Sometimes all we need is a walk on the beach.
Last week, I took a walk on Carbon Beach (also known as Billionaire’s Beach) with my daughter, Eden, who is ten. At low tide, we admired the pretty shells and rocks in the sand. She noticed a washed-up lobster, a seagull flying overhead, and the vintage blue of the inside of a lifeguard boat, motoring towards the Malibu pier….
We spoke about which homes we liked and which we didn’t; and for a moment I felt grateful that we still had that beach, a beach wide enough to amble and suddenly play tag—especially when I fear that such beaches and the houses that ring them, will likely be swallowed up by rising ocean levels as we lose the fight against global warming. So for a moment, I felt thankful for a public beach at low tide. And for beaches everywhere!!!
In the last long-ish newsletter, I wondered how so many billionaires seem to keep investing in industries and business practices that lead to the death of life on Earth. How fitting that the real name of Billionaire’s Beach is Carbon Beach! I wonder: how many of the billionaires on that beach continue to invest in fossil fuel industries that fill our atmosphere with carbon?
[Ecstatic Dance on Venice Beach, ecstaticdancela.com]
Just as the people reclaimed Carbon Beach for us, We the People can reclaim a healthy Earth for ourselves, through our choices—whether simple ones, such as the clothing we buy, wear and love, or more complex ones, such as protecting and strengthening the hard-won right to vote, for all citizens, and to have our votes matter.
On that note, I’m happy to share that Paul Hawken, the author who edited the global-cooling book Drawdown, just released his most up-to-date work about how our generation can meet the seemingly impossible challenges we face. In Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation, Hawken describes how the social and environmental problems we created are connected; and how we can address them in practical, efficient ways that harmonize with nature, protecting people, animals and the environment. In all, the book offers many examples that rebut the doomsayers (and even our own pessimistic voices) who say it’s too late.
Here in the comfort of this mild, sunny Culver City afternoon, I give thanks this holiday season for the micro and macro gifts: the everyday gift of waking, washing my face, petting our loving dog Aesop, putting on some fresh Vital Hemp clothing, filling the glass with clean running water, enjoying a little avocado, seeing blue sky and green leaves on the trees, speaking with a sister or brother or mother, remembering my father, and knowing that just as his family faced the challenges of Nazism and tyranny in Europe, we can face and surmount similar threats at home.
All is not lost while we still have a will to fight, to demand freedom and accountability, supporting solutions that serve--not just the few who own homes on Billionaire’s Beach, but all who may ever tread there, and all the species that still live in the oceans and on these vital lands.
We are grateful for our Vital family, who have joined us on this journey over the last eighteen years. To thank you for this support (and for reading this far), we are offering an automatic 20% discount on our entire store, 11/26-27, Green Friday (because green is the new black, as ever!) and Small Business Saturday.
Thanks for being vital,
Ron
Ron Alcalay
Founder/CEO/Hemperdasher
ron@vitalhemp.com
vitalhemp.com
~Let Us Hemp You Out!~
