This equation of Einstein’s states that energy is equal to (or inherently the same as) the mass of an object multiplied by the speed of light ( a constant) squared. Since the speed of light is a constant, the most important parts of this equation are energy on one side and mass on the other. The terms energy and mass are terms that can be exchanged for other terms in order to really understand what this equation says.

Energy can refer to motion, resistance, heat, light, impetus, push and pull, emotion, and any other type of action.

Mass can refer to matter, body, objects, rocks, carpet, the human body, and any other type of physical existent.

So, on one side of the equation you have non-physical action, or pure energy, and on the other side of the equation you have physical existents, or pure mass. And what is it that this equation does to these two aspects of reality? It equates them (as an equation is wont to do). Matter and energy are the exact same thing in two different forms – the constant in the formula (the speed of light) does not separate the energy and mass, it just explains an inherent ratio. More simply, it shows that there is a hell of a lot of energy in every speck of matter.

Einstein’s equation serves as a unifier; it shows that everything in the universe, at the most fundamental level, is the same. For what is there besides matter and energy? Body and motion? Being and doing, perhaps? The thing is, at the deepest core, we shouldn’t even need to connect the two concepts with an article (“and”), because they are the same, and by doing so we create a redundancy. It would probably make more universal sense for our group to say Being Is Doing (but BID is not as fun to use in an promotional sense as BAD).

What exactly does all of this ethereal (yet scientifically very real) stuff have to do with every day life? Well, in my opinion, just about everything. When considered along with the Laws of Thermodynamics (Energy can neither be created nor destroyed; Matter can neither be created nor destroyed), it means that everything that we (human beings – the synthesis of matter and energy) do is manifested in the world around us, whether we realize it or not. The butterfly effect is not unique to the insect in China and the weather on the other side of the globe; the butterfly effect is taking flight out of every single thought and every single action that we have or act on.

Being And Doing, Inc. is a nonprofit organization that provides volunteer service and promotional ability to other charitable organizations in the hopes of generating a feeling of family amongst groups that do Good. It is also an experiment, testing the hypothesis of E=Mc2. If we take responsibility for our thoughts and actions, and focus our energy on the people and things that we believe need amplification, can we create a noticeable and positive change? Will it spread outward from our focus into the focus of others?

If you want to change the physical world, you first have to be able to change your mental world. In reality, there is no difference between the two.

Energy=Mass multiplied by a gargantuan number.

Thanks Paule G., we couldn’t have formulated our plan with confidence without you.

Over the course of these three weeks, we have gotten some important paperwork completed (thank you Mickie Rinehart), networked with a few people who are supportive and connected, determined where our next few travels will take us, re-painted and double-checked the van, and worked on some personal issues that needed to be unearthed. It is these that I would like to take a moment to reflect on.

BAD, Inc. is a legitimate nonprofit organization and, as directors, we believe wholeheartedly in our mission, which is “to promote the people and initiatives of the extensive nonprofit sector and the concept of working for a purpose rather than profitability” (as stated in our newly-drafted bylaws!). All three of us are fully dedicated to this mission, and that dedication is enough to keep us moving and grooving. Let’s hold onto that as an overarchingly important given.

At the same time, we are three passionate, strong-headed friends and siblings in our early-twenties who have been and will be living together in very close quarters. Our one-week stay was prolonged not only by necessary organizational development, but also by some badly needed personal and communal reflection.

Is this something that we want to do and feel confidant that we are able to continue doing? YES.

Will we be able to get back into that van and maintain respect and honesty with one another? WHO KNOWS?

In fact, one of us almost reached the point of saying that he or she should not continue along in order to maintain the authenticity of BAD, Inc. There was some confusion as to whether or not this individual was able to be a productive member given his or her personal uncertainties. However, after some honest, feel-it-in-your-bones conversation, I (and I believe I can speak for the three of us) have come to the conclusion that it would be utterly impossible for any two of us to continue BAD’s mission. We are all three so deeply embedded into the fabric of Being And Doing that for two of us to continue without the third would be an absurdity. Being And Doing is three words, three people, one organization, with one purpose: to amplify Good energy and Good people.

