Me and Mr. Gore

So I guess I could be slower to post this. Last Friday I went to see Al Gore speak at the DAR Constitution Hall in downtown D.C. I thought he was inspiring and I completely buy into his vision that we can commit our country to being carbon-free in 10 years. His comparison to Kennedy's space shot commitment was spot-on. The U.S. had fewer resources for a moon shot back in the 60s than we have today to create a fossil-fuel-free United States. In fact, of all the world's countries, the U.S. is one of the very few in a position to do this. Once done, we can serve as a model for the rest of the world.

Back in the 80s, when I first became a raging environmentalist, it was still considered fringe or hippie to embrace such a cause. In fact, in the heat of that decadent decade, such a thing would never have received national attention in spite of the fact that we already knew about global warming. It's just that nobody was paying over $4.00 a gallon for gas back then so we felt safe in our ignorance. I actually remember when I bought my first car, gas was UNDER ONE DOLLAR a gallon. We used to pity the Europeans and their high gas prices. Who's pitiful now?

I like to stoke my huge ego by thinking that I am doing something for the environment by growing such a huge organic garden. In addition to not polluting, I'm also improving the soil AND creating a home for bees, butterflies, birds and other small critters. It's a good start, I think.

If I could issue my own challenge (though my podium is slightly smaller than Al Gore's) it would be to encourage everyone to put in just a few plants outside, whether in a garden or window box or pot. Use good soil, compost your garbage and feed it to your plants, and welcome pollinators to visit by providing bright flowers for pollen and nectar. These are actually small steps, but if everyone tried it at least once, I can almost promise you'll become hooked, especially if you're originally a city person like I was and the only nature you ever really saw was pigeons fighting in trash cans, alley cats and the occasional rabid squirrel. Now I'm totally fascinated by all of this amazing stuff I missed about nature while I was growing up.

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