Is there an echo in here? I mean, in here, in my head. Or is it out there, in the big wide world. Or both? Maybe I’m having a flashback… or a hot flash… nope, can’t be that, since it’s “that” time of the month. Hmmm. Well, maybe you can tell me what’s going on…

I keep having these visions:

It’s the 70’s, Schoolhouse Rock... “Energy … we’re looking to try and find some new kinds of … Energy … exploring to try and make a new find. Nuclear and thermal and solaaaaar, if we miss we’ll get colder and colder. EEENERRRGYYY… we’ve gotta stop usin’ you up…” the song went… a little guy going through an energy crisis, singin’ the “Energy Blues” was the animation…

Flash to the 80’s, when the big, huge hole in the ozone layer was discovered, monitored and found to be growing while the ozone layer above industrialized nations was getting thinner and thinner due to our endless air pollutants. Remember CFC’s? We’re still emitting them, but they’ve not been on the buzzword list for a couple of decades now.

Then the 90’s, El Nino, ocean warming, floating fish, red tides, the world is getting hot, hot hotter and it ain’t because of no new pelvis-grinding dance craze that replaces Elvis and the Lambada (Elvis doing the Lambada? Now that’s one for Vegas! Did Elvis ever dance with a partner? Should he have? Maybe not.)

Whew! It was a slide-show vision/flashback. Those mentioned were only the major players over three decades but there were plenty of cameo appearances.

Now I have moved to the present… heading back to the future. It is global warming that’s hitting the airwaves these days (pun intended, sorry.) Apparently, we’ve “just discovered” (a bit like a plethora of European sail-boys “discovering” already happily inhabited lands back in the day…) that we, WE, oh-so-innocent, above reproach, above the law, creators of ‘the law’ human beings, are causing the whole debacle with our careless, arrogant, destructive ways. Who knew? I’ll tell you who and I won’t charge you a dime…

WE knew. We all knew. We have all known for a long time but most of us have hated to do anything that in any way inconveniences us. As a matter of fact, our entire culture is dedicated to finding new ways to make our lives yet more convenient and less challenging. Apparently, standing up from a comfortable chair on occassion and putting a key in the ignition of our automobiles and turning said key to start said car fall into those categories as well.

Gosh, now I’m not sure which rant I want to take off on… um… ok. Yes. Global warming.

It’s time to make changes, even if they are a tiny bit inconvenient… perhaps even if they are incredibly inconvenient simply because we have let things go too far for too long. The Energy Blues of Schoolhouse Rock needs to be re-vamped into The Last Chance Blues of Ozone Layer Hues.

And so … here we go with ten simple things you can do that will not only save you some money but will also indicate that maybe you do care about the planet you are leaving for your children and their children to inherit. The impact of your little effort will become much larger if you tell two friends and they tell two friends and so on and so on and so on…