We have been forced to mature very quickly, and we are all at different stages of development. It took some intense pushing back and forth before being able to settle into respectful and sustainable roles. I touched on Empedocles’s concept of Love and Strife in my post about Zamforia Industries, and the concept is just as applicable to the dynamics of BAD. Love and Strife are two forces of nature that occur concurrently and constantly, and they need to maintain a balance for equilibrium. They push and pull before realizing that they simply have to deal with each other, otherwise chaos is the name of the game; and chaos is, by definition, crazy.

So, all questions of dedication and ability are out of the way. We have come to terms with the fact that we cannot read one another’s minds, and that we might not always be on the same page when it comes to our respective personal motivations; but the one thing we have determined is that the whole is more than the sum of its parts, and we need all the parts for the whole to function properly.

The "whole" working smoothly (no way are we done)

The whole of Being And Doing is set to hit the road again, hopefully with newfound respect and vision. We will be leaving for the Windy City on Sunday to work with a shelter for victims of domestic abuse, and then it is up into the wilds of Michigan to be of service at a national forest. Thank you for your patience and your support, stay tuned as we continue to develop our ability to express our mission on our website and hopefully help create a family of nonprofits across the country.

p.s. I would like to take this post-script to remind you that we have been working on our organization’s development the entire time we have been home. There is no such thing as wasted time as long as it is being wasted on something you care deeply about.

Racine, OH (Elisa Young, Guy Rose, Cindy Parker)

There is no such thing as an issue that is too big for your time and energy. If there is injustice taking place in your community (be that immediate or global), disregarding it as something out of your control is a poor excuse. For change to begin to occur, all it takes is for one person to see a problem and to have the courage to openly talk about it. Complacency is the enemy of true progress.

Money and jobs are extremely strong motivating factors. Sometimes, they are even stronger than necessary biological factors (such as clean oxygen and pure water). This is not to say that earning a living is unimportant (quite the contrary), but when money becomes an ends as opposed to a means, a necessity as opposed to a resource, the importance of money becomes inflated and it casts a shadow over the real issues at stake.

As our worldview has become more and more scientific and scrutinizing, we have collectively lost touch with our connection to the natural world. The fact that “nature” has taken on the meaning of “the place where people do not live” is really telling of how humanity has mentally separated itself from the earth. Since, objectively speaking, we are living, organic beings, it is becoming increasingly important for us to see ourselves as part of the world and its processes as opposed to some special phenomenon that can do what it pleases without consequence.

Simple living is honest living – or – at the very least, simple living takes less energy to defend itself as honest living.

Cosmic Wink from a Lil Pup

Alliance, OH (Hugh O’Brian Youth Leadership Seminar)

There is a lot of talk today about how hope lies with the youth and the upcoming generations. I believe that this is very true. However, I do not think they are going to fix things in the manner that the powers-that-be will expect or actually welcome. The young people of today are not going to lead by having their hands held; they are going to lead by holding the hands of the older generations and showing them how to understand the world differently.

In popular culture, young people are portrayed as semi-unconscious, selfish, catty, arrogant, and dismissive. Granted, caring about things is not actually considered as cool as getting a new iPhone, and a lot of young people today tend to put up a front of nonchalant self-confidence. But, when a high school sophomore is given the chance to speak his or her mind without the fear of being critiqued or negated, he or she is surprisingly aware of the problems in the world and wants nothing more than to talk about the solutions. All we need to do is to give the individual kids more credit, and put out of our minds that the music and reality shows popular among the youth are indicative of who is listening to and watching them. The creators of popular culture are all business executives and producers.

Honest discussion needs to be fostered by a willingness to learn from the innocence of children and youth.

Philadelphia, PA (Cradles to Crayons Philly)

In developing a strategy, it is important to use a model insofar as it can help you conceptualize an idea, but the specifics have to be catered to the unique needs of your personal project.

For a nonprofit to be successful, all you need are a small corps of highly dedicated, energetic, and confidant individuals who are willing and wanting to expend their energy on an important cause. Once you have this base, donations and volunteers naturally gravitate to the good work being done. It is definitely a constant process of input and output that needs to be thoroughly maintained, but once the cogs are set spinning and a vision is shared, an organization that works to better the world will grow and develop simply because it is truly needed.

