Tag Archives: environment

Individual Responsibility Environmentalism: Free Verse

I’m called tree hugger,
greener,
environmentalist,
eco-warrior.

I call myself
those names, too.
But when I see
red-faced screamers
demanding that
governments and nations
make accords,
do something,
force compliance,
I back away.

Giving government
more power
is not where I’ll waste
my waste-fighting
eco-warrior
energies.

Haven’t we learned
from Muir,
Thoreau,
Leopold,
and others?

They DID,
and they wrote
about what they DID.
Movements started
with the power of
DOING,
with the power
of words.

They introduced others
to the beauty
and wonder
and peace,
and joy
found in God’s Creations,
in Mother Nature.

They partnered
with God,
with Nature,
to help folks,
the common man and woman,
feel love for
and wonder at
all God’s creations.

Because how will I
partner with,
love,
and protect
a creation
I’ve never experienced?

This was prompted by an essay on individual responsibility in environmentalism.

Individual Eco-Activism By Degrees: IMprov Haiku

A friend of mine is a great example of individual eco-activism. She takes personal responsibility for the environment. During the past year, at great inconvenience (and, often, expense) to herself, she has avoided any plastic packaging (including food). Knowing how much recycling of plastic my family does, I can only imagine how hard this is. Yet, because she is into practical, invididual eco-activism, committed to the environment, that’s what she and her daughters do!

The other day she posted on Facebook about how her sister had joined her, and how they were finding uses for glass jars of yogurt. Her sister wrote about it in her blog. In stark contrast to people calling for corporate and government actions, and yet doing little individually, this woman is into individual eco-activism, doing something personally — which I believe is much more powerful than sitting in the middle of a busy city street intersection, or speaking at the UN, to protest climate change. I wrote this on her Facebook:

You can’t change the earth’s/
degrees, but by degrees you /
are changing our world.

OR

I can’t change planet/
degrees, but I can change by/
degrees my own world.

My wife made this FrontPorchSense.com video about personal responsibility and individual, practical environmental activism. It fits in nicely with her logical view of not waiting for the government to fix things you can take care of yourself.

https://frontporchsense.com/2019/09/practical-environmentalism

Environmental Activism Means Personal Responsibility

I wrote this blog post in NaturesGuy.com about the difference between being an Environmental Protester and an Environmental ACTivist with personal responsibility.