CHANGE
Very few of us make changes easily. We like our routines. We find it easier to stay where we are even if it’s uncomfortable or self-destructive. It’s hard to get out of a rut, whether positive or negative.
Sometimes change is forced on us by circumstances beyond our control: illness, injury, death of a loved one, relationship breakup or environmental disaster,
Sometimes change can be triggered by something we are given: an object (we receive a watercolor set and get into painting); or a book (my sister gave me Frances Moore Lappe’s book, Diet for a Small Planet, when I was 24), and we find ourselves setting off on a new path.
Maybe we fall into change when we fall in love.
We might have to change by necessity: a personal health issue or a planetary health issue.
The latter—an environmental health issue is what I am most focused on now. The absolute, indisputable need for change in the way we do things: the way we think about ourselves, each other, and the Earth. We must change the way we eat, shop, get around. We must change how our economy and government are run. We must make these changes very quickly, within a number of years, if we are to have a healthy future for living beings and the Earth.
We naturally resist making change. But what if we envisioned a future that was good for all of us, not just for the very wealthy few? What if we envisioned a future where the values of generosity, mutual respect, care, justice, equal opportunities and the well-being of all prevailed? What if people, and all life, were more important than power and monetary gain? Wouldn’t we like to go there? Wouldn’t we like to make that happen?
Such a vision is now before us, and before our Congress, in the form of the Green New Deal. If you want our country to support well-paid jobs, investment in infrastructure and clean energy, healthy food and environment, equity and justice for all, a true democracy, then look at the Green New Deal. It’s a vision to get behind and demand that our politicians, our corporate leaders, our small businesses, our cities and communities enact policies and practices that advance the ideas in this vision. Yes, we would have to make big changes in our lives, but wouldn’t it be worth it to have a healthy and sustainable life now and in the future?
To learn more of this vision here are a number of links to inform—and inspire—you.
Summary Page for the Green New Deal
House Resolution
Financing the Green New Deal
The Green New Deal is Not a Choice, by Frances Moore Lappe´
The Green New Deal Opponents are Stuck in the Past, by David Korten
The Sunrise Movement
A Synopsis of the Green New Deal, by Clifford Burke
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