Friday, February 08, 2008

of 'indians' and harp seals

i am the first one to say- i have become more wasteful as i have gotten older and had more disposable income. i have. when you grow up and don't have much- everything you have means more. a couple of my more vivid memories of the environmental front- the 1970's public service announcements- smoky the bear saying that only i could prevent forest fires (and since we didn't go camping i figured i was safe); the crying 'indian' as he was known back then- he was sad because we littered so much, and then we made a stuffed seal. yep. i still have mine. it actually looks more like a white furry tube with eyes- but hey, i was like 7 at the time. well, to my knowledge we still have forest fires, garbage and harp seals. i don't know if the harp seals are still endangered but i do know that the native tribes in canada are allowed to hunt them- not so much the folks who clubbed their brains out for fur.

i don't know that i have a point beyond- we can't lose interest in saving our planet. folks began recycling in the 1980's and campaigned against acid rain. there are still places in this country that don't recycle and where acid rain falls. reduce, reuse and recycle. spread the word.

1 comment:

jmsjoin said...

I always liked that picture of the crying indian. It speaks of the lost environment to me. As we get older I thought it was normal to get more attuned to nature and its fragility as you know how fragile it is. It might be the American Indian in me but I have always been attuned.