Category Archives: Leadership

Animals, Children, Climate Change, Leadership

Don’t Miss Your Chance

Child being examined by juvenile kangaroo

Hello Everyone.  Please don’t miss your chance to stand up in support of science and the environment.

This year there are two important marches.  The “March for Science” will be held on April 22nd which is Earth Day, and the “People’s Climate March” will be held on April 29th.  The marches will be in Washington, DC and there will be sister marches across the United States and in the rest of the world.

Remember, children and animals are counting on you!

For more information please click on the links below or get in touch with your local community organizers.  Thank you.

https://www.marchforscience.com/

https://peoplesclimate.org/

Animals, Leadership

Blue Feet and Coming Together?

Booty Birds

As many of you know, we live in interesting times.  In the United States, and in Europe, there are deep divisions in society and people are either strongly against or strongly for certain politicians.  Nationalism, anger, fear, and distrust are evident and so is great despair.  Yet there is also courage being shown by numerous women and men, and a sense of faith that we can heal the rifts which divide us.

Let us come together.  Let us not be torn apart by hated.  We need to protect and harbor one another.  We also need to protect our air, our land, our water and our wildlife.  Let us not be distracted by illusion and destruction.  Let us hold steadfast in this critical time.  Let us stand up for justice and peace.  Let us protect this beautiful Earth and all of its inhabitants.

May you be reminded of each person’s and each animal’s uniqueness as you look at the photo of these two booty birds with their blue feet.  Let your voice be heard today.  There is courage and consequence even in the smallest positive action.  I believe in a livable future for our children and the animals of this world.  I believe in positive change.  And I believe in you.

Leadership, Oceans

Truth and the Gift of Rachel Carson

I just watched a beautiful television program (link below) about the life of Rachel Carson.  Carson was born in 1907 and died in 1964.  She was a marine biologist, conservationist and gifted writer who is credited with advancing the environmental movement.  Her books, “The Sea Around Us”, “The Edge of the Sea” and “The Silent Spring” inspire us with their beauty, courage and insight.  She wrote, “To understand the shore, it is not enough to catalog its life.  Understanding comes only when, standing on a beach, we can sense the long rhythms of earth and sea that sculptured its land-forms and produced the rock and sand of which it is composed; when we can sense with the eye and ear of the mind the surge of life beating always at its shores – blindly, inexorably pressing for a foothold. ”

With those words in mind, I wonder, how we live in a world where fake news proliferates and people feel it is okay to lie and treat others poorly.  I wonder if we will bequeath a frightening future to our children because many feel it is okay to destroy the planet for profit.  It is time to speak the truth.  And it is time to protect our precious environment.

Sadly, Carson’s words are still appropriate today. “We still talk in terms of conquest. We still haven’t become mature enough to think of ourselves as only a tiny part of a vast and incredible universe. Man’s attitude toward nature is today critically important simply because we have now acquired a fateful power to alter and destroy nature. But man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself.”

Rachel Carson was not afraid to speak up.  We can do the same and also make one of her wishes come true.  It was, “If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength.”

Program link:  http://www.pbs.org/video/2365935530/

Animals, Children, Leadership

Disappearing Words and Worlds

Snow Leopard
Snow Leopard

Thomas Friedman, a famous author, wrote an editorial a few weeks ago and made me aware of some disappearing names.  What do I mean by “disappearing names”?  The Oxford Junior Dictionary, which focuses on seven- year-old children, is excluding words which the editors feel are no longer necessary.  The words include otter, dandelion, nectar, chestnut, and cauliflower.  They are being replaced by words such as voice-mail, blog, broadband, and cut and paste.

At the same time as the Oxford Junior Dictionary is cutting words out of the dictionary we are losing species at an alarming rate.  In fact, the rate is about 1,000 times faster than if humans were not around.  I just read that African elephant numbers went down by 30% from 2007 to 2014.  I also know we are losing beautiful ocean coral and animals such as snow leopards, tigers, and the Vaquita porpoise.

When we lose animals, forests and our natural world, we lose a part of ourselves.  We need nature in all of its forms in order to survive. Cures to many illnesses are found in the amphibian class.  Oceans provide us with oxygen and a place to cool off and swim.  Plus, they shelter precious dolphins and seals.

We burn forests to plant palm trees for palm oil.  By doing so, we are rendering orangutans extinct and polluting our air.

A grandmother I know told me she has cried because she is afraid her grandchildren will never see and touch wild frogs.  It is time to cry.  I don’t want zoos to be the only place where we can see animals.  Losing wild animals is like losing words.  They signal the loss of our own species and diversity.

I don’t like words disappearing from the dictionary and I certainly don’t like seeing animals become extinct.  What can you do besides write to the dictionary editors?  You can make sure your children learn to appreciate our wild animals.  And you can make sure to protect both, before it is too late.

Carbon Footprint Reduction, Children, Leadership

Important Film

Greetings Everyone.  I hope you are well and enjoying the end of summer.  Please watch the trailer and then see this important film.  Our future, and our children’s future depends on it!  Thank you.

Climate Change, Leadership

Film4Climate Video Competition

Greetings,

The Film4Climate Global Video Competition invites filmmakers between the ages of 14-35 years old from all over the world to showcase their talents and create a Public Service Advertisement (PSA) (less than 1 minute) or a Short Film (1-5 minutes) about climate action.

Prizes will be awarded.

The video should show:

What does climate change mean to you?
What are you doing to solve the climate challenge?
What is your climate message to the world?

For more information go to https://www.film4climate.net/ and submit your video by September 15th.

Animals, Forests, Kindness, Leadership

Orangutans – Shocking!

Photograph by Mattias Klum, National Geographic Creative
Photograph by Mattias Klum, National Geographic Creative

I just read something I did not wish to see.  “The Guardian” headline said Bornean orangutans are now critically endangered because of shrinking forests.  Trust me, as an animal lover and environmentalist, I did not want to see that headline.  I would have preferred to read something like forests are growing and orangutan populations are increasing.

Because of habitat loss, illegal hunting and forest degradation we are going to see an 86% decline in the orangutan population between 1973 and 2025.  You are all intelligent readers, but let me put it starkly, that means if you have 100 orangutans only 14 would be left!  The other reality worth noting is that orangutans only reproduce every six to eight years.  So that means it is inherently much harder for orangutan populations to rebound.

So what can I say to make any of this sound more uplifting and less depressing?  Point one, Bornean orangutans are very adaptable and can survive in a degraded forest.  Point two, we can take actions to ensure that the current number of Bornean orangutans, which stands at 41,000, increases.  Please check the label and read ingredients for the foods you eat.  If palm oil is listed Don’t Buy It.  I repeat, don’t buy it.  Palm oil is one of the top reasons forests are being destroyed and depleted.  Point three, your actions make a difference.  Thank you.