Nice Healthy Food Choices photos
Some cool healthy food choices images:
2012 Soil Health Information Day, Mitchell, SD
Image by NRCS SD
FOCUS FOR AG FUTURE: SOIL BIOLOGY AS “NEW FRONTIER”
NATURAL RESOURCES CONSERVATION SERVICE (NRCS), Pierre, SD, December 14, 2012—The inherent and dynamic qualities of soil were in the spotlight at the Soil Health Information Day held December 11, 2012 in Mitchell, SD. The event attracted over 230 people to hear regional and national agriculture and natural resources speakers.
Ruth Beck, SDSU Extension Agronomy Field Specialist, Pierre, says “One goal with the event was to help people learn ways to manage soil that improve the soil function. Although we can’t change the inherent qualities of the soil in our yards, fields and pastures, we can make management choices that affect the amount of organic matter, structure, depth, water and nutrient-holding capacity—the indicators of the health of a soil.”
“While the physical and chemical properties of soil have long been a main factor for land use planning, we are now getting an understanding of the biology happening beneath our feet,” says Colette Kessler, Public Affairs Specialist with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), Pierre. “Thanks to technology advances in microscopes and other equipment, our ‘understanding’ of the science of soil, biology in particular, has grown more in the last three years than the last 30,” she explains.
Two Alpena area farmers were enlisted to kick off the day demonstrating water infiltration with Ray Archuleta, Conservation Agronomist, from the NRCS East National Technical Center, Greensboro, NC. “Look at this…it isn’t a problem of run-off; we have an infiltration problem,” said Archuleta as the audience watched him work through the soil experiment. “Ray the Soil Guy” got to the ‘root’ of everyone’s questions with his presentation “Healthy Soils Make Healthy Profits.” Archuleta is passionate about soil health and his passion is infectious. He specializes in soil biology/ecology and diversity approaches for agro-ecosystem sustainability. “Understanding the biology—the microbes—in the soil is the ‘next step’ for farmers and ranchers,” says Archuleta. Every operation is unique. He outlined how to use above-ground management, such as crop rotations, cover crops, and reducing tillage as tools to manipulate the soil biology for a more sustainable system.
“A healthy soil is not compacted. It has structure with macro pores that allow water to infiltrate down into the profile,” Archuleta explained earlier. “When I pick up a shovelful of soil, it should look like cottage cheese.” Jim Hoorman, Ohio State University, via webinar, outlined their university research findings and the economics of using mixes of cover crops to improve the problem of compacted soils. Mixtures are better for addressing compaction than using a single cover crop species. Hoorman explained that disturbances, like tillage, can destroy pore structure in a soil. Good pore structure is very important, allowing the soil to breathe and move water.
“Healthy soil regulates water well,” explained Paul Jasa, Extension Engineer, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Soil and residue management helps control where rain, snowmelt and irrigation water goes. “Field after field,” he says, “Residue drives the crop. Buffers are good, but a ‘band-aid;’ fix the soil in the field with residue and keep your water,” says Jasa. “Go out with a spade and see for yourself how your soil is handling water.”
Internationally known Dr. Dwayne Beck, Manager, SDSU Dakota Lakes Research Farm near Pierre, encourages producers to mimic nature, “I’ve learned more from observing nature than trying to change it.” Crop residue helps improve the soils balance of nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus. Beck’s presentation outlined ‘Catch and Release Nutrients’ and working with natural cycles to maximize crop production. “Plant roots are ‘hot spots’ for biological activities like nutrient cycling and soil aggregate stability,” says Beck. Both living roots, and the dead or dying roots, improve water infiltration and break up compacted soils. An abundance of roots helps to stabilize biological activities below ground, making more nutrients and water available to plants.
A common theme recommended throughout the day was for people to get out in their yards, fields and pastures with a shovel. “If we dig a little, we can learn a lot,” says Kessler, “We can better understand how healthy soil should look and smell, and how healthy soil should feel in our hands.” By the year 2050, Earth’s population is expected to reach 9 billion. Keeping every inch of our soil healthy will be essential as farmers and ranchers work to produce as much food and fiber in the next 40 years as they have in the last 500.
Photos showing Soil health can also be found at: www.flickr.com/photos/87743206@N04/
2012 Soil Health Information Day, Mitchell, SD
Image by NRCS SD
FOCUS FOR AG FUTURE: SOIL BIOLOGY AS “NEW FRONTIER”
NATURAL RESOURCES CONSERVATION SERVICE (NRCS), Pierre, SD, December 14, 2012—The inherent and dynamic qualities of soil were in the spotlight at the Soil Health Information Day held December 11, 2012 in Mitchell, SD. The event attracted over 230 people to hear regional and national agriculture and natural resources speakers.
Ruth Beck, SDSU Extension Agronomy Field Specialist, Pierre, says “One goal with the event was to help people learn ways to manage soil that improve the soil function. Although we can’t change the inherent qualities of the soil in our yards, fields and pastures, we can make management choices that affect the amount of organic matter, structure, depth, water and nutrient-holding capacity—the indicators of the health of a soil.”
“While the physical and chemical properties of soil have long been a main factor for land use planning, we are now getting an understanding of the biology happening beneath our feet,” says Colette Kessler, Public Affairs Specialist with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), Pierre. “Thanks to technology advances in microscopes and other equipment, our ‘understanding’ of the science of soil, biology in particular, has grown more in the last three years than the last 30,” she explains.
Two Alpena area farmers were enlisted to kick off the day demonstrating water infiltration with Ray Archuleta, Conservation Agronomist, from the NRCS East National Technical Center, Greensboro, NC. “Look at this…it isn’t a problem of run-off; we have an infiltration problem,” said Archuleta as the audience watched him work through the soil experiment. “Ray the Soil Guy” got to the ‘root’ of everyone’s questions with his presentation “Healthy Soils Make Healthy Profits.” Archuleta is passionate about soil health and his passion is infectious. He specializes in soil biology/ecology and diversity approaches for agro-ecosystem sustainability. “Understanding the biology—the microbes—in the soil is the ‘next step’ for farmers and ranchers,” says Archuleta. Every operation is unique. He outlined how to use above-ground management, such as crop rotations, cover crops, and reducing tillage as tools to manipulate the soil biology for a more sustainable system.
“A healthy soil is not compacted. It has structure with macro pores that allow water to infiltrate down into the profile,” Archuleta explained earlier. “When I pick up a shovelful of soil, it should look like cottage cheese.” Jim Hoorman, Ohio State University, via webinar, outlined their university research findings and the economics of using mixes of cover crops to improve the problem of compacted soils. Mixtures are better for addressing compaction than using a single cover crop species. Hoorman explained that disturbances, like tillage, can destroy pore structure in a soil. Good pore structure is very important, allowing the soil to breathe and move water.
