Shifts Happen

Well I saw it firsthand. The shift Barack Obama is talking about, happened, right there in Macky Auditorium on the CU-Boulder campus.

I had gone to listen to a talk by former Senator Timothy Wirth, now president of the UN Foundation and Better World Fund. Because the main auditorium was filled to capacity, I was directed upstairs to the balcony.

As I climbed the stairs a fellow passed me, going downstairs. “Is it that bad?” I asked … because Wirth was only 10 minutes into his talk. The response, “He’s talking about the environment, and that’s not his area of expertise.”

The fellow was right. When I took my seat in the crowded auditorium, I was surprised to see Tim Wirth reading from a prepared script. The information was “old news” to a well-informed Boulder audience, and some of his facts - I know for a fact - were more than a year old … such as the “fact” that 600 U.S. mayors have signed a climate protection agreement act. That was a 2006 number. That number is over 800 now.

Interestingly, several people in the main auditorium were getting up to leave, and when Wirth asked for a show of hands of people who considered themselves environmentalists, I too decided it was time to leave.

It seems that in a smart town like Boulder, people no longer want to waste their time being talked to … they want to be inspired to take action. We want oratory. Someone who speaks from the heart; who looks us in the eye as they talk. We want someone to pull us out of our ordinary lives and inspire us to take responsibility for our own lives, not just fix things for us.

We’re no longer teenages. Americans are moving into adulthood and ready to take on the responsibilities that go with a new level of maturity.

We already know the well worn facts about climate change, the risks ahead, the need for action, what we really want is to walk away inspired to take that action, right now, right here in our own lives.

Monday night, I attended a funny book review by Doug Fine who has written a book titled Farewell My Subaru about his move to rural New Mexico to live off grid and be self-sufficient. The audience laughed along with the author as he described the chaos of his first year living off grid. Now that was inspiring! It filled my head with new ideas on how to grow myself into a self-sufficient lifestyle right here where I’m planted, in a community that feels like home.