Greetings everyone I am currently working for my First Nations (Native American) tribe as an environmental coordinator. My education is a chemist and what I do in my job is mostly testing water for pollution and how that affects salmon habitat. I also do a lot of other biological surveys determining populations of different species in my traditional territory. There is a lot of pollution in my traditional territory and many species are suffering from over fishing and I want to do all that I can to clean this place up and protect the wildlife. I can prove that everything is getting polluted with science but that does not do much for prevention so I am putting a lot of my work towards educating the community and trying to shift their attitudes towards having a cleaner environment. This is going to be a very difficult task since the main employment in the town has been destroying the environment with logging and fishing. What makes it more frustrating is that many of the men in the community have the attitude that destroying the environment is part of their masculinity. They are to ignorant to realize that if they destroy everything then the jobs they love so much (fishing and logging) will be no more. One thing I am doing is combining traditional knowledge with scientific knowledge in my studies. I am trying to return to more traditional attitudes of preserving and living with nature in order to protect these sacred things for future generations. It is my goal to mix the wisdom and knowledge of the elders with modern scientific practices to make an independent, healthier, greener and more environmentally educated community. The reports I will make from my scientific studies will not be enough to educate the community (since not many really care) but I can write something in our community newsletter every couple weeks. I want to build awareness about things individuals and communities can do to lessen their impact on the environment. Every couple of weeks I intend on researching these types of things then write about them, I would like to start with things such as global warming, recycling, composting... but I do not know much about these things myself and need some more ideas. I know that giving people info on a subjects raises awareness but does not make people change their habits so I will also be going around and talking to people and putting together projects to help remind people of certain things. I know many of you already live in more environmentally friendly ways and I want to learn everything that I can. I would be very happy if any of you could give me some good ideas or advice, links to good sites with this type of info, or stories of how you changed someone’s attitude about these types of subjects. Thank you very much
Wow! It's so great that you want to do that for your community, we really need more people like you in this world. I could use your help too, but first let me see if we can do something for you. The problem with the world in this area is the lack of attention to it in my opinion. The magnitude of this destruction is far greater than people realize, and it HAS to stop. Or at the very least improve just a little. Your ability to get attention for this will depend greatly on your passion for the situation. If you feel you were meant to do this, get some attention! In the newsletter say things to make people understand you, but don't pass up the chance to stress on how bad things really are. Focus on consequences, people don't realize they're coming. As for what to tell people, here are a few sites I'd like to recommend: Global Warming - http://yosemite.epa.gov/oar/globalwarming.nsf/content/ClimateScienceFAQIveHeard.html http://www.commondreams.org/views/071700-101.htm http://www.climatesolutions.org/pages/15%20things.htm http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/f101.asp#5 Recycling - http://www.earth911.org/master.asp http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/muncpl/index.htm http://www.recycling.com Pollution - http://www.pollution.com/ (highly recommended site) http://www.umich.edu/~gs265/society/waterpollution.htm http://www.webdirectory.com/Pollution/ http://airnow.gov/ http://www.scorecard.org/ I hope these are helpful, if you need more let me know. Now, as for you helping me. I have started an organization for people that have common thoughts with you on this. It's a worlwide group called Mother Nature's Army. We're still very small and very new but we're getting new members everyday. It's really about uniting the nature loving tree hugging people. I'm anti-war, but to fight off a world of hate and destruction you need an army of peace and determination. There's strength in numbers, and to save the planet you need all the strength you can get. Eventually we'll have a newsletter, a real website (the one we have is one I made myself! haha) and maybe in a few years even a convention. There will be a director and assistant for countries, states and provinces, and some of the bigger cities. I'd love for you to join this group, and I think you would be a great help to us. If you are interested visit our pathetic little website www.freewebs.com/mothernaturesarmy and sign the guestbook leaving your e-mail, or reply to this post, or PM me. I hope to hear from you! Jadis
I always found the scientist James Lovelock to be inspirational. He takes a really invovative and imaginative approach to evironmental problems and solutions.
