So a few years ago, a little movie came out called: An Inconvenient Truth, which spoke out on the dangers of global warming and global climate change. With Vice President Al Gore as its narrator and chief spokesperson, the film managed to garnish itself a pair of Oscars and grossed over $23,808,111 as of Oct 29. 2006 according to imdb.com. People were ready for a change…

When I was growing up in the 80’s, solar power was just becoming popular, wind energy was hardly even heard of, and in 50 years we were supposed to have completely run out of fossil fuels. We’d heard the stories about the rain forest depletion, the ever popular ozone hole, cow farts and automobile exhaust causing global warming, and CFCs. No one knew what to think of any of it…except that one day everything we knew would be gone.

I remember an advertisement on television in which a little boy and his parents get dressed in space suits and walked across an alien planet on their way to “somewhere.” Along the way, they converse of everyday things such as school and life, and when the family finally reaches their destination, we realize that it is a greenhouse, where they can view one of the last remaining trees on earth.

Images such as that last remaining tree stick with you over the years, and give you the realization that without continued stewardship, we would eventually end up with one tree in a museum.

It was in this early atmosphere of rising environmental importance that I wrote a letter to my senator, Tom Harkin, about the growing danger of deforestation and the need for more uses of clean energy to decrease our dependence on coal and oil. His response was a bit surprising to an 8 year old boy…alternative energy was inefficient, and while he supported the effort, as well as my interest, for the immediate future there were severe hurdles to be overcome.

That was the letter that opened my eyes to how complex the world could be. In all my naivety, I hadn’t realized that if the problem had been a simple one, then the solution would have already been found. What I would realize later, is that it was this continual environmental awareness…little by little, drop by drop…that ultimately would lead to a change in the environment as a whole. As time progressed, so would technology. Solar power became more efficient. Solar cells currently designed by Sunpower Corp rate at 21 to 22% efficient and are near their theoretical max of 26% according to an engineering friend of mine who makes them. Wind power is alive and well outside the front door of my grandmothers house in rural Iowa and is popular in the desert regions of California as well. And in 50 years we’re still going to run out of fossil fuels. But ultimately, in the social conscience, it became easier to think green, feel green, and be green.

The truth is that the 80’s were just sowing the seeds of environmentalism that later culminated in the growing activism of the 00’s. Today, environmentalism seems commonplace. Every corner on trash day contains a recycling bin full of everything from pop bottles, to tin cans, to cardboard, to glass. Nearly everything we dispose of on a daily basis is in some way recyclable if we put forth the effort. These days, you don’t even have to sort the paper from the plastics, it’s all done for you by a machine that magically takes the work out of it. Further evidence can be seen in the popularity of gas economical vehicles such as the Corolla, Civic, and Prius. The growing use of biological additives to fossil fuels such as Ethanol. And the growing popularity of green culture springing up all around us.

By the time Al Gore crossed the stage of the Grauman Chinese Theater in Hollywood, and accepted an Oscar for An Inconvenient Truth. America was already gearing up for a change.