Blog Action Day 2007

Blogging has not been my top priority for the past few weeks. My mom was in town (Hi Mom!) and so extra time was spent sewing my 4 year old daughter a gold lame dress (don't ask) and playing lots and lots of scrabble. I apologize if you have come to my blog and not seen anything new. I am back!

Today's blog post has a special topic. The topic is the environment. As part of Blog Action Day 2007, I am making it a priority to talk about the environment today. I have been working in the area of the environment for over 7 years. I have seen it change dramatically in that time. When I first started working to green printers in my high tech company, the environment was a sideshow. And I don't mean that in a nice way. It was the ugly duckling, the kid on the playground no one wanted to talk to. It was filled with fiery-eyed yuppie environmentalists and old school hippies. It was so not cool.

But the past 7 years have wrought a change on the world that I am surprised and happy to witness. Instead of being the ugly duckling, the environmental movement is just showing signs of transforming into a swan. It isn't there yet and amongst it's graceful steps there are still trips and falls. But the change is dramatic. Could you have imagined 7 years ago that Al Gore would win the Nobel Peace Prize? Could you have imagined giant Wal-Mart creating their own sustainability program for their employees?
Could you have imagined Arnold Schwarzenegger saying OK to a ban on phthalates in children's products ? Could you have imagined environmental heroes like Leonardo DiCaprio or Brad Pitt ?

The world is changing. Are you changing with it? Do you even know what you need to do to live more sustainably? There are many, many, many "top things you can do to green your life" kinds of lists out there. You can also get daily green tips or daily green news here or here. A fun thing you can do with friends or in your workplace or place of worship is to take a Northwest Earth Institute class. These are discussion courses that gently educate you on how to be more earth friendly.

What step are you going to take today? I challenge you to do one thing today to make the world a better place or to reduce your impact on the world. What you do is up to you.