The Green Light | - By Duane Dahl, creator of EarthLab |
Writing my very first column as the founder of the EarthLab.com is truly an unsettling exercise. In writing this column I am reminded of the humbling responsibility I've shouldered in supporting the international effort to reverse or retard the effects of global warming and climate change. I will do my best to be worthy of that responsibility. EarthLab.com is being offered as: " The first climate crisis community to be a voice and a forum for people interested in leading a healthier, a more earth-friendly, and a more environmentally balanced lifestyle." Wow, that mission statement conceived by my public relations people is impressive, and again reminds me that I have a lot to live up to in fulfilling such an ambitious objective. The question is: what does it personally mean to me, and how did I arrive at the point of caring about global warming and climate change? Just nine short months ago, my wife was (lovingly) yelling at me for leaving my trash on the kitchen counter and behind the sink. You see, I could never decide which was "trash" and what was deemed recyclable. I relied on guessing, and, if uncertain about the identity of some cast-off material, I could always stuff it in the bottom of the trash container, in hopes that my more environmentally sensitive and lovely wife Cindy wouldn't uncover the material and accuse me of failing to put it in the recycle bin. Life had been easier before my nine-year-old son had learned to talk and didn't know that he was occasionally being blamed for a disposal error. Obviously, the green light hadn't yet been switched on in my head.
When trying to recall just when that green light was switched on, I think back to the summer of 2006, to the occasion of a trip to Lake Tahoe with my wife and two young boys. Ah, Lake Tahoe, the stunningly beautiful Lake Tahoe; it is one of my favorite places on Earth. I recall our Tahoe vacation as if it happened only yesterday. I especially remember boating out onto the crystalline water to go fishing. Before we get too far along with my recollections, and because this is my first column, I don't want to give my readers the wrong idea. I've really never been much of an outdoorsman, True, I love the idea of fishing, hiking, river rafting, and such vigorous outdoor activities—but I just have a hard time finding places to do those things where my Blackberry gets reception. (I know, I know; the Blackberry should be left behind while communing with nature, so I promise; I'll work on that addiction.) Nevertheless, I actually went fishing with my family.
We were all exhausted when we returned to the condo after that long day of fishing. (No, I have nothing to say about how many fish we really caught.) Once back into the reassuring, climate controlled comfort of the condo, my boys split off to their room to take a break from the old people. (More likely they were taking a break from Dad. Now, at age forty-five, I've finally come to the realization that I'm not nearly as amusing as I once thought.) Cindy and I decided to order in and forget about trying to prepare a meal, and to relax and restore ourselves while watching a quality movie. Both Cindy and I have veto power when deciding which movie we will watch. I usually get overruled when I suggest a movie that's a bit violent and features a lot of shooting, say, something like Day of the Gun. Cindy always draws my veto when she picks something like Pride and Prejudice. Even when nudged by Cindy to stay awake, I never much care whether Darcy and Elizabeth ever get together. What finally happened during this movie viewing episode is that we compromised on a couple of documentaries, Super Size Me and An Inconvenient Truth. My first inclination was to choose Super Size Me, but on second thought I decided that the consequence might be my persuasive wife Cindy compelling me to live for the next few months without my beloved Taco Bell Grande. So, I pushed for the Al Gore film and closed the deal, even though fearing I could be in over my head with Mr. Gore's inconvenient truths. However, I ordered the triple chocolate cake with milk from room service, and hoped for the best.
Continue
1 |
2 |
3 |
Next>
The Green Light
Before going into my reaction to Gore's film, I should tell you a little about Cindy. Unlike me, she has been a bit of a tree-hugging environmentalist for years. Raised in Washington and raised to enjoy the outdoors, Cindy is the member of our family who loves fishing, camping, hiking, and gardening. She is also our dedicated recycler. If it involves getting your hands dirty or touching the earth, Cindy's good at it.
Halfway through the film our mood (my mood and Cindy's mood) had definitely turned a bit somber. No, it wasn't a day out on the lake under the hot sun or the sinfully delicious cake that made the two of us a bit woozy. It was Gore's stunning film that threw Cindy and me for a loop. We were shocked; I was shocked by the catastrophic imagery, by the science that explained the dire meaning of what was happening on Planet Earth. Could it be true? I found myself for the first time thinking to myself, "My God, what happens if we really do screw this up." What happens if we're too busy with working our fifty to sixty hours a week and taking our feeble pleasure by sitting on our couches, stuffing ourselves with non-nutritious food, and passively accepting our entertainment from mindless American Idol culture? Why don't we stop, take action, and at least attempt to turn around the climate change crisis? Could it be that my sons and their sons will be stuck with trying to make a winning hand out of the lousy cards we've dealt them? That realization, those questions, triggered a turning point in my life and switched on the green light in my head. That realization marked the birth point of the EarthLab initiative.
