Monday, October 11, 2010

Where Were You On 10/10/10?


October 10, 2010, a beautiful, jewel-like day here in New England, was slated to be a day of action, with eco-conscious Work Parties world wide coming together to draw attention and to take concrete measures tackling the issue of global warming. For the day, hundreds of thousands of people gathered to think globally and come up with constructive strategies for stopping the destruction of our environment in the shrinking time we have left to try and do this.

Locally, Norman was down at Puffer's Pond showing local Work Party attendees how to remove japanese knotweed, an ornamental planting once introduced by landscapers for its bamboolike aesthetic appeal but which, wildly proliferating on its own, became a nuisance, an aggressive, opportunist plant which overgrows and chokes out native species. An apt metaphor for the unchecked proliferation of planet-choking greenhouse gases.

Thanks to the efforts of a small but intrepid crew who worked all afternoon with Norman, battling down a stubborn thicket of the invader plant, Puffers Pond's knotweed infestation is at least temporarily defeated, and Norm had fun showing anybody who'd pay attention his Actual Size chart, which shows the current carbon footprint, that serious threat to our ecosystem which spurred the 10/10/10 350 Work Party movement: teeny, compared, in a scale described in the United Nations' study of greenhouse gases and their relative contributions to global warming, with the rampantly growing impact of the gases NF3 and SF6 now being profusely developed and used in the manufacture of so called "Smart Grid" solar panels and wind farm switchgear boxes.He came home exhausted but exalted, because a few people seemed to get what he was talking about.

I didn't go anywhere on 10/10/10. I slept profusely, but in spurts, awakened time and again by searingly sharp cramps in my legs and shoulders,my eyes ached, my face was scary, a swollen mask. I was in so much physical pain when awake I prefered to do as little moving as possible and did my "work" that day almost entirely on the dream level, therein restlessly battling stubborn infestations of choking doubt and crippling tangles of self criticism that appeared as monsters and thickets of thorn and dank labyrinths in my dreams.

This is the first time in days I've felt well enough to move around, to sit up and type.
Thank goodness this movement doesn't depend on me. I got an email this weekend from Terry Franklin, sharing a video of young 10/10/10 activists who showed up at one of President Obama's weekend pitstops:


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