“Healthy soil regulates water well,” explained Paul Jasa, Extension Engineer, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Soil and residue management helps control where rain, snowmelt and irrigation water goes. “Field after field,” he says, “Residue drives the crop. Buffers are good, but a ‘band-aid;’ fix the soil in the field with residue and keep your water,” says Jasa. “Go out with a spade and see for yourself how your soil is handling water.”
Internationally known Dr. Dwayne Beck, Manager, SDSU Dakota Lakes Research Farm near Pierre, encourages producers to mimic nature, “I’ve learned more from observing nature than trying to change it.” Crop residue helps improve the soils balance of nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus. Beck’s presentation outlined ‘Catch and Release Nutrients’ and working with natural cycles to maximize crop production. “Plant roots are ‘hot spots’ for biological activities like nutrient cycling and soil aggregate stability,” says Beck. Both living roots, and the dead or dying roots, improve water infiltration and break up compacted soils. An abundance of roots helps to stabilize biological activities below ground, making more nutrients and water available to plants.
A common theme recommended throughout the day was for people to get out in their yards, fields and pastures with a shovel. “If we dig a little, we can learn a lot,” says Kessler, “We can better understand how healthy soil should look and smell, and how healthy soil should feel in our hands.” By the year 2050, Earth’s population is expected to reach 9 billion. Keeping every inch of our soil healthy will be essential as farmers and ranchers work to produce as much food and fiber in the next 40 years as they have in the last 500.
Photos showing Soil health can also be found at: www.flickr.com/photos/87743206@N04/
2012 Soil Health Information Day, Mitchell, SD
Image by NRCS SD
Vender Area
FOCUS FOR AG FUTURE: SOIL BIOLOGY AS “NEW FRONTIER”
NATURAL RESOURCES CONSERVATION SERVICE (NRCS), Pierre, SD, December 14, 2012—The inherent and dynamic qualities of soil were in the spotlight at the Soil Health Information Day held December 11, 2012 in Mitchell, SD. The event attracted over 230 people to hear regional and national agriculture and natural resources speakers.
Ruth Beck, SDSU Extension Agronomy Field Specialist, Pierre, says “One goal with the event was to help people learn ways to manage soil that improve the soil function. Although we can’t change the inherent qualities of the soil in our yards, fields and pastures, we can make management choices that affect the amount of organic matter, structure, depth, water and nutrient-holding capacity—the indicators of the health of a soil.”
“While the physical and chemical properties of soil have long been a main factor for land use planning, we are now getting an understanding of the biology happening beneath our feet,” says Colette Kessler, Public Affairs Specialist with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), Pierre. “Thanks to technology advances in microscopes and other equipment, our ‘understanding’ of the science of soil, biology in particular, has grown more in the last three years than the last 30,” she explains.
Two Alpena area farmers were enlisted to kick off the day demonstrating water infiltration with Ray Archuleta, Conservation Agronomist, from the NRCS East National Technical Center, Greensboro, NC. “Look at this…it isn’t a problem of run-off; we have an infiltration problem,” said Archuleta as the audience watched him work through the soil experiment. “Ray the Soil Guy” got to the ‘root’ of everyone’s questions with his presentation “Healthy Soils Make Healthy Profits.” Archuleta is passionate about soil health and his passion is infectious. He specializes in soil biology/ecology and diversity approaches for agro-ecosystem sustainability. “Understanding the biology—the microbes—in the soil is the ‘next step’ for farmers and ranchers,” says Archuleta. Every operation is unique. He outlined how to use above-ground management, such as crop rotations, cover crops, and reducing tillage as tools to manipulate the soil biology for a more sustainable system.
“A healthy soil is not compacted. It has structure with macro pores that allow water to infiltrate down into the profile,” Archuleta explained earlier. “When I pick up a shovelful of soil, it should look like cottage cheese.” Jim Hoorman, Ohio State University, via webinar, outlined their university research findings and the economics of using mixes of cover crops to improve the problem of compacted soils. Mixtures are better for addressing compaction than using a single cover crop species. Hoorman explained that disturbances, like tillage, can destroy pore structure in a soil. Good pore structure is very important, allowing the soil to breathe and move water.
“Healthy soil regulates water well,” explained Paul Jasa, Extension Engineer, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Soil and residue management helps control where rain, snowmelt and irrigation water goes. “Field after field,” he says, “Residue drives the crop. Buffers are good, but a ‘band-aid;’ fix the soil in the field with residue and keep your water,” says Jasa. “Go out with a spade and see for yourself how your soil is handling water.”
Internationally known Dr. Dwayne Beck, Manager, SDSU Dakota Lakes Research Farm near Pierre, encourages producers to mimic nature, “I’ve learned more from observing nature than trying to change it.” Crop residue helps improve the soils balance of nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus. Beck’s presentation outlined ‘Catch and Release Nutrients’ and working with natural cycles to maximize crop production. “Plant roots are ‘hot spots’ for biological activities like nutrient cycling and soil aggregate stability,” says Beck. Both living roots, and the dead or dying roots, improve water infiltration and break up compacted soils. An abundance of roots helps to stabilize biological activities below ground, making more nutrients and water available to plants.
A common theme recommended throughout the day was for people to get out in their yards, fields and pastures with a shovel. “If we dig a little, we can learn a lot,” says Kessler, “We can better understand how healthy soil should look and smell, and how healthy soil should feel in our hands.” By the year 2050, Earth’s population is expected to reach 9 billion. Keeping every inch of our soil healthy will be essential as farmers and ranchers work to produce as much food and fiber in the next 40 years as they have in the last 500.
Photos showing Soil health can also be found at: www.flickr.com/photos/87743206@N04/
Cool Healthy Food Choices images
A few nice healthy food choices images I found:
20110407-OSEC-LSC-0136
Image by USDAgov
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan looks up at the polled audience response being projected on a screen, during the presentation of the “Know your Farmer Know your Food” initiative to students and faculty at the Animal Sciences / Agricultural Engineering Building at the University of Maryland, in College Park, MD, on Thursday, April 7, 2011. Deputy Secretary Merrigan’s interactive presentation utilized wireless polling in the lecture room to present questions to the audience who used handheld devices to choose from a list of multiple answers. Their answers were instantly tabulated, then Merrigan revealed their top choice on the screen, followed by the correct answer, usually revealing an error and misconceptions. Her talk covered support of local farmers; strengthening rural communities, promoting healthy eating, protecting natural resources; grants, loans and other support USDA provides as well as stories of innovation; industry and government cooperation; and careers opportunities in agriculture, ranching and the USDA. USDA photo by Lance Cheung.
