Travel & Lifestyle Freelance Writer | Market Research Consultant
I was faced with my own non-indispensability this morning.
While walking through the parking lot on my way to the intern quarantine at the Daily Camera, I wondered what the headline would be if someone accidentally ran me over:
“Intern smooshed in parking lot”
“Devastating car accident leaves intern flattened”
Basically, I don’t think I’ve been working here long enough to earn a more refined moniker.
I need to start working harder.
So this morning’s Conference of World Affairs panel was awesome.
I’d like to think I had some role in that awesomeness … I didn’t.
The three women who spoke (the topic was, after all, “Women Saving the Environment”) were all so wise. They’d seen and done so many things.
Jayni Chase has worked to promote environmental education in schools for the past 22 years.
Andrea Moffat is the vice president of the corporate program Ceres, a national network of investors, environmental organizations and public interest groups.
And Kavita Ramdas (who is now my personal heroine) served as the president and CEO of the Global Fund for Women from 1996 through 2010.
All of them made excellent points about women’s role(s) in helping to save our planet. Here are a few of my favorite:
1. Women make roughly 80 percent of the purchases in the United States. That’s huge! Ads are directed toward us; commercials appeal to our preferences; marketing campaigns want the women to like their product. That role as society’s main consumers can have an enormous impact on the way in which companies are run. Let’s use that pull to do something great (and green)!
2. Listen to the women. In third world sectors of the world especially, it’s the women who are concerned with the health of the children, the welfare of the community; the men are too often simply looking to make a buck.
3. Consider the womb. It’s mostly water, an enclosed environment, just like Earth and its atmosphere. You can expound on the analogy (or completely refute it), but both can be considered a home.
4. God told Adam to reap and Eve to sow. Adam’s been doing a stand-up job; now it’s time for Eve to get moving too.
5. Don’t drink bottled water. For crying out loud, we’re lucky enough to live in a country that has clean water … why are we buying it in bottles that too often end up in a landfill?
6. Only a tiny number (forgive me; I forget the exact statistic) of Fortune 500 companies are run by women. It’s time we step it up, ladies.
Come and check out the panel I’m moderating this morning (I know, kind of last minute notice).
It’s from 9-10:20 in the Atlas Black Box … I really have no idea where that is in Atlas, but I’m sure some knowledgeable individual at the Pekoe coffee shop will.
We’ll be discussing “Women Saving the Environment.” Should be great!
This just in.
She parked in her spot, so her parked in Photo‘s spot. Photo man is pissed and parked in someone else’s spot out front. He also left a nasty note on her‘s vehicle.
Fingers are pointing and blame is firing through the building as we speak.
Moral of the story: Park in your own damn spot.
Spring is springing here in Boulder.
Sure, the weather’s warming and the robin has returned.
Arguably the best indicator, however, is the recent reappearance of the sprinkler … something I was made aware of just this morning.
No, I didn’t just see it; I rode my little red bicycle right through it’s jet stream.
See, for all of the participants in and graduates from higher education who live here, it seems that the difference between cement, asphalt and grass remains a mystery.
Similarly, for all of those environmental Nazis, er, advocates, you’d think that they’d be concerned enough about wasting water to at least direct the sprinkler’s water flow in the direction of something that’s some hue of green.
Alas.
I love Boulder’s summer months, but the sprinkler conundrum continues to miff me.
Just played chicken with a squirrel while on my bike … I won.