A person can be so successful as to be the envy of everyone around them, but monetary and material success does not equate to fulfillment. Accumulation does not make a person feel like they are impacting the world around them, which is a necessity if what one desires is existential solace (commonly spoken of as peace of mind). If it is peace of mind that you are interested in, give of yourself to help someone else have physical peace; it is then that you can be made aware of your own importance in the world and you can feel calmed.

Boston, MA (Cradles to Crayons Boston, Zamforia Industries)

When an organization grows to a certain size, stability becomes just as important as growth and development. More people who believe in and advocate for the mission of the organization are needed to sustain what has been developed thus far so that further development will have a solid base on which to stand. The mission and purpose of the organization needs to be communicated simply and clearly so that, as more people become involved, the ideals behind the group are not lost as it becomes more and more standardized.

Volunteer labor is vital to organizations that rely on it. However, if people do not take their work seriously because they think that volunteer labor is somehow unimportant or bottom-of-the-rung work, they can be more of a hindrance than a help.

No matter how much work is done to help people who are in need, the problem grows just as fast, if not faster, than the solution can handle. It seems like there will one day be a tipping point where we all need to start helping each other, or no one will be in a position to help each other.

Kindness begets kindness. If you are welcomed by a person or a group of people, and you in turn are welcoming to them, a system of mutual desire to care for one another can develop. All it takes is an earnest desire to learn from one another and to make the fleeting moments that you share beneficial to both parties.

Cradles to Crayons to Cool People

Bar Harbor, ME (Friends of Acadia, Acadia National Park Veg Crew)

As the human population and the spread of civilization grows, it is increasingly important for our natural havens to be looked after and maintained. Development continues to take over new land, adding to the development that has taken place over the past few centuries, and the surface area of the earth isn’t exactly growing with it. With this in mind, as human civilization spreads, natural beauty and diversity is at risk. Some people might not see this as a problem, but those who value the experience of feeling small when compared to the grandeur of an un-manipulated mountain, it is an enormous problem.

You are never too old or too tired to be needed or productive. In fact, the more you disregard that sentiment and get out to work on something you believe in, the younger you act and feel. As long as you make yourself something of import, no matter how big or how small, you will be rewarded with increased energy and vitality because you have a sense of and objective examples of your impact on the world around you.

When it comes to working for a good cause, age is no longer a factor – in regards to actual physical ability AND intergenerational respect.

It is important to be aware of the highly-publicized problems in the world today (such as climate change), but they should not drown out the less-publicized problems (such as invasive plant-life). If we are to be the mature species that we ought to be after however many thousand years of development (and however many million years of evolution), we have to be able to see all problems as important and all solutions as necessary.

__________________________________________________________________________

So, there you go. Some insights that are probably really obvious and some that might be a bit more obscure. These are just some thoughts that I ruminated over as I thought about each location that we spent time in over that past six weeks. But, what is the one over-arching theme that we have experienced from day one until today?

The current that is flowing beneath the surface of our everyday experience is a crying out for redefinition. We need to redefine our position in the world (i.e., our families, communities, globe, and universe) and see ourselves as all-purpose tools for Good, and there are a lot of people out there today who are already leading that charge.

A hero, in my opinion, is someone who exhibits certain qualities that you wish you could embody yourself (and, of course, like all heroes, uses them only for good). He or she possesses more-than-human abilities insofar as you are the human in question. You try to emulate them and learn from them so that your own natural tendencies and instincts evolve to include the aspects of your hero that you hold so highly. For example, Plato is one of my heroes, as well as Dr. Seuss. I try to understand the world using universal concepts (per Plato) while also understanding that the most basic ideas and modes of communication are the most important (per Dr. Seuss).

So what happens when you discover that your hero is really not the person that you thought he or she was? Were you tricked? Were you deluded? Either way, your world changes very quickly. All of a sudden, the person that you were attempting to model certain parts of your life after instantaneously becomes someone completely different (in your mind, at least). What are you supposed to do with all of the training and energy that was put in to developing yourself in the model of the hero in question? Was it all for naught? Do you immediately change course?

