Homestead mailing list

[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

DO WHAT MAKES YOU FEEL RIGHT
 
The British Petroleum oil well drilling catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico 
could turn out to be for the good. That possibility depends on several giant 
IFs. IF the enormity of our continued reliance on oil for our energy needs 
sinks into the collective consciousness and causes many of us to make serious 
changes, and IF the oil industry finds that there is diminishing profit and 
increasing liability in drilling deep-water oil wells, and IF the members of 
the DC Whorehouse and their corporate customers understand that the present 
course is a calamity, then through seeing the horrendous environmental, 
economic and social damage we may find the will to do the right thing.
 
Which in this case is reducing our reliance on oil and increasing our use of 
renewable resources.
 
What will that require from each of us? Well, how about pledging to drive 
twenty fewer miles each month for the rest of this year? And then how about 
raising the number next year and in each subsequent year? How about making a 
survey of all our energy usage and pledging to reduce that usage by, say, ten 
percent the rest of this year, and more next year? How about replacing just 
one night of television each week with reading and discussing these issues 
with family?
 
In the end, as with recycling, bicycling, turning down the thermostat in the 
winter and up in the summer, our actions will be predicated on what makes us 
feel right. If we don’t take the energy issue seriously on a personal level, 
if we don’t do these things because if makes us feel right about ourselves, 
then energy improvement won’t happen and we will end our lives with our 
grandchildren dealing with the issues that we blamed on others and to which 
we paid only lip service.
 
Whether the issue is voting, recycling, bicycling or learning how to do more 
with less, we must do what feels right, what makes us feel good about 
ourselves. If we reach deep we can find that contentment.
 
It starts with us, that unblinking, noble person in the mirror. Individually. 
If we wait until everybody is doing the right things we will die with those 
things undone.
 
This is our time.