Monday, January 01, 2007

Journal

I read Rachel Carson's SILENT SPRING when I was fourteen. This profoundly changed my life. I knew upon finishing this book that I would never bear a child. How could I bring another child into a world already overpopulated? How could I bear a child when there were so many already born who needed homes, who needed love? Little did I know that this decision would give me a unique opportunity to advocate for myriad children--free from the taint of the ubiquitous power over/powerlessness parental paradigm. Young people love me, and I them.

This--choosing to remain childless--was the extent of my empowerment at that point in my development. I had no sense of personal power; thus, I could only admire Ms. Carson's activism and wish I had some measure of her courage. I knew she had unleashed the Hounds of Fury by calling attention to the dangers of DDT and other pesticides. But hers was the classic case of killing the messenger. Her readers worldwide took up the gauntlet and soon DDT was banned, at least in the US. And, the environmental movement was born. This was huge.

Now, at 51, I recall this event because I've just watched AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH. Now that I have--for the past twenty-five years--been an advocate and an activist, I contemplate my potential to play a significant role in the efforts being made to educate our world about the imminent climate changes made inevitable by our species' hedonism.

How can I devote my time and my energy to this movement and still put food on the table? Well, I haven't yet thought of a way to make this particular industry fruitful enough to pay my bills, but I will. Activism has been, and must continue to be, what I do best. Meanwhile, I must journal my thoughts, so that I can record herein the evolution of my continued activism.

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