After some serious speculation, I have come to the conclusion that nothing really changes except your relation to the person. Your hero is now a human being that is flawed just like the rest of us. You can now interact with that person (either physically or mentally) on an even playing field. There is no longer any ranking. You have lost a model, but gained a fellow.

And what about all of the energy that you put into your own personal “hero training”? Was that wasted? Not really – and here is my reasoning. I hope you are ready for it. Once you discover that your hero is not really the person that you thought he or she was, all of a sudden, that perfection that you believed in so much is now a void (or has been all along). It is gone! The modes of being that you looked so highly upon are now nothing more than figments of your imagination. Whenever there is a void, there is something that innately wants to fill it (a vacuum sucks because it needs matter to fill the void). And that is where you step in. Once your hero is no longer a physical person, your hero exists only in your mind. Therefore, you are your hero and have been all along.  Once your hero is no longer physically embodied, your concept is all the more real. You now only have yourself to emulate.

Just like the Buddha said not to worship him but to find your own path, we should not try to be like our heroes, but use our abstract conception of them to propel ourselves forward.

As a trio of three idealistic realists (or realistic idealists – it depends on the time and place), we certainly butt heads over certain things from time to time. Surprisingly, we have been very communal when it comes to the big decisions, such as the location of our next service destination or what to do for recreation. However, we have a hard time not sweating the small stuff.

We are three people incorporated as one individual (according to the government and other incorporated entities). Whenever we need to make a decision as a group, each one of us innately wants to make sure that the outcome of the decision satisfies the other two. This tends to become a back-and-forth, round-and-round, constantly-offering-alternatives form of discussion/debate.

For example, the decision of what to do for dinner follows this type of formula:

Eat at a small diner or make food at our campsite?
Which one is cheaper?
Do we have the necessities to cook out?
Can we find a place nearby that offers food for cheap?
Should we save the food we have for when we really need it?
What can we make out of what we have in our cart?
Won’t the firewood be wet?
Why don’t you want to get something at a restaurant?
Aren’t you going to offer an opinion?
Isn’t it important to go through all of the options?
Fine, let’s just make some food!

Not all decisions follow this process, of course, but it has happened constantly enough for it to be a minor headache.

Indecision rearing its ugly head!

No one wants to make the final decision about anything because, if there is a problem with that decision, he or she does not want to be blamed for a false move. We all want this trip to be the experience of a lifetime (which, no doubt, it has been), and none of us wants to make a mistake. It is the nature of the beast, I suppose, when a really close group of people spends a lot of time together working on a project that is important to each person individually (Pink Floyd? The Beatles? the Animaniacs?).

Being And Doing has been moving forward very smoothly and we have had great fortune with the groups we have worked with and the people we have met. Chris, Andrew, and Katie, however, have been thrown into a fairly intense learning experience about how to look after the needs of each other while also asserting our own, individual opinions.

As far as I am concerned, there are seven unique individuals on this trip.

1. Chris
2. Andrew
3. Katie
4. (Chris-Katie)
5. (Katie-Andrew)
6. (Andrew-Chris)
7. (Chris-Andrew-Katie)

For example, if Andrew makes an unpopular choice, he has (Chris-Katie) on his back about it [sorry to make you the example, buddy, but your hypothetical self gave me the go-ahead]. This is not an intentional process; it’s just the way things are. We not only have to relate to each other, we have to relate to the synthesis of the other two, which can be subconsciously daunting.

Somehow or other, all seven of these individual entities needs to be satisfied in order for us to come out of this trip without any battle scars. It is a fine line that we are walking, but so far our balancing act has been successful. The greatest teachers are those that are constantly learning, and BAD, Inc. is trying to teach the world that the needs of the individual parallel the needs of the community by working it out on the small scale. “We are all in this together” goes for both BAD and our global community.

So, there you have it – some of the dirt in the garden. As we all know, nothing is perfect, but the first step to making sure that we all work together smoothly is to acknowledge our problems. I look forward to writing about something that makes me smile in my next post (insert emoticon).

Andrew and Katie – I love you both. Let’s get dinner!

Currently, we are residing in the actively welcoming home of the Mendez family and the center of operations for Zamforia Industries.

