Living the Gentle Life in 2012

2011 comes to a close.  Holiday traditions and activities begin. Our culture and economy are mostly on everyone's mind.  

This week, 60 Minutes on CBS-TV included stories about so many foreclosed, vacant homes in Cleveland, Ohio and how the city is tearing the houses down.  Juxtaposed to the bulldozers plowing through walls, were interviews with Cleveland residents, trying to hold on to their homes by paying on mortgages now twice what their homes are worth. 

"Im trying to hold on to my home...I worked all my life for this...I signed a contract...My signature is my word," said interviewees, fighting to control their tears. The pain and stress experienced by people on the verge of losing their homes or having lost their homes are almost overwhelming cultural realities this holiday season.

A second story on 60 Minutes was thought-provoking and inspiring. Anderson Cooper traveled to a location off the coast of Cuba to visit a coral reef, The Gardens of the Queen. Coral reefs are our underwater rainforests, buffers for waves and ocean movements, sources for organisms that contribute to new medicines, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Researchers in Cooper's story summarized a tragedy unfolding in the world's oceans for coral reefs: The world's reefs are harmed by "pollution, agricultural runoff, overfishing and coastal development," they told Cooper.  One conservationist studying The Gardens of the Queen said about 25 percent of the world's coral reefs are gone. In another 20 years, another 25 percent will be gone.  Consider this: 50 percent of the world's underwater rainforests - gone - 20 years from now.

Cooper went to The Gardens of the Queen for a reason.  How are this coral reef and its ecosystems sustaining and thriving? Is there a secret? Could discoveries be made to help other coral reefs in our oceans? Visuals on the TV screen really couldn't show the reality of the amazing ecosystems there, but I was thankful to be seeing what I could. 

When researchers in Cooper's story go elsewhere in the world to look at coral reefs, bleached, weakened, dying or dead, they said this local success gives them insight.  

This coral reef is far from human encroachment. Commercial fishing is prohibited.  Ecotourism, an industry overseen by former commercial fisherpeople and their families, is stringently managed. A limited amount of fishing has a requirement to throw one's catch back. The reef is far from agricultural runoff and development runoff. In other words, humans aren't allowed to encroach upon this coral reef.

At Gardens of the Queen, sharks are thriving wherein, globally, 95 percent of the shark population has been lost due to humans.  The same goes for other fish like grouper and tuna. They thrive at Garden of the Queens. Commercial overfishing has destroyed the ecosystem balance in our oceans and that, coupled with climate change impacts and pollution, ruins our oceans globally.

The moral of this particular story seemed to be twofold.  Conservationists working around the clock to address human activities and climate change impacts and save ecosystems of all types are truly alarmed by what is occurring on a global scale.  Locally, taking action to protect ecosystems and establish strong boundaries related to human encroachment seems to make a difference.  Many local actions, in other words, may make larger differences. 

Living the gentle life in 2012. Taking action to care for our environment and enhance quality of life for all--humans and wild, on land and in water. 

Tonight's third 60 Minutes story featured one of my favorite actresses, Meryl Streep.  She plays Margaret Thatcher in an upcoming biographic movie of the former British Prime Minister. Streep is working on a personal life project to establish the National Women's History Museum in Washington, D.C.  In her interview, she said people sometimes comment she's played strong-minded women.  If she were a male actor, Streep observes, one is unlikely to hear he's playing a "strong-minded man."  She recalled a favorite Thatcher quote:  "If you want something spoken about, ask a man.  If you want it done, ask a woman."