The concept of a planet

In a recent Salon article Walter Shapiro quotes an unnamed energy executive who says that people "don't want the lights to go out."

That's an excellent way to sum up most people's thoughts on the environment. Aside from the direct intersection with their lives, they don't understand the whole concept of the planet and our impact upon it.

Understanding environmentalism requires a few basic fundemental beliefs. First, that we are each individually responsible for our actions. This type of free-will exercise may be strictly a mental one for people who feel trapped as factory workers, abused spouses, or victims of a perceived injustice. Being a victim is entirely the opposite of feeling a sense of responsibility for one's own life. If I am responisble for my life, why would I stay in this situation in which I suffer?

The second basic belief, which builds on the first, is that we are collectively responsible for the state of the planet. This cannot exist without the first - if someone cannot feel a sense of responsibility for their own life, how can that person be expected to feel duty towards the planet?

The third belief is that change is good. Look around at how people live their lives. Excitement comes through television shows, sports events, and gossip. Academics lock themselves in the warrens of the mind, like a hobbitish librarian in a plesantly damp basement corner surrounded by stacks of books under a single dim light. Business people are jocks, competition relegated in the demise of the aging body to the fields of stocks, bonds, and real estate. Score is kept through payroll. We have movies, music, art, work, sex, love, children, and homes to distract us from any misery. What change is needed?

Our personal and individual challenge is this: to reach deep down inside ourselves, way down, and find the part of ourselves which is so excited to be alive, that loves every day for its challenges, its struggles, its joys - the ups and the downs of the ride - to find that part and balance it with the side that sees the suffering, the pain, and the agony all around us. This is the concept of a planet, and when coupled with our own responsibility it is staggering.

We are such an interconnected part of this world which we inhabit. Every day, our actions shape our reality. The air that we breathe makes children cough because of the cars that we drive. Thousands die each day because we don't hold our leaders accountable for their actions. We can change that - but there are some basic beliefs that come first.

It is our duty, I believe, to teach each other what we can. There could be no greater gift to others than to teach them about the powers that come with the acceptance of responsibility and the joys of the future that are possible if we make changes today. Please do your part to give that gift as often as possible.