A Breath Of Fresh Air
There is a new wind that blew into Washington D.C. on January 20, and for those of us who consider ourselves “Planet People”, it is a breath of fresh air. So much of what has been done over the past four years needs to be reversed to help get our planet off life support. Rejoining the Paris Climate Accord will put us back in the international pack of climate change observers and responders.
Keeping an eye on the fossil fuel industry and creating more jobs in the clean energy sector seems like a sustainable plan for now and the future. It feels like our social shackles have been removed, allowing greater green innovation to happen. We can never go back to the past. No matter how hard we want to return to that “era of good feeling.” We need to create a new era, one complete with an understanding of who we are as an ever-evolving society and as inhabitants of this planet. Our natural resources won’t last forever if we don’t learn to preserve and protect them. Fossil fuels are a fool’s folly for the future.
We need thinkers, innovators, and doers in the decades to come, not deniers. We now live in a multi-cultural society, made up of all colors, creeds, and traditions. We are more of a world blend now than we have ever been. And make no mistake, this is a country made up of immigrants as it has been since our beginning. Our forefathers came from many other countries to settle our cities and towns. Unless you are a Native American, who has had your land tattered and transformed, the rest of us all immigrated here.
We need to find ways to unite our common goals and aspirations, not create new ways to divide and disenfranchise. We need to respect the ideas and opinions of others and seek the truth. We need to listen to those who have a different view. Sit down and discuss and perhaps end up agreeing to disagree with a handshake and learn to compromise. Discourse and violence are simply painful actions for questions not seeking peaceful answers.
We owe so much more to our children and grandchildren. Should we leave them a planet depleted of the splendor we enjoyed in our youth? Should we leave them with a society so divided that truth and facts are no longer paramount? We need to stop being frightened of our neighbors and those who don’t look and sound the same. The variety of our species is what makes our world unique. So many different people, places, traditions, and beliefs. No one person better than the next – just different.
We have to stop defining success by the size of one’s purse and look at the size of one’s heart. If you are wealthy, share with those who are hungry and cold. If you can give anything, contribute in action or support. Any random act of kindness is so easy to give and often creates a movement of kindness that will act as a salve to heal the wounds that divide us.
We need new leaders, young people to step up and take control of our wagon with wobbly wheels, to move us forward, down the road to a better world. This pandemic will subside, and many will have been lost. We will mourn and move on never forgetting the lessons we should learn from this social and health disaster. With ears and eyes wide open, we go forward, looking back only to see the past as a memory or a reminder. But we shouldn’t regress. There is no time machine that reverses history.
We need to work harder and smarter to create a present and future that we all can enjoy and be proud of. Aspire to always improve no matter how hard the task. The challenge is often reward enough for the innovators. Now we count on them to help make our world a safer, cleaner, and more peaceful place to live for generations to come. The time to start is now. It’s never too late to discover greatness – one innovation at a time.
Mask Up & Save Lives,
JB Lester, Publisher