20110407-OSEC-LSC-0125
Image by USDAgov
University of Maryland students in the audience used wireless polling devices during U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan presentation of the “Know your Farmer Know your Food” initiative to students and faculty at the Animal Sciences / Agricultural Engineering Building at the University of Maryland, in College Park, MD, on Thursday, April 7, 2011. Deputy Secretary Merrigan’s interactive presentation utilized wireless polling in the lecture room to present questions to the audience who used handheld devices to choose from a list of multiple answers. Their answers were instantly tabulated, then Merrigan revealed their top choice on the screen, followed by the correct answer, usually revealing an error and misconceptions. Her talk covered support of local farmers; strengthening rural communities, promoting healthy eating, protecting natural resources; grants, loans and other support USDA provides as well as stories of innovation; industry and government cooperation; and careers opportunities in agriculture, ranching and the USDA. USDA photo by Lance Cheung.
20110407-OSEC-LSC-0099
Image by USDAgov
University of Maryland Senior Victoria Lake and others in the audience used wireless polling devices during U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan’s presentation of the “Know your Farmer Know your Food” initiative to students and faculty at the Animal Sciences / Agricultural Engineering Building at the University of Maryland, in College Park, MD, on Thursday, April 7, 2011. Deputy Secretary Merrigan’s interactive presentation utilized wireless polling in the lecture room to present questions to the audience who used handheld devices to choose from a list of multiple answers. Their answers were instantly tabulated, then Merrigan revealed their top choice on the screen, followed by the correct answer, usually revealing an error and misconceptions. Her talk covered support of local farmers; strengthening rural communities, promoting healthy eating, protecting natural resources; grants, loans and other support USDA provides as well as stories of innovation; industry and government cooperation; and careers opportunities in agriculture, ranching and the USDA. USDA photo by Lance Cheung.
Cool Healthy Food Choices images
Check out these healthy food choices images:
Camp FRESH 2010
Image by Christiana Care
Until this summer, Javiar Emory-Turner had never seen a tomato that wasn’t red.
At Camp FRESH, the 16-year-old Wilmington youth is not only tasting tomatoes that are yellow, green and orange, he is helping to grow and sell the produce.
Even more important, Javiar is taking the lessons he is learning about eating healthy home to his family and neighbors, encouraging them to eat five servings of fruits and vegetables each and every day.
"Before, I only ate fruits and vegetables about once a week," he said. "Now, I’m trying new foods that are healthy. I’m cutting back on sugar. I’m getting exercise."
Started by Christiana Care, Camp FRESH is a nine-week program for 48 young people ages 13-18 from Wilmington, New Castle and Newark, Del. The corner stores in their communities carry few fresh fruits and vegetables, and getting to larger markets with more food choices is sometimes difficult. These young gardeners from city neighborhoods till the soil at Wilmington Urban Farm, a verdant plot bursting with broccoli and bok choy, carrots and cabbage, zucchini and zinnias. By growing and eating healthy produce, the teens grow a healthy respect and appreciation for the value of nutrition, and they model their new respect for nutrition to others in the community, who also improve their diets-and, ultimately, their overall well being.
Christiana Care launched Camp FRESH in 2006 as part of the health system’s efforts to build an awareness of the value of nutrition, make a dent in obesity and improve the quality of life for these participants.
Two days a week, the teens sell produce at two stands in urban neighborhoods, one at the farm on East 12th Street and the other at Wilmington Hospital. On the other days, the youths gather at the Eugene du Pont Preventive Medicine and Rehabilitation Institute, where they make healthy dishes such as Asian coleslaw, made with Ramen noodles, cabbage and other accessible ingredients.
Campers were hesitant to taste when a bowl of edamame-baby soybeans popular in Japan-was passed around the room.
"Go ahead and try it," said Christopher Moore, Christiana Care healthy lifestyle coordinator. "Just squeeze the pod, and the beans pop right out."
About half the campers enjoyed the edamame. As for other healthy dishes, Hilda Hernandez, 16, feels good about trying hummus made from chick peas and red peppers.
"I thought it looked funny," she said. "But learning to eat things that are good for you is important if you want to stay healthy."
Already, Hilda has lost two pounds. She is walking more instead of taking the bus.
After lunch, she and the other campers got a rousing workout with Zumba, a Latin-inspired fitness regimen that harnesses the energy of music.
"Zumba is fun and makes me want to keep exercising," said Taylor Ferguson, 15, who has lost four pounds. "Now, I’m doing sit-ups and push-ups at home."
In addition to learning about nutrition and weight management, the teens talk about sex education, drug and alcohol abuse, strategies for being good ambassadors in the community and planning for the future.
Cool Healthy Food Choices images
A few nice healthy food choices images I found:
Dance Your Health Out
Image by Christiana Care
Christiana Care hosted women from across New Castle County, Del., for an evening designed to inspire attendees to improve their health through exercise and smart nutrition choices.
Combining dance, fun and education, the first ever Dance Your Health Out event, held at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Wilmington, provided free Zumba instruction, healthy food preparation demonstrations and health screenings to more than 200 women.
Attendees took part in a 50-minute Zumba workout led by instructor Davi Mozie that had them dancing, clapping and moving to the music. Zumba combines Latin and international rhythms with a fun, aerobics-style workout. The group included women of all ages—from teenagers to a woman in her 90s—with varying movement abilities, including “newbies” and skilled dancers.
Christiana Care employee Cindy Noble was one of the more experienced dancers in attendance, having lost 47 pounds in the past year thanks to Zumba and an improved diet. She was impressed by the number of first-time dancers at Dance Your Health Out.
“Every time I would turn around just to see what was going on in the room, I was amazed at the volume of people who were there dancing and into it,” Noble said. “People kept coming onto the floor, and they weren’t intimidated.”
“I think the group was exceptionally energetic,” commented Mozie. “When we got started I really didn’t think they would be able to last. We ended up going 10 minutes longer than we had planned because the group just didn’t want to stop. It was great.”
Others took advantage of the free health screenings available throughout the evening. Staff from Christiana Care’s Imaging Services and Center for Heart & Vascular Health assessed attendees’ risk for bone and heart disease, while members of Christiana Care’s Department of Family & Community Medicine calculated body-mass index and provided body-fat analyses.
