Happy Earth Day Bonus

Because my environmental news feed overfloweth-ed with goodies yesterday...

Three good quotes:

1. Thoreau

Oh, the number of times I had to read Walden in high school and college... My relationship with Henry David began as many relationships do - with wide-eyed, idealistic infatuation. By the end of my senior year of college I had come to the conclusion that he was a bit of a whiny, over-priviledged mama's boy. Sadly, many "environmentalists" continue in that tradition still today. He did say this though:

“What good is a house if you haven’t got
a tolerable planet to put it on?”

2. Wangari Maathai

She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for her work with Kenya's Green Belt Movement.

“It's the little things citizens do.
That's what will make the difference.
My little thing is planting trees.”

Well... 30 million trees, that is. The Green Belt Movement works for human rights and democracy through environmental protection. Mostly by planting trees. Planting trees = cleaner water, land and air and helps to create educational and job opportunities for women and the poor. Clean water, land and air + educated and empowered citizens = more stable economies and governments. Sounds pretty peaceful to me.



3. Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot.

I loved the way he said "billions."

"That's here. That's home. That's us.
On it, everyone you ever heard of, every
human being who ever lived, lived out their lives.
The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings,
thousands of confident religions, ideologies and
economic doctrines, every hunter and forager,
every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer
of civilizations, every king and peasant,
every young couple in love, every hopeful child,
every mother and father, every inventor and explorer,
every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician,
every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint
and sinner in the history of our species,
lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam."