Today is the birthday of sofreshandsogreen.com. My bouncing baby blog is a 1 year old and that’s thanks to you guys. It’s also my birthday and for me it’s been quite a journey because at times I may teach, or even preach, but I learn as you learn. I’ve had the opportunity to connect with so many great folks out there and I’m glad I could be a part of educating, informing and entertaining.

It’s an amazing time for me as a Black person interested in the environment. We have the nation’s first Black president Barack Obama and organic gardener Michelle Obama as first lady, the first Black Head Administrator of the EPA, Lisa P. Jackson, Eric Holder as the first Black Attorney General (from New York!) and the first Black governor of New York, David Paterson. I’m not so into the first Black anything (hell I’m not even much of a birthday person, haha) so it’s also great to have people on the ground like Majora Carter who built a Sustainable South Bronx and brought some green into the birthplace of Hip Hop.

It’s great to see those who want to “green” a devastated city like Detroit with community farms and gardens as well as the efforts to rebuild greener communities in post Katrina New Orleans.

And, of course, it was tremendously exciting to live to see Van Jones enter the White House as an adviser to this administration even though he’s no longer there.

I wanted this site to highlight the diversity and presence of persons of color in the environmental movement that I am ever discovering the depth of. I also wanted to inform and I’ve struggled with the best way to do that. One of my inspirations Van Jones insisted Black people needed to get informed about the environment because the stakes are particularly high for us and with his 2-birds-1-stone solution he felt Black people/poor people had so much to gain. Not only did he introduce me to the green jobs solution, but he validated my position that Black folks are already pretty green, even though we would never call it that, and that green need not be synonymous with white. We’re all on this planet together.

At times I thought it best to focus on activism and politics, forsaking the small things we do that add up to big consequences, like climate change refugees. It thought offering green tips might be pointless, like a drop of water in an ocean. In a recent speech Jones made I’ve decided those small acts can have such large ramifications and even lead to a real change in mindset of an individual.

Jones said in reference to BP’s oil volcano, the largest environmental disaster in US history:

We’re living in a world where we can have non linear bad outcomes. Dramatically unbelievably bad outcomes when somebody makes a small act based on greed.

Which means, in a rational universe, that we can have non linear good outcomes. Unbelievable good outcomes, totally, wildly, unpredictable good outcomes from small acts based on love.

Just like that person who made that decision had no idea how much bad he or she was going to do, you have no idea how much good you can do. You have no idea. No idea at all. No idea at all…

So sofreshandsogreen.com is my small act of love and what’s on this site represents my sack full of dreams for the world.

Here’s a little Donny Hathaway singing my life with his words. Sure that’s not Hip Hop, but it’s dope!

Buy Sack Full Of Dreams (Live @ The Troubador, Los Angeles, CA) at Amazon.com

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