Following Zumba, Jenn Barr, with Christiana Care’s Center for Community Health, conducted a healthy-cooking demonstration. Attendees sampled low-calorie dinner options provided by caterer Food for Thought and learned about the importance of nutrition in maintaining a healthy lifestyle.
A post-event survey of attendees offered insight about the effectiveness of the inaugural event. More than 97 percent of respondents said they were motivated to eat healthier and increase their physical activity.
The event was a collaboration of several departments within Christiana Care, including: Women’s Health Services; the Center for Heart & Vascular Health; Family & Community Medicine, Center for Community Health; Food and Nutrition Services; Imaging Services; Preventive Medicine & Rehabilitation Institute’s Food & Nutrition Services; Employee Health; and Volunteer Services.
Cool Healthy Food Choices images
A few nice healthy food choices images I found:
JugglingFriend_6585
Image by \!/_PeacePlusOne
Earth Hour at the 3 Finger Club LOHHAS Lifestyle Lounge
Lights were out between 8:30 and 9:30 while we told stories and discussed our Lifestyle Of Health, Happiness And Sustainability (LOHHAS) using the 3 Finger "Peace Plus One" Sustainability Salute to remind us about Peace, Harmony and Balance between Society, Environment and Economy
People were the best jugglers of "Society, Environment, Economy" balls won "EARTH HOUR 60" T-Shirts WOW \!/O\!/
Photo Courtesy of the McMaster Institute for Sustainable Development in Commerce
www.SustainabilitySymbol.com
www.PeacePlusOne.com
www.Dragonpreneur.com
all participants in the Earth Hour Discussion got a copy of "Letter to Maddie" featured below:
We Screwed Up
A Letter of Apology to My Granddaughter
By Chip Ward
[Note: I became politically active and committed on the day 20 years ago when I realized I could stand on the front porch of my house and point to three homes where children were in wheelchairs, to a home where a child had just died of leukemia, to another where a child was born missing a kidney, and yet another where a child suffered from spina bifida. All my parental alarms went off at once and I asked the obvious question: What’s going on here? Did I inadvertently move my three children into harm’s way when we settled in this high desert valley in Utah? A quest to find answers in Utah’s nuclear history and then seek solutions followed. Politics for me was never motivated by ideology. It was always about parenting.
Today my three kids are, thankfully, healthy adults. But now that grandchildren are being added to our family, my blood runs cold whenever I project out 50 years and imagine what their world will be like at middle age — assuming they get that far and that there is still a recognizable “world” to be part of. I wrote the following letter to my granddaughter, Madeline, who is almost four years old. Although she cannot read it today, I hope she will read it in a future that proves so much better than the one that is probable, and so terribly unfair. I’m sharing this letter with other parents and grandparents in the hope that it may move them to embrace their roles as citizens and commit to the hard work of making the planet viable, the economy equitable, and our culture democratic for the many Madelines to come.]
March 20, 2012
Dear Maddie,
I address this letter to you, but please share it with Jack, Tasiah, and other grandchildren who are yet unborn. Also, with your children and theirs. My unconditional love for my children and grandchildren convinces me that, if I could live long enough to embrace my great-grandchildren, I would love them as deeply as I love you.
On behalf of my generation of grandparents to all of you, I want to apologize.
I am sorry we used up all the oil. It took a million years for those layers of carbon goo to form under the Earth’s crust and we used up most of it in a geological instant. No doubt there will be some left and perhaps you can get around the fact that what remains is already distant, dirty, and dangerous, but the low-hanging fruit will be long-gone by the time you are my age. We took it all.
There’s no excuse, really. We are gas-hogs, plain and simple. We got hooked on faster-bigger-more and charged right over the carrying capacity of the planet. Oil made it possible.
Machines are our slaves and coal, oil, and gas are their food. They helped us grow so much of our own food that we could overpopulate the Earth. We could ship stuff and travel all over the globe, and still have enough fuel left to drive home alone in trucks in time to watch Monday Night Football.
Rocket fuel, fertilizer, baby bottles, lawn chairs: we made everything and anything out of oil and could never get enough of it. We could have conserved more for you to use in your lifetime. Instead, we demonstrated the self-restraint of crack addicts. It’s been great having all that oil to play with and we built our entire world around that. Living without it will be tough. Sorry.
I hope we develop clean, renewable energy sources soon, or that you and your generation figure out how to do that quickly. In the meantime, sorry about the climate. We just didn’t realize our addiction to carbon would come with monster storms, epic droughts, Biblical floods, wildfire infernos, rising seas, migration, starvation, pestilence, civil war, failed states, police states, and resource wars.
I’m sure Henry Ford didn’t see that coming when he figured out how to mass-produce automobiles and sell them to Everyman. I know my parents didn’t see the downside of using so much gas and coal. The all-electric house and a car in the driveway was their American Dream. For my generation, owning a car became a birthright. Today, it would be hard for most of us to live without a car. I have no idea what you’ll do to get around or how you will heat your home. Oops!
We also pigged out on most of the fertile soil, the forests and their timber, and the oceans that teemed with fish before we scraped the seabed raw, dumped our poisonous wastes in the water, and turned it acid and barren. Hey, that ocean was an awesome place and it’s too bad you can’t know it like we did. There were bright coral reefs, vibrant runs of red salmon, ribbons of birds embroidering the shores, graceful shells, the solace and majesty of the wild sea…
…But then I never saw the vast herds of bison that roamed the American heartland, so I know it is hard to miss something you only saw in pictures. We took lots of photos.
We thought we were pretty smart because we walked a man on the moon. Our technology is indeed amazing. I was raised without computers, smart phones, and the World Wide Web, so I appreciate how our engineering prowess has enhanced our lives, but I also know it has a downside.
When I was a kid we worried that the Cold War would go nuclear. And it wasn’t until a river caught fire near Cleveland that we realized fouling your own nest isn’t so smart after all. Well, you know about the rest — the coal-fired power plants, acid rain, the hole in the ozone…
www.tomdispatch.com/images/managed/fear2.gifThere were plenty of signs we took a wrong turn but we kept on going. Dumb, stubborn, blind: Who knows why we couldn’t stop? Greed maybe — powerful corporations we couldn’t overcome. It won’t matter much to you who is to blame. You’ll be too busy coping in the diminished world we bequeath you.
