You know those horror movies where one of the characters just doesn’t get it? All the bizarre little “accidents,” strange noises, bad dreams and other signs of foreboding that the character is oblivious to while en route to meet his doom. It seems cruel to say, “I told you so,” but come on … how many warnings does a person need? Well, I’m feeling a lot lately like we’re all living in one of those films.
Why? Consider these recent tidbits of foreshadowing:
Nov. 8: Greenpeace issues a report on the palm oil trade blaming the destruction of peatlands in Indonesia for annual greenhouse gas emissions of 1.3 billion tons, about 4 percent of total global emissions. If destroyed, the report says, all the peatlands in the tiny province of Riau alone could release 14.6 billion tons of carbon.
Nov. 7: The International Energy Agency releases its “World Energy Outlook 2007″ report that says we’ve got a critical 10-year window in which to act fast to make sure our future energy demands don’t outweigh supplies, and that we don’t increase our greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 60 percent.
Nov. 6: The American Public Health Association announces a major new initiative on climate change, which it calls “one of the most serious public health threats facing our nation.”
Nov. 5: An international team of researchers publishes a study finding that individual plant extinctions can cause whole ecosystems to become half as productive in terms of biomass. The long-term effects could be even greater, they said, futher noting that “species extinction is one of the most pronounced environmental changes of our time.”
Mind you, these are reports from only four days. I’d say we’re not only hearing some pretty spooky bumps in the night, but that they’re getting louder … and closer.
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Shirley Siluk Gregory
Shirley Siluk Gregory, a transplanted Chicagoan now living in Northwest Florida, represents the progressive half of Green Options' Red, Green and Blue segment. She holds a bachelor's degree in Geological Sciences from Northwestern University but graduated in 1984, just when the market for geologists was flatter than the Florida landscape. Just as well, though: she had little interest in spending her life either in a laboratory or, heaven forbid, an oil field. So, of course, she went into journalism. After extremely low-paying but fun and educational stints at several suburban Chicago weeklies and dailies, Shirley and her then-boyfriend/now-husband Scott found themselves displaced by a media buyout and spending the next several years working as freelancers. Among their credits: The Chicago Tribune, a publication for the manufactured-housing industry, and Web Hosting Magazine, a now-defunct publication that came and went with the dotcom era. Shirley's always been concerned about nature and conservation (and an avid pack-rat, as her family can attest to), but became even more rabidly interested in the environment primarily due to two factors: the growing signs that global warming was real and threatening, and the birth of her son, Noah, in 2003. Suddenly, the prospect of a world that might not be quite as habitable in 40 or 50 years took on a whole new, and personal, meaning. Living where she lives now also helped light the fire of Shirley's environmental awareness: her hometown was severely damaged by Hurricane Ivan in 2004, and beaten up again by Hurricane Dennis in 2005. That, and the fact that she and her family were vacationing in New Orleans until the day before Katrina -- and spent 12 hours driving home for a trip that normally takes 3 -- has made Shirley deeply appreciate how fragile our lifestyles are, and how dependent they are on sound management of natural resources and sustainable living practices. That's why she's become a passionate reader and writer about all things green and sustainable.
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