Monday, February 1, 2010

Who Really Understands Climate Change?

I was catching up on blog posts this morning and came across this post by my friend Bree from a few days ago. She had put up the following quote and it really struck me as something excellent to share on a Monday morning. It’s a lesson on the environment as well as a reminder not to judge “who is what” just by simple appearance alone.

"I went to southern Arizona some months ago, and I was in a room full of ranchers. These were guys wearing cowboy hats and they've got their cowdog and they've got their cowhide jackets, right? I watched them listen to a talk on climate change, and the guy up there was saying to them, "Hey, do you know that last year was the first year in southern Arizona that there was no frost on the ground?" and every cattleman in there nodded his head! I thought to myself, These guys get climate change, better than any politician out here, because if there is no frost on the ground, they're going to have a hell of a fire season, and it's going to have a major impact on how they're able to graze their cattle that year."

~M.A. Sanjayan, lead scientist, The Nature Conservancy~
Interview from "Planet Earth" produced by BBC


What do you think people would be surprised to learn about you if they simply judged on your appearance?

1 comment:

Bree said...

I'm glad that anecdote got to you, too...I think a lot of people understand the "global weirding" that's happening, even if politically they can't acknowledge it under a different title. Sign of the times? I don't know. The Planet Earth series on DVD has some great thought-provoking documentaries on the last disc, covering everything from "armchair activism" to cultural imperialism. Good stuff. :)