One set of problems we pass on to you is not altogether our fault. It was handed down to us by our parents’ generation so hammered by cataclysmic world wars and economic hardship that they armed themselves to the teeth and saw enemies everywhere. Their paranoia was understandable, but they passed their fears on to us and we should have seen through them. I have lived through four major American wars in my 62 years, and by now defense and homeland security are powerful industries with a stranglehold on Congress and the economy. We knew that was a lousy deal, but trauma and terror darkened our imaginations and distorted our priorities. And, like you, we needed jobs.
Sorry we spent your inheritance on all that cheap bling and, especially, all those weapons of mass destruction. That was crazy and wasteful. I can’t explain it. I guess we’ve been confused for a long time now.
Oh, and sorry about the confusion. We called it advertising and it seemed like it would be easy enough to control. When I was a kid, commercials merely interrupted entertainment. Don’t know when the lines all blurred and the buy, buy, buy message became so ubiquitous and all-consuming. It just got outta hand and we couldn’t stop it, even when we realized we hated it and that it was taking us over. We turned away from one another, tuned in, and got lost.
I’m betting you can still download this note, copy it, share it, bust it up and remake it, and that you do so while plugged into some sort of electrical device you can’t live without — so maybe you don’t think that an apology for technology is needed and, if that’s the case, an apology is especially relevant. The tools we gave you are fine, but the apps are mostly bogus. We made an industry of silly distraction. When our spirits hungered, we fed them clay that filled but did not nourish them. If you still don’t know the difference, blame us because we started it.
And sorry about the chemicals. I mean the ones you were born with in your blood and bones that stay there — even though we don’t know what they’ll do to you). Who thought that the fire retardant that kept smokers from igniting their pillows and children’s clothes from bursting into flames would end up in umbilical cords and infants?
It just seemed like better living through chemistry at the time. Same with all the other chemicals you carry. We learned to accept cancer and I guess you will, too. I’m sure there will be better treatments for that in your lifetime than we have today. If you can afford them, that is. Turning healthcare over to predatory corporations was another bad move.
All in all, our chemical obsession was pretty reckless and we got into that same old pattern: just couldn’t give up all the neat stuff. Oh, we tried. We took the lead out of gasoline and banned DDT, but mostly we did too little, too late. I hope you’ve done better. Maybe it will help your generation to run out of oil, since so many of the toxic chemicals came from that. Anyway, we didn’t see it coming and we could have, should have. Our bad.
There are so many other things I wish I could change for you. We leave behind a noisy world. Silence is rare today, and unless some future catastrophe has left your numbers greatly diminished, your machines stilled, and your streets ghostly empty, it is likely that the last remnants of tranquility will be gone by the time you are my age.
And how about all those species, the abundant and wondrous creatures that are fading away forever as I write these words? I never saw a polar bear and I guess you can live without that, too, but when I think of the peep and chirp of frogs at night, the hum of bees busy on a flower bed, the trill of birds at dawn, and so many other splendorous pleasures that you may no longer have, I ache with regret. We should have done more to keep the planet whole and well, but we couldn’t get clear of the old ways of seeing, the ingrained habits, the way we hobble one another’s choices so that the best intentions never get realized.
Mostly I’m sorry about taking all the good water. When I was a child I could kneel down and drink from a brook or spring wherever we camped and played. We could still hike up to glaciers and ski down snow-capped mountains.
Clean, crisp, cold, fresh water is life’s most precious taste. A life-giving gift, all water is holy. I repeat: holy. We treated it, instead, as if it were merely useful. We wasted and tainted it and, again in a geological moment, sucked up aquifers that had taken 10,000 years to gather below ground. In my lifetime, glaciers are melting away, wells are running dry, dust storms are blowing, and rivers like the mighty Colorado are running dry before they reach the sea. I hate to think of what will be left for you. Sorry. So very, very sorry.
I’m sure there’s a boatload of other trouble we’re leaving you that I haven’t covered here. My purpose is not to offer a complete catalog of our follies and atrocities, but to do what we taught your parents to do when they were as little as you are today.
When you make a mistake, we told them, admit it, and then do better. If you do something wrong, own up and say you are sorry. After that, you can work on making amends.
I am trying to see a way out of the hardship and turmoil we are making for you. As I work to stop the madness, I will be mindful of how much harder your struggles will be as you deal with the challenges we leave you to face.
The best I can do to help you through the overheated future we are making is to love you now. I cannot change the past and my struggle to make a healthier future for you is uncertain, but today I can teach you, encourage you, and help you be as strong and smart and confident as you can be, so that whatever the future holds, whatever crises you face, you are as ready as possible. We will learn to laugh together, too, because love and laughter can pull you through the toughest times.
I know a better world is possible. We create that better world by reaching out to one another, listening, learning, and speaking from our hearts, face to face, neighbor to neighbor, one community after another, openly, inclusively, bravely. Democracy is not a gift to be practiced only when permitted. We empower ourselves. Our salvation is found in each other, together.
Across America this morning and all around the world, our better angels call to us, imploring us to rise up and be as resilient as our beloved, beautiful children and grandchildren, whose future we make today. We can do better. I promise.
Your grandfather,
Chip Ward
JugglingLOHHASlounge_6571
Image by \!/_PeacePlusOne
Earth Hour at the 3 Finger Club LOHHAS Lifestyle Lounge
Lights were out between 8:30 and 9:30 while we told stories and discussed our Lifestyle Of Health, Happiness And Sustainability (LOHHAS) using the 3 Finger "Peace Plus One" Sustainability Salute to remind us about Peace, Harmony and Balance between Society, Environment and Economy
People were the best jugglers of "Society, Environment, Economy" balls won "EARTH HOUR 60" T-Shirts WOW \!/O\!/
Photo Courtesy of the McMaster Institute for Sustainable Development in Commerce
www.SustainabilitySymbol.com
www.PeacePlusOne.com
www.Dragonpreneur.com
all participants in the Earth Hour Discussion got a copy of "Letter to Maddie" featured below:
We Screwed Up
A Letter of Apology to My Granddaughter
By Chip Ward
[Note: I became politically active and committed on the day 20 years ago when I realized I could stand on the front porch of my house and point to three homes where children were in wheelchairs, to a home where a child had just died of leukemia, to another where a child was born missing a kidney, and yet another where a child suffered from spina bifida. All my parental alarms went off at once and I asked the obvious question: What’s going on here? Did I inadvertently move my three children into harm’s way when we settled in this high desert valley in Utah? A quest to find answers in Utah’s nuclear history and then seek solutions followed. Politics for me was never motivated by ideology. It was always about parenting.
