If we want to stick around, every day must be EARTH DAY.

It's Earth Day!!! Earth Day DAMMIT. This day has been around awhile. Going on about 4 decades. Almost my entire life. And guess what? We've done kind of a piss-poor job heeding the call. What's it gonna take, People? I mean, c'mon... I'm simply an infertile woman over here--never going to be bringing a kid into the world. Though admittedly (and I previously have) I was fairly conflicted between my drive to procreate and parent my own bio child and the fact that our poor planet hardly needs another mouth to feed.

Hey, here's an upside to being a non-mom... If I use more than my fair share of paper towels, I've got the perfect greenie (albeit hypocritical) comeback: I didn't have any kids. I didn't ADD to the carbon footprint beyond myself!

I don't intend to alienate those readers busy fighting the good IF fight, or those who fought and won, or even those who are raising another's bio child as their own. I don't hold it against humankind that the drive to procreate overrides the reality that our planet can only sustain so many people before it starts to implode. Anyone hear of "maximum capacity"? Not a new concept and fairly self-explanatory. But we humans are who we are. We have needs, we seek to fill them. We're a pretty indisputably selfish creature as creatures go.

I'm writing this in the same awareness-raising vein with which I've become all too accustomed. Since I've lost my main subject matter--the PROCESS of TTC--I've been struggling with what approach I want to take with this blog. Obviously I've become an unwitting member of the Infertility Awareness club. Sure, we in the club didn't choose to suffer the inequities we deal with from this medical malady, but suffer we do. Suffer in silence? No thanks. I've got no compunction to get in people's faces about the trials me and my sisters have been through. I try not to be too vitriolic, but I refuse to lie or be silent. It dishonors myself and the 7+ million/14+ million worldwide who deal with the blows IF blithely tosses our way. The silence gives "victimization" power. That said, unlike infertility, global warming affects US ALL. It's not about percentages affected, I'm talking our species. I hope I'm preaching to the choir. I do. I fear I'm not.

I'm stressing the importance of this day to cajole those of you who may struggle with the inadvertent apathy your busy lives present. Or perhaps the apathy stems from the reality that the depth of our need to improve our environment is, in fact, overwhelming and depressing. It is. That's all there is to it. But change CAN happen. We have President Obama to corroborate that sentiment and fact. Change happens with each person... and with each new person brought into this world, we can effect the change needed by how they're shaped. This change is everyone's responsibility to implement. But you, you my dear readers who are lucky enough to parent, YOU hold the key to the future of our species and this planet surviving.

So I remind you to remind yourselves and loved ones: DO SOMETHING. Effect change. You know, cause and effect and all. Change your friggin' light bulbs to those lovely corkscrew-looking babies. The habits you create sans children will be well-entrenched by the time the stork plops them in your long-awaiting laps. If you've already been so blessed to be parents, START GREENING YESTERDAY. Those little sponges will follow suit. Everyone's behavior DOES affect everyone else. We are all interlinked because essentially, we're all stuck on this big blue orbiting spherical island.

Still don't feel like making sure you rinse that aluminum To Go container for the recycling heap? Read the news lately? Not pretty. Polar bears tragically drowning as they find their weight unsupported by the dissolving ice. Seasonal changes with unprecedented weather fluctuations. Searing heat, frigid winters, tornadoes, hurricanes, landslides, oh the list goes on.

Annnd... wait for it... species dying off at an alarming rate.

Perhaps we who are unable to procreate are simply ahead of a curve we can and must curb?

Now, go grow a drought resistant garden, plant a tree, recycle, turn off lights, walk for errands, bring reusable bags to the grocery store, write manufacturers to use less packaging, boycott brands you don't believe in + support the ones you do, mitigate your carbon footprint and rise above apathy so we can give a future to those embies/babies/children you're trying so hard to bring into this beautiful world.