By Tom Braford
We in the Heartland are known as big-hearted people, caring a lot about each other and the state of our region, environment and economy. We may occasionally bicker but when the chips are down, we step up.
Given our relatively good wage to cost-of-living ratio and cheap fossil fuel powered energy, we might also be a bit of a lazy river town “Where the Livin’ is Easy”. So as we wake up to the fact that this easy fossil fueled living has come at a high health cost with premature deaths and compromised environment and even social order, we are stepping up and leading the way to an abundant, greener lifestyle.
St Louis has one of the highest carbon footprints on the planet at 22.6 Metric Tons. We are addressing this head-on by introducing a subzero carbon footprint, Innovative Ecovillage Solutions lifestyle that would reduce the overall US footprint by 6% by 2050, if we adopt it broadly in our region and in 19 other high footprint regions.
You may say this idea is for the birds, and you would be right. The Audubon Society has estimated that at the current rate of global warming caused extinctions, we will lose 100 species of birds in North America by 2050, ten times more than we have lost since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Nearly half of the current 700 species will be gone by 2080.
So whether you think Innovative Ecovillage Solutions living is for the birds or for all of us, we invite you to join us in being a big hearted person and a Healthy Planet pioneer as we build out the Arizmendi Ecovillage in the Central West End and then 100 others to form a regional network, which will cause an epidemic of sustainability here by 2030 and become pandemic in the world by 2050, with your participation.
Please come to an evening of exploration, connection and action on Thursday, August 11, from 7:00 to 9:00pm at the Clayton County Library at 7821 Maryland Ave. Hope to see you there.
Contact: Tom & Carol Braford, braford@sbcglobal.net