Al Gore: "Find the moral courage to change the world."

This past weekend I attended the West Coast Green conference and on the second day, I had the opportunity to hear Al Gore speak. He gave a measured-but-inspiring talk urging the audience (leaders in green building, design and innovation) to continue their important work. He acknowledged that they were the leading green revolutionaries of our time.

I left feeling like all the small lifestyle changes I've been making to try to live a more eco-conscious life are really making a difference. (Actually I left wanting to ditch my car and to move to a geodesic dome in the country, but that's another post.) They are making a difference because when my contributions are added to the contributions everyone else (including you, perhaps?) have already been making we are, as Gore says, creating a "psychological shift" in the way we live our lives. And it's this shift—this collective consciousness—that will tackle the environmental crisis head on.

If you are interested in hearing more of my thoughts about Al Gore, click here to read my Normal Green column on the Tonic News Network, but I'll share an excerpt with you:

Seventeen years ago, when I graduated from college, I was a young, idealistic Green Party member intent on changing the world. I got involved in city government, I volunteered on behalf on political candidates I supported, and I vowed to make a difference. At that time, however, I didn’t really know what I wanted to change about the world, I just knew I had to do something. Fast forward to now. Since then, I’ve made two major career shifts, had two children, am now a progressive Democrat, and in the last eight years—the years my children know as the first years of their lives—I’ve watched in horror as our country faced one moral, ecological, and economic disaster after another. I feel the fierce urgency of now, and so do lots of other people. So how do we work together to change the world? Gore points out that we’re undergoing a powerful psychological shift, and when I think about it, that is what the “Normal Green” movement is all about.

We know we can never go back to how it was "before" when we didn't recycle or didn't try to plant gardens (even surprisingly productive patio ones) or didn't try to bike more. We can never go back to not thinking about how our purchases from food to clothes will impact the environment. Together, because we are using our "moral imaginations" (another Gore-ism), we are seeing the future we want to create. Together we're going change the world.

—Stefania Pomponi Butler