Welcome to Green.org. I’m Dr. Alexander Tabibi the founder of Green.org.

At the most basic level we hope that we can provide a one-stop resource for all green news and information and as such, in our own small way make the world a better place. Green.org – is a site whose mission is to create an open forum where we can put science and humanity side by side so that people can be informed and participate in the discussion. Our goal is to be non-partisan and as non-political in nature as possible.

In order to make the experience a good one we have gone to great lengths to create the web infrastructure to allow this to occur. We will over time offer blogs, forums, social networking, green job posts and a slew of other capabilities will be added together with excellent content  We have reached out to friends and partners to help us make this dream and vision a reality and there are many people who have been more than forthcoming in this effort and I would like to sincerely thank everybody involved. A host of great bloggers and content providers is being brought together to help the endeavour further.

I was asked to write a blog welcoming everybody to the site and explaining why we wanted to create such a site – and while I love my own voice (be it written or spoken) it has not been an easy task. So many thoughts, ideas and plans. So much one could cover.  I kept coming back to one thing.

Responsibility

I am one of the lucky human beings co-habiting this earth. We grew up vaccinated, with clean drinking water, sewage systems and were fortunate enough to be educated and this makes me more culpable than most in having responsibility for the current state of our ecosystem.

In the past few days – this reality has been that much more brought to life by the tragic occurrence and the aftermath in Haiti. I would be remiss if I did not at least mention the devastation. While the earthquake itself is unrelated to the question of global climate change – it is clear that poverty and lack of resources plagues even our closest neighbors. Of note, a similar sized earthquake in the Bay Area accounted for less that one thousandth the mortality of this disaster.

It therefore – at least in my mind – accentuates the fact that even with a relatively small proportion of the earth living at the high standards to which we are accustomed – we have already been able to rapidly and dramatically affect our ecosystem – and are indeed worsening the situation every day as we pump billions of tons of waste and pollutants into the atmosphere, deplete already dwindling resources and poison and decimate our oceans and other water reserves and systems.

Science – a double-edged sword

Having been trained as a physician and an oncologist – science is an important part of the way I see the world. I have a great regard for how humans have adapted and overall have improved their lot. Like anything this has come with its benefits and its costs.

During my lifetime hundreds of  millions of people have escaped poverty, have improved sanitation, health and longevity. Concurrently there needs to be an understanding that great advances in science are in some regards to ‘blame’ for our current situation. In the year 1800 – the world population is estimated to have been approx 1 billion. Today with seven times that figure – and growing – not only in number – but more importantly in CO2 production, and resource utilization we have come to the end of a period of great abundance (albeit – shared only by a few).

I believe that it is science and education that are our only tools to escape the current trend towards continued destruction. Indeed it is my understanding that we already have the means to significantly alter the trends rapidly if we modify our behavior and use technologies available to us today.

Thank you for taking the time to read my first blog – and I hope that you will come back and read more (if not mine – I won’t be too hurt) – or preferably join in on the discussion, invite friends and colleagues to do the same, such that together we can nudge humanity into more sustainable habits and methodologies. In my next blog – I will discuss this illusion of abundance with which we live. Till then – live greener and be well. Hope to see you around the site soon.

Alex