Global Warming Wednesday: Seeking inspiration

I have been a little down lately--just in general. It doesn't help that I'm only a day or so from PMS becoming full-on M, making this one of my worst hormonal days anyway. But we're also trying to balance planning for next year and some unexpected bit of news today (related to Scooter and his diagnosis/therapy, doesn't change anything, but possibly requires a shift in thinking and gives us an impetus to make sure we really get things sorted for next year). Still digesting that, though I'll probably write something on it soon.

Even before that, however, I was wondering what I might write about today. I'm not exactly stalled out--I'm doing my best at maintaining everything I've set in place so far--but I haven't been particularly inspired.

So of course it is timely that No Impact Man's last two posts have spoken to the core of the issue. In Why Bother, he responds to a reader's question:

We seem to be a pretty tenacious lot, we humans, and wouldn't it be best to realize that we can't save everybody, that some of us will survive the lack of ozone, and just let the chips fall where they may?

Part of his answer points back to a post in which he uses the starfish story (which makes me tear up just a little every time I encounter it--yes, it's sappy, but it makes a powerful point). He ends his answer by saying:

The question is: when things seem futile, do I want to be the kind of person who lets the “chips fall where they may,” or do I want to be the type who tries to do something anyway?

This post is a strong reminder of why I decided to renew my commitment to lessening my environmental impact.

His post today is titled Why I make environmental action personal. Had he not published yesterday's post, I'd probably be feeling worse right now. He cites a number of articles: brings up the White House's new global warming "initiative" and how it achieves nothing; another refers to a poll demonstrating that most Americans' commitment to stopping climate change is superficial; a third discusses just how much faster warming is occurring than was predicted in years past. Yet this all ties into the why of why it needs to be a personal action: If we wait for the government to "fix" things, it will be too late.

When I combine the two posts, some of the anxiety-producing urgency (or is it urgency-producing anxiety?) remains, but it is tempered by the conviction that this is something I find important. And I realize that I, alone, can't make all the difference, but at least I'll have done something.