Marita Prandoni has a passion for exploring different cultures and worldviews. She draws inspiration from her family, tutoring extraordinary youth, meeting unexpected heroes and from the stunning natural beauty of her home turf in and around Santa Fe, NM.
| Inviting Environmental Dialogue—Regardless of Who Is Right |
| Wednesday, 25 January 2012 | Marita Prandoni | Blog Entry |
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The opportunity to interact with people critical of environmentalists broadens my perspective. Otherwise I could get stuck in my little green microcosm. The other day I provided transportation to one such person. I had an inkling his politics were different than mine when I approached his front door. Several American flags decorated his entryway. His cocker spaniel was named “Army.” My passenger was about my age and pleasant. Until his on-the-job car accident, he was a district manager for the distribution of a brand of ice cream I had never heard of, though he said it was one of the largest in the country. Among their biggest accounts is Wal-Mart. (This is how out-of-the-loop I am). He noticed that I had a book and asked what I was reading. I told him it was about a farmer in California. He asked if I had heard about ‘California restricting water to their farmers in order to save a puny little fish.’ I recalled that it is the Delta smelt, a two-inch-long threatened fish in the Sacramento-San Joaquim Delta. It's the proverbial canary in the coal mine for the San Francisco Bay, the Pacific Coast's largest estuary ecosystem. It supports a host of wildlife up the food chain, including Coho salmon, which enter freshwater streams from the salty bay to spawn. Perhaps if farmers optimized their use of water, I suggested, there could be a chance for several species to survive. He warned that the environmental movement needs a skilled PR person because they just aren’t going to reach a broad audience with their current approach. No one will tell you he wants to have dirty air, he offered. Maybe the way to communicate about environmental issues, I ventured, is to be clear that we’re all in this together. So I offered the thought that there won’t be a select few who are lifted to heaven while the rest are left to die a miserable death on Earth. That’s when my passenger told me he was a member of the religious right and that I wasn’t going to convince him of that. So it got me thinking. How do you engage in a conversation about the broader Earth community if some people believe they’ll have an easy escape when things get really bad? If I were better versed in the New Testament, I might have been able to tackle this topic a little more cleverly. But it occurred to me later: Isn’t there a passage about the meek inheriting the Earth and that the merciful shall be shown mercy? And who could be meeker than the Delta smelt? Help the Earth, Spread the Word: Share this article with family and friends by clicking on the "Email This" or "Share This" links below right. Then see TODAY'S TOP STORIES.
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Like many who are caught in the jaws of the economic downturn, I’ve had to cobble together several small jobs to bring in a modest income. One source piggybacks on the industry that currently comprises around 17% of the US gross domestic product: healthcare. I provide transportation and interpretation services for patients who receive medical attention through workers’ compensation. This exposes me to people I might not otherwise meet in my day-to-day orbit. Often, patients are not interested in ecological issues. Sometimes they associate negatively with environmentalists. 
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