Today my three kids are, thankfully, healthy adults. But now that grandchildren are being added to our family, my blood runs cold whenever I project out 50 years and imagine what their world will be like at middle age — assuming they get that far and that there is still a recognizable “world” to be part of. I wrote the following letter to my granddaughter, Madeline, who is almost four years old. Although she cannot read it today, I hope she will read it in a future that proves so much better than the one that is probable, and so terribly unfair. I’m sharing this letter with other parents and grandparents in the hope that it may move them to embrace their roles as citizens and commit to the hard work of making the planet viable, the economy equitable, and our culture democratic for the many Madelines to come.]
March 20, 2012
Dear Maddie,
I address this letter to you, but please share it with Jack, Tasiah, and other grandchildren who are yet unborn. Also, with your children and theirs. My unconditional love for my children and grandchildren convinces me that, if I could live long enough to embrace my great-grandchildren, I would love them as deeply as I love you.
On behalf of my generation of grandparents to all of you, I want to apologize.
I am sorry we used up all the oil. It took a million years for those layers of carbon goo to form under the Earth’s crust and we used up most of it in a geological instant. No doubt there will be some left and perhaps you can get around the fact that what remains is already distant, dirty, and dangerous, but the low-hanging fruit will be long-gone by the time you are my age. We took it all.
There’s no excuse, really. We are gas-hogs, plain and simple. We got hooked on faster-bigger-more and charged right over the carrying capacity of the planet. Oil made it possible.
Machines are our slaves and coal, oil, and gas are their food. They helped us grow so much of our own food that we could overpopulate the Earth. We could ship stuff and travel all over the globe, and still have enough fuel left to drive home alone in trucks in time to watch Monday Night Football.
Rocket fuel, fertilizer, baby bottles, lawn chairs: we made everything and anything out of oil and could never get enough of it. We could have conserved more for you to use in your lifetime. Instead, we demonstrated the self-restraint of crack addicts. It’s been great having all that oil to play with and we built our entire world around that. Living without it will be tough. Sorry.
I hope we develop clean, renewable energy sources soon, or that you and your generation figure out how to do that quickly. In the meantime, sorry about the climate. We just didn’t realize our addiction to carbon would come with monster storms, epic droughts, Biblical floods, wildfire infernos, rising seas, migration, starvation, pestilence, civil war, failed states, police states, and resource wars.
I’m sure Henry Ford didn’t see that coming when he figured out how to mass-produce automobiles and sell them to Everyman. I know my parents didn’t see the downside of using so much gas and coal. The all-electric house and a car in the driveway was their American Dream. For my generation, owning a car became a birthright. Today, it would be hard for most of us to live without a car. I have no idea what you’ll do to get around or how you will heat your home. Oops!
We also pigged out on most of the fertile soil, the forests and their timber, and the oceans that teemed with fish before we scraped the seabed raw, dumped our poisonous wastes in the water, and turned it acid and barren. Hey, that ocean was an awesome place and it’s too bad you can’t know it like we did. There were bright coral reefs, vibrant runs of red salmon, ribbons of birds embroidering the shores, graceful shells, the solace and majesty of the wild sea…
…But then I never saw the vast herds of bison that roamed the American heartland, so I know it is hard to miss something you only saw in pictures. We took lots of photos.
We thought we were pretty smart because we walked a man on the moon. Our technology is indeed amazing. I was raised without computers, smart phones, and the World Wide Web, so I appreciate how our engineering prowess has enhanced our lives, but I also know it has a downside.
When I was a kid we worried that the Cold War would go nuclear. And it wasn’t until a river caught fire near Cleveland that we realized fouling your own nest isn’t so smart after all. Well, you know about the rest — the coal-fired power plants, acid rain, the hole in the ozone…
www.tomdispatch.com/images/managed/fear2.gifThere were plenty of signs we took a wrong turn but we kept on going. Dumb, stubborn, blind: Who knows why we couldn’t stop? Greed maybe — powerful corporations we couldn’t overcome. It won’t matter much to you who is to blame. You’ll be too busy coping in the diminished world we bequeath you.
One set of problems we pass on to you is not altogether our fault. It was handed down to us by our parents’ generation so hammered by cataclysmic world wars and economic hardship that they armed themselves to the teeth and saw enemies everywhere. Their paranoia was understandable, but they passed their fears on to us and we should have seen through them. I have lived through four major American wars in my 62 years, and by now defense and homeland security are powerful industries with a stranglehold on Congress and the economy. We knew that was a lousy deal, but trauma and terror darkened our imaginations and distorted our priorities. And, like you, we needed jobs.
Sorry we spent your inheritance on all that cheap bling and, especially, all those weapons of mass destruction. That was crazy and wasteful. I can’t explain it. I guess we’ve been confused for a long time now.
Oh, and sorry about the confusion. We called it advertising and it seemed like it would be easy enough to control. When I was a kid, commercials merely interrupted entertainment. Don’t know when the lines all blurred and the buy, buy, buy message became so ubiquitous and all-consuming. It just got outta hand and we couldn’t stop it, even when we realized we hated it and that it was taking us over. We turned away from one another, tuned in, and got lost.
I’m betting you can still download this note, copy it, share it, bust it up and remake it, and that you do so while plugged into some sort of electrical device you can’t live without — so maybe you don’t think that an apology for technology is needed and, if that’s the case, an apology is especially relevant. The tools we gave you are fine, but the apps are mostly bogus. We made an industry of silly distraction. When our spirits hungered, we fed them clay that filled but did not nourish them. If you still don’t know the difference, blame us because we started it.
And sorry about the chemicals. I mean the ones you were born with in your blood and bones that stay there — even though we don’t know what they’ll do to you). Who thought that the fire retardant that kept smokers from igniting their pillows and children’s clothes from bursting into flames would end up in umbilical cords and infants?
It just seemed like better living through chemistry at the time. Same with all the other chemicals you carry. We learned to accept cancer and I guess you will, too. I’m sure there will be better treatments for that in your lifetime than we have today. If you can afford them, that is. Turning healthcare over to predatory corporations was another bad move.
All in all, our chemical obsession was pretty reckless and we got into that same old pattern: just couldn’t give up all the neat stuff. Oh, we tried. We took the lead out of gasoline and banned DDT, but mostly we did too little, too late. I hope you’ve done better. Maybe it will help your generation to run out of oil, since so many of the toxic chemicals came from that. Anyway, we didn’t see it coming and we could have, should have. Our bad.
There are so many other things I wish I could change for you. We leave behind a noisy world. Silence is rare today, and unless some future catastrophe has left your numbers greatly diminished, your machines stilled, and your streets ghostly empty, it is likely that the last remnants of tranquility will be gone by the time you are my age.
