I have just come back from the most inspiring and riveting talk I've ever attended. This evening, to a sold-out crowd of 300 people, Dr. David Suzuki gave a presentation, complete with slide show and video clips, about his life and the amazing achievements that he has been a part of over the course of his life. To say nothing else, he is a brilliant orator and storyteller. He knows how to reach an audience- not through facts and figures or scientific jargon, but through human stories that we can relate to and with a sprinkling of humour. What can I say, it was brilliant. He spent the majority of the time taking us through his life, from childhood through to the present. He talked in depth about his work the First Nations tribes in Canada and the many battles he and his wife have been involved in as a result.

The most poignant part of his presentation, however, was when he played a video clip of a speech that his daughter, Severn, gave at the Earth Summit in Rio in 1991. At the time, his daughter was 11 years old, yet she had raised the money to go to Rio (as part of a group she started called Environmental Children's Organization) and was invited to give a speech to the delegates. Her words were so passionate and powerful, I daresay there were probably a few tears being wiped away in the room. Near the end of his presentation, Dr Suzuki shifted gears and spoke to us all about the need to act now, to do what is within our power to change the couse of the future - to bring about sustainability within a generation. He spoke vehemently about the need to make the environment THE priority during the next federal election so that whoever is in power will feel the pressure to make change happen.

Of course, to make anything happen we need people power. Most of us have resigned ourselves to the fact that we can't do much about the disasterous state of the environment. After all - what difference do the actions of one person make? Ah, fair enough, not much.... But what about the actions of a million people? And how do we get to a million? One at a time. So, I therefore ask that you take a moment to check out the David Suzuki Foundation website and (hopefully) you will sign up for the Nature Challenge. Just by signing up (it's free of course) you will be providing the Foundation with more power - they can go to politicians and say 'hey we have a million people who've signed up to the Nature Challenge - that's a million voters or potential voters who want to see the government come on board'. And, of course, by doing just a few of the things suggested in the Nature Challenge, you'll be saving the world, one bit at a time, and probably be saving money and getting healthier too!

Here's the link, take the challenge!

http://www.davidsuzuki.org/NatureChallenge/at_Home/default.asp