Here is how we found ourselves in this wonderful situation: the Mendezes are cousins to Anissa who is the best friend of my family friend, Elizabeth, whose son, Mike, was one of my best friends growing up (it’s wonderful that respect and trust follow the transitive property). Anissa heard that B.A.D. was in Boston, asked if we needed a place to stay, and made a phone call. We heard from Jonathan Mendez an hour after Anissa told him we needed some assistance, and we were eating breakfast at their dining room table 48 hours later.

A few words on the Mendezes: very rarely does one become acquainted with a family that is so diverse in its interests, yet so connected by familial love. We were honored to celebrate father’s day with Alberto Mendez, a Harvard-educated professor of film and the Spanish language (currently retired), whose mind is a compendium of interesting statistical facts and unique personal experiences. Berto’s wife, Barbara, made her warm-heartedness known the moment we woke up to the smells of french toast and sausage (prepared for us before we were even introduced), and her joviality bursts forth from an unending spring deep within her, expressed in a full-bodied “Wow!” whenever she is impressed. From what I can see from the past few days, their sons (Jonathan and Alexander) combine their father’s intelligence and love of learning with their mother’s natural kindness at the right measurements (bake @ four-hundred twenty degrees for one hour), and they are definitely two forces to be reckoned with (I don’t know many 23-year-olds who have started their own shirt company or 21-year-olds who have engineered a retaining wall to support a patio, but now I know one of each).

Showing Zamforia with Jonathan Mendez

Now that I’ve written a sentence about each family member (I’ll certainly devote more space to them in my inevitable full-lengther), I would like to talk about Zamforia Industries and the It Says Love™ apparel line.

Zamforia’s t-shirts say love on them in different languages and designs. Italian, Irish, Ethiopian, Spanish, etc. – no matter which language or design you choose, your shirt will say love. No matter how the imagery or vernacular on the shirt changes, the concept for each shirt is the same.

“Zamforia” is a word coined by Jonathan Mendez that refers to the indescribable sensation of being alive and relishing in the joy and deep mystery that is existence (I think. Once again, the feeling is indescribable).  His shirts are a means of spreading love outward into the world. The word “love” is sometimes disguised by a topsy-turvy design or unknown language, but that is exactly what love is all about – real love (chills-your-bones love) is usually found in unanticipated moments. Jonathan’s goal (which he is actively achieving) is to produce quality t-shirts with eye-catching designs that will force people to ask, “Hey, what’s your shirt say?” Anyone wearing one will naturally reply, “It Says Love™!”

I can tell you first-hand that Zamforia is real and that it is embodied in everything put forth by Jonathan AND his family.

According to the ancient Greek philosopher, Empedocles, Love and Strife are the motive forces that cause the motion of the four eternal elements. Love is an attractive force and Strife is a repulsive force. When the universe was young, Love was the dominant force, holding the universe together in spherical harmony while Strife maintained the outer edges of the sphere. Over time, Strife began to gain effectiveness, and the world is the way it is today because of the constant push and pull between Love and Strife. In Empedocles’ concept of a temporally-cyclical universe, there will be a time when Love reunites the eternal elements and the process will start anew.

I’m thinking it’s about time for Love to start fighting the battle to reclaim universal harmony, and Zamforia is producing the battle standards.

Check out Zamforia Industries at www.zamforia.com and start spreading the Love.

Thank you to the Mendezes for making us part of the family, and to everyone who has let us reside with them throughout the course of our journey (Elisa, Joe, Jennifer, and McKenzie – you all have made us feel welcome and solidified our belief in the kindness of others).

What is it about nonprofits that inspires our respective organizations to lend a hand? Why, in our free market, capitalist society, is the idea of “non-profit” even something considered to be worthwhile? Shouldn’t it be everyone’s goal to earn as much profit as possible so as to utilize that profit to help others?

In my opinion, the concept of nonprofit work is actually more basic and primordial than for-profit work. If you think about it, work, in the most basic sense, is the expenditure of energy. Historically and physically speaking, any living being works in order to sustain itself or its family (by seeking out food and warding off attack). Humans, however, have developed the concept of working for money, which is a resource that can be used for food and safety, but is not, in and of itself, food or safety. It is a middleman between person and resource. Profit, then, should not be an end, but a means to an end. It should be used to provide services and necessities for our species.

