What does it take to stop the madness?

Like most people, I've got to the point where my response to reports of CO2 levels in the atmosphere is a what-can-one-person-do-about-it shrug of the shoulders.  For too long, far too long, we in North America have been turning our backs on the knowledge that our lifestyles are the ruination of the atmosphere and the oceans.  We don't want to hear about our carbon footprint or the CO2 levels in the atmosphere. We're just far too busy working to pay off our car loans. What can one person do anyway?

Well one filmmaker by the name of Rob Stewart has a made a movie that just might stop us in our tracks. He's a young Canadian man who spent four years making a movie to shed light on the shark fin industry. While promoting that film in China he was asked a question that stopped him in his tracks. A girl asked him why he was worried about saving the sharks when it was a known fact that our oceans won't have any life in them at all by 2048.

Our oceans, in addition to green plants, create the oxygen we breathe. The death of the oceans will result in serious reduction and likely the extinction of air breathing organisms--including the human species. Can we put it any more clearly? Are you listening yet?

Most of us know what Rob Stewart presents so eloquently and so simply in his movie.  We know that we can't continue to spew greenhouse gases into our atmosphere.  This movie is aimed at young people, children, because they are the ones impacted by our addiction to fossil fuels.  It's a beautiful and terrifying movie. Take a look at this trailer for  The REVOLUTION movie and please don't turn your back or shrug your shoulders.

We know that we have a decision to make and we don't have much time. We know that we can't continue to let corporations and governments run the world on dirty coal and fossil fuels.  Here in Canada, my country, we know that we cannot allow the tar sands to expand. It's already one of the biggest polluters on the planet. We have to find ways to stop it.

Last night I saw Rob's film and I found it hard to sleep. I just got up from my bed and sat down at the computer to find a press release from Adriane Carr of The Green Party of Canada in my inbox. She reminds us that this month the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration   announced that the carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere has reached 400 parts per million.  She is asking Canadians who care about the future of our children and our planet to sign a petition to our government. Sadly the lack of action on climate change by Canada's Harper Government is almost as alarming as the increasing concentration of CO2 in our atmosphere.

What can you do?

See the movie REVOLUTION.  Make sure all your friends and their children also see the movie. It gives some ideas of how we can make change. 

If you are a Canadian, download the petition and print it off.  This is not an email petition. It requires actual written signatures. Get as many signatures as you can and send them to our one Canadian Green Party MP, Elizabeth May.

It's a start.  One small way to begin to stop the madness.