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You gotta love green. Even if you are in the camp that doesn’t buy that the polar ice caps are disappearing at an alarming rate or that the rainforest is on the verge of extinction, you have to admit that the goals and practices of the green movement just make sense – like the doctor’s oath – first, do no harm. As stewards of our singular planet we are charged with its care and we have been pretty cavalier about it for quite some time. But there are signs, from the minor to the dire, that indicate the need to turn our attention and creativity to the environmental problems we have created and the problems we are likely to create if we continue unabated. I’m all about Reduce, Reuse and Recycle, (though one look at my garage reveals that my forté lies in the latter two modes). I regularly pick up garbage on daily walks and make the Earth Day park clean-up a family affair. My daughter attends an environmental magnet school and I am even eyeing the CFL bulbs, despite my aversion to their cold light. We’re doing our part, right? Maybe. But every once in a while I come upon an article or catch a news story that puts a prickle of fear into me and makes me want to drop everything and join up with the green movement as a foot soldier. Most recently I was brought up short by the airing of an episode called “Dimming the Sun” on the PBS program, NOVA. Using data gathered during the three days when all air traffic was grounded after 9/11, scientists make the case that the air pollution we create actually is masking the full extent of global warming due also to man-made causes. Following the logic, if we reduce air pollution, global warming has the potential to escalate quickly (in relative terms) to a point of no return that is not, by their calculations, going to be marked in hundreds of years, but tens of years. A house of cards indeed. Choose to believe it or not, it still gives one pause and makes one wonder what else don’t we know and whether we will be too far down the path to fix it when all the evidence is in. But in this, our first-ever, exclusively green issue, we are focusing not so much on the “do or die,” but more on the “do.” We hope our issue provides not only food for thought, but also a gentle call to action. Go Green!
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Editor’s Note