We had the opportunity to see the film “Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power”, ensconced in very comfortable recliners with our popcorn, at the nicely air-conditioned, Downtown Ventura Theatre. The film’s subject was quite Uncomfortable. Among many pictures of melting icebergs, dried and cracked earth from drought, torrential rains destroying towns and villages, floods in the Midwest, Miami under water and building their roads higher to avoid the incoming seas, we also heard that 2016 was the hottest year ever on record for any year as far back as our records go. Projections for the future are not good if we continue as we are going. We also saw video of the Paris Conference where virtually all nations on earth agreed to work together on developing renewable energy.
Regardless of your views on what has become a political issue in our country, we do need to have a civil dialogue amongst ourselves about the future of our planet and the health of our people and our planetary home, Earth. This whole experience led me to recall my past, growing up in Los Angeles.
I am a child of the 1950’s. I can remember visits to family in Glendale and Pasadena. It was sometime in the early 1960’s when I realized that there were mountains around there! It was amazing, as we had never remembered seeing them…it was too smoggy. We had days at school where we could not play outdoors as the smog alert was out. The air was dangerous. On really bad days your eyes stung so badly they watered all day. And worst of all, you could taste the air. Actually taste it! And you could certainly see it. Even today, flying into Los Angeles, you can see the brown air at certain times of year.
I look at pictures of Beijing, China today and see the Los Angeles of yesterday. We have done a great deal in California about our air quality. Californians have worked to clean up our rivers and oceans and beaches. Things have gotten better here…you can see the mountains all year long now. So, we can fix things we have broken.
Maybe you’ll call me a “Tree Hugger,” but I know that trees absorb CO2, Carbon Dioxide, while giving off life-saving oxygen into our air. So, let’s hug some trees this Rotary year by planting them, one for each of our Rotary members, somewhere in our County. Tune in for more down the road…in my Hybrid car, of course…less pollution!