And how about all those species, the abundant and wondrous creatures that are fading away forever as I write these words? I never saw a polar bear and I guess you can live without that, too, but when I think of the peep and chirp of frogs at night, the hum of bees busy on a flower bed, the trill of birds at dawn, and so many other splendorous pleasures that you may no longer have, I ache with regret. We should have done more to keep the planet whole and well, but we couldn’t get clear of the old ways of seeing, the ingrained habits, the way we hobble one another’s choices so that the best intentions never get realized.
Mostly I’m sorry about taking all the good water. When I was a child I could kneel down and drink from a brook or spring wherever we camped and played. We could still hike up to glaciers and ski down snow-capped mountains.
Clean, crisp, cold, fresh water is life’s most precious taste. A life-giving gift, all water is holy. I repeat: holy. We treated it, instead, as if it were merely useful. We wasted and tainted it and, again in a geological moment, sucked up aquifers that had taken 10,000 years to gather below ground. In my lifetime, glaciers are melting away, wells are running dry, dust storms are blowing, and rivers like the mighty Colorado are running dry before they reach the sea. I hate to think of what will be left for you. Sorry. So very, very sorry.
I’m sure there’s a boatload of other trouble we’re leaving you that I haven’t covered here. My purpose is not to offer a complete catalog of our follies and atrocities, but to do what we taught your parents to do when they were as little as you are today.
When you make a mistake, we told them, admit it, and then do better. If you do something wrong, own up and say you are sorry. After that, you can work on making amends.
I am trying to see a way out of the hardship and turmoil we are making for you. As I work to stop the madness, I will be mindful of how much harder your struggles will be as you deal with the challenges we leave you to face.
The best I can do to help you through the overheated future we are making is to love you now. I cannot change the past and my struggle to make a healthier future for you is uncertain, but today I can teach you, encourage you, and help you be as strong and smart and confident as you can be, so that whatever the future holds, whatever crises you face, you are as ready as possible. We will learn to laugh together, too, because love and laughter can pull you through the toughest times.
I know a better world is possible. We create that better world by reaching out to one another, listening, learning, and speaking from our hearts, face to face, neighbor to neighbor, one community after another, openly, inclusively, bravely. Democracy is not a gift to be practiced only when permitted. We empower ourselves. Our salvation is found in each other, together.
Across America this morning and all around the world, our better angels call to us, imploring us to rise up and be as resilient as our beloved, beautiful children and grandchildren, whose future we make today. We can do better. I promise.
Your grandfather,
Chip Ward
Winners_6597
Image by \!/_PeacePlusOne
Earth Hour at the 3 Finger Club LOHHAS Lifestyle Lounge
Lights were out between 8:30 and 9:30 while we told stories and discussed our Lifestyle Of Health, Happiness And Sustainability (LOHHAS) using the 3 Finger "Peace Plus One" Sustainability Salute to remind us about Peace, Harmony and Balance between Society, Environment and Economy
People were the best jugglers of "Society, Environment, Economy" balls won "EARTH HOUR 60" T-Shirts WOW \!/O\!/
Photo Courtesy of the McMaster Institute for Sustainable Development in Commerce
www.SustainabilitySymbol.com
www.PeacePlusOne.com
www.Dragonpreneur.com
all participants in the Earth Hour Discussion got a copy of "Letter to Maddie" featured below:
We Screwed Up
A Letter of Apology to My Granddaughter
By Chip Ward
[Note: I became politically active and committed on the day 20 years ago when I realized I could stand on the front porch of my house and point to three homes where children were in wheelchairs, to a home where a child had just died of leukemia, to another where a child was born missing a kidney, and yet another where a child suffered from spina bifida. All my parental alarms went off at once and I asked the obvious question: What’s going on here? Did I inadvertently move my three children into harm’s way when we settled in this high desert valley in Utah? A quest to find answers in Utah’s nuclear history and then seek solutions followed. Politics for me was never motivated by ideology. It was always about parenting.
Today my three kids are, thankfully, healthy adults. But now that grandchildren are being added to our family, my blood runs cold whenever I project out 50 years and imagine what their world will be like at middle age — assuming they get that far and that there is still a recognizable “world” to be part of. I wrote the following letter to my granddaughter, Madeline, who is almost four years old. Although she cannot read it today, I hope she will read it in a future that proves so much better than the one that is probable, and so terribly unfair. I’m sharing this letter with other parents and grandparents in the hope that it may move them to embrace their roles as citizens and commit to the hard work of making the planet viable, the economy equitable, and our culture democratic for the many Madelines to come.]
March 20, 2012
Dear Maddie,
I address this letter to you, but please share it with Jack, Tasiah, and other grandchildren who are yet unborn. Also, with your children and theirs. My unconditional love for my children and grandchildren convinces me that, if I could live long enough to embrace my great-grandchildren, I would love them as deeply as I love you.
On behalf of my generation of grandparents to all of you, I want to apologize.
I am sorry we used up all the oil. It took a million years for those layers of carbon goo to form under the Earth’s crust and we used up most of it in a geological instant. No doubt there will be some left and perhaps you can get around the fact that what remains is already distant, dirty, and dangerous, but the low-hanging fruit will be long-gone by the time you are my age. We took it all.
There’s no excuse, really. We are gas-hogs, plain and simple. We got hooked on faster-bigger-more and charged right over the carrying capacity of the planet. Oil made it possible.
Machines are our slaves and coal, oil, and gas are their food. They helped us grow so much of our own food that we could overpopulate the Earth. We could ship stuff and travel all over the globe, and still have enough fuel left to drive home alone in trucks in time to watch Monday Night Football.
Rocket fuel, fertilizer, baby bottles, lawn chairs: we made everything and anything out of oil and could never get enough of it. We could have conserved more for you to use in your lifetime. Instead, we demonstrated the self-restraint of crack addicts. It’s been great having all that oil to play with and we built our entire world around that. Living without it will be tough. Sorry.
I hope we develop clean, renewable energy sources soon, or that you and your generation figure out how to do that quickly. In the meantime, sorry about the climate. We just didn’t realize our addiction to carbon would come with monster storms, epic droughts, Biblical floods, wildfire infernos, rising seas, migration, starvation, pestilence, civil war, failed states, police states, and resource wars.
I’m sure Henry Ford didn’t see that coming when he figured out how to mass-produce automobiles and sell them to Everyman. I know my parents didn’t see the downside of using so much gas and coal. The all-electric house and a car in the driveway was their American Dream. For my generation, owning a car became a birthright. Today, it would be hard for most of us to live without a car. I have no idea what you’ll do to get around or how you will heat your home. Oops!
