Earth Day and it is Warm...

Everyone is outside enjoying the warm spring weather and the jonquils and forsythia are in full bloom.  Central Park is crowded... I played there all yesterday afternoon on assignment and will head back out later this afternoon.  Lola and Pale Male fans are watching for signs of viable eggs, like this guy, above, looking through the telescope set up for just that purpose. I sat on a bench next to the toy boat pond and a woman told me her theory: Lola's eggs can't be kept warm because the building ledge where the nest has been built has little metal spikey things so that the air circulates under the nest.  ok.  Sounds logical to me.  Another person watching the red-tailed hawk pair thinks that global warming has disrupted their cycles.

"Oh, I just can relate to Lola. I know what it is like to put so much effort into something and then just have it never amount to anything," the woman next to me said as we talked of Lola's eggs.  She is in the finance business and works on commission.   I care about mothers on the ledge of things, so I nod.  All of New York cares about Lola, it seems, as I watch these Lola-gazers with binoculars on the benches peer at Pale Male peeking out of the nest. 

Well Google, the $150 billion juggernaut, hasn't let all its profits take the play away but the seriousness of Google's Earth Day graphic today is worth noting. 

In all seriousness, attention needs to be given to this year's farm bill, up for the next cycle of congressional approval.  Its influence on the environment, immigration, our collective health and well-being makes it an issue for all of us to heed.  What is happening with agricultural subsidies and policies is just wrong. A good article,  You Are What You Grow, by food author and journalist Michael Pollan on the subject when I can get it.  When I was a new mother and shopping for the family, someone told me to shop the perimeter of the grocery store and to buy local when I could.  Mothers should be acting on this issue - for the health of our families, our farms and the earth.

Comments

[tut-tut]

Thanks for that Google graphic. And I have the Pollan article set aside to read this week. I'm glad he's a regular in the NY Times magazine.

I remember the first Earth Day; does anyone else?

[Bellezza]

Ah, Earth Day, a true harbinger of Spring. My husband and I took our first bike rides of the season this weekend, against a fierce wind today, but isn't it glorious to be outside?

[SusieJ]

Thanks for all the links -- very informative, as always.

[Old Horsetail Snake]

Is this the one where the tobacco industry gets its subsidy? A subsidy that seems to fly in the face of the Surgeon General's ominous warnings? That one?

[Lauri]

Thanks for the Google graphic. And the encouragement to do more for our planet.

[mcewen]

Seems to have created a mini storm [the google ad] all by itself.
Cheers