[saymaListserv] Proposed Testimony on Care of the Earth

[Roy H Taylor III]

Dear Friends,
I will side step the issues around Mr. Lomborg for the moment because I feel 
that they distact from the article in The Economist that inspired Janet's 
letter.  They are pushing a market based approach (what else could The 
Economist promote) and we should all welcome it.  We need all sorts of 
methods brought toward working on the solution..

I also want to praise Mr.s Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus for their 
essay.  They have gotten many discussions started and we are all in their 
debt for this.  I believe that they start with some disturbing observations 
that we all need to heed and then even they sucumb to their own special 
interest before they finish.

The decade that started our current movement from Racheal Carson's "Silent 
Spring" To the passage of the Clean Water and Clean Air Acts of the early 
seventies was based on the motivators of lack and fear of what you could see 
now and what was to come.  It proved so successful that it has remained the 
model of approach ever since to much less dramatic results to today when 
many, even within the fold, are questioning its effectiveness.  The model 
that provided the energy of the early movement has been found to be 
unsustainable.  The result of all the gloom and doom predictions of the past 
four decades has resulted in turning people off.  There are currently 
environmentelists calling for even more imagination to be used to picture 
how bad it will really become.  Talk about waste of energy.

What "The Death" essay alludes to is a lack of Vision within and for the 
movement.  We as Quakers are well suited to bringing this new Vision 
forward.  This new Vision needs to be based on abundance. There is no lack 
of energy available to us.  More solar energy hits this earth in a single 
day than we use in an entire year.  We already acknowledge that there is 
that of Spirit in everyone.  The power of that spirit is limitless. The 
creative abilities that come with the connection to that Spirit are endless. 
While most of the universe may be ruled by thermodynamic law of entropy we 
here on earth posess Life which has the power of collective energy. God 
bless the grass.  Our testiments of peace, equality and simplicity are a 
part of that Vision.  We have gotten way too focused on the problems of 
environment as if they existed in a world by themselves.  The causes and 
affects are interwoven as everything is.  If we are all connected through 
Spirit then we are all equals.  I can't make war on you because you are a 
part of me.  I can't take more than my share because it belongs to all of 
us.  I can't dump my waste on you because you are my brother.

I am enlisting the help of everyone that I come in contact with to help 
write that Vision that will enspire us to choose Life.  Those decisions 
happen in the smallest form to the largest.  They comprise a lifestyle. 
>From picking up a piece of some else's trash and turning the water off while 
you brush your teeth to what you eat and what you wear to what you drive and 
what kind of building you choose to live and work in.  I call this Choosing 
Green.  Green is the color of the original solar cell transforming solar 
energy through photosynthesis into chlorophyl the sustainer of Life as we 
know it.

Seeking this Vision will be core discussion of the Ecological Concerns 
Network Committee meeting at SAYMA in June.  If we can find an appropriate 
time I am hoping that discussion can continue at FGC Gathering in July.

Peace & Love,
Roy