree-planting project, our Boy Scout troop planted hundreds of tree seedlings along the banks of the Galien River near New Buffalo, Michigan. Those that survived are also giants today, providing shade and shelter and freshening the air.
Please plant a tree this year! Plant a dozen trees. Plant hundreds, or even thousands of them if you can. Do it every year. Help a church youth group do it. Help an elementary school class do it. Anybody can do this at any age between 5 and 100. Do it, and I promise you will not regret it.
As you plant your trees remember: They may be little seedlings now, but some day they’ll be giants; and they’ll help us slow down global warming in addition to providing the many other benefits that trees bring to their surroundings.
Karen M. from Rock Hill, SC
Crying as I left the film An Inconvenient Truth, I was filled with hope for the future despite all the inaction that has occurred in the past. What can we do? And what can I do?
Two months after seeing the movie I was forwarded an email about The Climate Project – a training that was going to occur in Nashville, TN led by Al Gore. They were going to train 1,000 individuals. I submitted an online application thinking that I wouldn’t be chosen, but submitting it because I thought I had more of a chance of going if I applied than if I didn’t. That was August.
December 4th I received an email that I was accepted and would join the 3rd Training Session January 4-6th. The training exceeded my expectations and I was connected to a great network of individuals from all different backgrounds that had the same passion as I to inform others about the climate crisis and more importantly what we can do about it. Someone at the training had said “It used to be ‘Houston, we have a problem.’ Now it is ‘Nashville, we have a solution.’”
I have a full time job as a Drug Prevention Specialist and a three year old son, and the environment has become a continual commitment as well. I have given 8 presentations since I got back in January to about 400 people 5 cities and have passed out 40 compact fluorescent light bulbs. I have presented to churches, to universities, to groups for at-risk youth, and local Democratic groups, and will be leading a presentation for the City of Stallings, NC. I have 8 more presentations planned up until August.
I have contacted my local newspaper and have successfully encouraged them to do a feature about our local environment and what we can do about it. I also contact any newspapers or media sources before I present in a town outside my own to encourage them to highlight the event and write a feature about our climate and what we can do to reduce our carbon footprint.
I am not a scientist. I am a concerned mother and an informed concerned citizen. My background is in public health. I have in the past been tasked with interpreting complex scientific concepts related to health and the environment for different populations. My intent is not to recreate the wheel, but to use my skills, tools, and abilities to bring to people the message about our climate crisis that has been researched and hypothesized by the brightest minds on the planet, and what we can do about it. For too long, companies and individuals have denied that global warming even existed or that we can do anything to change it.
People talk about the tipping point. I believe we are the tipping point, those who choose to take action. We will take on this generational challenge because we are the next greatest generation.
Thanks for taking the time to share what you’ve done with us, Bob and Karen. You and the other people in This Moment on Earth really are inspirational.
6 Comments
New comments for this entry are closed.
Terrific post. These are the kinds of stories that will inspire everyone---from those who want to get involved to those who want to do more. I know I’m inspired.
Great stories of people who care about this moment on earth.
My husband brought this video to my attention
http://www.nickelback.com/ “If Everyone Cared”.
The song and video speaks about what one person or a group can do to take action and inspire people to do something.
At the end it has this quote:
Thanks Bob and Karen for caring and taking action.
These stories are just wonderful. Thank you, Bob and Karen, for sharing them with us.
This sounds so trivial, but I know it is something all of us can do (and maybe most of you have done it already). I am changing all the lights in my home to florescent from incandescent. My son was at a camp that stressed enviromental awareness this past summer. They had the camp attendees supply the energy necessary to light the bulb for each type of light by peddling on a stationary bicycle and thereby create the electricity for the bulbs. The energy/work necessary to light an incandescent bulb was vastly greater than the energy required to light the florescent bulb. If we all can change our bulbs then it might help. I believe there is a movement afoot to phase out incandescent bulbs over the next ten years in the U.S. I also think there are some European countries that are trying to make them illegal. I might be wrong about that, but it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if I am right.
Please spare me all this sanctimonious drivel. John Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry heat and air condition multiple homes, own and operate multiple gasoline and diesel guzzling vehicles (including the “Scaramouche” power boat that is a gross polluter), and oppose building wind-powered electricity generation projects. Let’s get the Senator and his wife to clean up their act before they start preaching to others.
Bill - sorry you missed JK and THK addressing comments like yours on Fox News last night. Here is a bit of the transcript:
O’REILLY: Now Mrs. Kerry, when you hear Al Gore attacked for his big house in Tennessee. You got a lot of big houses. You guys are rich guys. And then, you know, some people who don’t like you say, “Why are these people telling me what to do? Look at them. They’re on their private jets. They’ve got their big mansions.”
How do you respond to that?
T. KERRY: First of all, this isn’t a book that divides Americans to who has and who doesn’t have houses, apartments or whatever. The important thing is what do I do or what does anyone do about protecting our natural resources, whether it’s oil and energy, whether it is planes and carbon sinks, whether it is cars and hybrids.
And more importantly, it’s an invitation to other people to join us in figuring out how we live more reasonably. We don’t have all the answers either. We’re looking for them. It’s hard.
And I am making a lot of changes and have been. And I’m not there yet. But we are both doing it.
O’REILLY: All right. Listen, again, I think you’re right. I think that all Americans should come together and try to make this the cleanest country in the world and get away from these bad guys who are just exploiting us like crazy. And I think both parties will come together. I hope they do. But Senator…
J. KERRY: We hope we do, Bill. But you know, we’re doing a lot of things like changing the kinds of vehicles we drive, trying to, you know, alter our homes, alter the energy use, the grid we use, the light bulbs we uses. I mean, all those kinds of things.
O’REILLY: Yes, everybody should do it. But isn’t, you know — when you saw the grief Gore took for his big house, was that fair? Is it a fair shot?
J. KERRY: Well, actually his house, he buys from an alternative energy source. He buys carbon neutral and he buys green. So in fact, he’s taken solid steps to try to address the fact he lives in a larger house.
The bigger issue is what are we going to do about the larger question of the emissions of carbon? If we build 140 coal fire plants the way we’re planning to, and if China builds one coal fired plant a week over the next years, we’re finished.