We also pigged out on most of the fertile soil, the forests and their timber, and the oceans that teemed with fish before we scraped the seabed raw, dumped our poisonous wastes in the water, and turned it acid and barren. Hey, that ocean was an awesome place and it’s too bad you can’t know it like we did. There were bright coral reefs, vibrant runs of red salmon, ribbons of birds embroidering the shores, graceful shells, the solace and majesty of the wild sea…
…But then I never saw the vast herds of bison that roamed the American heartland, so I know it is hard to miss something you only saw in pictures. We took lots of photos.
We thought we were pretty smart because we walked a man on the moon. Our technology is indeed amazing. I was raised without computers, smart phones, and the World Wide Web, so I appreciate how our engineering prowess has enhanced our lives, but I also know it has a downside.
When I was a kid we worried that the Cold War would go nuclear. And it wasn’t until a river caught fire near Cleveland that we realized fouling your own nest isn’t so smart after all. Well, you know about the rest — the coal-fired power plants, acid rain, the hole in the ozone…
www.tomdispatch.com/images/managed/fear2.gifThere were plenty of signs we took a wrong turn but we kept on going. Dumb, stubborn, blind: Who knows why we couldn’t stop? Greed maybe — powerful corporations we couldn’t overcome. It won’t matter much to you who is to blame. You’ll be too busy coping in the diminished world we bequeath you.
One set of problems we pass on to you is not altogether our fault. It was handed down to us by our parents’ generation so hammered by cataclysmic world wars and economic hardship that they armed themselves to the teeth and saw enemies everywhere. Their paranoia was understandable, but they passed their fears on to us and we should have seen through them. I have lived through four major American wars in my 62 years, and by now defense and homeland security are powerful industries with a stranglehold on Congress and the economy. We knew that was a lousy deal, but trauma and terror darkened our imaginations and distorted our priorities. And, like you, we needed jobs.
Sorry we spent your inheritance on all that cheap bling and, especially, all those weapons of mass destruction. That was crazy and wasteful. I can’t explain it. I guess we’ve been confused for a long time now.
Oh, and sorry about the confusion. We called it advertising and it seemed like it would be easy enough to control. When I was a kid, commercials merely interrupted entertainment. Don’t know when the lines all blurred and the buy, buy, buy message became so ubiquitous and all-consuming. It just got outta hand and we couldn’t stop it, even when we realized we hated it and that it was taking us over. We turned away from one another, tuned in, and got lost.
I’m betting you can still download this note, copy it, share it, bust it up and remake it, and that you do so while plugged into some sort of electrical device you can’t live without — so maybe you don’t think that an apology for technology is needed and, if that’s the case, an apology is especially relevant. The tools we gave you are fine, but the apps are mostly bogus. We made an industry of silly distraction. When our spirits hungered, we fed them clay that filled but did not nourish them. If you still don’t know the difference, blame us because we started it.
And sorry about the chemicals. I mean the ones you were born with in your blood and bones that stay there — even though we don’t know what they’ll do to you). Who thought that the fire retardant that kept smokers from igniting their pillows and children’s clothes from bursting into flames would end up in umbilical cords and infants?
It just seemed like better living through chemistry at the time. Same with all the other chemicals you carry. We learned to accept cancer and I guess you will, too. I’m sure there will be better treatments for that in your lifetime than we have today. If you can afford them, that is. Turning healthcare over to predatory corporations was another bad move.
All in all, our chemical obsession was pretty reckless and we got into that same old pattern: just couldn’t give up all the neat stuff. Oh, we tried. We took the lead out of gasoline and banned DDT, but mostly we did too little, too late. I hope you’ve done better. Maybe it will help your generation to run out of oil, since so many of the toxic chemicals came from that. Anyway, we didn’t see it coming and we could have, should have. Our bad.
There are so many other things I wish I could change for you. We leave behind a noisy world. Silence is rare today, and unless some future catastrophe has left your numbers greatly diminished, your machines stilled, and your streets ghostly empty, it is likely that the last remnants of tranquility will be gone by the time you are my age.
And how about all those species, the abundant and wondrous creatures that are fading away forever as I write these words? I never saw a polar bear and I guess you can live without that, too, but when I think of the peep and chirp of frogs at night, the hum of bees busy on a flower bed, the trill of birds at dawn, and so many other splendorous pleasures that you may no longer have, I ache with regret. We should have done more to keep the planet whole and well, but we couldn’t get clear of the old ways of seeing, the ingrained habits, the way we hobble one another’s choices so that the best intentions never get realized.
Mostly I’m sorry about taking all the good water. When I was a child I could kneel down and drink from a brook or spring wherever we camped and played. We could still hike up to glaciers and ski down snow-capped mountains.
Clean, crisp, cold, fresh water is life’s most precious taste. A life-giving gift, all water is holy. I repeat: holy. We treated it, instead, as if it were merely useful. We wasted and tainted it and, again in a geological moment, sucked up aquifers that had taken 10,000 years to gather below ground. In my lifetime, glaciers are melting away, wells are running dry, dust storms are blowing, and rivers like the mighty Colorado are running dry before they reach the sea. I hate to think of what will be left for you. Sorry. So very, very sorry.
I’m sure there’s a boatload of other trouble we’re leaving you that I haven’t covered here. My purpose is not to offer a complete catalog of our follies and atrocities, but to do what we taught your parents to do when they were as little as you are today.
When you make a mistake, we told them, admit it, and then do better. If you do something wrong, own up and say you are sorry. After that, you can work on making amends.
I am trying to see a way out of the hardship and turmoil we are making for you. As I work to stop the madness, I will be mindful of how much harder your struggles will be as you deal with the challenges we leave you to face.
The best I can do to help you through the overheated future we are making is to love you now. I cannot change the past and my struggle to make a healthier future for you is uncertain, but today I can teach you, encourage you, and help you be as strong and smart and confident as you can be, so that whatever the future holds, whatever crises you face, you are as ready as possible. We will learn to laugh together, too, because love and laughter can pull you through the toughest times.
I know a better world is possible. We create that better world by reaching out to one another, listening, learning, and speaking from our hearts, face to face, neighbor to neighbor, one community after another, openly, inclusively, bravely. Democracy is not a gift to be practiced only when permitted. We empower ourselves. Our salvation is found in each other, together.
Across America this morning and all around the world, our better angels call to us, imploring us to rise up and be as resilient as our beloved, beautiful children and grandchildren, whose future we make today. We can do better. I promise.
Your grandfather,
Chip Ward
