“Indeed, we are the first generation of people who now know that our children’s grandchildren will not walk the same Earth. They will live on a planet so less hospitable and predictable than it is now that it is unimaginable to us.”
UTNE Reader Nov-Dec 2013, “Mourning for the Earth”, Katherine M. Preston, from Sojourners.
Never has “story” been so important to the humans who inhabit the Earth.
If my storytelling classes have taught me anything this semester, it is that story can change the world.
My sister was visiting from Oregon years ago and she saw me with one of those plastic devices that they use to hold six soda cans together and as I was about to toss it into the recycling she told me this story. Because she lived closer to the ocean, or in a more environmentally aware place, she had heard that sea birds often die when they mistake the floating circles of plastic for sea creatures that they normally eat. When they dive and thrust their pointed beaks into the ring their beaks become trapped and they die a slow death by starvation. I was so horrified! And to this day no plastic can rings go out of my house without being cut up so there are no more rings to trap the birds. I try not to purchase products that use them. Her story changed my behavior forever.
Now if we believe what Ms. Preston says above we need the story for our children. We need positive stories of what we can do, not just stories of how bad things are. And we need the stories of the way things were. I can’t help but think that my grandmother’s generation was horrified when the smoke belching automobile began to replace the horse. We need the stories of what we can do. We need empowering stories that will change the world. I may just be one, but I am one and I can help tell the stories that will save the world!
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