Writing on Blog Action Day

GEORGANNA & THE ENVIRONMENT

1960s

Soon after I started married life in 1965, I began paying attention to the impact my purchases had on the environment. It didn't take me long to begin preaching water conservation, eschewing disposable paper anything, and disapproving the use of plastics. Avoiding synthetic fibers and advocating natural foods quickly followed, especially when I had a baby. My peers thought I was weird. O.K., so maybe I was a little misguided on a couple of points, like not using paper products so much.

1970s

One of my first freelance magazine sales was an article about the comeback of the brown pelican. The bird species almost died out from people's use of DDT. There followed a string of environmentally-oriented successes about the land, water and other natural resources for magazines about outdoors topics. I did not limit my creations to nonfiction, either, winning a spot on the cover of "Living Off the Land" with a poem.

1980s

By this time, the Back to the Land movement caught my fascination. I had all of Euell Gibbons' books (and still do, although they're pretty useless in California!) I was firmly in the conservation/ecology/environmentally-sensitive pocket. My car's back windows were littered with decals from supportive organizations. I moved to California and joined the Sierra Club.

An so on. An old friend paid me a great compliment years later. She said, "Georganna, we thought you were so weird, but you were just 20 years ahead of your time!"

Folks, our time is now. And it's green. Do all you can, and write about it.