Non-profit organizations are more in-line with the natural tendencies of a living being. They do not measure success by the profit they are able to acquire; rather, they measure success by the amount of services and products that they are able to disburse (using money as a resource rather than a goal). Cradles to Crayons, for example, uses donations to sustain itself so that it may provide products free-of-charge to the people that need them. In other words, the people who are unable to work for individual profit (for varying reasons – and we all know that there are many) are able to get the basic necessities that we all take for granted. The for-profit world can be a unnavigable maelstrom for people who are not able to sail the sea of buy-and-sell, but thankfully there are organizations that can act as the go-between for such individuals. The better adept such organizations are at stretching the value of a dollar (since a dollar’s value is more than its “dollar value”), the more successful that organization is considered to be.

For-profits are successful if what they bring in is more than what they put out, whereas nonprofits are successful if what they put out is more than what they bring in. Which do you think is more pro-active in developing and sustaining the concept of interpersonal community?

Wise words from Ralph Waldo on the wall of C2C Philly

So, what exactly did I learn and what am I going to try to use in my day-to-day life as one of the leaders of a small nonprofit organization? Well…

I need to be able to speak my mind and stand in the limelight. My modus operandi has always been to place myself a little bit away from the action so that I can get my bearings before making any major decision (and major decisions, for me, include asking someone a question). This way of doing things certainly has its merits; I am very adept at listening and taking things in. However, there are times when action is necessary and I need to learn how to put myself out there and trust myself to act properly so that I will not regret it later. Self-confidence is one of the leadership qualities that I am going to actively try to develop.

I need to be able to acknowledge that one way of doing things is sometimes better than another. I tend to “go with the flow” on most things. I try to exhibit the Taoist principles of simply being a part of the natural Way of things, and I do not try to create many ripples. While a lot of the time this works out well, it also can create problems because I might appear disinterested at times. Also, on a personal level, it can feel as if I am letting the world around me move away from me without so much as a footprint in the sand to show that I was there.

I need to work on staying focused on the task at hand. My mind wanders – A LOT. Most of the time my mind is off thinking about the universe and physics and how things work and why things are the way they are and paradoxes and archetypes and truth and falsehood and a host of other lofty (and sometimes ethereal) concepts. However, too much of anything is not beneficial. Living inside my head has made me absent-minded, at least in the sense of losing things and forgetting events. In order to lead well, I need to keep my mind focused on what is right in front of me and worry about the fate of the universe on my own time!

I need the “serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference” (to quote St. Francis of Assisi), with a focus on the courage part.

So, from this member of Being And Doing, thank you to HOBY Ohio North for helping me realize my own potential, especially by asking me to put myself out there in our volunteerism panel discussion. I want everyone at that conference to know that, if I am able to make a difference in the world with Being And Doing, Inc., you have been an integral part in developing my knowledge of and ability for leadership.

Some Awesome HOBY Ambassadors

So… I totally just read Andrew’s post about HOBY and I have to throw a shout-out to SCRABBLE, which was obviously the best group considering the fact that we are the game known and loved by all who are well-read. Angelo rules!!

We experienced our first public hearing, and it was certainly an experience in every sense of the word. We attended the EPA hearing on the air quality permits in Racine, OH on Tuesday, June 2 in order to gain an understanding of how a public hearing is run and to provide some support for the environment and the environmentally-conscious.

Elisa warned us that the atmosphere could be intimidating, so we were not entirely sure what to expect when we walked into the school where the hearing was being held. Thankfully, we met up with some of Elisa’s friends and other environmental supporters before we entered the building (Elisa could not attend due to a class). Everything was very standardized at the entrance (“Hello, I’m the facilitator;” “Please sign your name here;” “Here is a sheet about the meeting;” “Please take a seat;” etc.) and it appeared on the surface to be something that people simply attended to get information.

The meeting began with an introduction from a representative from the Public Interest Center of the Ohio EPA about what the hearing was about and how it would be organized.

