We began putting this Environmental Action email together in response to the maddening fast-paced destruction of environmental protections by the new head of the EPA and White House administration. It's been frustrating and frankly, depressing, to watch such backward dangerous movement.
Then, we discovered great hope, inspiration and a wonderfully useful path forward. We are here to pass this hope and help on to you. Because we all need as much help and hope as we can get these days!
Start with this enlightening, very quick quiz. Warning: We thought we were "in the know" about environmental issues. Turns out, we weren't as smart as we thought about what has the biggest impact when it comes to both small- and large-scale environmental action.
Were you as surprised as we were about the actions that make the biggest difference? Now here comes the hope. Take a look at this website. What they are doing is brilliant. It gives us all much needed help navigating a useful path for ourselves as we try to help nature and the environment.
Drawdown "maps, measures, models, and describes the 100 most substantive solutions to global warming." Each of us only need choose a solution and work on it.
Drawdown speaks to the same base solution we have at Perelandra, one that Machaelle so eloquently spoke of years ago, the power of the individual.
From the Drawdown website:
What can I do to help . . . ?
All solutions depend on individuals choosing to invest their time, energy, finances, and thought. . . . What our work shows is that the decisions we take at all levels of society impact our future on this planet. One pathway risks catastrophe, and the other embraces regeneration. Each individual decision can make the difference, whether that is a consumer or board member. And the benefits speak for themselves. Our analysis shows that costs of doing business-as-usual are higher than the costs to implement solutions to global warming. We encourage you to get involved locally and nationally with those who are already implementing the solutions, using Drawdown as a guide for how you want to be involved.
Ready?
You don't have to do this alone! We can recommend the perfect partner to help you. If you're following our SLG One Bite Series, this is a superb project for partnering with nature! You can begin at any level. And we'll even give you a DDP:
"I'd like to make a positive difference for nature and the environment. And I'd like your help, nature, to begin."
Or, choose an area that sparks your passion and find one simple way to help. Use something like this as your DDP:
"I'm passionate about ___________ and would like your help, nature, to make a positive difference for nature and the environment in this area."
If you aren't following our One Bite Series on Working with Nature in Soil-less Gardens (SLGs), well, here is a fantastic opportunity to begin.
If you are a co-creative gardener, you will be pleased to see that you too can make a big difference. A number of the top solutions to our environmental problems relate to food, plants, raising animals for food and agriculture.
You can just continue to work with nature, with your current DDP to continue to make a difference. Or, take your co-creative gardening up a notch. Find the area that most sparks your passion when it comes to gardening and farming, and amend your garden DDP to include making even more of a difference in the bigger picture.
Curious about co-creative gardening? We have a One Bite Series for that too! It's easy to start anytime.
We've put together a list of some organizations already implementing solutions and posted it on the Perelandra website to give you a boost, and a starting point if you need.
Is all that just too positive for you?! Not feeling the need to find time and energy to get off your ass right now and do something?
What got our blood boiling this month was reading about what's happening at the EPA. If you think nothing is getting done in Washington DC these days, think again. Basic, long-standing environmental protections we've all come to depend on are being dismantled left and right. If you haven't kept up with what's happening at the EPA and aren't yet motivated to step up your game when it comes to protecting nature, the environment, our planet, read this eye-opener for motivation:
"In the four months since he took office as the Environmental Protection Agency's administrator, Scott Pruitt has moved to undo, delay or otherwise block more than 30 environmental rules, a regulatory rollback larger in scope than any other over so short a time in the agency’s 47-year history, according to experts in environmental law."
Now, don't just get mad, get to work. We make the change. We are each in charge of what happens next.
Finally, this is not just a cliche, this is true: All politics is personal.
Folks in the US can find out how your senators and representative in Congress score when it comes to protecting the environment. Contact them and let them know how you'd like them to represent you when environmental issues are involved. And if nature, the environment, drinking clean water or breathing clean air matter at all to you, check this before you go to vote, every time there is an election: