Pardon me. I have never bothered to talk with you since I was born 79 years ago. It’s like a flower never talking to its roots and like a cloud never talking to the ocean. Like CNN broadcasting silence.

Why does the cat have my tongue? Why do I never talk to “You,” the elephant in my living room? You’re not invisible. My bed rests on you. I walk and drive on you. My heart pumps your living water.

You are talked about, but not talked to. I say, “Good soil, lovely tree, beautiful sky.” My amnesia is like never getting beyond “Hey, listen up about the woman I married” while talking to my wife.

The Bible models second person avoidance. “Let the earth put forth vegetation. Let the earth bring forth living creatures.”  English usage since the time of Shakespeare has named you, but has kept you in a first or third person jail cell.

Our culture knows, religiously and scientifically, that we earthlings live, and move, and have our being within your global sphere.  You’re the awesome birth mother of me, and the flowers I tended and the pizza I ate today. Isn’t it enough that I have done Earth Day every year since 1970 and Earth Hour the last Saturday in March for three years?

Why do I need to be personal with You? Why converse with You? What cultural taboo will I shatter if I say, “Mother Earth, You are dear”?

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For 365 days he and wife Michelle and child Isabella, living in New York City, produced no trash which was not composted, purchased no food except that grown with a 250-mile radius, used no carbon-based transportation (cycling and walking), and used no paper products, including toilet paper. No TV. No fast food. No meat.

I see and hear this boyish person, Colin Beavan, at Illinois Wesleyan University. Two thousand students at IWU, among 30,000 nationwide, have read his book, No Impact Man (2009), as part of their summer reading assignment. Illinois Wesleyan, along with many institutions around the world, have committed this semester to using his principles during No Impact Week.

About 30% of Americans suffer from depression or high anxiety. No Impact Year, for the Beavans, meant life slowed down, the kitchen table became the center of a social network, and they became happier, with less anxiety.

The meaning of ecological crises is not to live small, with self-denial, but to address the big question, How can I help build healthy community?

Photo below comes from Colin’s appearance at Illinois Wesleyan.

Photograph by Joe Grabill

Photograph by Joe Grabill

Rabbi Jesus in the first century knew snakes and doves as neighbors and teachers, as discussed in chapter 8 of my book, Green Kingdom Come. The Bible states clearly that the neighborhood of creation includes “every green herb.” Genesis 1:30.

So, how do I name who is my green neighbor among the species of the world? By looking up any of 1.7 million species listed in the first data base, Encyclopedia of Life, which is seeking to identify every living species on Earth, including  hibiscus, peregrine falcon, and bulrush. Now for the first time in history, all of us 7 billion folk in the world can open a window, 24/7, on the biodiversity of, for, and by the world.

Stewart Brand writes in his new book, Whole Earth Discipline, that the pocket calculator potentially has made us all math literate and the DNA barcode process in Encyclopedia of Life bio-literate. Now we have every opportunity to meet and to love our green neighbor as ourselves and to be full time university of life students.

Bulrush

Hibiscus

Peregrene Falcon

Author: Stewart Brand

Photograph by Joe Grabill

President Nasheed of the Maldives gave a speech about the negotiations leading up to the climate conference held in Copenhagen last December. He said that rich countries are keeping their own carbon emissions high.

“They never make commitments unless someone else does first. This is the logic of the madhouse, a recipe for collective suicide. We don’t want a global suicide pact. And we will not sign a global suicide pact, in Copenhagen or anywhere. So today, I invite some of the most vulnerable nations in the world, to join a global survival pact instead.”

With the hottest summer on record in Russia and peat and forest fires causing unprecedented soot and carbon monoxide levels in Moscow, President Medvedev has awaked from denial about global warming.

But generally, the rich nations are not taking decisive action on carbon targets, and have chosen suicide, not survival.