I like the tone of it, simple yet effective: "Stop using plastic drink bottles. These things are ridiculously wasteful. An obvious alternative is purchasing a reusable water bottle, preferable stainless steel. Ban these plastic bottles from your house and life!"
Here here!
Each newsletter page is full of snippets of information easy to read and digest. Cool.....
He's got the same goal as I had when I started this last May: "The Big Picture is looking for help, and lots of it. One goal of this project is to connect together all of the organizations, clubs, and individuals that are focused on global environmental issues such as climate change and resource depletion. The point of this is to bring together leaders from all of these groups and ensure that we are working together towards a common goal of sustainability. Far too often, we are working on projects, with great intentions I might add, but very separate from each other. Banding together will enable a strong connections and promote steady progress. Always remember, it is the individuals and grassroots organizations that will truly drive change in this world.
We are looking for help on all levels including but not limited to writers, speakers, photographers, web designers, leaders of organizations, and individuals wanting to work together here in Waterloo Region."
Exactly.
Here's the funny thing. Even though I occasionally e-mail links to posts to my neighbours and teachers at my school and teachers at EcoSchools across the region, I still only have 12 readers, and over half are from California. And I only had one community person wanting to add their own post on asbestos - not a huge issue for our students, but important for our world. Then I tried to get three separate but very similar groups together on the official Transitions Ontario page for Kitchener-Waterloo so everyone in the city could easiliy find out information for every event happening here. No bites. Nobody from any of those groups even replied with a "no thanks." Nada.
It's curious that doing this work is so isolating - I often feel like I'm paddling a lifeboat in circles, yet people still seem reluctant to join together en masse. I begged for ideas and articles and posts for a while, then gave up and turned this blog into a slightly more personal ranting arena. I originally pictured having links to every school down the side with information on each, but Eastwood's the only one that has shared any ideas. Is it that teachers don't want anyone to steal their ideas? I don't believe it's the case that nobody has any ideas. Even if they're only partially thought-out, they're still useful for others to consider and get some wheels turning. Do people think their ideas aren't amazing enough to share? Or is it that they're so busy doing so much, they don't have the time or memory or inclination to tell others in the EcoSchool group or here about it? Is it because people are shy and don't want to meet other people? Is it because they have a very specific agenda and don't want to get it watered down by too many issues brought in by too many people.? Or is there some amazing network somewhere that everyone's on, sharing ideas, discussing issues, meeting for pints, and I didn't get the memo?
I'm baffled on this one. I hope that Adam has a good turnout; I know I'll subscribe to his feed. We really don't have time for people to be competitive or unsure or busy or afraid or exclusionary. Because, like he said, it's really vital that we connect and share ideas. We need to learn from one another and try different tactics over and over to get people to sit up and pay attention, to change how they live, and to develop the chutzpah to speak up and speak out about political decisions that will destroy the world for future generations.
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