With the release of my two websites GreenerMemphis and Low Impact Home, I have been giddy with excitement but cautious. You see the “red” side of my family doesn’t know about the “green” me. I am pretty sure that if they found out I would be written out of the will due to my “liberal thinking”. Now, you and I know that you don’t have to be a Democrat to think green but if the puny 220 words that President Bush had to say about the environment during his State of the Union speech shows the interest that most Republicans have, then I can see why people think that.
The fact is, my father is a staunch Republican and beyond the manditory recycling in his neighborhood, I am pretty sure he doesn’t think much about saving the earth. Now don’t get me wrong, he does drive a hybrid but I think that is in response to the rising gas prices and not to the rising CO2 emissions. I do have to say that he might be the most open one about my “green” ethics and my mother would be the one to give me the most stink about it. My father has always been more open minded about things then my mother, in fact just the other day she made a crack about a well known blog that I follow because they are liberal-minded. Do I really need to tell them or should I just cancel out their vote at election time?
Also I live in the Bible Belt and we don’t talk about the environment in Church. I really don’t know why, you see I believe that God created the Universe (watches as my bounce rate jumps). Now I still have questions as to how it occured, whether or not it took 7 days or 7 million years remains to be seen, but I still believe that it didn’t happen on accident. I have seen God in nature to many times to ignore Him. I remember sitting on a mountian top looking out over the tops of millions of trees and feeling a presence in the wind as it came from behind me. Reassurance of His presence swept over me as I sat there beholding the beauty of creation. So if God created the universe and all of it’s beings why are we not worried about taking care of it? It’s a question that I have often asked and is one of the reasons I can’t find a Church to join.
Eventhough I have just become vocal about my ”green” beliefs, it doesn’t mean I haven’t had them for a long time. Ever since I could remember I was concerned for the planet, but sadly I was not equipt to do anything about it. Since I was raised in a home that never spoke about it and since the Church and school that I went to said nothing about it, I guess I didn’t realize that it was as bad as it is. Shot! It’s hard enough as an adult to get the word out, think about what it would have taken as a child in the Generation of Excess that was the 80’s.
But now that I have children and see that in only a few short years things that I have always taken for granted will be gone and not around for them to see, I can’t sit around and do nothing. Forget the fact that I am literally 1 in a Million, who have green views, in my city. We need to act now not later, we need to instill green values in our children so their children will have something beautiful left to discover. Stop making this a polical issue and make the environment a people issue instead.
