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Natural Awakenings Dallas -Fort Worth Metroplex Edition

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Letter from Publisher

It appears that North Texas forgot fall this year, and some wonder if it means a long winter. I find winter a relief after a particularly contentious ragweed and allergy season. While I had hoped the severe allergy symptoms that interrupted nightly sleep would pass quickly, I fear that climate change may have more in store. Because global warming occurs incrementally over many years, most people fi nd it difficult to muster the moral outrage and will to take the sometimes inconvenient steps and costly actions to curb it. Too often, it takes an acute catastrophe to startle us to significant, effective action.

Fresh from attending this year’s South By Southwest Eco conference, in Austin, and our own metro area’s second Earth, Wind and Fire Conference by the Dallas Sierra Club, I am all “eco’d-up”. Experts shared undeniable, research-based evidence on how the acquisition and use of fossil fuels is harming the health of people and the planet, sounding an urgent call to action. Attendees also learned about some answers and reasons for hope in addressing a range of critical environmental issues. I came away convinced that the current overlay of fracking sites, toxic fracking wastewater injection sites and earthquake zones leaves zero room for plausible deniability when, not if, things go terribly wrong— we need to head off disasters in the making.

Still, hope reigns eternal, and at SXSW I had the privilege to listen to and meet with many experts and smart thinkers engaged in cutting-edge projects such as growing meat-like substances in Petri dishes, bioengineering commonly used materials, cleaning up waterways, using technology to farm sustainably and altering our built environment to suit a human scale. I pray that humanity decides that enough is enough before we fall off an environmental cliff that threatens our survival, along with other life on Earth.

At Natural Awakenings of Dallas-Fort Worth, we strive to bring you information about key issues in ways that show how each affects our own and our children’s lives now and going forward. Because healthy living is green and green living is healthy, and these are inextricably connected, we must care for our environment as much as we care about our own health, even though we may not as readily feel Earth’s aches and pains.

Our publishing family also maintains that it’s possible to solve persistent environmental and health issues, because all that we need to do so has already been provided for us by our Creator. We’ve been given an environment that is self-sustaining on its own with everything life needs to survive and thrive, including self-healing organisms. Our job is to properly care for these gifts and recognize that we cause most problems and dysfunctions ourselves.

As always, we hope that you fi nd helpful ideas that will move you forward in your personal journey toward healthier and happier living. We also encourage everyone to act on a broader scale to take special care of our beloved planet— she needs us.

Blessings,

Bernice Signature

Bernice Butler, Publisher

Contact me at: [email protected]