-        and the shocking changes we see today!

Climate scientists are say that the world as we know it may not exist by 2012. This would be hard for me to accept, if I wasn’t at board meetings in the 90s where frightening changes projected for 2050 are showing up in front of me now.

For example, a tornado blew through Atlanta last weekend, and tore up neighborhoods four blocks southwest of where we live. It beat up Atlanta’s showpiece including the CNN Headquarters, Centennial Olympic Park, and the World Congress Center. When we walked downtown a day after the tornado, the streets were covered in glass, and CNN had more boarded-up windows than glass. Smashed cars, twisted signs and various unidentifiable objects were corralled behind yellow tape, and fleets of emergency workers massed where tourists used to walk. Unbelieving, I listened to Atlanta officials warn people not to come downtown.

Then, the headline on AOL Monday read “National Parks Devastated.”  My God! For the past seven years the board of the National Parks Conservation Association has been discussing the effect that unabated global warming and climate change would have on the national parks, but that was not supposed to happen NOW! That was way off in the future!

That’s how rapidly climate change is accelerating.

Three days before the tornado, Frank and I were invited to a reception for Bill McGibben, well known environmental writer and advocate. His speech was chilling. He said NASA scientists and climatologists are saying that the calamities they projected for 2050 might instead happen around 2012: Melting ice caps causing sea levels to rise and displace people all along our coasts; unpredictable weather events building upon themselves in one continuing crescendo.

So the tornado hit me with shell shock. It was too close for comfort, in more ways than one.

Can any of us afford to continue to ignore this issue?

I project myself into 2012, a scant four years away, and I see millions of people saying, “I wish I had done something.” Or, I prefer the vision where these presaging weather events will wake people up to say, “Wait a minute! I am a citizen of earth! I have a role to play in what happens to my planet! I will join with others to influence our leaders that they must take climate change seriously. We demand it!”

There are still things we can do. But first, we must change our minds and make a decision: “Am I going to be part of the problem or part of the solution?”

Being part of the solution means conserving energy on a personal level, changing to energy efficient bulbs; reducing the use of electricity and water; recycling, driving less or converting to a clean energy vehicle; reducing the use of plastics and packaging.

On a larger note, we have to be part of a group lobbying our elected officials. A solitary voice is great but there is STRENGTH in unity.

We are going to take you with us on our 13-year journey through the environmental movement, by highlighting our personal experiences with the places and conditions that are making news NOW!

We will make recommendations about some things you need to KNOW and to HAVE in readiness. Because no one with eyes can deny – the times, they are a-changing!