It's Time

09.09.09 is the occasion of the launch of the citizen call-to-action campaign - 999 It's Time. While the initiative is powered by high-profile UK campaign ambassadors; the events, UK-based and the marketing 'hook' 999, UK-relevant - the big message and the model is global.

If you're a UK citizen, 999 is what you dial in an emergency. What 999 It's Time has to say is that it is time to make the call that sustainable living is an emergency.

Who around the world can really argue with: "Socially, economically and ecologically, we're in a State of Emergency" or "If not us then who? If not now then when?"

Making the call, declaring the emergency, comes down to individual responsibility. In taking action, we each make an expression of our personal power.

We do make a difference - even one simple action has phenomenal ripple-effects: When we refuse to buy products containing palm oil at our local supermarket, we resist the cutting down of forests in Indonesia and Malaysia which destroys the habitat of endangered creatures such as Orang-U-Tangs and Sumatran TIgers. We become extraordinary powerful protectors when we choose to be aware and active about what we buy on an ordinary day, in an ordinary shopping aisle.

999 It's Time is one of many current, great efforts to emphasise that to get to the point where human beings live within the bounds of Nature is not some place that governments or corporations are going to miraculously transport us to. In fact, all signs are showing that it's going to happen despite governments and corporations.

It's about you and me and the day to day choices that we make. To paraphrase the great Mahatma Ghandi, we are the change we want to see in the world. Don't expect anyone or anything else to do it for you. It's time to step up and make those individual day to day choices that protect, foster, restore, renew, recreate, renew...

There is such a wealth of information on how to do this on the Internet. If you're new to this, start with http://www.999itstime.org/ - it's an intelligent and heart-warming adventure, and it's readily available. Make a change for the better, take an action that makes a real difference and give generously to the long future. As you bless, you will be blessed.

Post-script:

I'm proud of this photo today - this is a close-up of the first spring bloom of Clivia miniata in my garden. I'm proud of South Africa when I note that it is indigenious. How beautiful! My baby looked at the real thing and she said, "Wow!"