We Need All of Us Acting Together – Today and Every Day – For A Better New Year

“The future doesn’t exist. The only thing that exists is now and our memory of what happened in the past. But because we invented the idea of a future, we’re the only animal that realized we can affect the future by what we do today.”                                  – David Suzuki, scientist, environmental activist and longtime hose of CBC’s ‘The Nature of Things’

A New Year Message from Doug Draper, Niagara At Large

Posted December 31st, 2023

A happier, healthier future is in our hands. Let’s work together to make it happen.

All of the havoc far too many people here and around the world have been through over this passing year leaves one to wonder and possibly dread what 2024 will bring.

For that reason, I find it a bit too Pollyannish to simply offer up to one and all a full-throated Happy New Year.

Given the times and all the challenges we collectively face, the usual drive-by wish for a Happy New Year just doesn’t seem to cut it.

Instead, my wish for the New Year is that as many of us as possible do  what we can do today and every day to make the coming year and all the years to follow better than the one we are saying good bye to.

And in that spirit and with your patience, I wish to leave you with just a few ideas of what we all can and must do together –

• We can begin by weighing every decision we make in life with the impact our choices to do one thing or another have on our Earth’s climate.

• Let’s all do our best to become more engaged in in our communities with this priority in mind – to make our communities healthier and more friendly and  affordable  for all. Don’t’ count on politicians and others to do this for us. We all have an important role to play in building more livable communities for the present and future.

• To all that this may apply to (and I’m afraid it applies to far too many), do the following, at least for a while. Turn off the smart phones and remove the ear bugs that shut what is going on immediately around you and engage in more face-to-face relationships with your fellow human beings. At the very least, you might find it is one good way of overcoming the epidemic of loneliness and depression so many are suffering through today.

• Let’s do what we all can to support public transit by using it or at least pressing our elected representatives at all levels of government to give public transit the resources it needs to make it more affordable and convenient to use. Let’s not risk the quality of our lives and possibly our survival by continuing through another century dominated by the car and all of the bad urban planning and other unsustainable fallout –both economically and environmentally – that comes with it.

• 

  Gas fueled cars or electric cars – our world can’t survive more of this.

  While we are on the subject of cars, let’s all try our best  not to be fooled by any notion that if we can only shift away from cars powered by carbon-polluting fossil fuel to electric cars t run on rechargeable batteries, we will have done quite bit of what we have to do to address the climate crisis. The continued mass use of cars- gas fueled or electric – would still mean more roads and highways and more urban sprawl, permanently destroying ever more of what food-growing lands and other green lands we have left. Let’s not be fooled into thinking that electric cars are the solution. Some people’s idea of a ‘quick fix’ perhaps, but definitely not the solution.

• For the sake of strengthening our local economies and creating and sustaining good jobs, let’s do whatever we can and whenever we can, to use the money in our wallets to purchase our food from local food-growers and to purchase other goods and services we need from locally owned and operated businesses rather than corporate chains that take as much money as possible out of our communities and giving as little as they can, expensively as they can, back.

• Finally, let’s work together to build back local, independently-owned  newspapers and other news outlets with the resources necessary to provide us with the information we need in a free and open democracy to know what we need to know to make our communities better and to make sure our elected representatives are putting the common good of the public first.

• Wishing You All A Better Year in 2024 – Doug Draper, Niagara At Large

“Change is never easy, and it often creates discord, but when people come together for the good of humanity and the Earth, we can accomplish great things.” –                                                              – David Suzuki, scientist,environmental activist and longtime hose of CBC’s ‘The Nature of Things’

NIAGARA AT LARGE Encourages You To Join The Conversation By Sharing Your Views On This Post In The Space Following The Bernie Sanders Quote Below.

“A Politician Thinks Of The Next Election. A Leader Thinks Of The Next Generation.” – Bernie Sanders