Who:
James Lawrence
Sierra Club book author
Where:
Old Chatham, NY
We're not big movers and shakers in the environmental movement. Oh, I've written some books about the environment; one was even published by Sierra Club (Wild L.A.) Mostly we go about our daily lives, my family and I, acting from a common and abiding devotion to help this sweet old green Earth regain her health, and stay healthy.
And so we manage, much like putting on (Earth) shoes and (hemp) socks in the morning, to make our daily efforts -- recycling organic waste in the backyard compost bin, sorting paper, plastic, and glass for weekly pickup by the recycling center, and taking old electronic devices and other junk to the center.
Every now and then, I imagine that at any given moment, 5,000 or 50,000 or maybe half a million people around the world are doing exactly the same thing that I am doing, whether it's taking out the bags of paper, glass, and plastic or moving them all down to the street for pickup Wednesday morning, or maybe just not tossing that napkin out the car window.
When I visualize this peaceful army of home recyclers that we belong to doing its daily duty, my occasional misgivings that we are not doing enough dissolve for a little while. I see all our individual raindrops of effort merging into a torrent of care and nurture that will not be diverted, that must only grow, if we love enough, into a flow of reason that in time we can hope will water our green world anew. And I am comforted by what a huge difference little efforts can make.