So it is that our plans today, our plans over the next weeks, months, and, we hope, years, involve a dynamic online presence on this site, allowing us to share with everyone our thoughts about global warming, our thoughts about the climate crisis, and our thoughts about building a responsible stewardship of our resources. We'll try to cover everything on our site—the science relating to the causes of our environmental dilemma, the science of developing energy saving alternative fuels and technologies, and the technologies devoted to developing products and services to counteract our less than beneficial occupancy on a verdant, hospitable planet; we'll try to cover it all. Let me be clear, however; I am not an expert, not an environmental scientist, not by a long shot. I am the guy who needs the intervention, the guy whose style has been to go ripping down the freeway solo in his supercharged four hundred horsepower Range Rover. I am the thirty minute hot shower guy, the tech gadget freak who has a collection of outdated Personal Digital Assistants that he never could quite figure out how to operate, the discarded PDA's that his son uses as Lego blocks when he's constructing miniature buildings. As we continue our joint exploration of environmental awareness, I will simply be another student, willing, well meaning, and motivated—and, although a bit clueless, I am incredibly eager to figure out all of this global warming and climate change business.
Continue
1 |
2 |
3 |
Next>
The Green Light
I have three hopes (not including the one my wife points out, "My god, Duane; you had better hope that Al Gore doesn't read this and learn just how clueless you really are!"): My first hope is that you will communicate with us at EarthLab, and allow us to do what we do best. Online, we can build anything you might envision. Tell us about it, and if it motivates the EarthLab community to make changes that will produce a beneficial effect on the planet, our team will digitally replicate the idea online. My second hope is that, having found EarthLab to be of value by enriching your life through making a personal contribution to the enrichment of all life, you'll invite your friends, family, and coworkers to visit the EarthLab site and get their personal ECP (Earth Conservation Plan) ratings. My third hope is that we will inspire, educate, and activate millions of EarthLab members around the world, so that together we can begin to reverse or retard the effects of global warming and climate change and produce a cleaner environment. Further, I would like to prove my wife wrong when she says that I "will never get it" when it comes to recycling materials at home. I truly believe that recycling is not beyond my capabilities.
The EarthLab community is for you. This is what I can do. This is our gift to you, our present to a world that has allowed a wise-cracking kid from San Diego to go from sleeping on a bare concrete surface behind a steak house in Southern California, to achieving unimaginable business success, with enough riches to buy any Lego Star Wars figure ever manufactured. To have such good fortune, and to be blessed with a loving family, a wonderful wife, good friends, and incredibly acute taste buds, gives me the perspective to appreciate the gifts I've received for the luck of being a citizen in the right place, at the right time, and on the right planet. I owe a thank you to the millions who have supported our profitable Internet communities over the past several years. I also need to thank the team members who have provided the quality work and technical know-how, drive and passion to make those Internet sites so successful. The best way to demonstrate my heartfelt thanks is to initiate payback in a way that will benefit everyone who lives on our remarkable, one-of-a-kind planet.
I pledge to work hard to secure the best partners for this new venture—to secure the best brands, large and small, that will be worthy of your trust. I will seek out the leading environmental experts, scientists, and spokespersons, and I will provide the platform so that they can inform, instruct, and lead us in a manner that we can all understand. I will feature on our site the leading experts in every pertinent walk of life to share their stories and experiences with us in all categories—food, family life, entertainment, wellness, etc. Further, we'll ask all members of the EarthLab community to share their life stories, their experiences of shifting to a green manner of living, and their tips for a more thoughtful exchange with the planet. We plan to skewer the skeptics who insist that the people of Earth have nothing to worry about in terms of their effect on climate change. Of course, while we're pursuing these lofty goals of leading a healthier, a more earth-friendly, and a more environmentally balanced lifestyle, we'll be having some fun along the way.
I've tried to tell you what I can do to help reverse or slow the effects of global warming and climate change, and I am determined to do this for you, for my sons, and for my sons children. Please join us on EarthLab. It is the early stage of a long journey, and now you and the Earth have me as an advocate; you now have a dog in this fight. Together we have a lot to figure out, and we're really, really excited to get going! I am grateful that Al Gore switched on my green light.
—Duane Dahl
July 10, 2007
Click here to share your Green Light Story
Click here to contact Duane Dahl
1 |
2 |
3 |
Next>