Green Options

The National Audubon Society, like so many other businesses and organizations in the United States, is struggling with the current economic recession. So much so, that they have made a significant push for contributions from their own employees.

Atlanta’s Brown Middle School teamed up with Trees Atlanta and Atlanta Audubon to launch a pilot environmental education partnership.

[Creative Commons photo by Jesse Budlong]

Together Green, the folks behind Pennies for the Planet are at it again! They’ve issued a grant that’s allowing Trees Atlanta to work with local schools on plantings and education. The program kicked off on Thursday with a student-only tree planting at Brown Middle that’s focused on giving Atlanta’s West End neighborhood along the BeltLine bird-friendly, native trees and shrubs.

The environmental group Together Green wants to empower kids to make a difference. An offshoot of the Audubon Society, they’re running the national Pennies for the Planet campaign to do just that.

[Creative Commons photo by Mindsay Mohan]

The campaign, first launched in 1995, wants to “help today’s communities nurture tomorrow’s environmental leaders” by giving kids ways to get active! This year, participants nationwide will collect change to support three national conservation projects:

Let’s just forget about restoring the Everglades, OK? And all those hundreds of thousands of acres of natural lands that Florida has acquired over the years under the conservation-aimed Florida Forever program? Who needs ‘em? Tourists mostly come to the state for that mouse in Orlando anyway, and if the locals want nature, they can plant some palms in their backyards, right?

If that’s not how you feel — and I certainly don’t — now’s the time to send a message to your elected officials in Florida asking them to reconsider what could certainly be described as the political equivalent of cutting off your nose to spite your face: a plan to address the state’s legitimately serious financial troubles by allotting zero dollars — that’s ZERO — for  the Florida Forever conservation program and Everglades restoration.

For all of Southwest Florida’s problems (congestion, a troubled real-estate market, etc.), apathy about the environment doesn’t seem to be one of them.

According to a recent telephone poll by Audubon of Florida, 91 percent of Naples/Ft. Myers residents believe the concerns of wildlife, and not just people, need to be considered when planning for development and growth. Seventy-six percent of those polled added the natural environment is very important to the quality of their life.