Plot to Save the Earth

I’ve blogged before in the past about my friend and inspiration Charles S. Prebish. I interviewed Chuck and John Harding about the late Leslie Kawamura for Buddhadharma: The Practitioner’s Quarterly Online; did a roundtable conversation with him, my buddy Justin Whitaker and Sarah Haynes for Ted Meissner’s The Secular Buddhist Podcast; and reviewed his memoir An American Buddhist Life: Memoirs of a Modern Dharma Pioneer in the last issue of The Journal of Global Buddhism.

Chuck wrote to me recently and sent along the pictured patch, explaining to me that it was part of a project for Sumeru Books’ amazingly great blog, and asking if I would be interested in adding to it. Over at the blog, Yönten explains:

My cousin, Mickey Glantz, is a world-renowned climatologist from Boulder, CO. (http://fragilecologies.com) When the Vietnamese and Americans normalized relations after the Vietnam war, he was the first person they invited to visit. He designed the badge while he was in Kathmandu recently for a climate change conference.

The hand belongs to Dhiraj Pradhananga, who runs Small Earth Nepal (http://www.smallearth.org.np), who is doing advanced education work in Canmore, AB  this year.

Between the three of us, we have cooked up what we think is an awesome idea.

Dhiraj has had 108+ similar badges manufactured by cottage industry ladies in Nepal for $1.25 each. Good business for local handicrafts persons, working out of shops the size of half a North American single-car garage.

I’m selling them, at cost, plus shipping and handling and any donation you care to make ($5+ suggested, covers costs and a small contribution). All profits will go to NGOs in Nepal and Bhutan: environmental action, education for girls, and orphanages . Some badges say “Plot to Save the Planet” and some say “Plot to Save the Earth.” There are three different designs, which I’ll show in later posts. Let me know which you like best.

What I really want is for people to take pictures of their “Plot to Save the Earth” badges in front of their favourite local nature spots, all over the planet, and send them to me to post. I’m hoping the pictures also start popping up all over the web. It’s a great heartfelt message for anyone who has the good fortune to see one of them. How cool is that!

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Write me if you want a badge! Sumeru, Box 2089, Richmond Hill, ON, Canada L4E 1A3. Don’t forget to tell me your mailing address.

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We’ve also started a Facebook Group: Plot to Save the Earth

Sumeru already has some of the photos up at their blog, and you can see them here.

I’ve previously written about my own environmental work, and you can read about that here. Obviously, I was happy to participated in this effort and decided to contribute my own photo (shown above). As a city slicker these days, I decided to put the focus on one of my favorite green spaces in Los Angeles: the Central Library.

I hope you’ll consider joining Sumeru and others in this cool project!