"I don't know why you bother," said a friend. "One person trying to live a greener life is about as effective as a fart in a hurricane." He was right you know; three years of pouring my heart and soul into my green living website, Greenmoxie.com, and the planet remains stubbornly unsaved. What difference can one person really make anyway?
The news is filled with Eco-Armageddon as each new study reveals that the polar ice is melting even faster, polar bears are starving, there are garbage gyres in the ocean, and sunblock is destroying coral reef. I can't even watch the animal documentaries I love so much because the last 10 minutes is always about how the glorious creatures that you have been enjoying for the last 45 minutes are all going to die and it's definitely your fault.
Is green living a worthwhile pursuit or are we really just wasting our time? It was time to decide whether pursuing a career in environmental journalism was for me.
When faced with difficult decisions, I always take to the woods with my camera and my trusty hound, a rather plump pug mix, leading the way. (As a budding photographer, I shoot just about everything, but the only thing that I am able to capture with almost breathtaking clarity is that little dog's bum.)
I'm reticent to make a decision; but I know that the worst thing you can do is make no choice at all because then you have to accept whatever happenstance sandwich is left at the deli counter of life.
But soon the dappled sunshine takes hold, the coolness of the shade soothes as the hum of mosquitoes fades to background noise and my reverie is only broken by the frantic squeaks of the chipmunks; those unfortunate rodents who have dared to cross the path of my majestic apex predator as he bounds after them through the undergrowth.
And I remember the woods.
And I remember that times are a-changing. Studies by the National Garden Association show that Americans are growing more of their own food now than they ever did. Across the world, renewable energy production has doubled since 2004. The UN Court has ordered Japan to stop whaling and China has made pollution such a priority that it is even prepared to stop economic growth.
In Africa we have a saying -- if you think you're too small to make a difference, you've never spent a night with a mosquito. And so I remember the trees and the rivers and the oceans. I remember that I am not a drop in the ocean, but an ocean in one drop.
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