Check out the far left

He was followed by a representative from the Division of Air Pollution Control of the Ohio EPA who gave a short PowerPoint presentation about why the hearing was being held, something that I am still somewhat confused about since only the wording of a rule in the permit had been changed, not the actual effects of the permit. He was very soft spoken, and he came off as rather uninterested in the entire affair. The PowerPoint contained a fair amount of technical jargon that he failed to explain for those of us in the crowd who are unfamiliar with terms and codes that the EPA uses. After he finished, it was time for Q&A…

It was easy to tell what side of the argument (for or against AMP-Ohio’s proposed coal plant in Meigs County) each person in attendance represented, especially since like-minded people sat together. The majority of those in attendance represented local workers’ unions; they were mostly burly men in trucker caps and t-shirts (“Joe the Electrical Worker” to use the phrasing of our most recent presidential election). The sizable minority of environmentalists appeared to be your run-of-the-mill hippies and liberal intelligentsia.

The first shot fired came from the pro-power plant camp. One man stood up and claimed to speak for the “silent majority” of those in the area who need jobs and want to see the benefits of the AMP plant in the local economy. Following this statement, the man sitting right next to us stood up and told those in favor of “progress” to stand and be recognized – about two-thirds of the room stood up in one sweeping motion. After this intimidating show of solidarity, the same man looked at the corner or of the room directly in front of him (where the environmentalists sat) and said, “While we’re at it, any environmentalists who use electricity should also stand up. Come on, don’t be shy. I just want to see.” Needless to say, that corner of the room just looked at him.

Let the games begin.

People from the audience were called up in the order they submitted their names at the beginning of the hearing. Advocates for the power plant spoke their peace, saying that a new coal plant would maintain jobs in an impoverished area. They spoke of how this plant would use the newest and cleanest technology to date. They said that we need electrical power: demand necessitates the supply. Some said that they have been working in plants for decades and are still as healthy as a horse. They cheered for each other and called out admiration. Some addressed the environmental advocates directly, saying that no one wants pollution, but right now this is the best possible option. With all of this in mind, their arguments boiled down to jobs and the need for monetary income.

When the environmental advocates got up to speak, there were some quiet jeers; but what really created an air of intimidation was the sheer number and the camaraderie exhibited by the pro-coal representatives. Some students spoke (with voices shaking from their nerves) about how they think we need to stop over-using our resources and prepare the way for a more sustainable future. Some locals spoke about the air quality in the area and how, although the new plant would be using scrubbers and new technology, the issue is that it would be adding its emissions to the already overburdened area. Some people expressed concern that the EPA’s Division of Air Quality and the Division of Water do not have active discussion about how air emission affect Mercury levels in the Ohio River. Those in favor or protecting the already-tarnished environment in Meigs County were definitely outnumbered, but they made some good points and stood their ground in a room where you could feel the animosity and tension in the air.

One person in the entire lineup of hearing participants really analyzed what stems the disagreement concerning coal-fired power and the environment (a shout-out to Katie for pointing this fact out to me), and this person also happened to be the representative for Elisa Young by reading a statement that Elisa had prepared. This young woman pointed out to the people in attendance that they were all worried about one thing: the future for their children. Those on the side of the new coal plant wanted financial security so that they could afford to take care of their families. Those on the side of preventing the new powerhouse wanted some peace of mind that their children’s development would not be complicated by health problems caused by the chemicals and carcinogens that are released by the process of burning fossil fuels. She urged the audience to stop bickering about who is right and who is wrong; and she asked them to really sit down and have active discussions about what is really necessary for improving the future that we leave behind for our offspring.

We had to leave immediately after this statement due to prior arrangements we had made with our host for the evening, but the final message given to us was the perfect summation and explanation of what we had experienced in that public hearing. The underlying issue concerning the debate in Meigs County is posterity, and the fear that something might not be left to hand down to future generations, be it clean air and water or financial stability. The issue is survival of offspring, a desire that is shared by all living things; and, when the debate is looked at as something that stems from a biological instinct, I think it is obvious which resource is most important. The environment is a resource that we cannot squander because it is not something that is man-made (such as money and the entire concept of finances as a whole). If we really cannot have both financial security and a healthy habitat (at the very least in Meigs County, although this is definitely a worldwide issue), let us weigh the options properly. Without an environment that we can thrive in, there is not human life; and without human life, what is financial security?