Monday, October 27, 2008

Greenpeace Green Piece



This past Friday as my daughter and I left our downtown bookstore I spotted a young volunteer with a clipboard.  Now, I'm involved, I believe in walking my talk, and yet when I saw that clipboard I veered off to the right (how Freudian) in order to not be spotted.

Luckily for me, Brenna hailed me down.  Turns out she was visiting our sleepy burg on behalf of Greenpeace.  Wow, haven't thought about them for awhile - I'm all NRDC, WeCanSolveIt.org, solar, geothermal.........

After we spoke, I happily pledged my $15 and signed on as a sticker sporting Greenpeace Rainbow Warrior and then came home. This morning while cleaning out my bag I came across the pamphlet I'd received and decided, yeah, I'll write about Greenpeace, see what they're up to now.

There's plenty of material on YouTube and the video above is a great trip into history - remember when those people put their lives in danger to protect whales, seals, oceans, forests, you and me?         I do. 

I just haven't thought about them because today's activism happens more in a courtroom than jumping from a dinghy onto the harpooned body of a whale out in the deep international waters of our oceans.  Today, I sign up online, blog online, join in the petitions online.  All good things to do.  It's given me a pipeline to activism that lets me keep my day job (or would, if I had one).

So, while you and I are making our uncomfortable and inconvenient sustainable lifestyle choices, let's remember two things:

The early pioneers of Greenpeace and

Doing a little is more fulfilling than thinking that a little won't matter.