The Planet is Worth it- isn't it?

As I arrived to participate in a local climate change related event in Christchurch, recently, I go chatting to a friend as we locked our respective bikes outside before going in.

How are you?  He asked
Oh, y'know, pretty good, although a bit busy...as it is when you are trying to save the planet!  I said, partly joking and partly serious..

Yes I know, but I guess the planet is worth it isn't it?  he said as he picked up his bag to head in.
Yes. I paused to think.  Oh yes it definitely is, I said with great certainty.

I've related that short conversation to people a few times recently because I really enjoyed the reminder of what underlies much of the environmental and community work that I do.

I really love this gorgeous blue planet. I find myself so sad to hear of the mass extinction that is happening and the changes that we are inflicting on it.  
This is the planet that gave me life which when you look around, is pretty miraculous. It produced the vast array of life forms that we used to see around us and that we still can in places.  I'm really grateful to be alive on this tiny rock in a huge universe and what better work could I be doing?  It really is worth saving!

Community, Environment and Change

I've been concerned about climate change, biodiversity loss, issues with water quality and quantity and waste issues for a few decades now and I find myself an avid follower and reader of the science about what is going on around the globe as temperatures rise

Back in 2008 I asked myself if I really thought the evidence pointed to the need to take action around climate change and the breakdown of our ecological systems. The answer was yes.

I then asked Is what I am doing the best thing that I could be doing? and the answer was yes in some ways and very definitely no in others.
Yes because my work was about working with communities to make changes in their practices to be more sustainable and kinder to the planet.
And no because I didn't feel like doing that inside a science institution, where funding was so precarious and where our work wasn't well understood, was actually making a difference. On top of that I was talking with groups about the need to change business as usual and yet I felt I was living my life as if everything was fine.  So I left my job for the great unknown at the end of that year.

After a few months of looking around and trying a few things, I had confirmed that we don't make change without community and without taking people with us.   So I've built community for the last 10 years in different ways and in doing that feel that I've been more effective in bringing about the change I want to see (at least in part) even if what I've done doesn't look terribly environmentally focused.  Of course, I've also had to accept that there is only so much one woman with finite energy levels can do!

There is so much more that we need to do to change and a lot of change is going to be forced on us by the look of the scale and speed of the ecological, climatic and social disruption being suffered around the world. We will meet that more successfully (whatever that means) if we meet it as a community.